Proctor, Richard A.: The Great Pyramid: observatory, tomb, and temple (New York, 1883)

THE PROBLEM OF THE PYRAMIDS. 157

confidence. Thus, when we find that the Great
Pyramid was actually completed in the most care-
ful and perfect manner, we have very strong reason
for believing it to have been all but completed
during the lifetime of the king, its builder—if it
was indeed intended for his tomb. I must confess
that the exclusively tombic theory of the Great
Pyramid (at least) had always seemed to me
utterly incredible, even before I advanced what
seems to me the only reasonable interpretation of
its erection. One may admit that the singular
taste of the Egyptian kings for monstrous tombs
was carried to a preposterous extent, but not to
an extent quite so preposterous as the exclusively
tombic theory would require. Of course, when
we see that the details of the great edifice indicate
unmistakably an astronomical object, which was
regarded as of such importance as to justify the
extremest care, our opinion is strengthened that
the pyramid was not solely meant for a tomb.
For this would bring in another absurdity, scarcely
less than that involved in the exclusively tombic
theory of structures so vast, if even they were non-
astronomical—this, namely, that the Egyptian
kings thought the celestial bodies and their move-
ments so especially related to them, that their long
home must be astronomically posited with a degree