Volume I Part 22 (1/2)
[222] On the other hand, these aardly 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
[Illustration: FIG 155--The casing of the pyra]
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 coypsum, and pieces of burnt brick They may have wished to obtain the parti-coloured effect of which Philo speaks, by ranite and concrete, and it is quite possible that yet other [223]
[223] The deterood reason for the prisranite blocks used in the lower courses It would evidently be easy enough to cover the pyra doards--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 pyra 155--ED
In other pyraain 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 ypte, Antiquites_, vol v p 7
Sometimes we find the revetment in a state of sele, but without their final polish Such is the case with the Second Pyraranite are to be found which are still rough in face It would seem that the patience required for theand tedious piece of as not forthcoht 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 pyraraphy The first explorers of the Pyramids of Gizeh were surprised at the absence of all inscriptions beyond the masons' ; but soon Colonel Vyse discovered in the pyra, and the mummy case, now in the British Museuth Recent discoveries, too, of which full details are yet wanting, prove that so texts, which contain the nareat iion 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 ei of two kings of the sixth dynasty, Papi and his son Merenzi, were found Frag them Pleasure at this discovery, the last which he was destined to htened the last days of Mariette[225]
[225] G CHARMES, in the _Journal des Debats_, February 8, 1881
In March 1881, M Maspero, the successor of M Mariette as director of the excavations, opened a pyraroup, which turned out to be the tomb of Ounas, the last Pharaoh of the fifth dynasty In this pyramid, portcullis stones siured 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 sae finally opens into a chamber half filled with debris, upon the walls of which the inscription is continued The mummy-chalyphs, with the exception of the wall opposite to the entrance This wall is of the finest alabaster, and is effectively decorated with painted ornaus is of black basalt, without inscription The text of the inscription which covers the walls is almost identical with that in the to complete M
Maspero, who squeezes fronised certain formulae and phrases which had already struck him in another place These texts ous to one which covers the walls of certain little known Theban to any very considerable difficulties, they demand careful exa
”M Maspero, encouraged by this first success, ordered a second pyramid to be opened He wished to verify, upon the spot, a theory which he had long upheld in spite of the adverse opinions of the ists It is well known that between the sixth and the tenth dynasties a great gap exists, so far as monumental remains are concerned M Maspero has always believed that there is no such gap He has observed that the pyraically from north to south; those of the fourth dynasty at Gizeh, those of the fifth at Abooseer, those of the twelfth in the Fayoum The excavations of Mariette as well as his own showed the tombs of the fifth and sixth dynasties to have been at Sakkarah Hence M Maspero thinks that the pyrahth, ninth, and tenth dynasties are those between Sakkarah and the Fayou In any case science will profit by the new excavations which he is about to undertake”[226]
[226] _Moniteur egyptien_, March 15, 1881
When cross-examined by such questioners as M Maspero the pyramids will tell us much Hitherto they have attracted but little of that examination which discovers the most curious secrets, but their size and the beauty of their reat pyra objects to the traveller and to the historian of art
Considering their age, these three pyramids are wonderfully well preserved In their presence, even in their actual state of partial ruin, the oriental hyperbolism of Abd-ul-Latif, an Arab writer of the thirteenth century, sees fear Time,” he cries, ”but Ti the last few hundreds of years The suhtly lowered; the gaping breaches in their flanks have been gradually widened; and although in spite of their stripped flanks and open wounds they still rear their heads proudly into the Egyptian sky, all those accessory structures which surrounded theeneral monumental _ensemble_, have either been destroyed by the violence ofsand Where, for exae and carefully adjusted blocks excited the wonder of Herodotus[227] After having afforded an unyielding roadway for the transport of so al avenues by which the funeral processions of the Egyptians reached the centre of the necropolis as long as their civilization lasted In the plain they were above the level of the highest inundations, and their gentle slope gave easy access to the western plateau The great Sphinx, the i Sun, was placed at the threshold of the plateau I the dead of the vast cemetery, he personified the idea of the resurrection, of that eternal life which, like thesun, is ever destined to triumph over darkness and death His head alone now rises above the sand, but in the days of Herodotus his vast bulk, cut froh, ell calculated to prepare the eye of the traveller for the still more colossal ured by all kinds of outrage, but in the thirteenth century, although even then he had been mutilated, Abd-ul-Latif was able to admire his serene s which added to its size and dignity
His body was never hly blocked out, but a painted decoration, of which traces ree for the deficiencies in the
[227] The causehich led to the Pyrath; here and there it rises as hty-six feet above the surface of the plateau A siuished on the eastern side of the Third Pyramid At Abou-Roash, at Abousir, and elsewhere, similar remains are to be found
[Illustration: FIG 156--Plan of the Pyramids of Gizeh and of that part of the necropolis which immediately surrounds them]
[Illustration: FIG 157--The Sphinx]
The soil around each pyramid was carefully levelled and paved with dressed limestone slabs Upon this pave the pyramid Both stylobate and pavement are now in almost every case concealed by sand and _debris_, but at the pyramid of Chephren, which is less banked up than the others, traces of them have been proved to exist They added so effect of those ave additional definition to their bases[228] The area thus paved was inclosed with a wall, which had an opening towards the east, in front of which the temple, or funerary chapel of the pyranificently decorated At the foot of the mountains of stone under which reposed the ashes of the Pharaohs themselves, smaller pyramids were raised for their wives and children Of these some half dozen still exist upon the plateau of Gizeh One of thehter of Cheops, about whom Herodotus tells one of those absurd stories invented by the Egyptians of the decadence, hich his drago upon his simple faith[229] Around the space which was thus consecrated to the adoration of the deadrows of h the vast necropolis
[228] _Description de l'egypte_, vol v p 643 See also in the plates, _Antiquites_, vol v Pl xvi Fig 2 According to Jomard, the surbase of the second pyrah and 5 feet thick, and a plinth about 3 feet high
[229] HERODOTUS, ii 126
[Illustration: FIG 158--Pyrareat ones of Egypt, all those who had been near the Pharaoh and had received sorouped their tons, the private tombs were erected in close juxtaposition one with another, each being provided with a stele, or sepulchral tablet upon which the na adorned with painted bas-reliefs, and a feith statues placed upon their facades Upon the causehich connected Memphis with the necropolis, upon the esplanades erected by the Pharaohs to the memory and for the adoration of their ancestors, in the countless streets, lanes, and blind alleys which gave access to the private to before the victims for the funeral rites Priests in white linen, friends and relations of the dead with their hands full of fruit and flowers, flitted hither and thither On the days appointed for the commemoration of the dead, all this must have afforded a curiously animated scene The city of the dead had its peculiar life, weBut ayptian _jour des iant forms of the pyra shadows turning with the sun, that gave the scene a peculiar sole this shadow passed over hundreds of tonity and the ally office
[230] Jomard remarks that the upper part of the second pyramid still reflects the rays of the sun ”It still possesses,” he says, ”a portion of its polished casing, which reflects the rays of the sun and declares its identity to people at a vast distance”