On the Origin of the Pyramids of Egypt. 291 



dence, proving them to have existed in a period equally remote 

 with that in which this people inhabited the country, we may re- 

 fer to the testimony of Manelho, whose authority is respected by 

 Josephu':, and who, from his situation as an Egyptian priest*, 

 had access to every record preserved in the sacred archives of 

 the country, Manetho affirms that these structures were begun 

 by the fourth king of Egypt during the first dynasty f; which 

 carries their antiquity back to a period earlier than the age of 

 Abraham. Of this nature are the records required by the last 

 question in the proposed inquiry, without having recourse to any 

 of the writers of Greece or Italy. As for the tradilions which 

 refer the origin of these monuments to the age of the Israelites 

 in Egypt, these exist not only among the Arabians, but also 

 among the Jews and Egyptians. The author of a book entitled 

 Morat Al-zeman, cited by Greaves in his Pyramidographin (p. 6, 

 Lond. 1646), speaking of the founders of the Pyramids, says, 

 '' some attribute them to Joseph, some to Nimrod." The Ara- 

 bians distinguished the Pyramids by the appellation of Djehel 

 PharGOun, or Pharaoh's mountains J; and there is not one of 

 these oriental writers who does not consider them as ancient 

 sepulchres §. 



Upon these premises, thus derived from sources that are not 

 liable to the objections urged by Pauw, being wholly independent 

 of any notions with which he supposes the Greelcs to have blended 

 their accounts of the Pyramids^ the following conclusions may 

 perhaps be warranted : 



1. That the Hebrews inhabited Egypt in the period to which 

 the Pyramids may be referred. 



2. That the Pyramids contain an existing document corre- 

 sponding with the mode of interment practised by this peo- 

 ple, and were, therefore, intended as sepulchres. 



* .Tosephus says, that the care and continuance of the puhiic records 

 were the peculiar province of the priests (lib. i. cont Apion.). Manclho 

 belonged to tho colicsre at Heliopolis, the veiy seat of E;iyptian science. 

 His testimony was preferred by Warsham lo that of Josephus himself. 

 However, it should be acknowleds^ed that Ptrlzonius, who considered the 

 dynasties of Manctlio as fabulous, attacked Marshani upon this ground, 

 describing; liiin as " absitrdh^sima guogve Mmtet/tonis recipiaidi sttidiosior, 

 quam speciosa Josephi.'' — Vid. Perizonii /Egypt. Orig. Invest, c. xxi. p. 384. 

 L. Bat. 1711. 



t " Ereniin Manetho jam in dynastia 1. quartum ejus regem, Venqihcn, 

 I'yramideserexisse tradit; ac dcin, in dynastia 4. rcgem secundum, Suphin, 

 pyraniidiini niaximaui cxtruxisse." Perizon. cap. xxi. p. S33. This air- 

 thority, admitted by Marshain, is contemned by the author from wiiom it 

 ifc now cited. 



\ See also Egmont and Hevman's Travels, vol. ii. p. 85. Lond. 17.59. 



§ See the Extracts from Ibn Abd Alhokm, and the Arabian authors, as 

 given by Greaves, &c. &c. 



T 2 3. That 



