Chapter III: Sepulchral Architecture (4)

[193] There are other stepped pyramids besides that at Sakkarah.
Jomard describes one of crude and much crumbled brick at
Dashour. It is, he says, about 140 feet high. Its height is
divided into five stages, each being set back about 11 feet
behind the one below. These steps are often found, he adds,
among the southern pyramids, and there is one example of such
construction at Gizeh. (_Description de l'Égypte_, vol. x., p.
5.) At Matarieh, between Sakkarah and Meidoum, there is a
pyramid with a double slope like that at Dashour.

But although this theory seems satisfactorily to explain some puzzling appearances, it also, when tested by facts, encounters some very grave objections. The explorers of the pyramids have more than once, in their search for lost galleries and hidden chambers, cut for themselves a passage through the masonry, but neither in these breaches made by violence, nor in the ancient and carefully constructed passages to which they were the means of giving access, have any signs been, discovered, or at least, reported, of the junctions of different surfaces and slopes which must have existed according to the theory which we are noticing. We should expect, at least, to find the nearly upright sides of the cubic mass with which the pyramid began, contrasting with the comparatively gentle slopes which were built against it. These different parts of the pyramid, we are told, were built and finished separately, a proceeding which, if the later parts were to be properly fitted to the earlier and the final stability of the monument assured, would have demanded a minute and scrupulous care which was not common with Egyptian workmen. How, without numerous through bonding-stones, could those slides and settlements be prevented to which the want of homogeneity in the structure would otherwise be sure to lead? But we are not told that any such junctions of old and new work are to be found even in those points where they would be most conspicuous, namely, in the galleries leading to the internal chambers, where a practised eye could hardly fail to note the transition. We do not say that there are no such transitions, but we think the advocates of the new theory should have begun by pointing them out if they exist.

There is another difficulty in their way. How is their system to explain the position of the mummy-chamber in certain pyramids? Let us take that of Cheops as an example. If its internal arrangements had been fixed from the beginning, if the intention had been from the first to place the mummy-chamber where we now find it, at about one-third of the whole height, why should the builders have complicated their task by imposing upon themselves these ever difficult junctions? Would it not have been far better to build the pyramid at once to the required height, leaving in its thickness the necessary galleries? The same observation applies to the discharging chambers above the mummy-chamber. The whole of these arrangements, the high vestibule with its wonderful masonry, the chambers and the structural voids above them, appear to have been conceived and carried out at one time, and by the same brains and hands. Not a sign is to be found of those more or less well-veiled transitions which are never absent when the work of one time and one set of hands has to be united with that of another. Or are we to believe that they commenced by building a hill of stone composed of those different pyramids one within another, and that they afterwards carved the necessary chambers and corridors out of its mass? One of the heroes of Hoffmann, the fantastic Crespel, made use indeed of some such method in giving doors and windows to his newly-built house, but we may be sure that no architect, either in Egypt or elsewhere, ever thought of employing it. The disintegration to which it would lead may easily be imagined.

We may here call attention to a circumstance which justifies all our reserves. There is but one pyramid which seems to have been built upon a system which, though much less complicated, resembled that which we are noticing in some degree, we mean the Stepped Pyramid of Sakkarah. Now we find that the whole of the complicated net-work of chambers and passages in that pyramid is cut out of the living rock beneath its base, and that they are approached from without by subterranean passages. The difficulty of deciding upon the position of the chambers in advance, and of constructing the galleries through the various slopes of the concentric masses which were to form the pyramid, was thus avoided, and the builder was able to devote all his attention to increasing the size of the monument, by multiplying those parallel wedges disposed around a central core of which it is composed.

The observations made by Lepsius in the Stepped Pyramid and in one at Abousir seem to prove that some pyramids were constructed in this manner. In both of those buildings all necessary precautions were taken to guard against the weaknesses of such a system. It is difficult to understand how separate slices of masonry, placed one upon the other in the fashion shown by the section which we have borrowed from Perring's work (Fig. 134), could have had sufficient adherence one to another. Lepsius made a breach in the southern face of this pyramid, and the examination which he was thus enabled to institute led him to suggest a rather more probable system of construction. Upon the external sloping face of each step he found two casing-walls, but these did not extend from the ground to the apex of the monument, they reached no higher than the single step, so that they found a true resisting base in the flat mass (see Fig. 143) upon which they rested. Moreover, the architect provided for the lateral tying of the different sections of his work, as Lepsius proves to us by a partial section of the pyramid of Abousir. Two walls of fine limestone blocks inclose a filling in of rubble, to which they are bound by perpend stones which penetrate its substance. This method of construction has its faults, but it is so rapid that its employment is not to be wondered at.

]

[194] Fig. 5 of his paper, _Ueber den Bau der Pyramiden_.

]

[195] Fig. 8 of his paper, _Ueber den Bau der Pyramiden_.

Do these parallel walls reach from top to bottom? A detail discovered by Minutoli would seem to indicate that a base was first constructed of sufficient extent for the whole monument. In the lower part of the Stepped Pyramid Minutoli[196] shows concave courses of stone laid out to the segment of a circle. These courses formed a kind of inverted vault, abutting, at its edges, upon the rock. This curious arrangement should be studied upon the spot by some competent observer. As we do not know whether these curves exist upon each face or not, or whether they meet each other and penetrate deeply into the structure or not, we cannot say what their purpose may have been. But however this may be, they afford another argument against the notion that all the great pyramids were built round such a pyramidoid core as that represented by our Fig. 136. We fear that this system must be regarded merely as an intellectual plaything. The views of Lepsius as to the enlargement of the pyramid by the addition of parallel slices are worthy of more respect, and their truth seems to be demonstrated in the case of some pyramids. But these all belong to that category of monuments which have subterranean chambers only. We have yet to learn that they were ever made use of in those pyramids which inclose the mummy-chamber and its avenues in their own substance. Variety is universal in that Egypt which has so often been described as the land of uniformity and immobility--no two of the pyramids resemble each other exactly.

[196] _Voyage au Temple de Jupiter Amman et dans la
Haute-Égypte._ (Berlin, 1824, 4to. and folio; Pl. xxvii. Fig.
3.)

We have yet to speak of two ancient monuments in which some would recognize unfinished pyramids, namely, the Pyramid of Meidoum and the Mastabat-el-Faraoun. We do not agree with this opinion, which has, however, been lately put forward, so far, at least, as the former monument is concerned.[197] These two sepulchres seem to us to represent a different type of funerary architecture, a type created by the ancient empire, and meriting special notice at our hands.

[197] BÆDEKER, _Egypt_, part i. 1878. The pages dealing with the
monumental remains were edited in great part by Professor
Ebers.

The monument which rises so conspicuously from the plain near the village of Meidoum on the road to the Fayoum, is called by Arabs the Haram-el-Kabbab, or "the false pyramid." It is, in fact, not so much a pyramid, strictly speaking, as a mass formed of three square towers with slightly inclined sides superimposed one upon the other, the second being less in area than the first, and the third than the second. The remains of a fourth story may be distinguished on the summit of the third; some see in them the remains of a small pyramid; others those of a cone. Judging from the names found in the neighbouring mastabas, which were opened and examined by Mariette, this is the tomb of Snefrou I., one of the greatest kings of the third dynasty.[198]

[198] _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, vol. i. p. 45.

The Mastabat-el-Faraoun or "Seat of Pharaoh," as the Arabs call it, is a huge rectangular mass with sloping sides; it is about 66 feet high, 340 long, and 240 deep. It is oriented like the pyramids. It is a royal tomb with internal arrangements which resemble those in the pyramid of Mycerinus; the same sloping galleries, the same chambers, the same great lateral niches. Upon a block lying at the foot of the structure of which it had once formed a part, Mariette found a quarry-mark traced in red ochre which seemed to him to form part of the name of Ounas, one of the last kings of the fifth dynasty (Figs. 109 and 147).

Upon the platform of the Mastabat-el-Faraoun certain blocks are to be found which, from their position, must have been bonding-stones. They seem to hint, therefore, either that the structure was never finished, or that it has lost its former crown. The latter hypothesis is the more probable. Among the titles of people buried in the necropolis at Sakkarah, we often come upon those of priests attached to the service of some monument with a form similar to that represented by our Fig. 148. Who can say asks Mariette, that it is not the Mastabat-el-Faraoun itself?[199]

[199] _Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte_, vol. i. p. 34.

M. Mariette cites, in support of this conjecture, certain other structures of a similar character, such as the large tomb situated near the south-eastern angle of the second pyramid at Gizeh, and the little monument which is called the Pyramid of Righa. From these he concludes that the principles of the mastaba and the pyramid were sometimes combined under the ancient empire. The royal tombs in the Memphite region were not always pyramids, they were sometimes composed of a mastaba and of one or more high square tower-like erections upon it, the whole ending in one of those small pyramids which we call pyramidions. This type allowed of numerous combinations, many of which are to be discovered in the monuments of a later period.

The pyramid was employed as a terminal form throughout the whole of Egyptian history. Both Thebes and Abydos offer us many examples of its use, either in those sepulchral edifices which are still extant, or in the representations of them upon bas-reliefs. But the pyramid properly speaking was confined to the Memphite period. The princes of the twelfth dynasty seem to have constructed some in the Fayoum. The pyramids of Hawara and Illahoon correspond to those which, we are told, were built in connection with the labyrinth and upon the islands of Lake Mœris respectively. These, so far as we can judge, were the last of the pyramids. There are, indeed, in the necropolis of Thebes, upon the rocks of Drah-abou'l-neggah, a few pyramids of crude brick, some of which seem to belong to Entefs of the eleventh dynasty; but they are small and carelessly constructed.[200] When the art of Egypt had arrived at its full development, such purely geometrical forms would seem unworthy of its powers, as they did not allow of those varied beauties of construction and decoration which its architects had gradually mastered.

[200] LEPSIUS, _Denkmæler_, part i. pl. 94. RHIND, _Thebes, its
Tombs and their Tenants_, p. 45. MARIETTE, _Voyage dans la
Haute-Égypte_, vol. ii. p. 80.

The pyramids have never failed to impress the imaginations of those foreign travellers who have visited Egypt. Their venerable antiquity; the memories, partly fable, partly history, which were attached to them by popular tradition; their colossal mass and the vast space of ground which they covered, at the very gates of the capital and upon the boundary between the desert and the cultivated land, all combined to heighten their effect. Those nations who came under the living influence of Egypt could hardly, then, escape from the desire to imitate her pyramids in their own manner. We shall find the pyramidal form employed to crown buildings in Phœnicia, Judæa, and elsewhere. But the kingdom of Ethiopia, the southern annexe of Egypt and the copyist of her civilization, was the chief reproducer of the Egyptian pyramid as it was created by the kings of the ancient empire. Napata, Meroe, and other places have pyramids which may be counted by dozens. Like those in Egypt, they are the tombs of the native monarchs.

We shall not attempt any study of these remains. Like all the other products of Ethiopian art, they are neither original nor interesting. The people who inhabited the region which we now call by the names of Nubia and the Soudan, had, indeed, reconquered their political independence a thousand years before our era, but they were not gifted by nature with power to assimilate the lessons of their former masters. Even during the short period when the Ethiopian monarchs reigned over a divided and weakened Egypt, Ethiopia remained the clumsy pupil and imitator of the northern people. She never learnt to give to her royal pyramids the air of grandeur which distinguishes the great structures of Memphis. The Ethiopian pyramids were generally so narrow and steep in slope that their whole character was different from those of Egypt. In Egypt the base line was always greater than the vertical height, upon the Upper Nile the proportions were reversed.[201] The latter edifices thus lost some of that appearance of indestructible solidity which is their natural expression. They remind one at once of the obelisk and the pyramid. Add to this that an unintelligent taste overspread them with ill-devised decoration. Thus the upper part of their eastern faces, for they are oriented, generally bears a false window surmounted by a cornice, about as incongruous an ornament as could well be conceived, and one which expresses nothing either to the eye or the mind.

[201] Thus the Great Pyramid was 482 feet high, while the length
of one side at the base is 764 feet. On the other hand, the
"third pyramid" at Gebel-Barkal (Napata) is 35 feet square at
the base and 60 feet high; the "fifth" is 39 feet square at the
base and nearly 50 feet high. Their proportions are not
constant, but the height of the Nubian pyramids is always far
greater than the length of one side at its base.

We shall, therefore, take no further notice of these more or less ill-designed variations upon the type which was created by the Egyptians in the early days of their civilization and fully understood by themselves alone.

We must return, however, to that type for a moment, in order to show, in as few words as possible, how far the art of working and fixing stone had advanced even at the time of the first dynasties.

The Great Pyramid affords us a curious example of the elaborate precautions taken against the violation of the royal tomb (Fig. 132). At the point where the ascending gallery branched off from that descending corridor which was the only entrance to the pyramid, the mouth of the former was closed by a block of granite which exactly fitted it. This block was so heavy and so well adjusted, that entrance could only be obtained by cutting a passage through the surrounding masonry, which, being of limestone, did not offer such an unyielding resistance to the tools brought against it. Formerly the mouth of a gallery, which seemed to be the continuation of the entrance corridor, remained open, and, when followed to the end, led to an unfinished chamber cut in the rock at about the level of the Nile. If this had been finished the waters would perhaps have invaded it by infiltration. This seems to have been intended by the constructor, because Herodotus, who no doubt thought the work had been completed, tells us of a subterranean conduit which admitted the waters of the Nile.[202] The violaters of the tomb would believe the corpse to be in this unsuspected reservoir, and would search no farther, or if they guessed the deception and persevered till they found the entrance to the ascending gallery, they would find another obstacle to their success which would be likely to arrest them longer than the first. The upper extremity of the great gallery, at which we suppose them arrived, opens upon a small vestibule which would still separate them from the sarcophagus-chamber itself. Four flat blocks of granite, sliding in grooves, masked the entrance to the latter; Figs. 150 and 151 show the arrangement of these portcullis stones. The narrow passage leading to the discharging chambers above the mummy-chamber, would be likely to lead our supposed robbers into the upper part of the pyramid. The entrance to this passage is high up in the end wall of the grand gallery; it was left open. The unbidden visitors would thus have explored the interior of the pyramid high and low without result, and even supposing that they expended considerable time and trouble in the search, they might easily have failed to penetrate into the mummy-chamber itself.[203]

[202] HERODOTUS, ii. 124.

[203] DU BARRY DE MERVAL, _Études sur l'Architecture
Égyptienne_, pp. 129, 130.

Another ingenious arrangement which demands our notice is that of those discharging chambers to which we have already alluded. These chambers were explored, not without trouble, by Colonel Howard Vyse and J. L. Perring, who at once comprehended their use. The roof of the sarcophagus-chamber consists of nine slabs of fine red granite, like those which form the walls of the same chamber. They are 18 feet 9 inches long and their ends rest upon the side walls of the chamber. In spite of their thickness and of the hard nature of the rock of which they are composed, it was feared that they might give way under the enormous weight of the masonry above, for the floor of the chamber is still nearly 340 feet below the actual apex of the pyramid. This danger was met in the fashion figured above.

As the structure grew above the roof of the mummy-chamber, five small chambers were left, one above the other, to a total height of 56 feet, which would relieve the flat ceiling of the mummy-chamber of the weight to be placed above it. The first four of these chambers were of similar shape and had flat roofs, but the roof of the fifth was formed of sloping slabs, meeting in a ridge, and giving the chamber a triangular section (see Fig. 152). Thanks to this succession of voids immediately over the main chamber, and to the pointed arch which surmounts them, the vertical pressure of the superstructure is discharged from the chamber itself and distributed over the lateral parts of the pyramid. These precautions have been quite effectual. Not a stone has been stirred either by the inward thrust or by the crushing of their substance; not a block is out of place but those which have been disturbed by the violence of man; and, moreover, the whole structure is so well bonded and so well balanced that even his violent attacks have led neither to disruption nor settlement in the apartment of Cheops or in the galleries which lead to it.[204]

[204] The discovery of these chambers was interesting from
another point of view. The name of Choufou was found continually
repeated upon the blocks of which they are formed. It was
written in red ochre, and, in places, it was upside down, thus
proving that it must have been written before the stones were
put in place. It cannot therefore have been traced after the
tradition which assigned the pyramid to Cheops, that is, to
Khoufou, arose; and so it affords conclusive corroboration of
the statements of Herodotus.

The glory of the workmen who built the Great Pyramid is the masonry of the Grand Gallery, the gallery which opens immediately into the vestibule of the King's Chamber. As this corridor is 28 feet high and 7 feet wide, the visitor can breathe more freely than in the low and narrow passages which lead to it, and can examine at his ease the beautiful blocks of limestone from Mokattam of which its polished walls are composed. The faces of these blocks have been dressed with a care which is not to be surpassed even by the most perfect examples of Hellenic architecture on the Acropolis at Athens. The internal faces must have been worked with equal care. No cement has been employed in the fixing, and the adherence is so perfect that, in the words of Abd-ul-Latif "not a needle, not even a hair, can be introduced into the joints."[205] These joints are not even to be distinguished without careful examination. The roof of this gallery is built with no less care.[206] Each of the upper courses is slightly set off from the one below it, so that in time they come so near together that the opening may be closed by a single stone, or rather, row of stones. These, being held between the two upper courses of a quasi vault, play the part of key stones. This method of vaulting has been employed in other parts of the pyramid, especially in what is called the _Queen's Chamber_, which is almost directly beneath the king's, or sarcophagus-chamber. The same care is conspicuous in those linings of red granite which form the walls of the two chambers. Even the fine limestone used for the walls of the Grand Gallery was not considered rich and solid enough for the walls of the apartment in which the prince in whose honour the whole of the colossal edifice was reared would repose; and it was determined to use the richest and most costly material of which the Egyptian architect could dispose.[207] The plain sarcophagus, without either inscription or ornament, which is still in the King's Chamber, is also of red granite.

[205] This is no exaggeration. JOMARD expresses himself to the
same effect almost in the same terms. (_Description de
l'Égypte_, vol. v. p. 628.)

[206] The extremity of this gallery appears on the right of Fig.
152.

[207] The presence of this lining in the "Queen's Chamber" also
led to its being dubbed a funerary chamber, for no trace of a
sarcophagus was found in it. If we had any reason to believe
that the pyramid was built in successive wedges, we should look
upon this as a provisional chamber, made before it was certain
that the pyramid would attain its present dimensions. As the
work went on, it would be decided that another, larger, and
better defended chamber should be built. In this case the first
may never have been used, and may always have been as empty as
it is now.

The external casing of the pyramid has entirely disappeared, as we have already said. On account of their moderate size the stones of which it was composed would seem to be especially well fitted for use in building those great cities which, after the collapse of the ancient civilization, succeeded each other, under different names, in the neighbourhood of the Memphite necropolis. This casing seems to have been made of more than one kind of stone, if we may believe an ancient text which has been interpreted by Letronne with the skill and sagacity of which he has given so many proofs.[208]

[208] These observations are to be found in one of the early
works of Letronne. Their presence is in no way hinted at by the
title, which is: _Recherches Géographiques et Critiques sur le
Livre 'De mensura orbis terræ'_ (8vo. 1844). The treatise, Περὶ
τῶν ἑπτὰ θεαμάτων, may have been written either by Philo of
Heraclea or Philo of Byzantium. They both belonged to the third
century before our era, but the bombastic style and numerous
errors incline us to believe that the little work must have been
from the pen of some unknown rhetorician of a later date.

The author, named Philo, of a treatise upon the Seven Wonders of the World, tells us that the Egyptians employed upon this work "the most brilliant and varied stones, which were carefully fixed." He mentions as contributing to the splendid result white marble, basalt, porphyry, and a green breccia from Arabia, which must have been what is called _verde antique_. And as for his white marble, it must have been the white limestone from Mokattam, which, in its best strata, is almost as white and fine in grain as marble. Marble, properly speaking, was only introduced into Egypt by the Greeks, and that in very small quantities, for the use of sculptors. Philo says nothing of granite, but its use was so general that it must have found a place in the scheme of decoration.[209]

[209] These are the words of Philo, which we have translated
rather freely:-- Ποικίλαι δὲ καὶ πορφυραὶ λίθων φύσεις ἀλλήλαις
ἐπιδεδόμεναι, καὶ τὰ μέν ἐστιν ἡ πέτρα λευκὴ καὶ μαρμαρίτης· τῇ
δὲ Αἰθιοπικὴ καὶ μέλαινα καὶ μετὰ ταύτην ὁ καλούμενος αἱματίτης
λιθος· εἶτα ποικίλος καὶ διάχλωρος ἀπὸ τῆς Ἀραβίας κεκομισμένος,
p. 2,259, A.

The various kinds of stone must have been so placed as to form zones, and perhaps patterns, of different colours, white, red, black, rose, green, and so on. To form an idea of the effect we must think of Giotto's campanile at Florence and various other Italian buildings of the same kind.

It has been questioned whether the testimony of this Philo is to be depended upon, as few of those who have busied themselves with the pyramids seem to have laid much stress upon it. It seems to us to be worthy of great respect. We do not know when Philo lived, but we know that the casing of the pyramid was still in place, at least in part, during the Middle Ages, because in the time of Abd-ul-Latif it had almost its original height, and its ascent was still very difficult.[210] On the other hand we have proofs that, although the author of the Seven Wonders of the World may have written more in the tone of a rhetorician than of an eyewitness of the wonders which he describes, he took some of his information from excellent sources. In fact with the exception of Pliny, he is the only ancient writer who gives us an approximately true statement of the length of the base line of Cheops' Pyramid. While the measurements of other writers are very far from accurate, the figure given by Philo is only 16 feet 6 inches in excess of the truth. The idea of decorating such an expanse of surface with varied colour was quite in accordance with Egyptian taste. They loved polychromatic ornaments; they covered every available surface with the gayest hues; they delighted in the juxtaposition of the most brilliant tones. They could hardly think of covering such an immense surface with paint, and as it was necessary, in any case, to cover it with a smooth casing, it would be no more difficult to employ many kinds of stone than one. They would thus obtain a kind of gigantic mosaic which may perhaps have been heightened in effect by the use of gold. We know that the pyramidion of an obelisk was frequently gilded, and it is probable enough that similar means were sometimes taken, in the case of the more magnificent and carefully finished pyramids, to draw the eye to their topmost stone and thus to add to the impression made by their height. No more fitting adornment could be imagined for the sharp peak of a pyramid rising nearly five hundred feet into the pure blue of an Egyptian sky.

[210] According to the calculations of Letronne, the Great
Pyramid must have been 482 feet high when it was complete. In
the time of Diodorus it was slightly over 480 feet; in that of
Abd-ul-Latif it measured 477 feet 3 inches. In 1795 it was only
456 feet and a few inches, so that it lost about 24 feet in the
course of eighteen centuries. This lowering of the summit was
mainly caused by the destruction and removal of the outer
casing. Since it disappeared the Arabs have been in the habit of
loosening the stones on the top and launching them down the
sides for the amusement of travellers; the smooth casing alone
could prevent such outrage as this. The common idea that the
Pyramid of Cheops is the highest building in the world is
erroneous. Even if we take its height when complete, it is
surpassed by at least two modern buildings, as may be seen by
the following table of the most lofty buildings now existing:--

Feet.

Spires of Cologne Cathedral 533
Flèche of the Cathedral at Rouen 500
Spire of St. Nicholas, Hamburg 480
Dome of St. Peter's, Rome 476
Spire of Strasbourg Cathedral 473
Pyramid of Cheops 456
Spire of St. Stephen's, Vienna 450
Spire of St. Martin's, Landshut 443
Spire of the Cathedral of Freiburg, Breisgau 417
Spire of Antwerp Cathedral, not including the cross 411
Spire of Salisbury Cathedral 404
Dome of Cathedral at Florence 396
Dome of St. Paul's, London 371
Flèche of Milan Cathedral 363
Tower of Magdeburg Cathedral 344
Victoria Tower, Westminster 336
Rathhaus Tower, Berlin 293
Spire of Trinity Church, New York 287
Pantheon, Paris 266
Towers of Nôtre Dame, Paris 226

But this is a conjecture which can never be verified. Even if the topmost stone were still in place upon any of the pyramids it would, after all these ages, have lost all traces of gilding; but the whole of those edifices have their apex more or less truncated. Even before our era, Diodorus[211] found the Great Pyramid crowned by a plateau six cubits square.

[211] DIODORUS, i. 63, 64.

It has sometimes been supposed that the pyramids, when complete, were terminated by such a plateau as that described by Diodorus, and that it bore a statue of the king whose mummy rested below. This hypothesis is founded upon the passage of Herodotus which treats of the Lake Mœris. "There are," he says, "in the middle of the lake, two pyramids, each fifty fathoms high (309 feet) ... each of them is surmounted by a colossal stone statue seated upon a throne."[212] Herodotus insists so often upon having seen the Labyrinth and Lake Mœris with his own eyes, that we cannot affect to doubt his assertions; we shall therefore confine ourselves to a few observations upon them.

[212] HERODOTUS, ii. 49.

In the descriptions which he gives of the three great pyramids, and among his comments upon the methods employed in their construction, Herodotus does not say a word which can be construed into the most distant allusion to statues upon their summits. If he had seen colossi perched upon those lofty pedestals, or if he had heard from his dragomans--whose exaggerations he has elsewhere so naïvely reproduced--that they had formerly existed, would he not have made some allusion to them in that passage, at least, where he explains how they raised such huge stones to so great a height, and describes the successive stages in the construction of a pyramid?[213] Would he not have found room, in the elaborate antithetical passage in which he contrasts the virtues of Mycerinus with the imaginary wickedness of Cheops and Chephren, for moral and critical reflections called up by the sight of their statues upon their respective pyramids; still more if one of them had happened to be missing? Would he not have attempted, through some popular tradition, to have accounted for the presence of one statue and the absence of another? It is evident, therefore, that Herodotus neither saw any statues upon the Pyramids of Memphis nor had he any reason to suppose those structures had ever been crowned in such a fashion. He lays stress upon the seated statues of the pyramids in Lake Mœris because they were new to him, because he had seen nothing of the same kind in the neighbourhood of the ancient capital.

[213] M. MASPERO has given in the _Annuaire de l' Association
pour l'Encouragement des Études Grecques_ and elsewhere, several
extracts from a commentary upon the second book of Herodotus,
which we should like to see published in its entirety. We may
point out more particularly his remarks upon the text of the
Greek historian in the matter of the 1,600 talents of silver
which, he says, was the value of the onions, radishes, and
garlic consumed by the workmen employed upon the Great Pyramid
(ii. 125). He has no difficulty in showing that Herodotus made a
mistake, for which he gives an ingenious and probable
explanation. (_Annuaire de 1875_, p. 16.)

Unless we are very much mistaken, this superposition of a colossus upon a pyramid was a novelty devised by the architects of the middle empire, when, under the Ousourtesens and Amenemhats, it was proposed to revive the pyramidal form of tomb with which the early Pharaohs had obtained such imposing results. Although most conservative on the whole, the art of Egypt attempted, at each period of renascence, to introduce new combinations into the details, at least, of the ancient forms, and this was one of the number.

Another innovation of the same kind is to be found in the decoration which covered, again according to Herodotus,[214] another pyramid constructed at about the same time, namely, that which formed one side of the Labyrinth. "It had," says the historian, "forty fathoms, and it was sculptured with animals of large size. The entrance was by a subterranean passage." From the Greek word used (ἐγγέγλυπται) we see that Herodotus means that the faces, or perhaps only the principal face, of this pyramid about two hundred and fifty feet high, were covered with bas-reliefs. There is in Egypt no other example of a pyramid so decorated. The architectural works of this period have almost entirely vanished, but we may, perhaps, look upon it as one of their characteristics that the bareness which they had inherited from the early creators of Egyptian art, was relieved and adorned by the intervention of the sculptor.

[214] HERODOTUS, ii. 148. DIODORUS (l. 89) speaks of the same
and STRABO, who also appears to have seen it, asserts its
funerary character (p. 1165, C). He says it was four plethra
(393 feet) both in width and height. This last dimension is
obviously exaggerated, because in all the Egyptian pyramids that
are known to us the shortest diameter of the base is far in
excess of the height.

It was the desire for such ornament that made them convert their pyramids into gigantic pedestals for statues. According to all the analogies afforded by later ages, these statues must have been those of the princes who built the pyramids in question. We have no reason to suppose that any of the kings of the first six dynasties erected any colossal figures like those which were set up in such numbers by the Theban dynasties; with the single exception of the Sphinx, none of the statues left to us by the ancient empire greatly exceed the natural size. But it is evident that such figures as would be fit to crown the pyramids of Cheops and Chephren would have to be of extravagant size even if no more than their general outlines were to be visible from below. Seen from a point nearly 500 feet below, and in consequence of the inclination of the pyramid faces, at some considerable distance laterally, even a statue fifty feet high, like the two colossi of Amenophis III. on the plain of Thebes, would appear small enough to a spectator. Its artistic results would be very slender, and yet its erection would require prodigious mechanical efforts. It would have required all the multitudes of labourers, the patience, and the time, which the Egyptians alone dared to expend upon their monuments. But perhaps it may be said that these colossi were statues built-up of comparatively small stones. To this we must answer that every colossus as yet discovered in Egypt is a monolith. A statue, of whatever size, made in different pieces would form an exception to the whole practice of Egyptian sculpture as we know it. Until such works are proved to exist we decline to believe in them.

The problem was a much simpler one in the cases of the pyramids in Lake Mœris. They were not nearly so lofty. According to Herodotus they were about 309 feet high, doubtless including their statues. Situated as they were in the middle of the lake, Herodotus could not himself have measured them, and his statement that they sank as far below the level of the water as they rose above it is an obvious exaggeration. When the bed of the lake was formed, two masses of rock were no doubt reserved, as in the cases of the other pyramids, to form the core of the projected edifices, and therefore it is likely enough that the lowest courses of the constructions themselves dipped but little below the surface of the lake.[215] In his amazement at the scale upon which the Egyptian buildings were conceived, Herodotus has too often attributed excessive dimensions to them; thus he says that the height of the Great Pyramid was eight plethra, or about 820 feet, nearly 340 feet in excess of the truth. It is therefore probable that the figures which he gives for the lake pyramids are also exaggerated. These pyramids were, on account of their comparatively modest dimensions, much better adapted to the ideas of the Ousourtesens and Amenemhats than the gigantic piles of Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus.

[215] If the passage in which Herodotus makes the statement here
referred to be taken in connection with the remarks of Diodorus,
a probable explanation of the old historian's assertion may be
arrived at. Diodorus says that the king ὀρύττων τάυτην (λίμνην
sub.) κατέλιπεν ἐν μέσῃ τόπον, ἐν ᾧ τάφον ᾠκοδόμησε καὶ δύο
πυραμίδας, τὴν μὲν ἑαυτοῦ, τὴν δὲ τῆς γυναικός, σταδιαίας τὸ
ὕψος. By this it would appear that, in excavating the bed, or a
part of the bed, of the famous lake, a mass of earth was left in
order to bear future witness to the depth of the excavation and
the general magnitude of the work. This mass would probably be
reveted with stone, and, in order that even when surrounded and
almost hidden by water, its significance should not be lost, the
pyramids raised upon it were made exactly equal to it in
height.--ED.

Finally there is not a text to be found, outside the pages of Herodotus, which mentions pyramids surmounted by statues, and upon none of those monuments which in one way or another bear representations of the pyramids are they shown in any other way than with pointed summits. Thus do we find them in the papyri, upon those steles of the Memphite necropolis which commemorate the priests devoted to their service, and in those tombs at Memphis, Abydos, and Thebes where the pyramid, placed upon rectangular figures of various heights, is used as a terminal element. Neither in the small number of pyramids which have come down to us comparatively intact, nor in those which are represented in reliefs, is there the smallest sign of a truncated summit or of any platform which could by any possibility have borne a statue.

We may say the same of those small pyramidions which have been found in such great numbers in tombs and which fill our museums. It is well known that these are votive offerings in connection with the worship of the sun. "The principal figure," says M. de Rougé, "is generally shown in a posture of adoration, with his face turned to the sun. On his left hand is the invocation to the rising, and on his right that to the setting sun. These arrangements are modified in various ways, but they are always upon the same genera lines as the orientation of the tombs themselves."[216] These minute pyramids also end in a point whether they be of basalt, granite, or calcareous stone, and it is natural that we should look upon them as the faithful reproductions upon a small scale of those great funerary monuments which furnished a type, consecrated by the most venerable of the national traditions, of that structure facing the four cardinal points which we may call the normal Egyptian tomb.

[216] _Notice sommaire des Monuments Égyptiens exposés dans les
Galeries du Louvre_ (4th edition, 1865, p. 56).

We may believe, then, that the pyramid of the ancient empire terminated in a pyramidion. This apex once fixed in place, the workmen charged with the final completion of the edifice worked downwards from one course to another, covering the immense steps which each face displayed five or six thousand years ago and now displays again, with the final casing which protected them for so many centuries. Even Herodotus saw that this must have been the method of completion.[217] Any other way of proceeding would have been too dangerous after the slope of the sides had been made smooth and continuous by the completion of the casing of polished granite. Workmen could only have kept their footing upon such a surface, with its 51 or 52 degrees of elevation, by means of a complicated arrangement of ropes and ladders. And again, points of resistance could not have been obtained for the elevation of the materials to ever increasing heights without cutting or leaving holes in the casing, which would afterwards have to be filled up. These difficulties would have unnecessarily complicated an operation which was a simple matter when begun from the top. The masons could then make use of the steps for their own locomotion, and when the stones were too large to be lifted from hand to hand, nothing could be easier than to fix windlasses by which the largest blocks could be raised with facility.

[217] Ἐξεποιήθη δ' ὦν τὰ ἀνώτατα αὐτῆς πρῶτα, μετὰ δὲ τὰ ἑπόμενα
τούτων ἐξεποίευν ... (ii. 125).

As the workmen approached the base they left above them an ever increasing extent of polished surface, sloping at such an angle that no foot could rest upon it, and forming the only safeguard against the degradation of the pyramid by removing its copestone or its violation by breaking into the passages which led to the mummy-chamber. The casing gave to the pyramid those continuous lines which were necessary to make its beauty complete, and, if the materials employed were varied in the way suggested, it furnished colour effects which had their beauty also. But, above all, it was a protection, a defensive armour. So long as the pyramid preserved its cuirass intact, it was difficult for those who meditated violence to know where to begin their attack. But this obstacle once pierced it was comparatively easy to learn all the secrets of the building. The inner mass was much less carefully built than the casing; the joints were comparatively open, and the stones were soft and easily cut. Hence we see that some pyramids, especially those which were built of bricks, have been reduced by the action of time into heaps of _débris_, in which the pyramidal form is hardly to be recognised.

Philo, who seems to be so well informed, tells us with what extreme care the casing was put in place. "The whole work," he says, "is so well adjusted, and so thoroughly polished, that the whole envelope seems but one block of stone."[218] The pyramid of Cheops has been entirely despoiled of its outer covering, and it is to that of Mycerinus that we must now turn if we wish to have some idea of the care with which the work was done. The lower part of this pyramid is still covered with long blocks of the finest granite, fixed and polished in the most perfect manner. At the foot of the Great Pyramid several blocks have been found which seem to have formed part of the casing of that edifice.[219] They are trapezoidal in form, and they show, as Letronne[220] long ago remarked, that the casing stones were placed one upon another, and adjusted by their external faces. They were not, as was at first supposed, sunk into the upper face of the course below by mortices which would correspond to the trench in the living rock in which the first course was fixed. As to whether the external faces of these blocks were dressed to the required angle before they left the quarry, or whether the work were done after they were in place we cannot say with any certainty, but it is most likely that the methods of proceeding changed with the progress of time and the succession of architects. In such a matter we should find, if we entered into details, diversity similar to that which we have already shown to have characterized the forms of the pyramids, their internal arrangements, and the materials of which they were composed.

[218] Σύναρμον δὲ καὶ κατεξεσμένον τὸ πᾶν ἔργον, ὥστε δοκεῖν
ὅλου τοῦ κατασκευάσματος μίαν εἶναι πέτρας συμφυίαν, p. 2,259, A.
So, too, the elder Pliny, though with rather less precision:
"Est autem saxo naturali elaborata et lubrica" (_Nat. Hist._
xxxvi. 12).

[219] According to Jomard, the casing stones of the Great
Pyramid were "a compact grey limestone, harder and more
homogeneous than those of the body of the building"
(_Description de l'Égypte_, t. v. p. 640); but according to
Philo, this casing was formed, as we have already said, of
various materials, so we need feel no surprise if blocks of
granite or other rock are shown to have formed part of it.

[220] _Journal des Savants_, August, 1841.

Thus some triangular prisms of granite have been found at the foot of the pyramid of Chephren, which seem to have formed part of its lower casing.[221] Such a section seems, upon paper, the simplest that could be adopted for the filling in of the angle between two of the steps, but it is far inferior in solidity to the trapezoidal section. The prisms had no alliance one with another; they had to depend for their security entirely upon their adherence to the faces of the graded core, so that they could easily be carried off, or become dislocated from natural causes. This system, unlike the first described, did not give a homogeneous envelope with a thickness of its own, and partly independent of the monument which it protected.[222]

[221] BÆDEKER, _Egypt_, part i. p. 338 (ed. of 1878). Herodotus
(ii. 127) says that the first course of the Great Pyramid was
built of a parti-coloured Ethiopian stone (ὑποδείμας τὸν πρῶτον
δόμον λίθου Αἰθιοπικοῦ ποικίλου). By Ethiopian stone we must
understand, as several illustrations prove, the granite of
Syene. The Greek historian seems to have thought that the whole
of the first course, throughout the thickness of the pyramid,
was of this stone. His mistake was a natural one. In his time
the pyramid was in a good state of preservation, and he never
thought of asking whether or no the core was of the same
material as the outer case.

[222] On the other hand, these awkwardly shaped prisms offered
less inducement to those who looked upon the pyramids as open
quarries than the easily squared blocks of Cheops, while their
position in the angles of the internal masonry enabled them to
keep their places independently of the lower courses of the
casing.--ED.

The casing of the Second Pyramid, moreover, does not seem to have been carried out on the same principle from top to bottom. The upper part, which still remains in place, is composed of a hard cement formed of chalk, gypsum, and pieces of burnt brick. They may have wished to obtain the parti-coloured effect of which Philo speaks, by making simultaneous use of granite and concrete, and it is quite possible that yet other materials entered into the composition of the casing.[223]

[223] The determination to use a concrete such as that described
affords a good reason for the prismatic shape of the granite
blocks used in the lower courses. It would evidently be easy
enough to cover the pyramid with a coat of cement--working
downwards--if its surface did not greatly overpass the salient
angles of the steps, while the difficulty would be enormously
increased if the coat were to have a considerable thickness of
its own independently of the pyramid, like the casing shown in
Fig. 155.--ED.

In other pyramids we find different combinations again. In the double-sloped erection at Dashour, the courses of casing stones are vertical instead of horizontal,[224] while a brick pyramid--the most northern--in the same locality, was covered with slabs of limestone, fixed, no doubt, with mortar.

[224] _Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités_, vol. v. p. 7.

Sometimes we find the revetment in a state of semi-completion; the blocks in place, and cut to the proper angle, but without their final polish. Such is the case with the Second Pyramid, upon which blocks of granite are to be found which are still rough in face. It would seem that the patience required for the minute completion of such a terribly long and tedious piece of work was not forthcoming. But we ought in fact to be surprised, not so much at the unfinished state of a pyramid here and there, but rather that they should ever have been completed.

The variety which is so conspicuous in the architectural construction of the pyramids is also to be found in their epigraphy. The first explorers of the Pyramids of Gizeh were surprised at the absence of all inscriptions beyond the masons' marks; the silence of those enormous structures seemed amazing; but soon Colonel Vyse discovered in the pyramid of Mycerinus the sarcophagus of that king, and the mummy case, now in the British Museum, which bears an inscription of some length. Recent discoveries, too, of which full details are yet wanting, prove that some of the pyramids contained long texts, which contain the names of kings and other information which is of great importance to the historian of the Egyptian religion. In 1879 and 1880, Mariette caused three pyramids at Sakkarah to be opened, which until then had remained unexplored. One of them was silent and empty, but in the others the inscriptions and sarcophagi of two kings of the sixth dynasty, Papi and his son Merenzi, were found. Fragments of a Ritual of the Dead were recognized among them. Pleasure at this discovery, the last which he was destined to make in the soil of Egypt, brightened the last days of Mariette.[225]

[225] G. CHARMES, in the _Journal des Débats_, February 8,
1881.

In March 1881, M. Maspero, the successor of M. Mariette as director of the excavations, opened a pyramid belonging to a different group, which turned out to be the tomb of Ounas, the last Pharaoh of the fifth dynasty. In this pyramid, portcullis stones similar to those which have already been figured were found. When these obstacles were passed "the continuation of the passage was found, the first part of polished granite, the second of the close-grained limestone of Tourah. The side walls are covered with fine hieroglyphs painted green, the roof sprinkled with stars of the same hue. The passage finally opens into a chamber half filled with débris, upon the walls of which the inscription is continued.... The mummy-chamber, like that which precedes it, is covered with hieroglyphs, with the exception of the wall opposite to the entrance. This wall is of the finest alabaster, and is effectively decorated with painted ornaments. The sarcophagus is of black basalt, without inscription.... The text of the inscription which covers the walls is almost identical with that in the tomb of Papi, but it has the advantage of being complete. M. Maspero, whom Mariette had previously entrusted with taking squeezes from the inscription in the tomb of Papi, recognised certain formulæ and phrases which had already struck him in another place.... These texts make up a composition analogous to one which covers the walls of certain little known Theban tombs. Without presenting any very considerable difficulties, they demand careful examination from those who would comprehend their meaning.