The main group of pyramids at Abusir consists of the tombs of the kings Sahura, Neferarikara, and Ne-user-Ra, of the Vth Dynasty.  The pyramids themselves are smaller than those of Giza, but larger than those of Sakkara.  In general appearance and effect they resemble those of Giza, but they are not so imposing, as the desert here is low.  Those of Giza, Sakkara, and Dashur owe much of their impressiveness to the fact that they are placed at some height above the cultivated land.  The excavation and planning of these pyramids were carried out by Messrs. Borchardt and Schafer at the expense of Baron von Bissing, the well-known Egyptologist of Munich, and of the Deutsch-Orient Gesell-schaft of Berlin.  The antiquities found have been divided between the museums of Berlin and Cairo.

One of the most noteworthy discoveries was that of the funerary temple of Ne-user-Ra, which stood at the base of his pyramid.  The plan is interesting, and the granite lotus-bud columns found are the most ancient yet discovered in Egypt.  Much of the paving and the wainscoting of the walls was of fine black marble, beautifully polished.  An interesting find was a basin and drain with lion’s-head mouth, to carry away the blood of the sacrifices.  Some sculptures in relief were discovered, including a gigantic representation of the king and the goddess Isis, which shows that in the early days of the Vth Dynasty the king and the gods were already depicted in exactly the same costume as they wore in the days of the Ramses and the Ptolemies.  The hieratic art of Egypt had, in fact, now taken on itself the final outward appearance which it retained to the very end.  There is no more of the archaism and absence of conventionality, which marks the art of the earliest dynasties.

We can trace by successive steps the swift development of Egyptian art from the rude archaism of the Ist Dynasty to its final consummation under the Vth, when the conventions became fixed.  In the time of Khaesekhemui, at the beginning of the IId Dynasty, the archaic character of the art has already begun to wear off.  Under the same dynasty we still have styles of unconventional naivete, such as the famous Statue “No. 1” of the Cairo Museum, bearing the names of Kings Hetepahaui, Neb-ra, and Neneter.  But with the IVth Dynasty we no longer look for unconventionality.  Prof.  Petrie discovered at Abydos a small ivory statuette of Khufu or Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza.  The portrait is a good one and carefully executed.  It was not till the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, indeed, that the Egyptians ceased to portray their kings as they really were, and gave them a purely conventional type of face.  This convention, against which the heretical King Amenhetep IV (Akhunaten) rebelled, in order to have himself portrayed in all his real ungainliness and ugliness, did not exist till long after the time of the IVth and Vth Dynasties.

[Illustration:  100.jpg STATUE NO. 1 OF THE CAIRO MUSEUM, About 3900 B.C.]