THE RESURRECTION OF ANCIENT EGYPT 



973 



nalized by the achievements of the great 

 fourth dynasty — the race of the pyra- 

 mid builders. Modern investigation has 

 added nothing very striking or novel to 

 our knowledge of the mighty men who 

 reared the greatest masses of stone ever 

 heaped upon earth by the hand of man; 

 but Petrie's course of systematic trian- 

 gulation and measurement, carried out 

 in 1881-1882, has only added to the won- 

 der and admiration which the mere as- 

 pect of the pyramids compel. 



Accuracy "equal to optician's work, 

 but on a scale of acres instead of inches," 

 is scarcely what one expects in build- 

 ings reared nearly 5,000 years ago. But 

 the huge blocks of the Great Pyramid, 

 2,300,000 of them, weighing on an aver- 

 age 2I4 tons apiece, while some run to 

 40 and 50 tons, are squared, fitted, and 

 leveled with an accuracy which puts to 

 shame our best modern work and com- 

 pels our respect not only for the strength, 

 but for the skill of these mighty builders 

 before the Lord (see pages 966 and 967). 



No amount of mere brute strength 

 could have accomplished such a feat. 

 There must have been controlling intel- 

 lect of the very highest type at work, 

 supplemented by a determined and des- 

 potic will capable of bending the whole 

 resources of the nation to a single task. 

 That the task may have had as its sole 

 object the glorifying of the egotism of a 

 single individual need not diminish our 

 wonder at the patience and skill with 

 which it was carried out. 



The most interesting result of modern 

 investigation on this period of Egyptian 

 history has, however, been one not of 

 exploration, but of historical and literary 

 work. An Egyptian papyrus of the 

 twelfth dynasty, brought home by an 

 English traveler, was transferred by its 

 owner, Miss Westcar, to the famous 

 German Egyptologist, Lepsius, from 

 whose property it was purchased by the 

 Berlin Museum. The Westcar papyrus 

 has afforded us the earliest series of 

 wonder tales known to exist in the 

 world ; but it has also yielded the hint 

 of a sudden revolution in Egyptian his- 

 tory, and of the usurpation of the throne 

 at the close of the great period of the 

 pyramid builders by a line of priestly 

 kings. 



THK ARABIAN NIGHTS OP^ ANCII-NT I^GYPT 



The story pictures to us King Khufu, 

 the builder of the Great Pyramid, listen- 

 ing to his sons as they tell him tales of 

 the great magicians of former days. 



One of them, Prince Hordadef, tells 

 him of a magician of the present time 

 who can do deeds as great as those of 

 any wonder-worker of the past. He is 

 dispatched to summon the wizard, and, 

 after the latter has given evidence of his 

 power, he prophesies to the king of the 

 approaching birth of three sons of a 

 priest of the sun-god Ra, who shall be 

 really children of the god and shall reign 

 over the whole land of Egypt. The king 

 is naturally troubled at such a prophecy, 

 and the magician consoles him by telling 

 him that the change of dynasty shall not 

 come in his da}^ "Thy son, his son, and 

 then one of these." The story then goes 

 on to tell of the birth of these wonderful 

 children and of the divine honors which 

 attend them. Obviously we have here an 

 attempt to give a popular account of the 

 rise of a new race of kings devoted to 

 the worship of Ra, the sun-god. 



THi: NEXT (i^II^Th) dynasty WI^RI: SUN- 

 WORSHIPPERS 



The complement of the narrative has 

 been furnished by the excavations of the 

 German explorers at Abusir, which have 

 yielded unmistakable evidence of the fact 

 that the kings of the fourth dynasty were 

 succeeded by a dynasty of sun-worship- 

 ers. Von Bissing, Schaefer, Thiersch, 

 Rubensohn, and Borchardt have there 

 laid bare the great sun temple of Ne- 

 user-ra, sixth king of the fifth dynasty. 



Its whole plan and conception are un- 

 like those of the normal Egyptian temple. 

 It consists of a large, open court, with 

 chambers surrounding it ; in the center 

 of the court stands a huge altar of fine 

 alabaster, on which slain oxen were of- 

 fered to the sun ; west of the altar rises 

 a large mound, on which was placed a 

 truncated obelisk — the emblem of the 

 solar deity. There was no holy of holies, 

 the emblem of the god standing open to 

 the sky to catch the sun's rays. 



The interior walls of the court were 

 covered with reliefs representing the pro- 

 duction of life, scenes from the river, 



