Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/114

 106 PYRAMID to wall. It is 34 ft. 3 in. long, 17 ft. 1 in. wide, and 19 ft. 1 in. high. Over it are five small chambers (Z), apparently built to shelter the larger room beneath from the weight of the masonry. The room is perfectly plain, and contains only a sarcophagus of red gran- ite, 7 ft. long, 3 ft. 3 in. wide, and 3 ft. 5 in. high, which is too large to have been in- troduced through the entrance passage, and must therefore have been placed in the room when this was built. It contained a wooden coffin with the mummy of the king, which disappeared when the pyramids were first opened and plundered. In the construction of the pyramids arrangements were made for blocking up the important passages with huge masses of granite, and the obstacles thus interposed have greatly impeded their ex- ploration, and sometimes rendered it neces- sary to open new passages past the obstruc- tions. It is probable that on account of these extraordinary precautions there are yet un- discovered apartments in the immense body of these structures. Niebuhr (1761), Davison (1763), the French expedition (1798), Hamilton (1801), Caviglias (1817), Belzoni (1818), ahd Col. Howard Vyse (18:57) penetrated into the interior; but a forcible passage had been ef- fected into the pyramid long before any of these visits. It is not improbable that the Egyptians themselves violated the tomb of Cheops, or that Cambyses entered it; but Arab historians record that the caliph Mamoun, in the beginning of the 9th century, forced his way into the pyramid in order to rob it of its supposed treasures. Unable to discover the hidden entrance, lie caused a passageway to be broken through the masonry on the north side (&), and thus readied the passage coining from above. He found nothing hut empty cham- bers, and a stone sarcophagus, containing an- other of wood, which held a richly decorated mummy. The second pyramid, KingShafra's, stands on a base 33 ft. above that of the great pyramid, and in an excavation made for it in the rock. It measured originally 707 ft. 9 in. on the sides, and was 454 ft. 3 in. high; but these dimensions are now reduced respectively to 690 ft. 9 in. and 447$ ft. The angle of its slope is 52 20'. The upper portion of its casing is still preserved, and persons can as- cend this, though not without danger, espe- cially if liable to become dizzy by losing sight of the lower portion of the" structure. This pyramid has two entrances, one 37 ft. 8 in. above the base, and the other built out in front of the base, each leading by an inclined passage about 100 ft. in length to the same sepulchral chamber. This has a roof of the shape of the pyramid itself, and measures 46 ft. 2 in. by 16 ft. 2 in., and is 19 ft. 3 in. high. It contains a granite sarcophagus 8 ft. 7 in. long, 3$ ft. wide, and 3 ft. high. It was reached with great difficulty by Belzoni in 1818, who found a Cufic inscription recording the visit of a caliph and the opening by him of the pyramid, A. D. 1196-'7. The only re- mains met with were those of a bull. The third pyramid is only 354$ ft. square and 203 ft. high, but was originally 219 ft. high. It was explored in 1887 by Col. Vyse, who dis- covered several apartments, in one of which were a highly finished sarcophagus, a mummy case bearing the name of King Menkara, and the body of a workman. The last two are now in the British museum, but the sarcophagus was lost on the passage. This pyramid, though the smallest, is the best constructed of the three, and indeed the style of the work is more costly than that of any of the other pyramids of Egypt. In the same vicinity are six small- er pyramids, supposed to have been the tombs of some of the relatives of the kings who constructed the larger ones, and an immense number of tombs, some built up above the sur- face, some excavated in the rock, and some subterranean channels. Near the great pyra- mids is also the famous sphinx. Of the other
 * pyramids further S., the largest are of the Da-

shoor group, of which there are five, two of stone and three of rough brick. One of the former is now reduced from 71 9$ to 700 ft. square, and from 342$ to 326$ ft. high, and the other is 616& ft. square and 319$ ft. high. Abu- sir has a group of 14 pyramids, but many of them are small and mere heaps of rubbish, and only two are more than 100 ft. high. The Sakkara field of pyramids is adjacent to that of Abusir, and contains 17 pyramids more or less preserved. The most remarkable and largest in this group is the pyramid in steps, which possibly may once have been as smooth as the other pyramids, but none of the stones which formerly filled the gaps are to be seen. Its situation in the immediate vicinity of the oldest portion of the city, its rude construc- tion, and its oblong rectangular form, originally measuring 351 ft. from N. to S. and 8!i." ft. from E. to W., indicate a very high antiquity. Its nucleus is still standing, and rises 190 ft. above the level of the desert, in five distinct portions. Instead of facing the cardinal points, it is turned 4 35' to the east, which seems to show that its erection dates from a time when the rules for the exact astronomical construc- tion had not been discovered. Egyptologists adduce many reasons for considering this pyr- amid either the tomb of Uenephes or the old- est burial place of Apis. As both Apis bones and the remains of royal mummies have lict-n found in it, the pyramid may have served first as the tomb of kings, and been afterward ap- propriated for the service of Apis. The other pyramids of Sakkara are almost entirely de- stroyed. One of them, an enormous mastaba, the Mastaba el-Faraoon, has recently been en- U-n-d by Mariette Bey, who discovered an in- scription dedicating the tomb to King Unas, of the fifth dynasty-. Among the minor fields of pyramids is that of Abu Roash, a village two hours from Gizeh, where there arc three which evidently date from the earliest dynasties. But