A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Volume I Part 21

[204] The discovery of these chambers was interesting from another point of view. The name of Choufou was found continually repeated upon the blocks of which they are formed. It was written in red ochre, and, in places, it was upside down, thus proving that it must have been written before the stones were put in place. It cannot therefore have been traced after the tradition which a.s.signed the pyramid to Cheops, that is, to Khoufou, arose; and so it affords conclusive corroboration of the statements of Herodotus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 153.--Longitudinal section through the lower chambers; perspective after Perring.]

The glory of the workmen who built the Great Pyramid is the masonry of the Grand Gallery, the gallery which opens immediately into the vestibule of the King's Chamber. As this corridor is 28 feet high and 7 feet wide, the visitor can breathe more freely than in the low and narrow pa.s.sages which lead to it, and can examine at his ease the beautiful blocks of limestone from Mokattam of which its polished walls are composed. The faces of these blocks have been dressed with a care which is not to be surpa.s.sed even by the most perfect examples of h.e.l.lenic architecture on the Acropolis at Athens. The internal faces must have been worked with equal care. No cement has been employed in the fixing, and the adherence is so perfect that, in the words of Abd-ul-Latif "not a needle, not even a hair, can be introduced into the joints."[205] These joints are not even to be distinguished without careful examination. The roof of this gallery is built with no less care.[206] Each of the upper courses is slightly set off from the one below it, so that in time they come so near together that the opening may be closed by a single stone, or rather, row of stones.

These, being held between the two upper courses of a quasi vault, play the part of key stones. This method of vaulting has been employed in other parts of the pyramid, especially in what is called the _Queen's Chamber_, which is almost directly beneath the king's, or sarcophagus-chamber. The same care is conspicuous in those linings of red granite which form the walls of the two chambers. Even the fine limestone used for the walls of the Grand Gallery was not considered rich and solid enough for the walls of the apartment in which the prince in whose honour the whole of the colossal edifice was reared would repose; and it was determined to use the richest and most costly material of which the Egyptian architect could dispose.[207] The plain sarcophagus, without either inscription or ornament, which is still in the King's Chamber, is also of red granite.

[205] This is no exaggeration. JOMARD expresses himself to the same effect almost in the same terms. (_Description de l'egypte_, vol. v. p. 628.)

[206] The extremity of this gallery appears on the right of Fig.

152.

[207] The presence of this lining in the "Queen's Chamber" also led to its being dubbed a funerary chamber, for no trace of a sarcophagus was found in it. If we had any reason to believe that the pyramid was built in successive wedges, we should look upon this as a provisional chamber, made before it was certain that the pyramid would attain its present dimensions. As the work went on, it would be decided that another, larger, and better defended chamber should be built. In this case the first may never have been used, and may always have been as empty as it is now.

The external casing of the pyramid has entirely disappeared, as we have already said. On account of their moderate size the stones of which it was composed would seem to be especially well fitted for use in building those great cities which, after the collapse of the ancient civilization, succeeded each other, under different names, in the neighbourhood of the Memphite necropolis. This casing seems to have been made of more than one kind of stone, if we may believe an ancient text which has been interpreted by Letronne with the skill and sagacity of which he has given so many proofs.[208]

[208] These observations are to be found in one of the early works of Letronne. Their presence is in no way hinted at by the t.i.tle, which is: _Recherches Geographiques et Critiques sur le Livre 'De mensura orbis terrae'_ (8vo. 1844). The treatise, ?e??

t?? ?pt? ?ea?t??, may have been written either by Philo of Heraclea or Philo of Byzantium. They both belonged to the third century before our era, but the bombastic style and numerous errors incline us to believe that the little work must have been from the pen of some unknown rhetorician of a later date.

The author, named Philo, of a treatise upon the Seven Wonders of the World, tells us that the Egyptians employed upon this work "the most brilliant and varied stones, which were carefully fixed." He mentions as contributing to the splendid result white marble, basalt, porphyry, and a green breccia from Arabia, which must have been what is called _verde antique_. And as for his white marble, it must have been the white limestone from Mokattam, which, in its best strata, is almost as white and fine in grain as marble. Marble, properly speaking, was only introduced into Egypt by the Greeks, and that in very small quant.i.ties, for the use of sculptors. Philo says nothing of granite, but its use was so general that it must have found a place in the scheme of decoration.[209]

[209] These are the words of Philo, which we have translated rather freely:-- ??????a? d? ?a? p??f??a? ????? f?se?? ?????a??

?p?ded?e?a?, ?a? t? ?? ?st?? ? p?t?a ?e??? ?a? a?a??t??? t?

d? ?????p??? ?a? ??a??a ?a? et? ta?t?? ? ?a???e??? a?at?t??

?????? e?ta p??????? ?a? d???????? ?p? t?? ??a?a? ?e???s????, p. 2,259, A.

The various kinds of stone must have been so placed as to form zones, and perhaps patterns, of different colours, white, red, black, rose, green, and so on. To form an idea of the effect we must think of Giotto's campanile at Florence and various other Italian buildings of the same kind.

It has been questioned whether the testimony of this Philo is to be depended upon, as few of those who have busied themselves with the pyramids seem to have laid much stress upon it. It seems to us to be worthy of great respect. We do not know when Philo lived, but we know that the casing of the pyramid was still in place, at least in part, during the Middle Ages, because in the time of Abd-ul-Latif it had almost its original height, and its ascent was still very difficult.[210] On the other hand we have proofs that, although the author of the Seven Wonders of the World may have written more in the tone of a rhetorician than of an eyewitness of the wonders which he describes, he took some of his information from excellent sources. In fact with the exception of Pliny, he is the only ancient writer who gives us an approximately true statement of the length of the base line of Cheops' Pyramid. While the measurements of other writers are very far from accurate, the figure given by Philo is only 16 feet 6 inches in excess of the truth. The idea of decorating such an expanse of surface with varied colour was quite in accordance with Egyptian taste. They loved polychromatic ornaments; they covered every available surface with the gayest hues; they delighted in the juxtaposition of the most brilliant tones. They could hardly think of covering such an immense surface with paint, and as it was necessary, in any case, to cover it with a smooth casing, it would be no more difficult to employ many kinds of stone than one. They would thus obtain a kind of gigantic mosaic which may perhaps have been heightened in effect by the use of gold. We know that the pyramidion of an obelisk was frequently gilded, and it is probable enough that similar means were sometimes taken, in the case of the more magnificent and carefully finished pyramids, to draw the eye to their topmost stone and thus to add to the impression made by their height.

No more fitting adornment could be imagined for the sharp peak of a pyramid rising nearly five hundred feet into the pure blue of an Egyptian sky.

[210] According to the calculations of Letronne, the Great Pyramid must have been 482 feet high when it was complete. In the time of Diodorus it was slightly over 480 feet; in that of Abd-ul-Latif it measured 477 feet 3 inches. In 1795 it was only 456 feet and a few inches, so that it lost about 24 feet in the course of eighteen centuries. This lowering of the summit was mainly caused by the destruction and removal of the outer casing. Since it disappeared the Arabs have been in the habit of loosening the stones on the top and launching them down the sides for the amus.e.m.e.nt of travellers; the smooth casing alone could prevent such outrage as this. The common idea that the Pyramid of Cheops is the highest building in the world is erroneous. Even if we take its height when complete, it is surpa.s.sed by at least two modern buildings, as may be seen by the following table of the most lofty buildings now existing:--

Feet.

Spires of Cologne Cathedral 533 Fleche of the Cathedral at Rouen 500 Spire of St. Nicholas, Hamburg 480 Dome of St. Peter's, Rome 476 Spire of Strasbourg Cathedral 473 Pyramid of Cheops 456 Spire of St. Stephen's, Vienna 450 Spire of St. Martin's, Landshut 443 Spire of the Cathedral of Freiburg, Breisgau 417 Spire of Antwerp Cathedral, not including the cross 411 Spire of Salisbury Cathedral 404 Dome of Cathedral at Florence 396 Dome of St. Paul's, London 371 Fleche of Milan Cathedral 363 Tower of Magdeburg Cathedral 344 Victoria Tower, Westminster 336 Rathhaus Tower, Berlin 293 Spire of Trinity Church, New York 287 Pantheon, Paris 266 Towers of Notre Dame, Paris 226

But this is a conjecture which can never be verified. Even if the topmost stone were still in place upon any of the pyramids it would, after all these ages, have lost all traces of gilding; but the whole of those edifices have their apex more or less truncated. Even before our era, Diodorus[211] found the Great Pyramid crowned by a plateau six cubits square.

[211] DIODORUS, i. 63, 64.

It has sometimes been supposed that the pyramids, when complete, were terminated by such a plateau as that described by Diodorus, and that it bore a statue of the king whose mummy rested below. This hypothesis is founded upon the pa.s.sage of Herodotus which treats of the Lake Mris. "There are," he says, "in the middle of the lake, two pyramids, each fifty fathoms high (309 feet) ... each of them is surmounted by a colossal stone statue seated upon a throne."[212]

Herodotus insists so often upon having seen the Labyrinth and Lake Mris with his own eyes, that we cannot affect to doubt his a.s.sertions; we shall therefore confine ourselves to a few observations upon them.

[212] HERODOTUS, ii. 49.

In the descriptions which he gives of the three great pyramids, and among his comments upon the methods employed in their construction, Herodotus does not say a word which can be construed into the most distant allusion to statues upon their summits. If he had seen colossi perched upon those lofty pedestals, or if he had heard from his dragomans--whose exaggerations he has elsewhere so navely reproduced--that they had formerly existed, would he not have made some allusion to them in that pa.s.sage, at least, where he explains how they raised such huge stones to so great a height, and describes the successive stages in the construction of a pyramid?[213] Would he not have found room, in the elaborate ant.i.thetical pa.s.sage in which he contrasts the virtues of Mycerinus with the imaginary wickedness of Cheops and Chephren, for moral and critical reflections called up by the sight of their statues upon their respective pyramids; still more if one of them had happened to be missing? Would he not have attempted, through some popular tradition, to have accounted for the presence of one statue and the absence of another? It is evident, therefore, that Herodotus neither saw any statues upon the Pyramids of Memphis nor had he any reason to suppose those structures had ever been crowned in such a fashion. He lays stress upon the seated statues of the pyramids in Lake Mris because they were new to him, because he had seen nothing of the same kind in the neighbourhood of the ancient capital.

[213] M. MASPERO has given in the _Annuaire de l' a.s.sociation pour l'Encouragement des etudes Grecques_ and elsewhere, several extracts from a commentary upon the second book of Herodotus, which we should like to see published in its entirety. We may point out more particularly his remarks upon the text of the Greek historian in the matter of the 1,600 talents of silver which, he says, was the value of the onions, radishes, and garlic consumed by the workmen employed upon the Great Pyramid (ii. 125). He has no difficulty in showing that Herodotus made a mistake, for which he gives an ingenious and probable explanation. (_Annuaire de 1875_, p. 16.)

Unless we are very much mistaken, this superposition of a colossus upon a pyramid was a novelty devised by the architects of the middle empire, when, under the Ousourtesens and Amenemhats, it was proposed to revive the pyramidal form of tomb with which the early Pharaohs had obtained such imposing results. Although most conservative on the whole, the art of Egypt attempted, at each period of renascence, to introduce new combinations into the details, at least, of the ancient forms, and this was one of the number.

Another innovation of the same kind is to be found in the decoration which covered, again according to Herodotus,[214] another pyramid constructed at about the same time, namely, that which formed one side of the Labyrinth. "It had," says the historian, "forty fathoms, and it was sculptured with animals of large size. The entrance was by a subterranean pa.s.sage." From the Greek word used (???????pta?) we see that Herodotus means that the faces, or perhaps only the princ.i.p.al face, of this pyramid about two hundred and fifty feet high, were covered with bas-reliefs. There is in Egypt no other example of a pyramid so decorated. The architectural works of this period have almost entirely vanished, but we may, perhaps, look upon it as one of their characteristics that the bareness which they had inherited from the early creators of Egyptian art, was relieved and adorned by the intervention of the sculptor.

[214] HERODOTUS, ii. 148. DIODORUS (l. 89) speaks of the same and STRABO, who also appears to have seen it, a.s.serts its funerary character (p. 1165, C). He says it was four plethra (393 feet) both in width and height. This last dimension is obviously exaggerated, because in all the Egyptian pyramids that are known to us the shortest diameter of the base is far in excess of the height.

It was the desire for such ornament that made them convert their pyramids into gigantic pedestals for statues. According to all the a.n.a.logies afforded by later ages, these statues must have been those of the princes who built the pyramids in question. We have no reason to suppose that any of the kings of the first six dynasties erected any colossal figures like those which were set up in such numbers by the Theban dynasties; with the single exception of the Sphinx, none of the statues left to us by the ancient empire greatly exceed the natural size. But it is evident that such figures as would be fit to crown the pyramids of Cheops and Chephren would have to be of extravagant size even if no more than their general outlines were to be visible from below. Seen from a point nearly 500 feet below, and in consequence of the inclination of the pyramid faces, at some considerable distance laterally, even a statue fifty feet high, like the two colossi of Amenophis III. on the plain of Thebes, would appear small enough to a spectator. Its artistic results would be very slender, and yet its erection would require prodigious mechanical efforts. It would have required all the mult.i.tudes of labourers, the patience, and the time, which the Egyptians alone dared to expend upon their monuments. But perhaps it may be said that these colossi were statues built-up of comparatively small stones. To this we must answer that every colossus as yet discovered in Egypt is a monolith. A statue, of whatever size, made in different pieces would form an exception to the whole practice of Egyptian sculpture as we know it.

Until such works are proved to exist we decline to believe in them.

The problem was a much simpler one in the cases of the pyramids in Lake Mris. They were not nearly so lofty. According to Herodotus they were about 309 feet high, doubtless including their statues.

Situated as they were in the middle of the lake, Herodotus could not himself have measured them, and his statement that they sank as far below the level of the water as they rose above it is an obvious exaggeration. When the bed of the lake was formed, two ma.s.ses of rock were no doubt reserved, as in the cases of the other pyramids, to form the core of the projected edifices, and therefore it is likely enough that the lowest courses of the constructions themselves dipped but little below the surface of the lake.[215] In his amazement at the scale upon which the Egyptian buildings were conceived, Herodotus has too often attributed excessive dimensions to them; thus he says that the height of the Great Pyramid was eight plethra, or about 820 feet, nearly 340 feet in excess of the truth. It is therefore probable that the figures which he gives for the lake pyramids are also exaggerated.

These pyramids were, on account of their comparatively modest dimensions, much better adapted to the ideas of the Ousourtesens and Amenemhats than the gigantic piles of Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus.

[215] If the pa.s.sage in which Herodotus makes the statement here referred to be taken in connection with the remarks of Diodorus, a probable explanation of the old historian's a.s.sertion may be arrived at. Diodorus says that the king ???tt?? t??t?? (?????

sub.) ?at???pe? ?? ?s? t?p??, ?? ? t?f?? ???d??se ?a? d??

p??a?da?, t?? ?? ?a?t??, t?? d? t?? ???a????, stad?a?a? t?

????. By this it would appear that, in excavating the bed, or a part of the bed, of the famous lake, a ma.s.s of earth was left in order to bear future witness to the depth of the excavation and the general magnitude of the work. This ma.s.s would probably be reveted with stone, and, in order that even when surrounded and almost hidden by water, its significance should not be lost, the pyramids raised upon it were made exactly equal to it in height.--ED.

Finally there is not a text to be found, outside the pages of Herodotus, which mentions pyramids surmounted by statues, and upon none of those monuments which in one way or another bear representations of the pyramids are they shown in any other way than with pointed summits. Thus do we find them in the papyri, upon those steles of the Memphite necropolis which commemorate the priests devoted to their service, and in those tombs at Memphis, Abydos, and Thebes where the pyramid, placed upon rectangular figures of various heights, is used as a terminal element. Neither in the small number of pyramids which have come down to us comparatively intact, nor in those which are represented in reliefs, is there the smallest sign of a truncated summit or of any platform which could by any possibility have borne a statue.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 154.--Pyramidion: Louvre.]

We may say the same of those small pyramidions which have been found in such great numbers in tombs and which fill our museums. It is well known that these are votive offerings in connection with the worship of the sun. "The princ.i.p.al figure," says M. de Rouge, "is generally shown in a posture of adoration, with his face turned to the sun. On his left hand is the invocation to the rising, and on his right that to the setting sun. These arrangements are modified in various ways, but they are always upon the same genera lines as the orientation of the tombs themselves."[216] These minute pyramids also end in a point whether they be of basalt, granite, or calcareous stone, and it is natural that we should look upon them as the faithful reproductions upon a small scale of those great funerary monuments which furnished a type, consecrated by the most venerable of the national traditions, of that structure facing the four cardinal points which we may call the normal Egyptian tomb.

[216] _Notice sommaire des Monuments egyptiens exposes dans les Galeries du Louvre_ (4th edition, 1865, p. 56).

We may believe, then, that the pyramid of the ancient empire terminated in a pyramidion. This apex once fixed in place, the workmen charged with the final completion of the edifice worked downwards from one course to another, covering the immense steps which each face displayed five or six thousand years ago and now displays again, with the final casing which protected them for so many centuries. Even Herodotus saw that this must have been the method of completion.[217]

Any other way of proceeding would have been too dangerous after the slope of the sides had been made smooth and continuous by the completion of the casing of polished granite. Workmen could only have kept their footing upon such a surface, with its 51 or 52 degrees of elevation, by means of a complicated arrangement of ropes and ladders.

And again, points of resistance could not have been obtained for the elevation of the materials to ever increasing heights without cutting or leaving holes in the casing, which would afterwards have to be filled up. These difficulties would have unnecessarily complicated an operation which was a simple matter when begun from the top. The masons could then make use of the steps for their own locomotion, and when the stones were too large to be lifted from hand to hand, nothing could be easier than to fix windla.s.ses by which the largest blocks could be raised with facility.

[217] ??ep????? d' ?? t? ???tata a?t?? p??ta, et? d? t? ?p?e?a t??t?? ??ep??e?? ... (ii. 125).

As the workmen approached the base they left above them an ever increasing extent of polished surface, sloping at such an angle that no foot could rest upon it, and forming the only safeguard against the degradation of the pyramid by removing its copestone or its violation by breaking into the pa.s.sages which led to the mummy-chamber. The casing gave to the pyramid those continuous lines which were necessary to make its beauty complete, and, if the materials employed were varied in the way suggested, it furnished colour effects which had their beauty also. But, above all, it was a protection, a defensive armour. So long as the pyramid preserved its cuira.s.s intact, it was difficult for those who meditated violence to know where to begin their attack. But this obstacle once pierced it was comparatively easy to learn all the secrets of the building. The inner ma.s.s was much less carefully built than the casing; the joints were comparatively open, and the stones were soft and easily cut. Hence we see that some pyramids, especially those which were built of bricks, have been reduced by the action of time into heaps of _debris_, in which the pyramidal form is hardly to be recognised.

Philo, who seems to be so well informed, tells us with what extreme care the casing was put in place. "The whole work," he says, "is so well adjusted, and so thoroughly polished, that the whole envelope seems but one block of stone."[218] The pyramid of Cheops has been entirely despoiled of its outer covering, and it is to that of Mycerinus that we must now turn if we wish to have some idea of the care with which the work was done. The lower part of this pyramid is still covered with long blocks of the finest granite, fixed and polished in the most perfect manner. At the foot of the Great Pyramid several blocks have been found which seem to have formed part of the casing of that edifice.[219] They are trapezoidal in form, and they show, as Letronne[220] long ago remarked, that the casing stones were placed one upon another, and adjusted by their external faces. They were not, as was at first supposed, sunk into the upper face of the course below by mortices which would correspond to the trench in the living rock in which the first course was fixed. As to whether the external faces of these blocks were dressed to the required angle before they left the quarry, or whether the work were done after they were in place we cannot say with any certainty, but it is most likely that the methods of proceeding changed with the progress of time and the succession of architects. In such a matter we should find, if we entered into details, diversity similar to that which we have already shown to have characterized the forms of the pyramids, their internal arrangements, and the materials of which they were composed.

[218] S??a??? d? ?a? ?ate?es???? t? p?? ?????, ?ste d??e??

???? t?? ?atas?e??sat?? ?a? e??a? p?t?a? s?f??a?, p. 2,259, A.

So, too, the elder Pliny, though with rather less precision: "Est autem saxo naturali elaborata et lubrica" (_Nat. Hist._ x.x.xvi. 12).

[219] According to Jomard, the casing stones of the Great Pyramid were "a compact grey limestone, harder and more h.o.m.ogeneous than those of the body of the building"

(_Description de l'egypte_, t. v. p. 640); but according to Philo, this casing was formed, as we have already said, of various materials, so we need feel no surprise if blocks of granite or other rock are shown to have formed part of it.

[220] _Journal des Savants_, August, 1841.

Thus some triangular prisms of granite have been found at the foot of the pyramid of Chephren, which seem to have formed part of its lower casing.[221] Such a section seems, upon paper, the simplest that could be adopted for the filling in of the angle between two of the steps, but it is far inferior in solidity to the trapezoidal section. The prisms had no alliance one with another; they had to depend for their security entirely upon their adherence to the faces of the graded core, so that they could easily be carried off, or become dislocated from natural causes. This system, unlike the first described, did not give a h.o.m.ogeneous envelope with a thickness of its own, and partly independent of the monument which it protected.[222]

[221] BaeDEKER, _Egypt_, part i. p. 338 (ed. of 1878). Herodotus (ii. 127) says that the first course of the Great Pyramid was built of a parti-coloured Ethiopian stone (?p?de?a? t?? p??t??

d??? ????? ?????p???? p???????). By Ethiopian stone we must understand, as several ill.u.s.trations prove, the granite of Syene. The Greek historian seems to have thought that the whole of the first course, throughout the thickness of the pyramid, was of this stone. His mistake was a natural one. In his time the pyramid was in a good state of preservation, and he never thought of asking whether or no the core was of the same material as the outer case.