i88 A History of Art in Ancient Egypt. well almost disappears, sometimes it ceases to be vertical and becomes a long corridor with but a gentle slope. As a rule all these variations are easily explained, and may be connected without difficulty with that primitive type which we have attempted to define by its most wide-spread and constant features. Another method of sepulture was made use of in the Ancient Empire, a method which afterwards came into general use in Egypt, we mean the hypogejtm, or subterranean tomb. The Fio. 126. — Head of a Mummy. Louvre. Egyptian Commission has described several rock-cut tombs in the neighbourhood of the Pyramids, especially some which face the western slope of the Second Pyramid. Similar tombs are to be found near the pyramid of Mycerinus. Some of these sepulchral grottos declare their extreme antiquity by their imitations of wooden architecture ; ^ others by their inscriptions dating from 1 Description de PEgypte, vol. v. p. 647, and Atlas, Ant. vol. v. pi. 16, Figs. 3, 4, and 5.
