30 The Great Pyramid of Egypt. [January, 



Egyptian kings, then, acquired no safer style of burying 

 by abandoning the antique local example of the Great 

 Pyramid ; but they gained, something else which, as 

 Egyptologists themselves attest, they loved dearly ; for by 

 shaking off the fetters of the Pyramid's puritan rule, — 

 they at once acquired full license to expand their burial 

 chamber into whole suites of apartments, each one carved, 

 painted, and inscribed more gorgeously than another, both 

 to the glorification of the tomb-maker and the immortali- 

 sation of his idol gods. 



Even in the age of the Great Pyramid, the tombs of 

 subjects round about it show an inveterate taste for 

 emblazonry and self-glorification to have prevailed amongst 

 all classes of the people ; wherefore I put again a most 

 crucial question to the distinguished Egyptologer ; as 

 thus — 



" When such self-glorification on the interior walls of the 

 tomb was the besetting idea of all Egyptian peoples in all 

 ages, and was never carried out with more artistic excel- 

 lence than in the very period of the Great Pyramid, — why 

 in that tomb, if it was the tomb, of their king — the very 

 man of all others who could have best paid for any amount 

 of glorification — is there not a particle of such praise of 

 him, neither in sculpture, nor painting, nor writing, on 

 any of the internal finished walls ; not even his name on 

 his, in modern times, so-called sarcophagus ? No pictures 

 either of the animal gods of Egypt are there ; no representa- 

 tion of lands being ploughed, cattle numbered, crops reaped, 

 and the produce brought to the greatest man of the realm, as 

 seen with the non-regal owners of smaller tombs. Nothing 

 but plain geometrical surfaces of exquisite workmanship, and 

 of certain measured lengths, breadths, and angles." 



At this question the eminent hierologist became pale, and 

 confessed that he could offer no explanation of the huge and 

 mighty antithesis. There it was, he allowed that, but he 

 could say nothing as to how or why it came there. 



Neither could he give any exact information as to 

 what precisely those geometrical surfaces in the Pyramid 

 were or are, in number, weight, and measure. No 

 hierologist, he said, cared about such things, not 

 having to use them in their science. Lepsius, for example, 

 when encamped with a large party for months together 

 at the Great Pyramid, made not a single measure of 

 the monument, either in line or angle, but spent his and 

 their time in nothing else than copying inscriptions, and 

 pictures in. the neighbouring tombs; nor did Champollion 



