hardest material used in the objects already found is rock crystal, of
which several small flasks and bowls and a little lion are composed.
But the lion, it must be confessed, is rather rudely worked. A few
small vases of obsidian also occur--remarkable in view of the fact
that we do not know of any place in or near Egypt where this stone may
be found. Besides these vessels of hard stone, there are, of course, a
large number made of softer stone. Alabaster vases occur in every
conceivable form. Cylindrical pots, with wavy handles or simple
cordlike ornamentation, appear to have been especially favored. The
great beer jars, closed with enormous stoppers of unbaked clay, were
made of ordinary baked clay. Of course the different stone and clay
vessels, which, undoubtedly, originally contained offerings for the
dead, form the bulk of the contents of the grave. The slate tablets
for rubbing cosmetics for painting the body, and the flint weapons and
knives of all sorts, follow in point of numbers. Remarkably enough,
metal objects occur in this oldest historical period alongside the
stone implements, though, of course, in less numbers. Several objects
made of copper and a slender bead of gold have been found. Such, in
short, is all that remains of the things put in the tomb with the
king. But little as there is, it gives us an idea of the richness and
splendor with which these old royal tombs were furnished.

It might certainly be productive of unusual emotions to know that the
few human bones found in the tomb, and now preserved in the Gizeh
Museum, once belonged to the oldest Egyptian king. But as we know
almost nothing of him, except some unfounded traditions, this sort of
relic worship deserves very little respect. The scientific value of
the proof that Menes was the king buried in the royal tomb of Neggadeh
lies rather in the fact that we have now settled the question of the
age of that culture which was presented to us by the excavations of