THE GEEAT PYRAMIDS. 401 



means of which Mariette was able to determine -with certainty the chronology of 

 Egypt as far back as the year 980 of the old era. 



The nécropoles of Saqqarah have also furnished Mariette and other explorers 

 with objects of the highest interest, amongst others the " Table of Saqqarah," 

 containing a list of kings, and the statue of a scribe with eye of rock crystal and 

 characteristic expression, now deposited in the Louvre. One of the tombs, that of 

 Ti, described by M. de Rouge as the "marvel of Saqqarah," forms an exquisite 

 idyl, with its series of charming scenes representing the landscapes, daily labours, 

 and pleasures of rural life. One of the scenes bears a Içgend in these words, 

 summing up the history of Ti : " When he toils man is full of sweetness, and 

 such am I." * 



The Great Pyramids. 



The pyramids terminating northwards the long line of royal tombs are known 

 as those of Gizeh, from the village of that name, which stands on the right bank 

 of the Nile over against Old Cairo. In these stupendous monuments the whole 

 of Egypt is symbolised. The three enormous piles overshadowing the verdant 

 jjlain and winding stream are the embodiment of the mental image conjured up 

 by the very name of Egypt. Their triangular outlines, towering above the Libyan 

 plateau, are even visible over a vast distance throughout the Nile Yalley and plains 

 of the delta. For hours together the wayfarer journeying onwards beholds them 

 standing out against the horizon, apparently neither enlarged nor diminished in 

 dimensions. They seem still to accompany him, moving mysteriously along 

 above villages, trees, and cultivated lands: A nearer view reveals them filling up 

 all the prospect in one direction ; and the eye now follows with amazement the 

 graded lines of the prodigious masses, showing in the light the profile of their 

 rugged slopes, disposed in flights of fractured steps. They resemble mountains 

 hewn into square blocks rather than structures raised by mortal hand, revealing 

 as it were " the transition between the colossi of art and the giant works of 

 nature." " All things fear time," says the Arab proverb ; " but time fears the 

 pyramids." 



Doubtless these piles of stone have only the beauty of their geometrical lines, 

 lacking all architectural display ; but they overawe by their very mass, and still 

 more by their antiquity : by the memory of the generations of man that, like the 

 everlasting stream of the Nile, have flowed silently onwards at their feet. For 

 however old in themselves, these monuments of human slavery attest the existence 

 of a still older antecedent culture, marked by the slow evolution of science and 

 the industries from their crude beginnings in the Nile Yalley. In these gigantic 

 structures geometry has discovered measurements of supreme accuracy, for here 

 all has been measured and planned in due proportion. The very perfection of 

 these proportions has suggested to many observers the idea of a deep symbolical 

 meaning, and has even given birth to a sort of " religion of the pyramids," which 

 * " Mémoire sur les monuurents des six premières dynasties." 

 26— AF. 



