it is dangerous to venture without a guide. The columned porch, the
galleries and halls, all lead to a sort of enormous shaft, at the bottom
of which the architect had contrived a hiding-place, destined, no doubt,
to contain the more precious objects of the funerary furniture. Until
the beginning of this century the vault had preserved its original
lining of glazed pottery. Three quarters of the wall surface was covered
with green tiles, oblong and lightly convex on the outer side, but flat
on the inner: a square projection pierced with a hole served to fix them
at the back in a horizontal line by means of flexible wooden rods. Three
bands which frame one of the doors are inscribed with the titles of the
Pharaoh. The hieroglyphs are raised in either blue, red, green, or
yellow, on a fawn-colored ground.

The towns, palaces, temples, all the buildings which princes and kings
had constructed to be witnesses of their power or piety to future
generations, have disappeared in the course of ages, under the feet and
before the triumphal blasts of many invading hosts: the pyramid alone
has survived, and the most ancient of the historic monuments of Egypt is
a tomb.





COMPILATION OF THE EARLIEST CODE

B.C. 2250

HAMMURABI