DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6552#0113
OPERATIONS CARRIED ON AT G1ZEII.
87
seem that, as the sarcophagus could not be removed,
the wooden case containing the body had been brought
into the large apartment for examination.
Whoever may have been the first explorers, it is
clear that at one period this pyramid remained open for
a considerable time, and was then much frequented by
Mussulmen, and that it was afterwards closed up for
many years, otherwise some accounts respecting it, more
circumstantial than that in Edrisi, must have existed,
and recent traces of bats and of reptiles would have
been found in it.
The great efforts, which had been made to get into the
higher parts of the building, were very extraordinary, and
the precautions, which had been taken to secure the tomb
from violation, were no less remarkable; the ponderous
masses of granite, and of calcareous stone, with which the
whole of the entrance was filled up as far as the anteroom,
the blocks, which secured that apartment, the three port-
cullises in the smaller chamber, the squared stones, with
which the upper returning passage was built up, the con-
cealment of the immediate entrance to the tomb by the
pavement of the large apartment, and the manner in which
that passage was closed up with a portcullis of great
thickness, with ramps, and finally with solid masonry,
indicate the veneration in which the sepulchre was held,
and therefore the importance of the personage, to whom
it belonged.
August 2d.
Reis, 11. Men, 137. Children, 83.
Third Pyramid. — Clearing the Chambers and Passages.
Eighth Pyramid. — Excavation for Entrance.
Ninth Pyramid. — Clearing out the Chamber.
Excavating the lines westward of the Second Pyramid.
87
seem that, as the sarcophagus could not be removed,
the wooden case containing the body had been brought
into the large apartment for examination.
Whoever may have been the first explorers, it is
clear that at one period this pyramid remained open for
a considerable time, and was then much frequented by
Mussulmen, and that it was afterwards closed up for
many years, otherwise some accounts respecting it, more
circumstantial than that in Edrisi, must have existed,
and recent traces of bats and of reptiles would have
been found in it.
The great efforts, which had been made to get into the
higher parts of the building, were very extraordinary, and
the precautions, which had been taken to secure the tomb
from violation, were no less remarkable; the ponderous
masses of granite, and of calcareous stone, with which the
whole of the entrance was filled up as far as the anteroom,
the blocks, which secured that apartment, the three port-
cullises in the smaller chamber, the squared stones, with
which the upper returning passage was built up, the con-
cealment of the immediate entrance to the tomb by the
pavement of the large apartment, and the manner in which
that passage was closed up with a portcullis of great
thickness, with ramps, and finally with solid masonry,
indicate the veneration in which the sepulchre was held,
and therefore the importance of the personage, to whom
it belonged.
August 2d.
Reis, 11. Men, 137. Children, 83.
Third Pyramid. — Clearing the Chambers and Passages.
Eighth Pyramid. — Excavation for Entrance.
Ninth Pyramid. — Clearing out the Chamber.
Excavating the lines westward of the Second Pyramid.