buried with him at Nakâda and commemorated with him at Abydos.* It is
probable that the XIXth Dynasty list-makers and Manetho considered the
Abydos tombs to have been the real graves of the kings, but it is by no
means impossible that they were wrong.

* A princess named Bener-ab ("Sweet-heart"), who may have
been Aha's daughter, was actually buried beside his tomb at
Abydos.

This view of the royal tombs at Abydos tallies to a great extent with
that of M. Naville, who has energetically maintained the view that M.
Amélineau and Prof. Petrie have not discovered the real tombs of the
early kings, but only their contemporary commemorative "tombs" at
Abydos. The only real tomb of the Ist Dynasty, therefore, as yet
discovered is that of Aha at Nakâda, found by M. de Morgan. The fact
that attendant slaves were buried around the Abydos tombs is no bar to
the view that the tombs were only the monuments, not the real graves,
of the kings. The royal ghosts would naturally visit their commemorative
chambers at Abydos, in order to be in the company of the great Osiris,
and ghostly servants would be as necessary to their Majesties at Abydos
as elsewhere.

It must not be thought that this revised opinion of the Abydos tombs
detracts in the slightest degree from the importance of the discovery of
M. Amélineau and its subsequent and more detailed investigation by Prof.
Petrie. These monuments are as valuable for historical purposes as
the real tombs themselves. The actual bodies of these primeval kings
themselves we are never likely to find. The tomb of Aha at Nakâda had
been completely rifled in ancient times.