Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/54

 30 Outlines of European History formed the treasury of the king. The villas (Fig. 21) of the officials who assisted the king in all this business of government, with their gardens, formed a large part of the royal city. The greatest quarter, however, was occupied by the palace of the king and the luxurious parks and gardens which surrounded it. Thus the palace and its grounds, the official villas, and offices of the government made up the capital of Egypt, the royal city which extended along the foot of the pyramid cemetery and Fig. 14. Earliest Representation of a Seagoing Ship (Twenty-eighth Century b.c.) The people are all bowing to the king whose figure (now lost) stood on ■ shore (at the left), and they salute him with the words written in a line of hieroglyphs above, meaning : " Hail to thee ! O Sahure [the king's name], thou god of the living ! We behold thy beauty. " Some of these men are bearded Phoenician prisoners, showing that this Egyptian ship has crossed the east end of the Mediterranean and returned. The big double mast is unshipped and lies on supports rising by the three steering oars in the stern Stretched far away over the plain, of which there is a fine view from the summit of the pyramid (Fig. 10). But the city was all built of sun-baked brick and wood, and it has therefore vanished. Length and The city of the dead, the pyramids and the tombs clustering Pyramid Age around them, being built of stone, have fortunately proved more durable and they have much to tell us still. The v/eary climb to the sum.mit of the Great Pyramid (Fig. i o) gives us a view south- ward, down a straggling but imposing line of pyramids rising dimly as far as we can see on the southern horizon. The line is over sixty miles long, and its oldest pyramids represent the