or "the Mound of the King." The interior of this building has been
excavated to a point some ten or twelve feet above the ground level, but
the walls outside have not yet been cleared from the surrounding sand and
rubbish. In its present condition, it forms a parallelogram of crude
brickwork measuring 410 feet from north to south, and 223 feet from east to
west. The main axis of the structure extends, therefore, from north to
south. The principal gateway opens in the western wall, not far from the
northwest corner: but there would appear to have been two smaller gates,
one in the south front, and one in the east. The walls, which now stand
from twenty-four to thirty-six feet high, have lost somewhat of their
original height. They are about six feet thick at the top. They were not
built all together in uniform layers, but in huge vertical panels, easily
distinguished by the arrangement of the brickwork. In one division the
bedding of the bricks is strictly horizontal; in the next it is slightly
concave, and forms a very flat reversed arch, of which the extrados rests
upon the ground. The alternation of these two methods is regularly
repeated. The object of this arrangement is obscure; but it is said that
buildings thus constructed are especially fitted to resist earthquake
shocks. However this may be, the fortress is extremely ancient, for in the
Fifth Dynasty, the nobles of Abydos took possession of the interior, and,
ultimately, so piled it up with their graves as to deprive it of all
strategic value. A second stronghold, erected a few hundred yards further
to the south-east, replaced that of Kom es Sultan about the time of the
Twelfth Dynasty, and narrowly escaped the fate of the first, under the rule
of the Ramessides. Nothing, in fact, but the sudden decline of the city,
saved the second from being similarly choked and buried.

[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Plan of second fortress at Abydos, Eleventh or
Twelfth Dynasty.]