Greaves, John: Pyramidographia: or, a Description of the pyramids in Egypt ([London], [1752])

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For what End or Intention







Cmuaves. believe Tacitus, n the Hebrews (in general)
learned from the Egyptians rather to bury
their dead, than to burn them. Where ° Spon-
danus, instead of condere cadavera, reads
condire, as if it had been their custom of
powdering or embalming their dead. Waih
them and anoint them we know they did,
by what was done to our Saviour, and to
the widow Dorcas j and, long before, ic was
in uie among the Gentiles, as well as
Jews; as appears by the funeral of Patro-
clus in p Homer, and of Mifenus the Trojan
in q Virgil:
Corfufque lavant frigentis, & ungunt.
And of Tarquinius the Roman in Ennius:
Tarquinii corpus bona fie mina lavit, & unxit..
But: certainly the Egyptian manner of
embalming, which we have described out
of Herodotus and Diodorus, was not receiv-
ed by them ; or, if it were, r Martha the
siller of Lazarus needed not to have feared,
that, after tour days, the body mould have
dunk. 6 They which infer out of the fu-
neral of Asa, king of Judah, that it was
the custom of the Jews, as well as Egyptians,
have very little probability for their asser-
tion. r We read, that they buried him in
his own fej.ulchre, which he had made for
bimfe'f in the city of David ; and laid him
in the bed, which was filled with fweet odours,
and divers kinds of fpices prepared by the
apothecaries art \ and they made a very great
burning for him. This very great burning
is so contrary to the practice of the
Egyptians, to whom it was an abomination,
as appears by the authorities before cited
of Herodotus and Mela, besides the little
affinity of filling the bed with sweet odours,
and the Egyptians filling the body and the
place of the entrails with sweet odours,
according both to Herodotus and Diodorus,
that we shall not need to inlarge ourselves
in any other confutation. But, as for that
of Jacob and Jofeph, the father and the son,
both living and dying in Egypt, the text
is clear, they were embalmed after the
fafliion of the Egyptians : u And Joseph
commanded his fervants the phyficians to em-
balm his father ; and the phyficians embalmed
Israel, and forty days were fulfilled for him
(for fo are fulfilled the days of thofe which are

embalmed) ; and the Egyptians mourned for
him threefcore and ten days. In the same
chapter we read, w So Joseph died, being an
hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed
him, and he was put in a cojfin in Egypc
Both which places are very consonant to
the traditions of Herodotus and Diodorus,
and may ferve to fhew what necejfity there is
of having oft-times recourfe to the learning of
the heathen, for the illustration of the Scrip-
tures. Forty days were fulfilled for the em-
balming of Jacob. This, x Diodorus tells us,
was their custom, They anointed the dead body
with the juice of cedar, and other things, sor
above thirty days, and afterward with ?nyrrh
and cinnamon, and the like ; which mi^ht
make up the residue of the forty days: And
the Egyptians mourned for him tbreejeore and
ten days. This time, out of Herodotus,
may be collected to have been from the
first day of the death of the person, till the
body was returned by the physicians, after
seventy days, perfectly embalmed. The
text says, And Joseph was put in a coffin -,
which is very lively represented by y Hero-
dotus : The kindred, receiving the dead body
from the embalmers, make a coffin of wood in
the fimilitude of a man, in which they put
it. This coffin then, as it is probable, of
Jofeph, was of wood, and not marmorea
theca, as Cajetan imagines, the former be-
ing the cuitom of the Egyptians -, besides,
that this was much easier and fitter to be
carried by the Jfraelites into Canaan, march-
ing on soot, and, for aught we read, desti-
tute of waggons and other carriages.
The z tradition of the ancient Hebrews,
in their commentaries, is very probable,
and consonant to it : They carried in the
defert two arks, the one of God, the other os
Joseph ; that the ark of the covenant, this
the ark (or coffin) in which they carried
Joseph'j bones out of Egypt. This coffin
(if it be lawful for me to conjecture, after
the revolution of three thousand years) I
conceive to have been of sycomore (a
great tree, very plentifully growing in
Egypt) -, of which sort there are many found
in the mummies, very fair, intire, and
free from corruption, to this day: though
I know the Arabians and Perfians have a
different tradition, that his coffin was of
glass. a They put his blesfed body, after they

n JucUos ab JE^yptiis didicijse, condere radavera, pt'ih quam cre?nare. Tacit.Histor. lib.5-.
0 Spondan. lib.i. part. 1. cap. s. de Coemeteriis facris.
P Kai tcts JVj hncrcLv re, ^ jjAes-4-cer a/t' kha'tco. Iliad, lib. 19. 1 ^Eneid. lib. 6. r Johnxr. 39.
8 TrarsiuUrunt Ifraelha buncritiim ex JEgypo fecum in Canaruam, quo deinceps in fepulturis pr'mcipum & regum
ufi d'uuntur in bisioridAsz, 2 Paral. vi. zy alibi. D. Paisei Com. in Gen. 1. 2. c 1 Chron. xvi. 14.
u Gen. 1. 2, 3. w G«;n. 1. *6.
x Diod. Sic. nt>. 1. KctGoAs H vav togcoucl to [Av tt^tou kzS'^ia k) nalv ahhon ZTri[j-'-Kei(tii ^inaiv ktf
iiyA(?as 7rAelt;s tcwc TeidKoujct, t'7r&l& 07.'. up I'm kcii xivay.coij.h), &c. Y Herod, lib. 2.
2 Vetera Hebr&i commentati sunt duns swjse areas, unamheedentes in deferto, alteram Di'vimtat is, alteram Jo-
fept.i ; illam [cilicet arcarn soederis, banc vero loculoj quibus Josephi ojsa ex Mgypto asportabantur in regionem
Cbxnaan. Perer. Com. in l.cap.Genes.
a Note, in Mr. Greaves's edition of this work, printed at London, anno 1646, the Arab'ck is cited 2t large>
to which the curious reader m y have recouise.
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