366

APPENDIX.

It was supposed that some information would be obtained from
Persian literature respecting the discoveries that were made, and
the state in which the Pyramids and other monuments were
found, when Cambyses invaded Egypt; but this does not appear
to be the case ; and indeed the only fact which seems to be esta-
blished by the Eastern authors, to whom we have now referred, is
the opening of the Great Pyramid by Al Mamoon ; and even of
that, no distinct or rational account exists. The Arabian tradi-
tion, which attributes the origin of the Pyramids to an antediluvian
king, Sheddad Ben Ad,9 is as absurd as the Coptic account of
Surid, and as the Sabsean story of Hermes (or Enoch).1 These
traditions prove indeed the great antiquity of the buildings,
and also the ignorance of those who supposed that any building
raised by human means could resist the effects of the deluge.
It appears likewise impossible to reconcile the righteous cha-
racters of Seth, and of Enoch, and of their descendants through
Shem, with the accounts of the Shepherd kings, given by
Herodotus and by Manetho. The former writer states, that
they were tyrants who cruelly oppressed the people, and putting
a stop to their religious ordinances, reduced them to slavery;
and he adds, that their memories were held in such detestation,
that even in his time, the people were unwilling to pronounce
their names, and therefore, called the Pyramids by a compre-
hensive term, the buildings of the Shepherd Philition, because
that person fed his flocks on the spot where they were erected.
Manetho, in a more detailed account, says, that these strangers
were of ignoble birth, and invaded Egypt in vast numbers
from the eastward, under the title of Shepherd Kings ;2 that
they built a strong place called Avaris, and kept possession of
the country for 511 years; and that upon their expulsion they

9 Ad is said to have been the father of Amalek.— Bryant's "Antient History,"
p}215.

1 Enos the son of Seth, particularly mentioned in Gen. chap, iv., v. 20, seems to
have been confounded with Enoch, whose miraculous history may have given rise
to many fables; but whose connexion with Seth, who died 012 years before the
flood, is not apparent, as five generations, and 492 years intervened between their
respective births.

'* Gen. chap. ix. The worship to which the form of the Pyramids has been sup-
posed to have an allusion, appears to be adverted to in this chapter, and v. 25, 20,
coincide with the name of captives, by which, Manetho says, these people were
called in their sacred books.