1871.] The Great Pyramid in Egypt. 211 



well as size, to the very chamber and of the identical 

 Pyramid in which it stands — cannot be other than the very 

 original vessel for which the chamber was anciently built. 



And what was it introduced there for ? 



"To serveasasarcophagus/'says the general Egyptological 

 world. Wherefore, as we have always shown gentlemen of 

 that creed so much respect, let us seriously examine their 

 idea in this case also. 



The sides of a granite sarcophagus in ancient Egypt were 

 just the very places of all others, teste Sir Gardner Wilkin- 

 son, where the prospective occupier,— if rich enough, — or 

 his friends after him, invariably caused his name, titles, 

 wealth, and glory to be most signally and abundantly en- 

 graved. But there is not a shadow of carving, painting, or ' 

 writing here, on what some persons will persist in calling 

 " King Cheops's coffin."* 



Again, if a mummied corpse used to be deposited in its 

 sarcophagus at the usual place of abode amonst the living, 

 and the lid of said vessel then fastened on securely before 

 the transport to the tomb began, — such lid, if made according 

 to any and every example of the period, t would add so 

 many inches to the height of the coffer of the Great Pyramid 

 (which is already higher than any known sarcophagus of the 

 Old Empire), as totally to prevent it getting into that building 

 at all, much less coming through the low doorway of its so- 

 called King's Chamber. 



There is, indeed, a certain partial ledge cut out in the 

 top of the sides of the coffer, almost as if for fastening on a 

 lid ; but it would not have held, if tried ; and is found, on 

 measurement being applied, to supply a peculiar and, in the 



* Though that King did not glorify himself hy inscriptions either on the Coffer, 

 or any of the finished surfaces of the vast monument in which it stands, — yet 

 his name and memory have not perished amongst men, as some of the de- 

 tracting class are fond of insisting on, when denouncing the building of the 

 Great Pyramid as a piece of sheer barbarism and utter folly. For his true 

 name, in the original Egyptian form or Shofo, was discovered by Colonel 

 Howard Vyse when he excavated his way into certain hollow spaces of masonry 

 above the King's Chamber, and found it painted on some of the stones for 

 quarry marks, evidently by the working men of the period : a discovery which 

 at once vivified and gave tangible substance to the Grecian form preserved in 

 Herodotus, viz., Cheops. 



True, indeed, that the name is preserved there, only as accompanied by a 

 most odious tradition as to moral character ; but that, as John Taylor showed, 

 is rather to be taken as a measure of the purity of that King's religion, whose 

 chief end and aim, according even to his enemies, was to root out idolatry 

 from the land. And that beginning of the removal of the aspersions of 4000 

 years from the memory of one who worked not for himself but for God, — may, 

 D.V., go on increasing until King Shofo shall become one of the best known 

 names and most highly appreciated characters in primeval history. 



t See the oldest granite sarcophagi at the Museum of the Egyptian Govern- 

 ment at Boolak. 



