o f Edinburgh, Session 1867 - 68 . 
245 
Sepulchral Character , dec ., of the Egyptian Pyramids. 
All authors, from the father of history downwards, have gene- 
rally agreed in considering the pyramids of Egypt as magnificent 
and regal sepulchres ; and the sarcophagi, &c., of the dead have 
been found in them when first opened for the purposes of plunder 
or curiosity. The pyramidal sepulchral mounds on the banks of 
the Boyne were opened and rifled in the ninth century by the in- 
vading Dane, as told in different old Irish annals ; and the Great 
Pyramid of Gizeh, &c., is said to have been broken into and 
harried in the same century by the Arabian Caliph, El Mamoon. 
This, the largest and most gigantic of the many pyramids of 
Egypt, had been calculated by Major Forlong, Asso. Inst. C. Engrs., 
as a structure which in the East would cost about L. 1,000,000. 
Over India and the East generally, enormous sums had often been 
expended on royal sepulchres. The Taj Mahal of Agra, built by 
the Emperor Shah Jahan for his favourite queen, cost perhaps 
double or triple this money ; and yet it formed only a portion of an 
intended larger mausoleum which he expected to rear for himself. 
The Great Pyramid contains in its interior, and directly over the 
King’s Chamber, five entresols or “ chambers of construction,” 
as they have been termed, intended apparently to take off the 
enormous weight of masonry from the cross stones forming the 
roof of the King’s Chamber itself. These entresols are chambers, 
small and unpolished, and never intended to be opened. But 
in the uppermost of them, opened by Colonel Howard Yyse, a most 
interesting discovery was made about thirty years ago. The sur- 
faces of some of the stones were found painted over in red ochre 
or paint with rudish hieroglyphics — being quarry marks written 
on the stones 4000 years ago, and hence, perhaps, forming the 
oldest preserved writing in the world. Among these accidental 
hieroglyphics Mr Birch discovered two royal ovals, viz., Shufu (the 
Cheops of Herodotus) and Nu Shufu — “ a brother” (writes Professor 
Smyth) “of Shufu, also a king and a co-regent with him.” Most, 
if not all, of the other pyramids are believed to have been erected 
by individual kings during their individual or separate reigns. 
If these hieroglyphics proved that two kings were connected with 
the building of the Great Pyramid, that circumstance would perhaps 
account for its size and the duplicity and position of its sepulchral 
