the pyramid of Rigah, whose occupant is unknown.  If we admit that this last-mentioned pyramid served as a tomb to some intermediate Pharaoh between Zosiri and Snofrui—­for instance, Huni—­the use of pyramids would be merely exceptional for sovereigns anterior to the IVth dynasty.

The motive which determined Snofrui’s choice of Medum as a site, is unknown to us:  perhaps he dwelt in that city of Heracleopolis, which in course of time frequently became the favourite residence of the kings; perhaps he improvised for himself a city in the plain between El-Wastah and Kafr el-Ayat.  His pyramid, at the present time, is composed of three large unequal cubes with slightly inclined sides, arranged in steps one above the other.  Some centuries ago five could be still determined, and in ancient times, before ruin had set in, as many as seven.  Each block marked a progressive increase of the total mass, and bad its external face polished—­a fact which we can still determine by examining the slabs one behind another; a facing of large blocks, of which many of the courses still exist towards the base, covered the whole, at one angle from the apex to the foot, and brought it into conformity with the type of the classic pyramid.  The passage had its orifice in the middle of the north face about sixty feet above the ground:  it is five feet high, and dips at a tolerably steep angle through the solid masonry.  At a depth of a hundred and ninety-seven feet it becomes level, without increasing in aperture, runs for forty feet on this plane, traversing two low and narrow chambers, then making a sharp turn it ascends perpendicularly until it reaches the floor of the vault.  The latter is hewn out of the mountain rock, and is small, rough, and devoid of ornament:  the ceiling appears to be in three heavy horizontal courses of masonry, which project one beyond the other corbel-wise, and give the impression of a sort of acutely pointed arch.  Snofrui slept there for ages; then robbers found a way to him, despoiled and broke up his mummy, scattered the fragments of his coffin upon the ground, and carried off the stone sarcophagus.  The apparatus of beams and cords of which they made use for the descent, hung in their place above the mouth of the shaft until ten years ago.  The rifling of the tomb took place at a remote date, for from the XXth dynasty onwards the curious were accustomed to penetrate into the passage:  two scribes have scrawled their names in ink on the back of the framework in which the stone cover was originally inserted.  The sepulchral chapel was built a little in front of the east face; it consisted of two small-sized rooms with bare surfaces, a court whose walls abutted on the pyramid, and in the court, facing the door, a massive table of offerings flanked by two large stelo without inscriptions, as if the death of the king had put a stop to the decoration before the period determined on by the architects.  It was still accessible to any one during the XVIIIth