A. M. 2433. A. C. 1571; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3763. A. C. 1648. EXOD. CH. i–xiii. take notice here in particular, that A. M. 2084, when | having expelled the ancient inhabitants, settled himself Abraham and his nephew Lot, went down into Egypt, in Bootia, and built Thebes. Tegar Amachus was then upon the throne; that A. M. Danaus was another considerable person, who, about 2260, when Joseph was born, Biyris was king; and when he this time, left Egypt and came into Greece. He was was sold into Egypt, about seventeen years after, Saophis originally descended from a Grecian ancestor, and being had succeeded; that this Saophis was the prince whose now at Argos, when the crown was vacant, he stood candreams he expounded, and by whom he was promoted to didate for it against Galenor, the son of Sthenelus, and, great honour in the kingdom; that he died, however, by the superstition of the people who were his electors, before his dreams were accomplished, for it was A. M. carried it. But of all the refugees who quitted Egypt 2298, that the first year of the famine began, when Sen- much about this time, Belus, the son of Neptune, seems saophis, who was probably his son, and held Joseph in to be the most famous. He, with some Egyptian priests, equal favour, swayed the sceptre; that this was the prince went to Babylon, and there obtained leave to settle, and to whom Jacob and his sons, upon their coming down cultivate their studies in the same manner, and with the into Egypt, in the third year of the famine, were pre-same encouragement that had been granted them in their sented, and with whom Israel had the conversation above own country. mentioned; that A. M. 2369, when Joseph died, Masthis was king, by whom, and some of his successors, the Israelites were well treated, in remembrance of the services he had done the public, until there happened a revolution in the government, which some choose to place about this time; that A. M. 2427, the Israelites began to be oppressed, and severely treated by Ramesses Miamun, in whose reign Moses was born, slew the Egyptian, and fled into Midian; that A. M. 2493, Amenophis succeeded his father in his kingdom and in his cruelty to the Israelites; but that being compelled at last, by the mighty hand of God, to let them go, he, and all his army, in endeavouring to retake them, were A. M. 2513, swallowed up in the Red Sea. The chief aim of the ancient astronomers seems to have been, to observe the times of the rising and setting of the stars; and the first and most proper places that they could think of for that purpose were very large and open plains, where they could have an extensive view of the horizon, without interruption; and such plains as these were the observatories for many generations. But the Egyptians had, for above three hundred years before the time of this Belus, invented a method to improve their views by the building of pyramids, from the top of which they might take a prospect with greater advantage; and therefore it is no improbable conjecture, that Belus taught the Babylonians the use of such structures, and might possibly project for them that lofty tower which was afterwards called by his name. Salatis, and his successors, not only oppressed the Israelites, as we said before, but by the violence of their For this tower seems to have been an improvement of conquests, so terrified the ancient inhabitants of the land, the Egyptian pyramids. It was raised to a much greater that many persons of the first figure thought it better to height; had a more commodious space at top, more leave their native country, than to endeavour to sit down devoured by a serpent, which when Cadmus had killed, and sown under such calamities as they saw were coming upon its teeth in the ground, there sprang up from them a number them. Cecrops, about this time, departed from Egypt; armed men, who, as soon as they appeared above ground, fell a and after some years' travel in other places came at fighting one another, and were all killed except five, who, surviving length to Greece, and lived in Attica, where he was the conflict, went with Cadmus, and helped him to build Thebes, kindly received by Actæus, the king of the country;jecture of a learned author, is no more than this,-That when And the mythologic sense of all this story, according to the conmarried his daughter, and upon his demise succeeded to Cadmus came into Boeotia, and had conquered the inhabitants of his throne; and thereupon he taught the people, who it, it might be recorded of him in the Phoenician or Hebrew lanwere vagrant before, the use of settled habitations; re- guage, which anciently was the same, that he Nashah Chail Chastrained all licentious lusts among them; obliged each mesh Anoshim, Noshekim be Shenei Nachash; but now there being several ambiguities in these words, where the vowels were man to marry one wife; and, in short, gave wise rules not originally written, (Chamesh, for instance, may signify five, for the conduct of their lives, and the exercise of all as well as warlike; Shenei, teeth, as spears; and Nachash a sercivil and religious offices. About thirty years after the pent, as well as brass,) a fabulous translator might say, "he death of Cecrops, Cadmus a came, either directly from raised a force of five men, armed with the teeth of a serpent;" whereas the words should be rendered, "he raised a warlike force Egypt, as some think, or rather from Phoenicia, as others of men armed with spears of brass;" and it is no wonder that the will have it, and with several people that followed his for- Greeks, who were so fond of disguising all their ancient accounts tune, of which some authors gives us a strange account, with fable and allegory, should give the history of Cadmus this turn, when the words, in which his actions are recorded, give a The true account of Cadmus is,-That his father, whose them so fair an opportunity.-Shuckford's Connection, vol. name is unknown, was an Egyptian, who left Egypt about the 2. b. 8. time that Cecrops came from thence, and obtained a kingdom in Phoenicia, as Cecrops did in Attica; and that his two sons Phonix and Cadmus, were born after his settlement in that country: and hence it came to pass that Cadmus, having had an Egyptian father, was brought up in the religion, and was well acquainted with the history of that country, which occasioned several writers of his life to account him an Egyptian; and at the same time being born and educated in Phoenicia, he became master of the language and letters of the country, and had likewise a Phoenician name, which has induced several others that have wrote of him, to conclude, with good reason, that he was a native of that country,-Shuckford's Connection, vol. 2. b. 8. 6 The account which Ovid, in his Metamorphosis, (b. 3. fab. 1 gives us of this matter is,-That Cadmus' followers were all c The dispute between Danaus and Galenor, concerning their titles to the crown, was argued, on both sides, for a whole day: and when Galenor was thought to have offered as weighty and strong arguments for his pretensions, as Danaus could for his, the next day was appointed for the further hearing and determining their claims, when an accident put an end to the dispute. For not far from the place where the people were assembled, there happened a fight between a wolf and a bull, wherein the wolf got the better. This was thought a thing not a little ominous; and therefore, as the wolf was a creature they were less acquainted with than the bull, they thought it was the will of the gods, declared by the event of this accidental combat, that he who was the stranger should rule over them.-Shuckford's Connection, vol. 2. b. S. A. M. 2433. A. C. 1571; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3763. A. C. 1648. EXOD. CH. i–xiii. seful and large apartments within; and yet was a less bulky building, and raised upon a narrower foundation: so that the contriver of this seems to have been well acquainted with the Egyptian pyramid and its defects, and to have herein designed a structure much more excellent, which can be ascribed to none, with so great a show of probability, as to the Belus we are now speaking of. 16 That the Egyptians, in the early ages of the world, were very famous for wisdom and learning, is evident from many ancient writers, as well as the testimony of the Scriptures themselves; for when, among other things, to the honour of Moses, it is said, that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians;' and to magnify the knowledge of Solomon, we are told, that he excelled all the wisdom of Egypt;' we cannot but infer, that this nation, above all others, had gained a reputation even for the invention of several useful sciences. The tillage of the ground made the study of astronomy absolutely necessary, in order to their knowing, from the lights of heaven, the times and seasons for the several parts of agriculture; and the nature of their country, overflowed every year by the Nile, and every year losing its land marks, made it of continual use to them to study geometry; and, as a necessary handmaid to that, to make themselves expert in arithmetic. It is not to be supposed, however, that hitherto they had carried the study either of astronomy or geography to any great height. They observed the places of the stars, and the periodical motions of the planets. They kept registers of their observations for a long course of years, and took account of the weather and seasons that followed their several observations. They recorded the times of sowing and reaping this or that grain, and, by their long experience, became able prognosticators of the weather and the seasons, and excellent directors for the tillage of the ground: and in like manner, by their knowledge in geometry, they contrived very proper methods of marking out, and describing the several parts of their country, and were very careful, no doubt, in making draughts of the flow and ebb of their river Nile every year; but when it is considered, that the Egyptians did not as yet apprehend that the year consisted of more than 360 days, and that a both Thales and Pythagoras, many ages after these times, made great improvements in geometry beyond what they had learned in Egypt; that Thales was the first who ventured to foretell an eclipse; and Eudoxus and Ptolemy to reduce the heavenly motions into tables; we can hardly think, that either astronomy or geometry were as yet carried to any great perfection. a Thales, who travelled into Egypt for the sake of their learning, after his return home, sacrificed an ox to the gods for joy that he had hit on the method of inscribing a rectangled triangle within a circle; and Pythagoras no less than a whole hecatomb, for his finding out the proportion of the longest side of a right-angled triangle to the other two, which is no more than a common proposition of the first book of Euclid; and yet these two philosophers could not have the invention of these things from the Egyptians, unless we suppose, either that the Egyptians did not teach them all that they knew, or that the disciples concealed the thing, and vainly arrogated to themselves what, in strict truth, they had borrowed from their masters.Diog. Laert. in Pythag. et Thalete. The science of physic is generally imputed to Esculapius; which name was given to Sethorthrus, a king of Memphis, who stands second in the third dynasty of Manetho, for his great skill in that art; and though no great credit is to be given to their boasted proficiency in chemistry, yet it is reasonable to believe, from their constant practice of dissections, that they could not well fail of a competent knowledge in anatomy. b The science, however, for which they were most famous, and for which indeed they valued themselves most, was magic, though the whole structure of it had no other foundation than a superstitious belief of the great influence which heavenly bodies are supposed to have upon this inferior world. To this purpose they imagined, that the seven planets governed the seven days of the week; and pretended, that, by a long observation of the motion of the celestial bodies, they had obtained the art of foreseeing future events. They believed, in short, that the sun, moon, stars, and ele ments, were endued with intelligence, and appointed by the supreme Deity to govern the world; and though they acknowledged that God might, upon extraordinary occasions, work miracles, reveal his will by audible voices, visions, dreams, prophecies, &c., yet they imagined also, that, generally speaking, prodigies were caused, oracles given, and visions occasioned in a natural way, by the observation, or influence of the courses of the heavenly bodies, or by the operations of the powers of nature; and therefore they conceived, that their learned professors could work miracles, obtain omens, and interpret dreams, merely by their skill in natural knowledge, which, though strange and unaccountable to the vulgar, was very obvious to persons of science and philosophy. In later ages indeed, and when the Egyptians began to worship their departed princes, a notion prevailed that spirits or demons, of a nature superior to men, were employed in the government of the world, and had their several provinces appointed them by God. To this honour they imagined that the souls of departed heroes and extraordinary persons were admitted; and for this reason they supposed, that they were not only endowed with powers far exceeding those of mortal men, but had likewise miracles, visions, oracles, and omens, submitted to their ministry and direction; and consequently, in all their demands or exigencies of this kind, made them the objects of their incantations and prayers. These were some of the chief arts and sciences (for Some modern assertors of the great antiquity of chemistry, tell us of a medicine used only by the Egyptian priests, and kept secret, even from most of the natives, that is of efficacy almost to do any thing but restore the dead to life again. This, say they, was the grand elixir, or chemical preparation made with the philosopher's stone, the invention of Hermes, by the help of which the Egyptian kings were enabled to build the pyramids, with the treasures which their furnaces afforded them; but these fables are sufficiently confuted by the profound silence of all antiquity in this matter. They are indeed built upon suspicious authorities, uncertain conjectures, and allegorical interpretations of the fabulous stories of the Greeks, which these men will have to be chemical secrets in disguise; insomuch that they fancy that the golden fleece, which Jason fetched from Colchis, was only a receipt to make the philosopher's stone; and that Medea restored Eson's father to his youth again, by the grand elixir.-Universal History, b. 1. c. 3; and Wotton's Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, c. 9. A. M. 2433 A. C. 157!; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3763. A. C. 1648. EXOD. CH. i–xiii. their architecture, painting, sculpture, and mechanics of all kinds, for which they were so justly famous, we have but just room to mention) that flourished at this time among the Egyptians; and we come now to observe a little by what means it was that this learning of theirs came to be preserved and transmitted to posterity. The Egyptian language was certainly one of the most ancient in the world; for considering its structure and constitution, wherein it widely differs from all oriental and European languages, it must needs be an original, or mother tongue, formed at the confusion of Babel. Their most ancient way of writing was by hieroglyphical figures of various animals, and plants, the parts of human bodies, and mechanical instruments; for in these things did the hieroglyphics both of the Ethiopians and Egyptians, whereof Hermes is said to have been the inventor, most certainly consist: but, besides these, they made use likewise of literal characters, whereof they had two kinds, calling the one the sacred letters, in which their public registers, and all matters of an higher nature were written; and the other the vulgar, which every one a For the Copts neither decline their nouns nor conjugate their verbs, not even those of foreign extract, otherwise than by prefixing particles, sometimes of one or more syllables, and sometimes of a single letter, which denote case, gender, number, and person, several of which are often joined together in one word, and the primitive word usually placed last: so that the difficulty of this language consists in the incredible combination of the words and particles, in the change of the vowels in transposing the middle part of the word, and adding superfluous letters, which it requires no small labour and skill to distinguish. Wilkin's Dissert. de Lingua Coptica, p. 120. 5 Of these there were three kinds among the Egyptians, which seem to have more or less art in them, according to the period of their invention. The 1st was, to make the principal circumstance of the subject stand for the whole. Thus, when they would describe a battle, or two armies in array, they painted two hands, one holding a shield, and the other a bow: when a tumult, or popular insurrection-an armed man casting arrows, &c.: when a siege a scaling ladder. The 2d was, to put the instrument of the thing, whether real or metaphorical, for the thing itself. Thus an eye, eminently placed, was designed to represent God's omniscience; an eye and sceptre-a monarch: and a ship and pilot-the governor of the universe. The 3d was, to make one thing represent another, where there was perceived any quaint analogy, or similitude between the representative and the thing properly intended. Thus, the universe was designed by a serpent in a circle, whose variegated spots signified the stars; and the rising of the sun by the two eyes of a crocodile, because they seem to emerge from his head; a tyrannical king was represented by an eagle; and a cruel or improvident parent, by a hawk. Thus, from the nature of the things themselves, or their resemblance to something else, from the principal circumstance of any action, or the chief instrument employed in doing it, hierogly phics at first seem to have been invented. But whether their invention was prior to that of letters, has been matter of some debate among the learned; though one can hardly forbear thinking, that a picture character, as hieroglyphics are, would scarce be intelligible unless men could be supposed to delineate the forms and pictures of things more accurately than can well be imagined: but even if that were granted, they would at best have been but a very imperfect character, since they could only hit off the idea of things visible, and must therefore be defective in a multitude of signs to express the full meaning of a man's mind: for which reason some have supposed, that even the Egyp tians themselves were wont to intermingle letters with hieroglyphics, to fill up and connect sentences, and to express actions more fully than pictures were found to do. These hieroglyphics were at first in common use, but in process of time were appropriated to sacred and religious matters, and wrote and understood by the priests only.-Warburton's Divine Legation, b. 4. and Shuckford's Connection, b. 8. made use of in their common business. But both these characters are at present lost, unless they remain in some old inscriptions, that are unintelligible, and cannot be deciphered. Not only the Egyptians, but several other nations, used to preserve the memory of things by inscriptions on pillars. The columns of Hermes, upon which he is said to have wrote all his learning, are mentioned by several writers of good note; and from them both the Grecian philosophers and Egyptian historians are supposed to have taken many valuable hints: but to these inscriptions succeeded the sacred books, which contained not only what related to the worship of the gods, and the laws of the kingdom, but historical collections likewise, yea, and all kinds of miscellaneous and philosophical matters of any moment, which the priests or sacred scribes were obliged to insert in these public registers, in order to be transmitted to posterity. A nation so renowned for their knowledge and learning, and who had such certain methods of preserving the traditions of their ancestors, might have kept the original religion, one would think, with more than ordinary purity; at least would not have run into the same excess of idolatry and polytheism, that other people at this time were so strangely addicted to: and yet, if we look a little into their history, we shall soon find more corruption of this kind among them than in any other nation. Some of their wiser sort, indeed, are said to have acknowledged one supreme God, the Maker and Ruler of the world, whom they sometimes called by the name of Osiris, or Serapis; sometimes by that of Isis; and at other times by that of Neith, on whose temple at Sais was the following remarkable inscription—“ I am all that has been, is, or shall be, and my veil hath no mortal yet uncovered." But though some parts of Egypt might at first be free from all idolatrous worship; yet when the humour once began to spread, it soon overran the whole kingdom. The heavenly luminaries were the first objects of profane adoration; and in Egypt, the sun and the moon went under the denomination of Osiris and Isis. After these, the elements, and other parts of nature, such as Vulcan, meaning thereby the fire; Ceres, the earth; Oceanus, the water; and Minerva, the air, were admitted into the number of their deities. But, besides the celestial, they had terrestrial gods likewise; for most of their princes who had merited well of the people, were after their death canonized and invocated under the names of Sol, Saturnus, Rhea, Jupiter, Juno, Vulcanus, Vesta, and Mercurius; which, according to Diodorus, were the eight first hero gods which the Egyptians worshipped. Nay, and what is scarcely credible, they came at last to give divine honours to several animals, and that with so great a variety and disagreement among themselves, that, except some of the principal deities which were honoured all the kingdom over, there was almost in every town or village a different god beld in veneration in one place, and detested in the next, which often occasioned bitter animosities, and sometimes inveterate quarrels, and dangerous wars. was not Now the reason why the Egyptians adopted such a variety of animals into the number of their gods, so much from any consideration of their subserviency human life, as from a certain similitude they perceived to A. M. 2433. A. C. 1571; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3763. A. C. 1648. EXOD. CH. î – xiii. between them and the deity to whom they were devoted. | or no, the person was to die without mercy, and someThus the hawk was made sacred to Osiris, as an emblem of times without any formal trial or process. The extrathe supreme Deity, by reason of its piercing sight and swift-vagant worship which they paid to some of these animal ness; the crocodile and river-horse were sacred to Typho, deities, (as to the bull at Memphis, the goat at Mendes, the evil principle; Anubis was said to be the dogstar, and the lion at Leontapolis, e the crocodile at the lake the dog was sacred to him; the serpent or dragon was con- Moeris ; and to many others at different places,) exceeds secrated to Nephthe; and other suitable animals to their all belief; for they were kept in consecrated enclosures, respective gods: nor is the conjecture a of our learned and well attended on by men of high rank, who at great countryman' at all to be rejected, namely, That the use of expense provided victuals for them, which consisted of the hieroglyphical figures of animals, might introduce this the greatest dainties. Nor was this all; for these creastrange worship which the Egyptians in process of time tures were washed in hot baths, and anointed with the came to pay them. For as those figures were made choice most precious ointments, and perfumed with the most of according to the respective properties of each animal, odoriferous scents. They lay on the richest carpets, and to express the qualities and dignities of the persons they other costly furniture; and, that they might want nothing represented, which were generally their gods, princes, to make their lives as happy as possible, they had the and great men, the people became gradually accustomed most beautiful females of their several kinds, to which to these figures which they used to place in their temples they gave the name of concubines, provided for them. as the images of their deities; and from hence it is not absurd to imagine, that they came at length to pay a superstitious veneration to the living animals themselves. But whatever might be the reason or inducements to this kind of idolatry, nothing was so remarkable in the Egyptian religion, as the preposterous worship which that nation paid to animals, such as the cat, the dog, the ibis, the wolf, the crocodile, and several others which they had in high veneration, not when they were alive only, but even after they were dead. Whilst they were living, they had lands set apart for the maintenance of each kind, and both men and women were employed in feeding and attending them. The children succeeded their parents in the office, which was so far from being declined, or thought despicable among the Egyptians, that they gloried in it as an high honour; and wearing certain badges to distinguish them at a distance, were saluted by bending the knee, and other demonstrations of respect. If any person killed any of these sacred animals designedly, he was punished with immediate death; if involuntarily, his punishment was deferred to the discretion of the priests; but if the creature slain was a cat, a hawk, or an ibis, whether the thing was done with design 'Sir John Marsham, Can. Chron. p. 38. When any of these animals died, the Egyptians lamented them as if they had been their dearest children, and frequently laid out more than they were worth in their burials. If a cat died in any house, all the family shaved their eyebrows; and if a dog, their whole body; and thus, putting themselves in mourning, they wrapped the dead body up in fine linen, and carried it to be embalmed; where, being anointed with oil of cedar and other aromatic preparations to keep it from putrefaction, it was buried with great solemnity in a sacred coffin. So true is that reflection of the apostle, and with regard to these Egyptians certainly it was made, that though they knew God, yet they glorified him not as God; but changed the glory of God into the image of four-footed beasts, and his truth into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.' Before we leave Egypt, the sacred historian seems to remind us to take a view of some of the monumental works that are found there, and which, having been built within the compass of the period we are now upon, may well be presumed to be the product of some of the burdens and hard labour which the Egyptian kings laid upon the Israelites. d The pyramids were justly reckoned one of the won2 Rom. i. 21, 23, 25. e The crocodile seems to be the last animal to which mankind a This conjecture the learned author of the Divine Legation of Moses abundantly confirms; for having enumerated the several b Herodotus gives us an instance of this in a Roman, who hapthings that might give occasion to brute-worship among the Egyp-pening accidentally to kill a cat, the mob immediately gathered tians, such as, 1. A grateful sense of the benefits received from about the house where he was, and could neither by the entreaanimals. 2. The considering these animals as symbols of the divine ties of some principal men sent by the king, nor by the fear of nature. 3. The notion of God's pervading, and being present in the Romans, with whom they were then negotiating a peace, be ail things. 4. The Egyptian use of asterisms, or denoting constel-prevailed on to spare his life. And, what may seem still more lations by the name of animals. 5. The doctrine of metempsy- incredible, it is reported that at a time when there was a famine chosis, or human souls transmigrating into the bodies of animals. in Egypt, which drove the inhabitants to such extremity, that And, 6. The invention of some Egyptian king or other, for his they were forced to feed on one another, there was no one person private ends of policy. All these causes or occasions, I say, our accused of having tasted of any of these sacred animals.-Uniauthor having examined and refuted, carries the point somewhat versal History, b. 1. c. 3. farther than the learned Marsham, and concludes, that the true original of brute-worship among the Egyptians, was their use of symbolical writing; for which he assigns a further reason, namely, That when the use of writing by letters, as much more commodious than the other, came generally to prevail, the priests still continued the hieroglyphic characters in their works of science and religion; and as the other grew abstruse and obsolete to the vulgar, to make them more sacred, the priests in a short time were the only persons that could read them, and then to make them more sacred and mysterious, gave it out, that the induce a deluded people to worship the very creatures, as having gods themselves were the inventors of them, which might easily something extraordinary in them, which their gods had thought proper to delineate.-B. 4. could be tempted to pay divine adoration; but that this might be d It is a common opinion, that the word pyramid is derived from the Greek pyr or pur, fire; and that these structures were A. M. 2433. A. C. 1571; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3763. A. C. 1648. EXOD, CH. i-xiii. ders of the world, and there is more of them now remaining, than of all the other six, which have been so much celebrated. Not far from the place where Memphis once stood, there are three of these structures at no great distance from each other; two of which are shut up, but the third, which is the largest, and stands open for the inspection of travellers, we shall here describe, as a probable specimen of all the rest. a so called from their shape, which ascended from a broad basis, and ended in a point like a flame of fire. Others, whose opinion Vossius seems to approve, say that the name comes from the word pyros, which, in the same language, signifies wheat, because they suppose them to have been the granaries of the ancient Egyptian kings. But a late writer, versed in the Coptic tongue, has given us another etymology from that language, wherein pouro signifies a king, and misi, a race or generation, and the reason why the pyramids had this name given them, was, as he tells us, because they were erected to preserve the memory of the princes, who were their founders, and their families.-Wilkins' Dissert. de Lang. Copt. p. 108. a We shall here give the result of the investigations of modern travellers, regarding the pyramids of Egypt. The three largest are situated at Geez or Djiza, nearly opposite to Grand Cairo, and are named from their supposed founders, Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerines. Their height has been differently represented, and, owing to incorrectness, or different standards of measure, has been stated at all the gradations from about 800 to 500 feet. The following dimensions, however, taken by the French engineers may be given as very nearly accurate: That of Cheops, 448 feet in height, and 728 on each side of the base; Chephren, 398 feet in height, and 655 on each side of the base; and Mycerines, 162 feet in height, and 280 on each side of the base. The pyramid of Cheops, which is the largest, is ascended by an uninterrupted series of steps, diminishing from four to two and a half feet high in approaching the top. The breadth of each step is equal to its height. Upon the top there is a platform thirty-two feet square, consisting of nine large stones, about a ton each, though inferior to some of the other stones, which vary from five to thirty feet long, and from three to four feet high. From this platform Dr Clarke saw to the south the pyramids of Saccara, and on the east of these, smaller monuments of the same kind nearer to the Nile. He remarked also an appearance of ruins which might be traced the whole way from the pyramids of Djiza to those of Saccara, as if the whole had once constituted one great cemetery. The stones upon this platform, as well as most of the others employed in constructing the decreasing ranges from the base upwards, are of soft limestone, of the same nature as the calcareous rock upon which the pyramids stand. The pyramids are built with common mortar externally, but no appearance of mortar is discerned in the more perfect masonry of the interior. It has been calculated, that this pyramid was built 490 years before the first Olympiad, or about 3000 years It was explored by Mr Davidson in 1763; and with more success by Captain Caviglia in 1817. It is situate on a rocky hill, which, in a gentle and easy ascent, rises 100 feet, in the sandy desert of Libya, about a quarter of a mile from the plains of Egypt. Its basis is generally supposed to be an exact square, and every side, according to those that have been as careful as possible in its mensuration, about 693 English feet: so that the whole area of it contains 480,249 square feet, or something more than eleven acres of ground. has steps like that of Cheops. The ranges or steps are six in number, each range being twenty-five feet high and eleven feet wide. The total height of this pyramid is 150 feet. According to Herodotus, the pyramids were formed by distinct courses of stone, which successively diminished in size as the proportions of the edifices required it. Every course was so much within that immediately below it, as to make each front of the pyramid form a sort of stair. This agrees with the descriptions of modern travellers. A very simple machine, according to the same author, placed upon the first course, served to raise the stones destined for the construction of the second. The second being finished a similar machine was fixed upon it, and so on for the rest, one or more of the machines being always left upon each of the courses already laid, to serve successively for raising the stones from step to step. It is pretty certain, that the pyramids had all originally an outward coat either of square flags of marble or of bricks, so that they presented to the eye a perfectly even slope; but much of this has disappeared, through the dilapidation of time and other causes. Many unsatisfactory conjectures have been formed, and theories adopted, with regard to the original design or use for which pyramids were built. The greater number of writers on the subject are of opinion, that they were erected for the tombs of kings and conquerors, to preserve their remains inviolate, and hand down their memory to the latest posterity. Herodotus states, that the Egyptians considered the pyramidal form as emblematical of human life, the broad base on the earth representing the commencement, and the gradation to a point, the termination of our existence. The emblem, if inverted, would bear an equally natural interpretation: yet this is the reason he alleges for pyramids being used for sepulture. That they were erected for astronomical purposes is a fanciful conjecture, although it is certain that they are constructed on scientific principles, and give evidence of some progress in astronomy, for their sides are accurately adapted to the four cardinal points. That they were meant for altars to the gods, their tapering form being in imitation of flame, as the Persians and other nations worshipped fire; or that they were con structed as a permanent memorial of the proper length of the cubit, of which it is said, that all their dimensions contain a certain number of multiples, appear to be conjectures equally strained and fanciful. Still less were they adapted to the purpose of granaries, as some have supposed. That they were originally intended to remedy the disadvantage of the Delta, and particularly Upper Egypt, by attracting the clouds and eliciting a discharge of rain, may be considered as in some measure sanctioned by the enormous sphinx found in their vicinity, and its relation to the fertilizing of Egypt by the waters of the Nile, the sphinx, representing the head and bosom of a woman with the body of a lion, being designed to symbolize the annual inundation, which takes place while the sun passes through the signs of the zodiac, denominated the Virgin and the Lion. But whatever their ori ginal destination was, or whether they ever served any purpose farther than gratifying the vanity of their builders, they now, as has been well remarked, harmonize admirably with a dewless heaven, a sandy waste, a people that have been. There is now a sublimity in their uselessness. Standing on the same earth which has entombed so many thousand generations, pointing to the same sky which heard the cry of the oppressed when they were buildTo the south of these pyramids there are others, which shooting; they no longer belong to Cheops or Sesostris, Pharaohs or Ptofar into the deserts of Libya, and are generally called the pyra- lemies, Mamelukes or Turks, but to the imagination of mankind. mids of Saccara. These erections appear to be more ancient "The humblest pilgrim," says Dr Clarke, “pacing the Libyan than those about Geez. They are less perfect, and some of them sands around them, while he is conscious that he walks in the are formed of unburned bricks. The most ancient bricks of Egypt footsteps of many mighty and renowned men, imagines himself to were only dried by the heat of the sun; and that they might stick be, for an instant, admitted into their illustrious conclave. Persian more closely together, the clay was mixed with chopped straw; satraps, Macedonian heroes, Grecian bards, sages, and historians, and hence the Israelites, while in slavery in Egypt, made use of all of every age, and nation, and religion, have participated, in straw in making bricks. Some of these pyramids are rounded common with him, the same feelings, and have trodden the same at the top, and are like hillocks cased with stone. One of them ground."-ED. ago. The second pyramid, that of Chephren, is thought to have been covered by stucco of gypsum and flint. Belzoni discovered its entrance in the north front, in 1818. Advancing along a narrow passage, 100 feet long, he found the great chamber forty-six feet long by sixteen wide, and twenty-three high, cut out of the solid rock. It contained a granite sarcophagus, half sunk in the floor, with many bones, some of which have proved to be those of the bull. A little to the east of this pyramid is the sphynx, cut out of the same sort of rock upon which the pyramids are built; its height from the knees to the top of the head is thirtyeight feet. |