An outline of some of the principal buildings is given, to show the general nature of the site of the temple of Abydos.  This plan is not intended to show all periods, nor the whole work of any one age; but only a selection which will avoid confusion.  The great outer wall on the plan was probably first built by Usirtasen I.; the bricks of the oldest parts of it are the same size as bricks of his foundation deposits, and it rests upon town ruins of the Old Kingdom.  But this wall has been so often broken and repaired that a complete study of it would be a heavy task; some parts rest on nineteenth dynasty building, and even Roman patchwork is seen.  Its general character is shown with alternating portions, the first set consisting of towers of brickwork built in concave foundations, and then connecting walls between; formed in straight courses.  The purpose of this construction has long been a puzzle.  The alternate concave and straight courses are the natural result of building isolated masses, on a concave bed like all Egyptian houses, and then connecting them by intermediate walls.  The hard face across the wall, and the joint to prevent the spread of scaling, are the essential advantages of this construction.

The corner marked Kom-de-Sultan is the enclosure which was emptied out by Mariette ’s diggers, because of the abundance of burials with steles of the twelfth to eighteenth dynasties.

[Illustration:  395.jpg WALL OF USIRTASEN I.]

They have removed all the earth to far below the base of the walls, thus digging in most parts right through the town of the Old Kingdom, which stood here before the great walls were built.  The inner two sides of this enclosed corner are later than the outer wall; the bricks are larger than those of Usirtasen, and the base of the wall is higher than his.  The causeway line indicated through the site by a dotted line from the east to the west gate is a main feature; but it is later than the sixth dynasty, as the wall of that age cuts it, and it was cut in two by later buildings of the twentieth dynasty.  It seems then to begin with Usirtasen, whose gateways it runs through; and to have been kept up by Thutmosis III., who built a wall with granite pylon for it, and also by Ramses II., who built a great portal colonnade of limestone for the causeway to pass through on entering the cemetery outside the west wall of this plan.

To the north of the causeway are seen the tombs of the first dynasty.  One more, No. 27, was found beneath the wall of Thutmosis; it was of the same character as the larger of the previous tombs.  All of these are far below any of the buildings shown on this outline plan.

Of the two long walls, marked vi., the inner is older, but was re-used by Papi.  It is probably the temenos of the third dynasty.  The outer wall is the temenos of the sixth dynasty, the west side of which is yet unknown, and has probably been all destroyed.  The temple of Papi is shown in the middle with the north-west and south sides of the thin boundary wall which enclosed it.  The thick wall which lies outside of that is the great wall of the eighteenth dynasty, with the granite pylon of Thutmosis III.  It seems to have followed the line of the sixth dynasty wall on the north.  The outline marked xix. shows a high level platform of stone, which was probably for the basement of buildings of Ramses II.