[Illustration:  Fig. 137.—­The Step Pyramid of Sakkarah.]

The pyramids of Khafra and Menkara were built on a different plan inside to that of Khufu.  Khafra’s had two entrances, both to the north, one from the platform before the pyramid, the other fifty feet above the ground.  Menkara’s still preserves the remains of its casing of red granite (Note 31).  The entrance passage descends at an angle of twenty-six degrees, and soon runs into the rock.  The first chamber is decorated with panels sculptured in the stone, and was closed at the further end by three portcullises of granite.  The second chamber appears to be unfinished, but this was a trap to deceive the spoilers.  A passage cut in the floor, and carefully hidden, gave access to a lower chamber.  There lay the mummy in a sarcophagus of sculptured basalt.  The sarcophagus was still perfect at the beginning of this century.  Removed thence by Colonel Howard Vyse, it foundered on the Spanish coast with the ship which was bearing it to England.

[Illustration:  Fig. 138.—­Plan and Section of the Pyramid of Unas.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 139.—­Portcullis and passage, pyramid of Unas.]

The same variety of arrangement prevails in the groups of Abusir, and in one part of the Sakkarah group.  The great pyramid of Sakkarah is not oriented with exactness.  The north face is turned 4 deg. 21’ E. of the true north.  It is not a perfect square, but is elongated from east to west, the sides being 395 and 351 feet.  It is 196 feet high, and is formed of six great steps with inclined faces, each retreating about seven feet; the step nearest the ground is thirty-seven and a half feet high, and the top one is twenty-nine feet high (fig. 137).  It is built entirely of limestone, quarried from the neighbouring hills.  The blocks are small and badly cut, and the courses are concave, according to a plan applied both to quays and to fortresses.  On examining the breaches in the masonry, it is seen that the outer face of each step is coated with two layers, each of which has its regular casing (Note 32).  The mass is solid, the chambers being cut in the rock below the pyramid.  It has four entrances, the main one being in the north; and the passages form a perfect labyrinth, which it is perilous to enter.  Porticoes with columns, galleries, and chambers, all end in a kind of pit, in the bottom of which a hiding place was contrived, doubtless intended to contain the most precious objects of the funeral furniture.  The pyramids which surround this extraordinary monument have been nearly all built on one plan, and only differ in their proportions.  The door (fig. 138, A) opens close below the first course, about the middle of the north face, and the passage (B) descends by a gentle slope between two walls of limestone.  It is plugged up all along by large blocks (Note 33), which needed to be broken up before the first chamber could be entered (C).  Beyond this chamber, it