26S 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



Pyramid itself was constructed. For Mycerinus 

 either never left or else returned to the religion 

 of the Egyptians. Yet he also built a pyramid, 

 which, though far inferior in size to the pyramids 

 built by his father and uncle, was still a massive 

 structure, and relatively more costly even than 

 theirs, because built of expensive granite. The 

 pyramid built by Asychis, though smaller still, 

 was remarkable as built of brick ; in fact, we are 

 expressly told that Asychis desired to eclipse all 

 Iiis predecessors in such labors, and accordingly 

 left this brick pyramid as a monument of his 

 reign. 



We are forced, in fact, to believe that there 

 was some special relation between the pyramid 

 and its builder, seeing that each one of these 

 kings wanted a pyramid of his own. This ap- 

 plies to the Great Pyramid quite as much as to 

 the others, despite the superior excellence of that 

 structure. Or rather, the argument derives its 

 chief force from the superiority of the Great 

 Pyramid. If Chephrcn, no longer perhaps having 

 the assistance of the shepherd-architects in plan- 

 ning and superintending the work, was unable to 

 construct a pyramid so perfect and so stately as 

 his brother's, the very fact that he nevertheless 

 built a pyramid shows that the Great Pyramid 

 did not fulfill for Chephren the purpose which it 

 fulfilled for Cheops. But, if Smyth's theory were 

 true, the Great Pyramid would have fulfilled 

 finally, and for all men, the purpose for which it 

 was built. Since this was manifestly not the 

 case, that theory is, I submit, demonstrably er- 

 roneous. 



It was probably the consideration of this 

 point, viz., that each king had a pyramid con- 

 structed for himself, which led to the theory that 

 the pyramids were intended to serve as tombs. 

 This theory was once very generally entertained. 

 Thus we find Humboldt, in his remarks on Ameri- 

 can pyramids, referring to the tomb theory of the 

 Egyptian pyramids as though it were open to no 

 question. " When we consider," he says, " the 

 pyramidical monuments of Egypt, of Asia, and 

 of the New Continent, from the same point of 

 view, we see that, though their form is alike, 

 their destination was altogether different. The 

 group of pyramids of Ghizeh and at Sakhara in 

 Egypt ; the triangular pyramid of the queen of 

 the Scythians, Zarina, which was a stadium high 

 and three in circumference, and which was deco- 

 rated with a colossal figure ; the fourteen Etruscan 

 pyramids, which are said to have been inclosed 

 in the labyrinth of the king Porsenna, at Clusium 

 — were reared to serve as the sepulchres of the 



illustrious dead. Nothing is more natural to 

 men than to commemorate the spot where rest 

 the ashes of those whose memory they cherish, 

 whether it be, as in the infancy of the race, by 

 simple mounds of earth, or, in later periods, by 

 the towering height of the tumulus. Those of 

 the Chinese and of Thibet have only a few metres 

 of elevation. Farther to the west the dimensions 

 increase ; the tumulus of the king Abyattes, fa- 

 ther of Croesus, in Lydia, was six stadia, and that 

 of Ninus was more than ten stadia in diameter. 

 In the north of Europe the sepulchre of the Scan- 

 dinavian king Gormus and the queen Daneboda, 

 covered with mounds of earth, are three hundred 

 metres broad, and more than thirty hkjh." 



But while we have abundant reason for be- 

 lieving that in Egypt, even in the days of Cheops 

 and Chephrcn, extreme importance was attached 

 to the character of the place of burial for dis- 

 tinguished persons, there is nothing in what is 

 known respecting earlier Egyptian ideas to sug- 

 gest the probability that any monarch would have 

 devoted many years of his subjects' labor, and 

 vast stores of material, to erect a mass of masonry 

 like the Great Pyramid, solely to receive his own 

 body after death. Far less have we any reason 

 for supposing that many monarchs in succession 

 would do this, each having a separate tomb built 

 for him. It might have been conceivable, had 

 only the Great Pyramid been erected, that the 

 structure had been raised as a mausoleum for all 

 the kings and princes of the dynasty. But it 

 seems utterly incredible that such a building as 

 the Great Pyramid should have been erected for 

 one king's body only — and that not in the way 

 described by Humboldt, when he speaks of men 

 commemorating the spot where rest the remains 

 of those whose memory they cherish, but at the 

 expense of the king himself whose body was to 

 be there deposited. Besides, the first pyramid, 

 the one whose history must be regarded as most 

 significant of the true purpose of these buildings, 

 was not built by an Egyptian holding in great 

 favor the special religious ideas of his people, but 

 by one who had adopted other views, and those 

 not belonging, so far as can be seen, to a people 

 holding sepulchral rites in exceptional regard. 



A still stronger objection against the exclu- 

 sively tombic theory resides in the fact that 

 this theory gives no account whatever of the 

 characteristic features of the pyramids them- 

 selves. These buildings are all, without excep- 

 tion, built on special astronomical principles. 

 Their square bases are so placed as to have two 

 sides lying east and west, and two lying north 



