253 
of Edinburgh, Session 1867-68. 
sarcophagi, where they are used with the ledge to admit and lock 
the lids of such stone chests.* In other words, it presents the 
usual ledge and apparatus pertaining to Egyptian stone sarcophagi, 
and served as such. 
7. Sepulchral contents of coffer when first discovered. — When, 
about a thousand years ago, the Caliph A1 Mamoon tunnelled 
into the interior of the pyramid, he detected by the accidental 
falling, it is said, of a granite portcullis, the passage to the King’s 
Chamber, shut up from the building of the pyramid to that time. 
“ Then ” (to quote the words of Prof. Smyth) “ the treasures of the 
pyramid, sealed up almost from the days of Noah, and undese- 
crated by mortal eye for 3000 years, lay full in their grasp before 
them.” The Arabian historian Ibn Abd Alhokim states that 
on this occasion they found in the pyramid, “ towards the top, a 
chamber [now the so-called King’s Chamber] with an hollow stone 
[or coffer] in which there was a statue like a man, and within it a 
man upon whom was a breastplate of gold set with jewels ; upon 
this breastplate was a sword of inestimable price, and at his head a 
carbuncle of the bigness of an egg, shining like the light of the day ; 
and upon him were characters writ with a pen, which no man under- 
stood ”f — a description stating, down to the so-called “ statue,” 
mummy-case, or cartonage, and the hieroglyphics upon the cere- 
cloth, the arrangements now well known to belong to the higher 
class of Egyptian mummies. 
“ “ The western side,” observes Professor Smyth, “of the coffer is, through 
almost its entire length, rather lower than the other three, and these have 
grooves inside, or the remains of grooves once cut into them, about an inch or 
two below their summits and on a level with the western edge ; in fact , to 
admit a sliding sarcophagus cover or lid; and there were the remains of three 
fixing pin-holes on the western side for fastening such cover into its place.” 
(Vol. i. p. 85.) 
t See Greaves’ Works, vol. i. p. 61. Colonel Yyse adduces other Arabian 
authors who allude to this discovery of a body with golden armour, &c., &c., 
in the sarcophagus of the King’s Chamber. He cites Alkaisi as testifying that 
“ he himself saw the case (the cartonage or mummy-case) from which the 
body had been taken, and that it stood at the door of the King’s Palace at 
Cairo, in the year 511 ” a.h. (See “ The Pyramids of Gezah,” vol. ii. p. 334. 
And also to the same effect Abon Szalt, p. 357.) “ It may be remarked,” 
observes Colonel Vyse, “that the Arabian authors have given the same 
accounts of the pyramids, with little or no variation, for above a thousand 
years ” (vol. ii. p. 328). 
