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

alteram s'
in «****

:ea at larg^
tid

the PYRAMIDS were ereEied.

62$

|^ wajhed it, into a coffin of glafs, and bu-
ried it in the chanel of the river Nilus,
saith Emir Cond a Perfian.
That phrase of Jofeph, where he takes
an oath of the children of lsrael, a Ye Jhall
carry up my bones from hence, surely is a
fynecdoche, or figurative speech. And so
is that in Exodus: And b Moses took the
bones of Joseph with him ; for he hadftraitly
fworn the children of lsrael, faying^ God
will furely vifit you % and ye Jhall carry up
my bones away hence with you : for his body
being boweled, and then imbalmed, after
the manner of the Egyptians, not only the
bones, but the skin, the flesh, and all be-
sides the entrails, (which, according to
c Plutarch, were thrown into the river)
would have continued perfect and intire,
a much longerN space than srom his death
to their migration out of Egypt.
Having thus, by art, found out ways to
make the body durable, whereby the soul
might continue with it, as we shewed be-
fore, which else would have been at liberty
to have pasTed into fome other body -, d this
also being the opinion of the Egyptians, from
whom Vythzgovas borrowed his ^{\i^vx^Hy
or transanimation (the which made him to
forbid his disciples the eating of ssesh, Ne
sorte bubulam quis de aliquo proavo fuo obfona-
ret, as Tertullian wittily speaks); the next
care of the Egyptians was to provide con-
ditories, which might be as lading as the
body, and in which it might continue safe
from the injury of time and men. That
occasioned the ancient kings of Thebes in
Egypt to build those, which e Diodorus
thus describes: There are, they say, the won-
dersul sepulchres of the ancient kings, which,
in magnisicence, exceeds the imitation of
posierity. Of thefe, in the Jacred comment a-
ries, forty-feven are mentioned ; but, in the
time 0/* Ptolemasus Lagi, there remained but
xvn. Many os them, at our being in Egypt
in the hundred-and-eightieth olympiad, were
decayed; neither are these things alone re-
ported by the Egyptians, out of the facred
books, but by many also of the Grecians, who, in
the time of Ptolemaeus Lagi, went to Thebes;
and, having compiled histories, (amongft whom
is Hecatseus) agree with our relations. And
this might occasion also those others re-
corded by Strabo, which he calls sp^j'a,
or mercuriales tumulos, seen by him near
Siene, in the upper parts of Egypt, very

strange and memorable : s Pajfrng in a cha- Gn
riot srom Siene to Philce, over a very even
plain, about an hundred fiadia, all the way
almofl, of both fides, wefaw in many places
mercurial tombs; a great Jlons, fmooth, and
almofi fpherical, of that black and hard mar-
ble out oj which mortars are made, placed
upon a greater /tone, and on tbe top of this
another, fome of them lying by themfeives -, the
great eft of them was ho lefs than tzvelve seet
diameter, all of them greater than the half of
this. Many ages alter, when the regal
throne was removed from Thebes to Mem-
phis, the same religion and opinion con-
tinuing amongst the Egyptians, that fo
long as the body endured, Jo long the foul con-
tinued with it, not as quickening and ani-
mating it, but as an attendant or guardian,
and, as it were, unwilling to leave her
former habitation. Ic is not to be doubted*
this incited the kings there, together with
their private ambition, and thirst after
glory, to be at so vast expences in the
building of these Pyramids j and the Egyp-
tians os lower quality, to spare for no
colt, in cutting those hypogcua, those caves
or dormitories in the Libyan desarts, which
by the Christians, now-a-days, are called
the mummies. Diodorus Siculus excellently
expresies their opinion and belief in this
particular, together with their extreme
cosl of building sepulchres, in these words :
g The Egyptians make fmall account^ of the
time of this life being limiud, but that which,
after death, is pined with a glorious memory
of virtue, they highly value: they call the
houfes os the living, inns, becaufe for a
jhort space we inhabit'thefe -, but the fepulchres
of the dead they name eternal manfions, be-
caufe thej continue with the gods for an insinite
space. Wherefore in the jirullures os their
houses they are little foliciious, but in excpui-
sitely adorning their fepulchres they think no
coft fujficient.
Now why the Egyptians did build their
sepulchres often in the form of Pyramids,
(for they were not always of this figure,
as appears by those ify-cua,, or mercuriales
tumuli, before cited out of Strabo, which
were spherical *, and by those hypogad,
or caves, still extant in the rocks of the de-
sert) Pierius in his hieroglyphicks, or
rather the anonymous Author at the end of
him, gives several philosophical reasons:
h By a Pyramid, saith he, the ancient Egyp-
tians

EAVES.

a Gen. 1. 2f. b Exod. xiii. 19.
e Plutar.7. sapient. convivio. d YlpZroi S-l Km Tov^iriv h'oyov A)y\)7r}ioie'ttri iWofjiSy as avSpaVs
4sX" #fttf.va]®' e«"»* crkG6op.£\<& S't Kctjct^ivoy}^, Is aKho ^Zov tthi yiv'o[j.zvov itxtP'oijeti. Herod, lib. z.
e Diod. Sic. lib. 1. Eiuat «P4 (paci ko.1 rcttpxs ivjcwsja, rav AsXjauav$&aihkcov d-aju^a^s, &c.
s Strabo, lib. 17%'rHAsso/x£s <P' us $i\as m "Zvwtis d<7ri)vy JY oy.a.te atp'o^pct •rriS'iti rec</V»s o/v.8 71 Ik&\'ov. Tla^
'■ahnv cN Tw b<^ov w }<Pziv iKajipcoQiv nroKK&yfs cliam^ zp[/.oucL:i Sec.
£ Diod. Sic. lib. x„ 0/ yap \\yjx>tui tqv y.lv lv ?a> £yy y^gyvov ivTikn <7rctv\n as zlvcti Po/wi£«o7, tqv <N //?7<£
tw TiKdj]nv JY ap(\nv ^.m^ovd/^m'o^vov^ -srsp/ <3rA&iVa <sro/sV]st/. K.at rds y.iv Turn ^uisjav otma&s ncijcikvsseii
ivosXA^aiTiv, 8cc.
h Ex eruditi cujusd. 1.1. sub sinem Hierogl. Pierii. Per Pyrnmidem veteres (JEgyptii) rerum naturzm, &,
lubstantiam ilUm insormem format recipientem jfignisicare volmmnt, quod ut Pyramis h funfto, & [wnmo sas-
7 X tigii