THE PYRAMIDS. 



371 



With regard to the other circumstances he mentions, " that the 

 lesser of the three great pyramids was on one side considerably 

 defaced by Aziz about the year 1196," I do not think it unlikely, 

 or even very remarkable. It is natural to suppose that it would 

 suffer most on the north side where they would expect to find the 

 entrance, and that they would begin to throw down the covering 

 from that part before they touched the other sides. This pyramid 

 appears to have been covered with red granite from some of the 

 stones still remaining in different parts of it. Those I saw were square, 

 and not cut like the covering I had occasion to take notice of above. 



I have endeavoured to satisfy you as far as I can , from memory, 

 but fear that my letter will not reach England in time to be of any 

 use to you in your publication. N. D. 



NOTE. 



[Other Arabic writers prior to Abdallatif have also mentioned the 

 hieroglyphics on the pyramids ; their testimonies are cited by S. de 

 Sacy, in his translation of Abdallatif, 221. The Arabic writers do 

 not express themselves in a manner sufficiently clear, so as to inform 

 us, whether they mean that the characters were hieroglyphical or 

 alphabetical. We find in Herodotus a reference to the inscription 

 engraved on the pyramid of Cheops ; it was, he says in Egyptian 

 characters; but still it is doubtful, whether by these words he means 

 ordinary characters or hieroglyphics. The former acceptation is 

 approved by Larcher; and Dr. Hales thinks these characters could 

 not be any other than literal or alphabetical, Chron. i. 381. Ebn 

 Haukal speaks of the Syrian and Greek inscriptions which covered 

 some part of the pyramids ; the former, Quatremere supposes, 

 were letters in the cursive characters of Egypt, of which the Rosetta 

 stone affords a singular example. * The testimony respecting the 



* Le plus beaux monumens de l'^criture cursive sont les Papyrus publies par Denon et 

 la curieuse inscription de Rosette. Millin. D. de B. A. 189. 2. See also some remarks on 

 the Rosetta inscription in the Museum Criticum, Cambridge, 1816. 



3b 2 



