202 THE PYRAMIDS. 
In the principal point to be determined, 
namely, the use for which these structures were 
vi'ewofthe erected by the Antients, there cannot remain 
Subject, even the shadow of a doubt. That they were 
sepulchres, has been demonstrated beyond the 
possibiUty of a contradiction ; and in proving 
this, all the best authorities have long con- 
curred'. In their whole extent ixom. Djiza to 
Saccdra, the Pyramids, and all their contiguous 
subterraneous catacombs, constituted one vast 
coemetery, belonging to the seat of the Memphian 
kings % the various parts of which were con- 
structed in different periods of time. Some 
learned writers, however, as Shaw, and the 
author of Philosophical Dissertations on the 
Egyptians and Chinese, have exercised their eru- 
dition in attempting to prove that the Pyramids 
were mythological repositories of Egyptian su- 
perstitions ; and they have described the Soros, 
in direct opposition to Strabo, either as a tomb 
of Osiris^, or as one of those kIo-tui hocc) in which 
(1) See the authorities ami arguments stated by Perizonius, Origines 
^gyptiuccE, caj).2l. p. 39:5. L. Hal. 17I 1. Also Greaves's Pijramido- 
graphia, p. 43. Lond. \M6, H^-c.i^c. 
(2) Taipoi ruv (ixa-iX'iuiv. (Strabon. Geog. lib. \\\\. p.WAa. Ed. O.con.J 
In the threatenings denounced against the Israelites (Hosea, c. ix. v.6.) 
it is said, " Memphis shall rury them." 
(3) See Vavw on t/ieEg?/pt. and Chinese, vol.11, jp.48. Lond. 1795. 
