DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6552#0053
40
OPERATIONS CARRIED 03ST AT GIZEH.
it. When the passage had been entirely cleared, this
portcullis was lifted up so as to allow of an entrance under
it; but when first discovered, we entered by an aperture,
which had been made through the rock above it, into a
short horizontal passage, which opened into the northern
side of the sepulchral chamber. The apartment was
quadrangular, and extended in length from east to west.
It was about three parts full of stones and sand,5 which
were heaped up nearly to the ceiling at the eastern end,
as the rubbish had been partially removed from the
western, where a granite sarcophagus was embedded in
the pavement, in the same manner as that in the Second
Pyramid, to which it was in every respect similar, ex-
cepting that it was rather smaller, and that the pinholes
for securing the lid were deeper. The lid had been forced
off with great violence, and the pavement around it had
been taken up. Excepting the immediate entrance, the
whole of the passages and chamber were excavations in the
rock. Several narrow fissures were visible in the chamber,
but the sides had been plastered, and brown horizontal
lines, one foot ten inches from the floor, had the appear-
ance of a painted border. No vestiges of sculpture or of
hieroglyphics were discovered on any part of the tomb;
5 The forms and dimensions of the sarcophagi found in the Pyramids
at Gizeh will scarcely admit of the wooden cases or coffins adorned with
hieroglyphics, which are generally found in Egyptian tombs ; indeed, by
the fragment found in the Third Pyramid, that wooden case seems to have
been of a smaller size and of a different construction. The dimensions
of the sarcophagi in the Fourth and Fifth Pyramids corroborate the
antient accounts, that they were the tombs of the kings' wives.*
* For dimensions see Appendix.
OPERATIONS CARRIED 03ST AT GIZEH.
it. When the passage had been entirely cleared, this
portcullis was lifted up so as to allow of an entrance under
it; but when first discovered, we entered by an aperture,
which had been made through the rock above it, into a
short horizontal passage, which opened into the northern
side of the sepulchral chamber. The apartment was
quadrangular, and extended in length from east to west.
It was about three parts full of stones and sand,5 which
were heaped up nearly to the ceiling at the eastern end,
as the rubbish had been partially removed from the
western, where a granite sarcophagus was embedded in
the pavement, in the same manner as that in the Second
Pyramid, to which it was in every respect similar, ex-
cepting that it was rather smaller, and that the pinholes
for securing the lid were deeper. The lid had been forced
off with great violence, and the pavement around it had
been taken up. Excepting the immediate entrance, the
whole of the passages and chamber were excavations in the
rock. Several narrow fissures were visible in the chamber,
but the sides had been plastered, and brown horizontal
lines, one foot ten inches from the floor, had the appear-
ance of a painted border. No vestiges of sculpture or of
hieroglyphics were discovered on any part of the tomb;
5 The forms and dimensions of the sarcophagi found in the Pyramids
at Gizeh will scarcely admit of the wooden cases or coffins adorned with
hieroglyphics, which are generally found in Egyptian tombs ; indeed, by
the fragment found in the Third Pyramid, that wooden case seems to have
been of a smaller size and of a different construction. The dimensions
of the sarcophagi in the Fourth and Fifth Pyramids corroborate the
antient accounts, that they were the tombs of the kings' wives.*
* For dimensions see Appendix.