Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/306

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

2l6 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. Upon the platform of the Mastabat-el-Faraoun certain blocks are to be found which, from their position, must have been bonding-stones. They seem to hint, therefore, either that the structure was never finished, or that it has lost its former crown. The latter hypothesis is the more probable. Among the titles of r r^^^^i^^^r-s^r^. vcJ5^^--i^^^'%i^F;:^:^:5^ -2. ■-' -:'" c.'^«:Tiari=^sSs?^i~i^ ?^ .z^-r'r. L--^ -C^*--^ Fig. 147. — The Mastabat-el-Faraouii ; from Lepsius. people buried in the necropolis at Sakkarah, we often come upon those of priests attached to the service of some monument with a form similar to that represented by our Fig. 148. Who can say asks Mariette, that it is not the Mastabat-el-Faraoun itself?^ M. Mariette cites, in support of this conjecture, certain other structures of a similar character, such as the large tomb situated near the south-eastern angle of the second pyramid at Gizeh, and the little monument which is called the Pyramid of Righa. From these he concludes that the principles of the mastaba and the pyramid were sometimes combined under the ancient empire. The royal tombs in the Memphite region were not always pyramids, they were sometimes composed of a mastaba and of one or more high square tower-like erections upon it, the whole ending in one of those small pyramids which we call pyramidions. This Fig. 148. — Funerary monument represented in the inscriptions. Voyage dans la Hai/te-Egypfe, vol. i. p. 34.