DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5310#0088
THE PYRAMIDS AND SPHINX.
Tiie four Pyramids and Sphinx are most accurately engraved in the present Plate.
These massy fabrics are situated about twelve miles distant from Cairo, on the western
side of the Nile, and at no great distance from that river : they are built of a
calcareous stone of a light-gray colour, of the same composition as the rocks upon
which they have been erected, and which is the same strata of all the mountains on
both sides of the Nile nearly as high as the cataracts, where the granite rocks com-
mence. Although some of the pyramids have been covered with inferior marble, and
one with granite, as appears by some pieces still adhering to them, there cannot
remain a doubt as to the materials they are composed of. The Sphinx is a bustal of
one solid stone, cut out of the natural rock ; it represents the face of an African
woman of a colossal proportion, and measures twenty-six feet in height, and fifteen
feet from the ear to the chin. The account which the ancients have left us of the
pyramids is imperfect: no one has been more happy in the description of their situa-
tion than Horace, who says, regalique situ Pyramidum ; for I know no where a more
extensive view than from the top of the great pyramid. The obelisks were intended
to immortalize the memory of celebrated persons, and the pyramids were erected for
the preservation of their ashes.
35
Tiie four Pyramids and Sphinx are most accurately engraved in the present Plate.
These massy fabrics are situated about twelve miles distant from Cairo, on the western
side of the Nile, and at no great distance from that river : they are built of a
calcareous stone of a light-gray colour, of the same composition as the rocks upon
which they have been erected, and which is the same strata of all the mountains on
both sides of the Nile nearly as high as the cataracts, where the granite rocks com-
mence. Although some of the pyramids have been covered with inferior marble, and
one with granite, as appears by some pieces still adhering to them, there cannot
remain a doubt as to the materials they are composed of. The Sphinx is a bustal of
one solid stone, cut out of the natural rock ; it represents the face of an African
woman of a colossal proportion, and measures twenty-six feet in height, and fifteen
feet from the ear to the chin. The account which the ancients have left us of the
pyramids is imperfect: no one has been more happy in the description of their situa-
tion than Horace, who says, regalique situ Pyramidum ; for I know no where a more
extensive view than from the top of the great pyramid. The obelisks were intended
to immortalize the memory of celebrated persons, and the pyramids were erected for
the preservation of their ashes.
35