DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6359#0111
THE PYRAMIDS.
99
measure, unravelled, and the names of their founders ascer-
tained. The explorations of Colonel Vyse, Perring, and re-
cently of Lepsius, have brought to light the remains of no
less than sixty-nine pyramids, extending in a line from Abou-
roash to Dashoor. These, by the discovery of the names of
their founders, are proved to have been a succession of royal
ftiausolea forming the most sublime Necropolis in the world.
The size of each different pyramid is supposed to bear relation
to the length of the reign of its builder, being commenced with
the delving of a tomb in the rock for him at his accession, over
which a fresh layer of stones was added every year until his
decease, when the monument was finished and closed up.
Taking the number of these Memphite sovereigns and the
average length of their reigns, the gradual construction of the
Pyramids would therefore, it is presumed, extend over a period,
111 round numbers, of some sixteen hundred years ! Imagina-
tion is ieft t0 conceive the antecedent period required for the
slow formation of the alluvial valley of the Nile until it be-
came fit for human habitation, whether it was first peopled by
atl indigenous race, or by an Asiatic immigration, already
Ringing with them from their Asiatic birth-place the elements
of civilization, or whether they grew up on the spot, and the
0llg> long ages that might have elapsed, and the progress that
"^st have been maa-C) i^fore monuments so wonderful could
have been erected.
" Such is the latest theory, we believe, of the construction
an<i import of the pyramids. At the risk, however, of irreve-
rence towards the learned authorities by whom it is pro-
pounded, we would remark, that it appears inconsistent with
he construction of the great pyramid of Cheops, since the
existence of a series of interior passages and chambers, and
99
measure, unravelled, and the names of their founders ascer-
tained. The explorations of Colonel Vyse, Perring, and re-
cently of Lepsius, have brought to light the remains of no
less than sixty-nine pyramids, extending in a line from Abou-
roash to Dashoor. These, by the discovery of the names of
their founders, are proved to have been a succession of royal
ftiausolea forming the most sublime Necropolis in the world.
The size of each different pyramid is supposed to bear relation
to the length of the reign of its builder, being commenced with
the delving of a tomb in the rock for him at his accession, over
which a fresh layer of stones was added every year until his
decease, when the monument was finished and closed up.
Taking the number of these Memphite sovereigns and the
average length of their reigns, the gradual construction of the
Pyramids would therefore, it is presumed, extend over a period,
111 round numbers, of some sixteen hundred years ! Imagina-
tion is ieft t0 conceive the antecedent period required for the
slow formation of the alluvial valley of the Nile until it be-
came fit for human habitation, whether it was first peopled by
atl indigenous race, or by an Asiatic immigration, already
Ringing with them from their Asiatic birth-place the elements
of civilization, or whether they grew up on the spot, and the
0llg> long ages that might have elapsed, and the progress that
"^st have been maa-C) i^fore monuments so wonderful could
have been erected.
" Such is the latest theory, we believe, of the construction
an<i import of the pyramids. At the risk, however, of irreve-
rence towards the learned authorities by whom it is pro-
pounded, we would remark, that it appears inconsistent with
he construction of the great pyramid of Cheops, since the
existence of a series of interior passages and chambers, and