Note 166 — Chapter III

The general aspect of this city of the dead, and the regularity of its monuments, made a great impression upon the members of the "Institut d'Égypte." The following are the words of Jomard (Description, vol. v. p. 619): "From the top of the building one sees an infinite quantity of the long rectangular structures extending almost to the Pyramids. They are carefully oriented, and exactly aligned one with another. I counted fourteen rows of them, in each direction, on the west of the Great Pyramid, and as many on the east, making nearly four hundred in all. The sand under which many of them are buried leaves their forms easily distinguishable." Since the time of Jomard many of the mastabas have been changed by the excavations into mere formless heaps of débris, and yet the general arrangement can still be clearly followed.