BUILDING OF THE PYRAMIDS. 95 that this causeway was ten years in building, and the pyramid itself twenty. He describes the mode of erecting it by successive stages, and the means of raising the huge stones by machines placed on these stages. He even repeats the reading given by an interpreter of an inscription which he saw upon the pyramid, recording the quantities of radishes, onions, and garlic consumed by the builders -(the savoury pot-herbs of Egyptian labourers, which the liberated Israelites so sorely missed)-and the sum spent in its erection namely, 1600 talents of silver.* After making every allowance for mistakes, and even for deception, by the interpreters-who certainly sometimes amused themselves at the traveller's expensethese details seem to prove that the time, and manner, and purpose of the erection were known to the priests in the time of Herodotus. The recent discovery of the founder's name completes the evidence. A bare mention will therefore suffice for the ingenious theories which assign to the pyramids other builders and a widely different purpose. In regarding them, however, primarily as regal sepulchres, we do not exclude the supposition that they may have been so planned as to give their construction other uses and meanings. Their position, exactly facing the four cardinal points, and the inclination of their main passages, which we have already noticed, seems to show a connexion with the science of astronomy. Their dimensions would naturally be exact multiples of the standards of length used by the Egyptians. But the discovery of all manner of ratios in the sides, sloping edges, height, and angles, of the Great Pyramid, and in the length, breadth, thickness, and solid content of the sarcophagus or coffer in its central chamber, besides being suspicious from the very number of the supposed coincidences, requires a previous assumption as to the scientific knowledge of the builders. Let it be proved, from other evidence, that they had obtained, by their astronomical science, a tolerably correct measure of the earth, and that they had deduced an exact metrical system from that measurement; and then we might accept the probability that the dimensions of the pyramids perpetuate their measures. But to prove all this we want more than coincidences, and even if proved, it would not exclude the belief in the primary purpose of the buildings as sepulchral monuments. We can far more side of the Nile. Traces of causeways are seen in front of the First and Third Pyramids. * This would amount, on the largest estimate of the talent, to about £400,000, an enormous sum in those days, and yet one which might appear inadequate, were it not for the fact that the labour was forced. readily believe that such edifices, erected for their own uses, should be so constructed as also to preserve standards of measure in their several parts, than that they were designed solely to perpetuate those standards. How strongly the ordinary view is confirmed by what we know of the manner of their construction, will appear as we proceed. The pyramids of Lower Egypt, then, are the chief sepulchral monuments in that vast necropolis of ancient Memphis, the general plan of which can still be clearly traced. They were the tombs of the kings, towering in the midst of the lesser sepulchres of their subjects. The form of monument seems to have been coëval with the Egyptian monarchy, for Manetho tells us that Venephes, the fourth king of the First Dynasty, built a pyramid at Kochome, the site of which is uncertain. The capital of Lower Egypt stood on the west side of the Nile, about ten miles above Cairo; and its people chose for their cemetery the lowest platform of the western hills, where they could not only rest far above the reach of the inundation, but hew their sepulchral chambers in the solid rock. The existing pyramids for many have been destroyed -stand together in groups, of which a good general view is obtained from the citadel of Cairo. Looking a little to the south of west, we see the three largest pyramids, which are distinguished by the name of the neighbouring village of El-Ghizeh. Further south are those of Abou-Seir, also three in number, but much smaller. A little beyond them is the very curious pyramid of Sakkara, called the "Pyramid of Degrees," from the steps on its surface, surrounded by a large number of smaller pyramids. The two pyramids of Dashour, the next largest to those of Ghizeh, are the last that can be referred to the necropolis of Memphis, though there are several others further to the south. The whole necropolis, which appears to have been common to Heliopolis and Memphis, extends over a space of about twenty miles, from the ruined pyramid of Abou-Ruweysh, a little to the north of those of El-Ghizeh, to the southernmost pyramid of Dashour.* But the whole district over which the pyramids are spread extends from 29° to 30° N. latitude, or almost 70 miles, corresponding very nearly with Middle Egypt. Their number is estimated at about 69, or one to a mile on the average. Of all these, the northern pyramid of Abou-Seir is probably the most ancient; being, as we have seen, the tomb of Shura, the first king of the Fourth Dynasty; *A map and panorama of the whole district is given by General Howard Vyse, Operations carried on at the Pyramids of Ghizeh in 1837, vol. iii. |