FINDS AT STEP PYRAMID.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 111, 10 April 1934, Page 2

FINDS AT STEP PYRAMID.

FAMILY TOAIBS OF A PHARAOH. The excavations carried out under the Step Pyramid at Sakkara for the Department of Antiquities by Air J. E. Quibell and Air J. P. Lauer have again produced material of remarkable interest, says the Cairo correspondent of the London Weekly Times. A gallery more than 90ft long has been discovered among the foundations of the pyramid containing thousands of bowls and dishes, mainly of the finest alabaster, but some of diorite, porphyry, or quartz, all crushed into small fragments by the collapse of the roof. Some of the vases are inscribed in ink with short texts. Some appear to be heirlooms of the family of Pharaoh Zoser, who reigned in the twentyeighth century B.C. and built the Step Pyramid; others give the names and titles of nobles with the festival on which they were presented. Such early examples of hieratic script are of considerable palaeographic, and also possibly of historic, interest. This great deposit of vases was doubtless part of the funeral furniture of somo members of Pharaoh Zoser’s family. Apparently, this King’s children, who died before the pyramid was finally enlarged, were buried in a row of shaft tombs on its east side. The pyramid, when finished, covered the tombs, which were later ransacked by robbers.