Summing up the results which are derived from
the excavations of the Cemetery E, we may say
that it is a mixed burial-place, where the two
elements of which the population of Egypt
consisted may be distinctly traced--the old
occupants of the soil (the Anu) and the Egyptians
or Pharaonic stock. It may be that some of
the small African tombs are prehistoric or pre-
dynastic, but we can see clearly that the
Egyptian, the Pharaonic cemetery, which goes
back as far as the Old Empire to the VIth and
perhaps also to the IVth Dynasty, was invaded
and re-occupied by the Old Africans. One
Egyptian tomb only was found intact. All the
other ones contained contracted or half-con-
tracted bodies, which were not those of the
deceased for whom deep pits with side chambers
had been cut in the rock. Later on came burials
of the New Empire, and even Roman structures,
so that in this place are collected tombs of
several thousands of years, nearly the whole
length of Egyptian history.

A question which arises actually is this: At
what epoch did the occupation of the Egyptian
tombs by the Anu take place? Here we can
express only a conjecture, for we have no
historical clue whatever pointing to any date.
It may also have been gradual, and not have
taken place at a given moment. Nevertheless,
we can say that it must have been at a time
when the Egyptian population was not very
powerful or very numerous, for they would not
have allowed their tombs to be thus ransacked
and re-occupied by people whose worship was
not the same as theirs. Abydos never was a
city having a political importance; it was a
religious city, the abode of the god Osiris.
There are two periods when the worship of
Osiris could not have been flourishing. One
was the time of the Dynasties VIII. to X., when
Egypt was divided between various princes, the
most powerful of whom seem to have been those
of Heracleopolis. The other is the time of the
dominion of the Hyksos. Though it is doubtful
whether this dominion extended as far as
Abydos, it is probable that the political or
national life was concentrated farther south at
Thebes, and Abydos may have been neglected.
It may have been on other occasions. As I said,
we are here in the domain of conjecture. One
thing is certain: the great number of African
cemeteries found on the verge of the desert in
the neighbourhood of Abydos, and farther south
towards Thebes, shows that in that region the Old
African population was very numerous, and had
preserved its customs and its old mode of life.

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