Volume I Part 20 (2/2)

[Illustration: FIG 147--The Mastabat-el-Faraoun; from Lepsius]

Upon the platform of the Mastabat-el-Faraoun certain blocks are to be found which, fro-stones They seem to hint, therefore, either that the structure was never finished, or that it has lost its for the titles of people buried in the necropolis at Sakkarah, we often come upon those of priests attached to the service of so

148 Who can say asks Mariette, that it is not the Mastabat-el-Faraoun itself?[199]

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

[Illustration: FIG 148--Funerary monument represented in the inscriptions]

M Mariette cites, in support of this conjecture, certain other structures of a sie tole of the second pyramid at Gizeh, and the little ha From these he concludes that the principles of the mastaba and the pyramid were sometimes combined under the ancient eion were not always pyramids, they were soh 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 pyrayptian 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 the 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 Mris 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 pyra to Entefs of the eleventh dynasty; but they are sypt had arrived at its full developeometrical 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, _Denkmaeler_, part i pl 94 RHIND, _Thebes, its Toe dans la Haute-egypte_, vol ii p 80

The pyrainations 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 round which they covered, at the very gates of the capital and upon the boundary between the desert and the cultivated land, all cohten their effect Those nations who caypt could hardly, then, escape from the desire to imitate her pyramids in their own manner We shall find the pyras in Phnicia, Judaea, and elsewhere

But the kingdoypt and the copyist of her civilization, was the chief reproducer of the Egyptian pyras of the ancient empire Napata, Meroe, and other places have pyraypt, 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 whichcall 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 assi the short period when the Ethiopian ypt, Ethiopia remained the clumsy pupil and iive to her royal pyrareat structures of Meenerally so narrow and steep in slope that their whole character was different froreater 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 pyraent taste overspread them with ill-devised decoration Thus the upper part of their eastern faces, for they are oriented, generally bears a falsesurruous an ornament as could well be conceived, and one which expresses nothing either to the eye or the h, 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 pyrath of one side at its base

We shall, therefore, take no further notice of these ned 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 feords 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 exaainst the violation of the royal toallery branched off fro corridor which was the only entrance to the pyraranite 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 surroundingof li resistance to the tools brought against it Forallery, 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 thereat gallery, at which we suppose them arrived, opens upon a small vestibule which would still separate theranite, sliding in grooves, s 150 and 151 show the arrange to the discharging chambers above the mummy-chamber, would be likely to lead our supposed robbers into the upper part of the pyrah up in the end wall of the grand gallery; it was left open The unbidden visitors would thus have explored the interior of the pyra that they expended considerable tiht easily have failed to penetrate into the mummy-chamber itself[203]

[202] HERODOTUS, ii 124

[203] DU BARRY DE MERVAL, _etudes sur l'Architecture egyptienne_, pp 129, 130

[Illustration: FIG 149--Plan and elevation of a pyramid at Meroe: from Prisse]

[Illustration: FIG 150--Method of closing a gallery by a stone portcullis; from the southern pyramid of Dashour Drawn in perspective fro]

[Illustration: FIG 151--Portcullis closed]

Another ingenious arrange 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 cous-charanite, like those which form the walls of the sa 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 coive way under the enorht of the masonry above, for the floor of the chamber is still nearly 340 feet below the actual apex of the pyraured above

[Illustration: FIG 152--Transverse section, in perspective, through the sarcophagus-cha cha]

As the structure grew above the roof of the mummy-chamber, five sht of 56 feet, which would relieve the flat ceiling of the ht 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 for the cha 152) Thanks to this succession of voids immediately over the main chamber, and to the pointed arch which surmounts theed 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 crushi+ng 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 settlealleries which lead to it[204]