Chapter IV (4)

How far the grand gallery corresponds with these requirements can be judged from the following description given by Professor Greaves in 1638:--"It is," he says, "a very stately piece of work, and not inferior, either in respect of the curiosity of art, or richness of materials, to the most sumptuous and magnificent buildings," and a little further on he says, "this gallery, or corridor, or whatever else I may call it, is built of white and polished marble (limestone), the which is very evenly cut in spacious squares or tables. Of such materials as is the pavement, such is the roof and such are the side walls that flank it; the coagmentation or knitting of the joints is so close, that they are scarce discernible to a curious eye; and that which adds grace to the whole structure, though it makes the passage the more slippery and difficult, is the acclivity or rising of the ascent. The height of this gallery is 26 feet" (Professor Smyth's careful measurements show the true height to be more nearly 28 feet), "the breadth of 6.870 feet, of which 3.435 feet are to be allowed for the way in the midst, which is set and bounded on both sides with two banks (like benches) of sleek and polished stone; each of these hath 1.717 of a foot in breadth, and as much in depth." These measurements are not strictly exact. Smyth made the breadth of the gallery above the banks or ramps as he calls them, 6 feet 10-1/5 inches; the space between the ramps, 3 feet 6 inches; the ramps nearly about 1 foot 8-1/14 inches broad, and nearly 1 foot 9 inches high, measured transversely, that is at right angles to the ascending floor.

As to arrangements for the convenience of observers in the slippery and difficult floor of this gallery, we find that upon the top of these benches or ramps, near the angle where they meet the wall, "there are little spaces cut in right-angled parallel figures, set on each side opposite one another, _intended no question for some other end than ornament_."

The diversity of width which I have indicated as a desirable feature in a meridional gallery, is a marked feature of the actual gallery. "In the casting and ranging of the marbles" (limestone), "in both the side walls, there is one piece of architecture," says Greaves, "in my judgment very graceful, and that is that all the courses or stones, which are but seven (so great are these stones), do set and flag over one another about three inches; the bottom of the uppermost course overlapping the top of the next, and so in order, the rest as they descend." The faces of these stones are exactly vertical, and as the width of the gallery diminishes upwards by about six inches for each successive course, it follows that the width at the top is about 3-1/2 feet less than the width, 6 feet 10-1/5 inches, at the bottom, or agrees in fact with the width of the space between the benches or ramps. Thus the shadow of the vertical edges of the gallery at solar noon just reached to the edges of the ramps, the shadow of the next lower vertical edges falling three inches from the edges higher up the ramps, those of the next vertical edges six inches from these edges, still higher up, and so forth. The true hour of the sun's southing could thus be most accurately determined by seven sets of observers placed in different parts of the gallery, and near mid-summer, when the range of the shadows would be so far shortened, that a smaller number of observers only could follow the shadows' motions; but in some respects, the observations in this part of the year could be more readily and exactly made than in winter, when the shadows' spaces of various width would range along the entire length of the gallery.

Similar remarks would apply to observations of the moon, which could also be directly observed. The planets and stars of course could only be observed directly.

The grand gallery could be used for the observation of any celestial body southing higher than 26° 18' above the horizon; but not very effectively for objects passing near the zenith. The Pleiades could be well observed. They southed about 63-2/3° above the horizon in the year 2140 B.C. or thereabouts when they were on the equinoctial colure.[46] But if I am right in taking the year 3300 B.C. when Alpha Centauri shone down the smaller ascending passage in southing, the Pleiades were about 58° only above the horizon when southing, and therefore even more favourably observable from the great meridional gallery.

In passing I may note that at this time, about 3300 years before our era, the equinoctial point (that is, the point where the sun passes north of the equator, and the year begins according to the old manner of reckoning) was midway between the horns of the Bull. So that then, and then alone, a poet might truly speak of spring as the time

"Candidus auratis aperit quum cornibus annum
Taurus."

as Virgil incorrectly did (repeating doubtless some old tradition) at a later time. Even Professor Smyth notices the necessity that the pyramid gallery should correspond in some degree with such a date. "For," says he, "there have been traditions for long, whence arising I know not, that the seven overlappings of the grand gallery, so impressively described by Professor Greaves, had something to do with the Pleiades, those proverbially seven stars of the primeval world," only that he considers the pyramid related to _memorial_ not _observing_ astronomy, "of an earlier date than Virgil's." The Pleiades also, it may be remarked, were scarcely regarded in old times as belonging to the constellation of the Bull, but formed a separate asterism.

The upper end of the great gallery lies very near the vertical axis of the pyramid. It is equidistant, in fact, from the north and south edges of the pyramid platform at this level, but lies somewhat to the east of the true centre of this platform. One can recognise a certain convenience in this arrangement, for the actual centre of the platform would be required as a position from whence observation of the whole sky could be made. Observers stationed there would have the cardinal points and the points midway between them defined by the edges and angles of the square platform, which would not be the case if they were displaced from the centre. Stationed as they would be close to the mouth of the gallery, they would hear the time signallings given forth by the observers placed at various parts of the gallery; and no doubt one chief end of the exact time-observations for which the gallery was manifestly constructed, would be to enable the platform observers duly to record the time when various phenomena were noticed in any part of the heavens.

This corresponds well with the statement made by Proclus, that the pyramids of Egypt, which, according to Diodorus Siculus, had been in existence during 3600 years, terminated in a platform upon which the priests made their celestial observations. The last-named historian alleges, also (Biblioth. Hist. Lib. I.), that the Egyptians, who claimed to be the most ancient of men, professed to be acquainted with the situation of the earth, the risings and settings of stars, to have arranged the order of days and months, and pretended to be able to predict future events, with certainty, from their observations of celestial phenomena. I think that it is in this association of astrology with astronomy that we find the explanation of what, after all, remains the great mystery of the pyramid--the fact, namely, that all the passages, ascending, descending, and horizontal, constructed with such extreme care, and at the cost of so much labour, in the interior of the great pyramid, were eventually (perhaps not very long after their construction) to be closed up. I reject utterly the idea that they could have been constructed merely as memorials. Sir E. Beckett, who seems willing to admit this conception, rejects the notion that the builders of the pyramid recorded "standard measures by hiding them with the utmost ingenuity." Is it not equally absurd to imagine that they recorded the date of the great pyramid, by construction, by those most elaborately concealed passages? Why they should have concealed them after constructing them so carefully, may not be clear. For my own part, I regard the theory that the Pyramid of Suphis was built for astrological observations, relating to the life of that monarch only, as affording the most satisfactory explanation yet advanced of the mysterious circumstance that the building was closed up after his death. Supposing the part of the edifice (fifty layers in all), which includes the ascending and descending passages, to have been erected during his lifetime, it may be that some reverential or superstitious feeling caused his successors, or the priesthood, to regard the building as sacred after his death--to be closed up therefore and completed as a perfect pyramid, polished _ad unguem_ from its pointed summit to the lines along which the four faces met the smooth pavement round its base. We might thus explain why each monarch required his own astrological observatory afterwards to become his tomb. Be this as it may, it is certain that the pyramids were constructed for astronomical observations; and it would, I conceive, be utterly unreasonable to imagine that the costly interior fittings and arrangements, "not inferior, in respect of curiosity of art or richness of materials, to the most sumptuous and magnificent buildings," were intended to subserve no other purpose but to be memorials; and that, too, not until, in the course of thousands of years, the whole mass of the pyramid had begun to lose the exactness of its original figure.

R. A. PROCTOR.

FOOTNOTES:

[43] It seems to me not improbable that the level was determined by simply flooding (though to a very small depth only, of course) the entire area to be levelled--not only the pavement level, but higher levels as the pyramid was raised layer by layer. By completing the outside of each layer first, an enclosed space capable of receiving the water would be formed (the flooding being required once only for each layer), and when the level had been taken the water could be allowed to run off by the interior passages to the well which Piazzi Smyth considers to be symbolical of the bottomless pit.

[44] The irregular descending passage long known as the well, which communicates between the ascending passage and the underground chamber, enables us to ascertain how high the rock rises into the pyramid at this particular part of the base. We thus learn that the rock rises in this place, at any rate, thirty or forty feet above the basal plane.

[45] There is a statement perfectly startling in its inaccuracy, in a chapter of Blake's "Astronomical Myths," derived from Mr. Haliburton's researches, asserting that in the year 2170 B.C. the Pleiades were "_exactly at that height that they could be seen in the direction of the Southward-pointing passage of the pyramid_." The italics are not mine. As this passage pointed 33-2/3°, or thereabouts, below (that is south of) the equator, and the Pleiades were then some 3-2/3° north of the equator, the passage certainly did not then point to the Pleiades. Nor has there been any time since the world began when the Pleiades were anywhere near the direction of the southward pointing passage. In fact they have never been more than 20° south of the equator. The statement follows immediately after another to the surprising effect that in the year 2170 B.C. "the Pleiades _really_ commenced the spring by their midnight culmination." The only comment an astronomer can make on this startling assertion is to repeat with emphasis the word italicized by Mr. Haliburton (or Mr. Blake?). The Pleiades being then in conjunction with what is now called the first point of Aries, culminated at noon, not at midnight, at the time of the vernal equinox.

[46] This date is sometimes given earlier, but when account is taken of the proper motion of these stars we get about the date above mentioned. I cannot understand how Dr. Ball, Astronomer Royal for Ireland, has obtained the date 2248 B.C., unless he has taken the proper motion of Alcyone the wrong way. The proper motion of this star during the last 4000 years has been such as to increase the star's distance from the equinoctial colure; and therefore, of course, the actual interval of time since the star was on the colure is less than it would be calculated to be if the proper motion were neglected.

CONSPIRACIES IN RUSSIA UNDER THE REIGNING CZAR.