The kings of the XIIth Dynasty especially were most careful that their statues should be accurate portraits; indeed, the portraits of Usertsen (Senusret) III vary from a young face to an old one, showing that the king was faithfully depicted at different periods of his life.

But the general conventions of dress and deportment were finally fixed under the Vth Dynasty.  After this time we no longer have such absolutely faithful and original presentments as the other little ivory statuette found by Prof.  Petrie at Abydos (now in the British Museum), which shows us an aged monarch of the Ist Dynasty.  It is obvious that the features are absolutely true to life, and the figure wears an unconventionally party-coloured and bordered robe of a kind which kings of a later day may have worn in actual life, but which they would assuredly never be depicted as wearing by the artists of their day.  To the end of Egyptian history, the kings, even the Roman emperors, were represented on the monuments clothed in the official costume of their ancestors of the IVth and Vth Dynasties, in the same manner as we see Khufu wearing his robe in the little figure from Abydos, and Ne-user-Ra on the great relief from Abusir.  There are one or two exceptions, such as the representations of the original genius Akhunaten at Tell el-Amarna and the beautiful statue of Ramses II at Turin, in which we see these kings wearing the real costume of their time, but such exceptions are very rare.

The art of Abusir is therefore of great interest, since it marks the end of the development of the priestly art.  Secular art might develop as it liked, though the crystallizing influence of the ecclesiastical canon is always evident here also.  But henceforward it was an impiety, which only an Akhunaten could commit, to depict a king or a god on the walls of a temple otherwise (except so far as, the portrait was concerned) than as he had been depicted in the time of the Vth Dynasty.

Other buildings have been excavated by the Germans at Abusir, notably the usual town of mastaba-tombs belonging to the chief dignitaries of the reign, which is always found at the foot of a royal pyramid of this period.  Another building of the highest interest, belonging to the same age, was also excavated, and its true character was determined.  This is a building at a place called er-Righa or Abu Ghuraib, “Father of Crows,” between Abusir and Giza.  It was formerly supposed to be a pyramid, but the German excavations have shown that it is really a temple of the Sun-god Ra of Heliopolis, specially venerated by the kings of the Vth Dynasty, who were of Heliopolitan origin.  The great pyramid-builders of the IVth Dynasty seem to have been the last true Memphites.  At the end of the reign of Shepseskaf, the last monarch of the dynasty, the sceptre passed to a Heliopolitan family.  The following VIth Dynasty may again have been Memphite, but this is uncertain.  The capital continued to be Memphis, and from the beginning of the Hid Dynasty to the end of the Old Kingdom and the rise of Herakle-opolis and Thebes, Memphis remained the chief city of Egypt.