74 



THE CIVJL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



LMarch, 



which may be taken from 11849, tlie present year, from 9175, the 

 time of the Persian Inroad, or any other given date. The common 

 way of puttinf; the date of Alexander is 332 B.C., and of the Per- 

 sian Inroad 525 B.C., which gives rise to confusion, as the common 

 way with otlier dates is to reckon forward. By the use of the 

 Decimal Era, a standard is gained for ancient and modern chrono- 

 logy. Otliers who have used it add 100,000 years, instead of 10,000 

 years, .so as to represent the sequence of geological events, the fic- 

 titious chronology of the Hindoos and Chinese, and the fictitious 

 astronomy of the latter. It would have been very useful if Mr. 

 Fergusson had used the Decimal Era throughout his work, instead 

 of bringing it forward on one page only. 



The second thing which Mr. Fergusson saya of the civilization 

 of the Egyptians is that they kept it to themselves ; that they 

 neither borrowed from those around them, nor spread their know- 

 ledge abroad, as did the Indo-European, the Syrian, and other 

 later races. We may here say, that for the settlement of the eth- 

 nological question as to the race to which the Egyptians belonged, 

 Mr. Fergusson has done nothing; and he has perhaps been most 

 wise in leaving it as he has done, for it does not seem that we 

 know enough to come to any right settlement. For five hundred 

 years the Shejiherd Kings swayed Egypt, but no marks have been 

 left of their influence on the people ; for five hundred years the 

 Egyptians swayed AVestern Asia, but no monuments of their great- 

 ness are known. One reason for this does seem to have struck 

 Mr. Fergusson, which is that the greatest monuments of the Egyp- 

 tian kings, their sepulchral monuments, to which their wealth and 

 might were given, would not be raised abroad, as they were not ; 

 and indeed the wealth of Asia would be spent on making the mo- 

 numents of Egypt greater. We cannot, therefore, look foi' a 

 pyramid, a Ilhamession, or a Mammeisi in Syria or Asia Minor, — 

 though we may hope in time to get monuments, if of less bulk, no 

 less trustworthy; but then, again, it is to be looked for that the 

 Egyptian monuments in Western Asia would share the same lot 

 as those of the Shepherd Kings did in Egypt. 



The third peculiarity named by Mr. Fergusson is "the fact of 

 Egypt having only one permanent form of phonetic utterance." 

 He alludes to the hieroglyphics. We think he is as unhappy in some 

 things he says about these, as he is happy in others. We do not 

 think it follows that the Egyptians "could not possess a national 

 literature, nor cultivate the higher modes of phonetic art, such as 

 epic poetry or the drama." The common understanding of men of 

 learning is that long epics can be handed down without writing; 

 and whatever may be said as to the present shape of the Iliad, all 

 believe, that even if written by Homer, it was handed down for a 

 long time, until settled by Pisistratus in the shape we now have it. 

 The Eddaic songs were likewise so kept for a long time, as also the 

 Niebelungen Lied. Neither is writing needful for the drama, as 

 is shown by the wagon plays of Thespis, the Ossian rhymes, the 

 Arlequinados of Italy and France, or the plays of the Malay tribes. 

 Some of the Chinese plays are unwritten. In the beginning, we 

 always find that plays, so far from being written, are made at once 

 by the players, as is done in a drawing-room charade. It is very 

 likely that the Egyptians had plays, if not epics; and it can hardly 

 be that they did not have songs, as they had music. Moreover, we 

 cannot see on what ground Mr. Fergusson can say they had no 

 common myths, for it is not enough to say that there are no heroes 

 painted on the tombs and temples. Our writer acknowledges that 

 they had a strong national feeling — but how was it upheld.'' His 

 friends the Chinese will hardly give him any helj) in the theory he 

 has laid down, for they bear witness against it. We do not believe 

 there is or ever was any people in a forward state who had not 

 common myths. We take the word in its meaning of the stock of 

 tales, mahrchen, myths, or fables of gods, heroes, ghosts, fairies, 

 and im.ps. 



Mr. Fergusson rightly dwells on the ingenuity the Egyptians 

 showed in mi.xing together the arts of building, carving, and 

 painting, so as really to make them one art, quite indivisable; and 

 "to make this compound at once e.xpress their whole history and 

 literature, as far as the three could do, and that with a distinct- 

 ness which is startling, and after a la]ise of three thousand years 

 repeats more clearly the feelings and the motives of those who 

 executed the works, than almost any written book could do." 



The writer divides the monuments of Egypt into four classes: — 



First, that of Lower Egypt, or the Pyramids, or before the 

 Shepherd Inroad. There are no other works than pyramids and 

 rock-cut tombs. 



Second, that of Thebes, or the great eighteenth dynasty, in 

 which are no pyramids, but palaces and temples. The rock tombs 

 had a new shape, and colossi and obelisks were brought in. 



Third, that of the same time in Nubia, where there are no 

 tombs, and where the temples are rock-cut. 



Fourth, that of the Greeks and Romans in Egypt, in which 

 there are no palaces, pyramids, great tombs, obelisks, or colossi. 



Mr. Fergusson thinks that the former three classes are the 

 works of three several races living in the valley of the Nile, and 

 that tliey lived together, one in the lower valley, one in the mid- 

 dle, and one in the upper. Blumenbach held the same belief from 

 what he had seen of the skulls of the mummies. We do not think 

 it worth while to look into what has been said by Blumenbach, 

 Bunsen, Gliddon, and others on this head; but wait, as Mr. Fer- 

 gusson has done, till something better is known. 



In speaking of the pyramids, Mr. Fergusson holds that they 

 were the tombs of the kings of the first ten dynasties of Manetho, 

 and that the Great Pyramid is of the year 6800 of the Decimal 

 Era, or five thousand years old. 



All the pyramids but the great one of Saccara look true north, 

 notwithstanding the unevenness of the land, and therefore there 

 must have been some ground for this, though what it was is not 

 known. This uniformity is found, also, in all the tombs and build- 

 ings of the same time, but it seems to have been given up after 

 tlie inroad of the Shepherd Kings, as it is no longer seen in the 

 buildings of any of the Kings. At Thebes, there are no two 

 buildings that look the same way, and Mr. Fergusson thinks there 

 must have been as much forethought in this, for even the later 

 tombs were run in any way; and in Nubia, the pyramids look 

 every way, but hardly two of them the same way. 



The way into the pyramids is moreover on the north side, but 

 the dip of it is unlike in all. This angle in each of the twenty 

 pyramids has been measured, and is found to be between 22^ 35' 

 and 34° 5', and in no two is it alike. 



The angles the face makes with the horizon have a much greater 

 likeness, for in twelve of the gi-eatest and best-kept pyramids this 

 angle is between 51° 10' and 52° 32'. 



Mr. Fergusson has tried every way of reckoning to bring these 

 figures under some rule, but without feeling that he is right. He 

 thinks, however, the Egyptians divided the circle into twenty- 

 eight lunar measures of 12'857 — that is to say, that their division 

 was on the plan of the moon's month, of four weeks of seven days 

 each. The cubit was divided like this, being of seven palms, each 

 of four digits. For the inner measurements of the pyramids, Mr. 

 Perring's unit of 40 cubits is taken. The height of the Great 

 Pyramid is 7 times 40 cubits, the length of the base 7 times 64 

 cubits. Each of these can be divided by 4, 7, or 28. 



Of the pyramids, I\Ir. Fergusson says that the builders knew the 

 way of quarrying the greatest bloclcs of granite. The roofing 

 blocks of the Great Pyramid are 20 feet at least in length, and of 

 great width and depth ; they are well squared and smoothed ; are 

 rightly set, and have been brought from Syene to Memphis. There 

 is great skill in the way the roofs are made and the portcullises 

 fitted. As the pyramid was planned, says he, so was it built — as 

 built so it stands ; there is neither settlement, nor crack, nor flaw 

 to be anywhere seen, and this is very much when the great weight 

 is taken into consideration. He thinks all this can only be the 

 end of hundreds of years of knowledge and of skill ; and this is 

 more wonderful to think of tlian even the pyramids themselves. 



As to the time when the ]>yramids were built, we do not of our- 

 selves like to lay down any law, but we think it quite as fair to 

 give them the older as the later date. As we come to know more 

 this will be settled, but meanwhile there is notliing against the 

 earlier date, for they were as likely to be made then as at any 

 time thereafter. 



The hieroglyphics and paintings on the pyramids have been lost, 

 but it is not so with those on the rock-cut tombs around, which 

 are of the same time. Our writer says that these paintings show 

 they had then got to their gi-eatest height : that the paintings of 

 beasts, of trades, and of games are the same as those painted at 

 Thebes two tliousand years afterwards, and done in the same way. 

 They are stiiier, it is tiue — that is, they are not so well and freely 

 drawn as they were thereafter, but otherwise they are in the same 

 way. 



We are little able to judge of a time of two thousand years spent 

 in the same beaten track, but when we come to know well the 

 antiquities of the Chinese, we shall have a good measure; but as it 

 is, such steadiness in one stereotyped way is so unlike our wea- 

 thercock fashions, that it is quite beyond our understanding. 

 In building, carving, or painting, hardly a hundred years have 

 gone by in Europe, without some great change for better or 

 worse. 



