[Illustration: Fig. 141.--Mastabat el Faraûn.]

[Illustration: Fig. 142.--Pyramid of Medûm.]

The enormous rectangular mass which the Arabs call _Mastabat el Faraûn_,
"the seat of Pharaoh" (fig. 141), stands beside the pyramid of Pepi II.
Some have thought it to be an unfinished pyramid, some a tomb surmounted by
an obelisk; in reality it is a pyramid which was left unfinished by its
builder, King Ati of the Sixth Dynasty. Recent excavations have, on the
other hand, shown that the brick pyramids of Dahshûr probably belonged to
the Twelfth Dynasty. The stone pyramids of that group, which may be older,
furnish a curious variation from the usual type. One of these stone
pyramids has the lower half inclined at 54° 41', while the upper part
changes sharply to 42° 59'; it might be called a mastaba (Note 35) crowned
by a gigantic attic. At Lisht, where the two pyramids now standing are of
the same period (one of them was erected by Ûsertesen I.), the structure is
again changed. The sloping passage ends in a vertical shaft, at the bottom
of which open chambers now filled by the infiltration of the Nile. The
pyramids of Illahûn and Hawara, which contained the remains of Ûsertesen
II. and Amenemhat III., are of the same type as those at Lisht. Their rooms
are now filled with water. The pyramid of Medûm is empty, having been
violated before the Ramesside age. It consists of three square towers (Note
36) with sides slightly sloping, placed in retreating stages one over the
other (fig. 142). The entrance is on the north, at about 53 feet above the
sand. After 60 feet, the passage goes into the rock; at 174 feet it runs
level; at 40 feet farther it stops, and turns perpendicularly towards the
surface, opening in the floor of a vault twenty-one feet higher (fig. 143).
A set of beams and ropes still in place above the opening show that the
spoilers drew the sarcophagus out of the chamber in ancient times. Its