The great excavation of the Osireion at Abydos, begun for the Society (then the Egypt Exploration Fund) by Prof. Edouard Naville, 4 ' but suspended owing to the war, it has not been possible to resume at present, owing to the commitments of the Amarna site and the heavy expense of such work as that at the Osireion, which cannot vet be contemplated.
After the retreat of Darius the Scythians made a raid as far as Abydos, and even sent envoys to King Cleomenes III.
Sparta had only Sestos and Abydos of all that she had won by the battle of Aegospotami.
It seems that representations of deities, and indeed any representations at all, were rare upon the polished walls of the great monuments of the fourth dynasty, and Petrie thinks that he can trace a violent religious revolution with confiscation of endowments at this time in the temple remains at Abydos; but none the less the wants of the deities were then attended to by priests selected from the royal family and the highest in the land.
Two tablets at the mines of Wadi Maghara in the peninsula of Sinai, a granite block from Bubastis, and a beautiful ivory statuette found by Petrie in the temple at Abydos, are almost all that can be definitely assigned to Khufu outside the pyramid at Giza and its ruined accompaniments.