V, 
THE PYRAMIDS. 253 
of heaping an artificial mound, whether of stones chap. 
or of earth, above the Soros, after interment, was 
a common practice of the Antients. Examples 
of this kind have been previously alluded to in 
the former volumes of these Travels. The 
most antient form of this sort of mound was not 
pyramidal. However antient the pyramids may- 
be, a simpler hemispheroidai or conical form 
seems to have preceded the more artificial an- 
gular structure. Among the Pyramids of Saccaray 
which appear to be more antient than those of 
Djiza, there are instances, as we have shewn, 
not only of this primeval pile, but of its various 
modifications, until it assumed the pyramidal 
shape. One example has been noticed among 
the Pyramids of Sacc&a, of an immense mound, 
which corresponds in its form with the common 
appearance presented by antient Tumuli almost 
all over the world, as they are found in coun- 
tries where the pyramidal shape was never in- 
troduced. But to proceed, in the discussion 
of the third question. 
The body oi Joseph being thus placed \v r^ '^o^c^, Possible 
and buried according to the accustomed usage the vioia- 
af the Egyptians (as manifest by the existence pHndpai * 
of one of their antient sepulchres containing the ^^'^'"""'• 
receptacle in question), was not intended to 
