DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6552#0258
APPENDIX.
219
which projected, and by taking advantage of holes cut in the
smooth floor at six palms' interval.
Having arrived at the top, he entered the sepulchral chamber,
which had no door : it was about forty feet long and twenty-one
feet wide, and was roofed with seven blocks laid across it, which
were supported by the walls.
The tomb was built aslant at the end of the chamber, and was
separated from the whole body.3
He found also a large column made of Egyptian stone, and
tried to break it with a hammer, which he took for that purpose,
but could make no impression. It emitted, when struck, a sound
like a bell, which could be heard at a great distance.
The tomb had no lid; and it was said, that the king for whom
it was intended had not been buried in it.
The author then repeats the antient traditions, that three
hundred and sixty thousand men were employed for twenty years
in building the Great Pyramid ; and that the construction of the
three was completed in seventy-eight years and four months. He
remarks, however, that nothing certain is known about them.
Mr. Melton appears to have revisited the Pyramids in com-
pany with many other persons on the 28th of the following
December; when, it is to be remarked, that, on account of the
water remaining from the previous inundation, he was carried by
the Arabs across a canal, precisely in the same way as he would
have been at the present moment.
From his observations on this and his former visit, he imagines
that the hills adjacent to the Pyramids were converted into one
large cemetery, probably for Memphis;4 that all the Pyramids
bad entrances, and inclined passages of considerable length,
leading to sepulchral chambers, which were concealed by the
accumulation of the desert sands ; that they also contained deep
square wells, excavated in the rock, as he had found to be the
case in ten which he had examined ;5 that these monuments were
regularly placed ; that each of the three larger were at the head
01" ten smaller, many of which had been destroyed. He concluded,
that there had been originally above one hundred.
3 This is very obscure, and is probably an error of the translator—" Is van's
geliaele, licbaam afjjescheiden." "Licliaam*' is said to mean a dead body; but
tne author probably meant to express that the sarcophagus was movable, and
not fixed into the body of the masonry, as the pdlar also evidently referred to it.
4 This the Dutch translator terms a churchyard, " Kerkhof."
" It is evident that he confounds the Pyramids with the adjacent tombs, which
contain shafts and also hieroglyphics.
219
which projected, and by taking advantage of holes cut in the
smooth floor at six palms' interval.
Having arrived at the top, he entered the sepulchral chamber,
which had no door : it was about forty feet long and twenty-one
feet wide, and was roofed with seven blocks laid across it, which
were supported by the walls.
The tomb was built aslant at the end of the chamber, and was
separated from the whole body.3
He found also a large column made of Egyptian stone, and
tried to break it with a hammer, which he took for that purpose,
but could make no impression. It emitted, when struck, a sound
like a bell, which could be heard at a great distance.
The tomb had no lid; and it was said, that the king for whom
it was intended had not been buried in it.
The author then repeats the antient traditions, that three
hundred and sixty thousand men were employed for twenty years
in building the Great Pyramid ; and that the construction of the
three was completed in seventy-eight years and four months. He
remarks, however, that nothing certain is known about them.
Mr. Melton appears to have revisited the Pyramids in com-
pany with many other persons on the 28th of the following
December; when, it is to be remarked, that, on account of the
water remaining from the previous inundation, he was carried by
the Arabs across a canal, precisely in the same way as he would
have been at the present moment.
From his observations on this and his former visit, he imagines
that the hills adjacent to the Pyramids were converted into one
large cemetery, probably for Memphis;4 that all the Pyramids
bad entrances, and inclined passages of considerable length,
leading to sepulchral chambers, which were concealed by the
accumulation of the desert sands ; that they also contained deep
square wells, excavated in the rock, as he had found to be the
case in ten which he had examined ;5 that these monuments were
regularly placed ; that each of the three larger were at the head
01" ten smaller, many of which had been destroyed. He concluded,
that there had been originally above one hundred.
3 This is very obscure, and is probably an error of the translator—" Is van's
geliaele, licbaam afjjescheiden." "Licliaam*' is said to mean a dead body; but
tne author probably meant to express that the sarcophagus was movable, and
not fixed into the body of the masonry, as the pdlar also evidently referred to it.
4 This the Dutch translator terms a churchyard, " Kerkhof."
" It is evident that he confounds the Pyramids with the adjacent tombs, which
contain shafts and also hieroglyphics.