Under the Hid Dynasty we find the last brick mastabas built for royalty, at Bet Khallaf, and the first pyramids, in the Memphite necropolis.  In the mastaba of Tjeser at Bet Khallaf stone was used for the great portcullises which were intended to bar the way to possible plunderers through the passages of the tomb.  The Step-Pyramid at Sakkara is, so to speak, a series of mastabas of stone, imposed one above the other; it never had the continuous casing of stone which is the mark of a true pyramid.  The pyramid of Snefru at Medum is more developed.  It also originated in a mastaba, enlarged, and with another mastaba-like erection on the top of it; but it was given a continuous sloping casing of fine limestone from bottom to top, and so is a true pyramid.  A discussion of recent theories as to the building of the later pyramids of the IVth Dynasty will be found in the next chapter.

In the time of the Ist Dynasty the royal tomb was known by the name of “Protection-around-the-Hawk, i.e. the king"(Sa-ha-heru); but under the Hid and IVth Dynasties regular names, such as “the Firm,” “the Glorious,” “the Appearing,” etc., were given to each pyramid.

[Illustration:  086.jpg FALSE DOOR OF THE TOMB OF TETA, about 3600 B.C.]

We must not omit to note an interesting point in connection with the royal tombs at Abydos, In that of King Khent or Tjer (the reading of the ideograph is doubtful) M. Amelineau found a large bed or bier of granite, with a figure of the god Osiris lying in state sculptured in high relief upon it.  This led him to jump to the conclusion that he had found the tomb of the god Osiris himself, and that a skull he found close by was the veritable cranium of the primeval folk-hero, who, according to the euhemerist theory, was the deified original of the god.  The true explanation is given by Dr. Wallis Budge in his History of Egypt, i, p. 19.  It is a fact that the tomb of Tjer was regarded by the Egyptians of the XIXth Dynasty as the veritable tomb of Osiris.  They thought they had discovered it, just as M. Amelineau did.  When the ancient royal tombs of Umm el-Ga’ab were rediscovered and identified at the beginning of the XIXth Dynasty, and Seti I built the great temple of Abydos to the divine ancestors in honour of the discovery, embellishing it with a relief of himself and his son Ramses making offerings to the names of his predecessors (the “Tablet of Abydos “), the name of King Khent or Tjer (which is perhaps the really correct original form) was read by the royal scribes as “Khent” and hastily identified with the first part of the name of the god Khent-amenti Osiris, the lord of Abydos.  The tomb was thus regarded as the tomb of Osiris himself, and it was furnished with a great stone figure of the god lying on his bier, attended by the two hawks of Isis and Nephthys; ever after the site was visited by crowds of pilgrims, who left at Umm el-Ga’ab the thousands of little