ignorance and vandalism should still be so rampant in the twentieth
century that the most important historical monuments are not safe from
desecration in order to obtain a few turquoises, but it is so. Prof.
Petrie's expedition did not start a day too soon, and at the suggestion
of Sir William Garstin, the adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, the
majority of the inscriptions have been removed to the Cairo Museum for
safety and preservation. Among the new inscriptions discovered is one of
Sa-nekht, which is now in the British Museum. Tjeser and Sa-nekht were
not the first Egyptian kings to visit Sinai. Already, in the days of the
1st Dynasty, Semerkha had entered that land and inscribed his name upon
the rocks. But the regular annexation, so to speak, of Sinai to Egypt
took place under the Memphites of the Hid Dynasty.

With the Hid Dynasty we have reached the age of the pyramid-builders.
The most typical pyramids are those of the three great kings of the IVth
Dynasty, Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura, at Giza near Cairo. But, as
we have seen, the last king of the Hid Dynasty, Snefru, also had one
pyramid, if not two; and the most ancient of these buildings known to
us, the Step-Pyramid of Sakkâra, was erected by Tjeser at the beginning
of that dynasty. The evolution of the royal tombs from the time of the
1st Dynasty to that of the IVth is very interesting to trace. At the
period of transition from the predynastic to the dynastic age we have
the great mastaba of Aha at Nakâda, and the simplest chamber-tombs
at Abydos. All these were of brick; no stone was used in their
construction. Then we find the chamber-tomb of Den Semti at Abydos
with a granite floor, the walls being still of brick. Above each of the
Abydos tombs was probably a low mound, and in front a small chapel, from
which a flight of steps descended into the simple chamber. On one of the
little plaques already mentioned, which were found in these tombs, we
have an archaic inscription, entirely written in ideographs, which