of Edinburgh, Session 1867-68. 
243 
Monday , 20 th January 1868. 
Professor KELLAND, Vice-President in the Chair. 
The following Communications were read 
1. Pyramidal Structures in Egypt and elsewhere ; and the 
Objects of their Erection. By Sir J. Y. Simpson, Bart. 
After considering the many proposed derivations of the word 
Pyramid, it was pointed out that the origin of the name suggested 
by the distinguished Egyptologist, Mr Birch, from two Coptic 
words, “ pouro ,” “the king,” and u emahau” or u mahaf “tomb,” 
— the two in combination signifying “ the king’s tomb,” — was pro- 
bably correct. “ Men,” in Coptic, signifies “monument,” “memo- 
rial;” and 11 pouro -men” or “king’s monument ” may possibly also 
be the original form of the word. Various authors, as Pope, Pow- 
nall, Daniel Wilson, Burton, had long applied the term pyra- 
mid to the larger forms of conical and round sepulchral mounds, 
cairns, or barrows — such as are found in Ireland, Brittany, 
Orkney, &c., and in numerous districts of the New World as well 
as the Old ; and which are all characterised by containing in their 
interior, chambers or cells, constructed usually of large stones, and 
with megalithic galleries leading into them. In these chambers 
(small in relation to the hills of stone or earth in which they 
were imbedded) were found the remains of sepulture, with stone 
weapons, ornaments, &c. The galleries and chambers were roofed, 
sometimes with flags laid quite flat, or placed abutting against each 
other; and occasionally with large stones arranged over the 
internal cells in the form of a horizontal arch or dome. In his 
travels to Madeira and the Mediterranean (1840), Sir W. Wilde 
details in interesting terms his visit to the pyramids of Egypt; 
and in describing the roof of the interior chambers of one of the 
pyramids at Sakkara,* he remarks on the analogy of its construc- 
* Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson thinks that the pyramids of Sakkara are pro- 
bably older than the other groups of these structures, as those of Gizeh or the 
Great Pyramid. — See Rawlinson’s Herodotus , vol. ii. chapter viii. 
