Archaeological Essays Part 15

[Footnote 229: Kemble's _Anglo-Saxons_, vol. i. p. 527, etc.]

[Footnote 230: See a case of this prohibition in the _Ecclesiastical Records of the Presbytery of St. Andrews_ for September 1643. "It is manifest by experience," says Upton, "that the seventh male child by just order, never a girle or wench being borne betweene, doth heall only with touching, by a natural gift, the king's evil; which is a speciall gift of G.o.d, given to kings and queens, as daily experience doth witnesse." See Upton's Notable Things (1631), p. 28. Charles I. when he visited Scotland in 1633, in Holyrood Chapel, on St. John's day, "heallit 100 persons of the cruelles, or kingis eivell, yong and olde."--Dalyell's _Superst.i.tions_, p. 62.]

[Footnote 231: See the "_Charisma Basilicon_" (1684) of John Browne, "Chirurgion to His Majesty," for a full and charming account of the whole process and ceremonies of the royal "touch," the prayers used on the occasion, and due proofs of the alleged wondrous effects of this "sanative gift, which hath (says Dr. Browne) for above 640 years been confirmed and continued in our English Princely line, wherein is not so much of their Majesty shown as of their Divinity," and which is only doubted by "Ill affected men and Dissenters."]

[Footnote 232: See the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for December 1787.]

IS THE GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZEH A METROLOGICAL MONUMENT?

The following observations form a corrected Abstract, from No. 75 of the _Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_, of a communication made to that Society on the 20th January 1868, and ent.i.tled _Pyramidal Structures in Egypt and elsewhere; and the Objects of their Erection_. Some additional points are dwelt upon in the Notes and Appendix. As stated at the time, the communication was not at all spontaneous, but enforced by the previous criticisms of Professor Smyth.

There are many proposed derivations of the word Pyramid. Perhaps the origin of the name suggested by the distinguished Egyptologist, Mr.

Birch, from two Coptic words, "_pouro_," "ing," and "_emahau_," or "_maha_," "tomb,"--the two in combination signifying "the king's tomb,"--is the most correct. "_Men_," in Coptic, signifies "monument,"

"memorial;" and "_pouro-men_," or "king's monument," may possibly also be the original form of the word.[233]

Various English authors, as Pope,[234] Pownall,[235] Professor Daniel Wilson,[236] Burton,[237] had long applied the term pyramid to the larger forms of conical and round sepulchral mounds, cairns, or barrows--such as are found in Ireland, Brittany, Orkney, etc., and also in numerous districts of the New and Old World;[238] and which are all characterised by containing in their interior chambers or cells, constructed usually of large stones, and with megalithic galleries leading into them. In these chambers (small in relation to the hills of stone or earth in which they were imbedded) were found the remains of sepulture, with stone weapons, ornaments, etc. The galleries and chambers were roofed, sometimes with flags laid quite flat, or placed ab.u.t.ting against each other; and occasionally with large stones arranged over the internal cells in the form of a horizontal arch or dome. In his travels to Madeira and the Mediterranean (1840), Sir W. Wilde details in interesting terms his visit to the pyramids of Egypt; and in describing the roof of the interior chambers of one of the pyramids at Sakkara,[239] he remarks on the a.n.a.logy of its construction to the great barrow of Dowth in Ireland; and again, when writing--in his work on the _Beauties of the Boyne_ (1849)--an account of the great old barrows of Dowth, New Grange, etc., placed on its banks above Drogheda, he describes at some length the last of these mounds (New Grange),--stating that it "consists" of an enormous cairn or "hill of small stones, calculated at 180,000 tons weight, occupying the summit of one of the natural undulating slopes which enclose the valley of the Boyne upon the north. It is said to cover nearly two acres, and is 400 paces in circ.u.mference, and now about 80 feet higher than the adjoining natural surface. Various excavations (he adds) made into its sides and upon its summit, at different times, in order to supply materials for building and road-making, having a.s.sisted to lessen its original height, and also to destroy the beauty of its outline." Like the other a.n.a.logous mounds and pyramids placed there and elsewhere, New Grange has a long megalithic gallery, of above 60 feet in length, leading inward into three dome-shaped chambers or crypts. After describing minutely, and with a master-hand, the construction of these interior parts, and the carvings of circles, spirals, etc.,[240] upon the enormous stones of which the gallery and crypts are built, Sir William Wilde goes on to observe:--"We believe with most modern investigators into such subjects, that it was a tomb, or great sepulchral Pyramid, similar in every respect to those now standing by the banks of the Nile, from Dashour to Gizeh, each consisting of a great central chamber containing one or more sarcophagi, entered by a long stone-covered pa.s.sage. The external aperture was concealed, and the whole covered with a great mound of stones or earth in a conical form. The early Egyptians, and the Mexicans also, possessing greater art and better tools than the primitive Irish, carved, smoothed, and cemented their great pyramids; _but the type and purpose is all the same_.... How far anterior to the Christian era its date should be placed would be a matter of speculation; it may be of an age coeval, or even anterior, to its brethren on the Nile."

Other pyramidal barrows at Maeshowe, Gavr Inis, etc., were referred to and ill.u.s.trated; showing that a gigantic sepulchral cairn was in its ma.s.s an unbuilt pyramid; or, in other words, that a pyramid was a built cairn.

SEPULCHRAL CHARACTER, ETC., OF THE EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS.

All authors, from the Father of History downwards, have generally agreed in considering the pyramids of Egypt as magnificent and regal sepulchres; and the sarcophagi, etc., of the dead have been found in them when first opened for the purposes of plunder or curiosity. The pyramidal sepulchral mounds on the banks of the Boyne were opened and rifled in the ninth century by the invading Dane, as told in different old Irish annals; and the Pyramids of Gizeh, etc., were reputedly broken into and harried in the same century by the Arabian Caliph, Al Mamoon,--the entrances and galleries blocked up by stones being forced and turned, and in some parts the solid masonry perforated. The largest of the Pyramids of Gizeh--or "the Great Pyramid," as it is generally termed--is now totally deprived of the external polished limestone coating which covered it at the time of Herodotus's visit, some twenty-two centuries ago; and "now" (writes Mr. Smyth) "is so injured as to be, in the eyes of some pa.s.sing travellers, little better than a heap of stones." But all the internal built core of the magnificent structure remains, and contains in its interior (besides a rock chamber below) two higher built chambers or crypts above--the so-called King's Chamber and Queen's chamber--with galleries and apartments leading to them. The walls of these galleries and upper chambers are built with granite and limestone masonry of a highly-finished character. This, the largest and most gigantic of the many pyramids of Egypt, had been calculated by Major Forlong (a.s.so. Inst. C. Engrs.), as a structure which in the East would cost about 1,000,000. Over India, and the East generally, enormous sums had often been expended on royal sepulchres.

The Taj Mahal of Agra, built by the Emperor Shah Jahan for his favourite queen, cost perhaps double or triple this sum; and yet it formed only a portion of an intended larger mausoleum which he expected to rear for himself. The great Pyramid contains in its interior, and directly over the King's Chamber, five entresols or "chambers of construction," as they have been termed, intended apparently to take off the enormous weight of masonry from the cross stones forming the roof of the King's Chamber itself. These entresols are chambers, small and unpolished, and never intended to be opened. But in two or three of them, broken into by Colonel H. Vyse, a most interesting discovery was made about thirty years ago. The surfaces of some of the stones were found painted over in red ochre or paint, with rudish hieroglyphics--being, as first shown by Mr. Birch, quarry marks, written on the stones 4000 years ago, and hence, perhaps, forming the oldest preserved writing in the world. These accidental hieroglyphics usually marked only the number and position of the individual stones. Among them, however, Mr. Birch discovered two royal ovals, viz., Shufu (the Cheops of Herodotus) and Nu Shufu--"a brother" (writes Professor Symth) "of Shufu, also a king and a co-regent with him." Most, if not all, of the other pyramids are believed to have been erected by individual kings during their individual or separate reigns. If these hieroglyphics proved that _two_ kings were connected with the building of the Great Pyramid, that circ.u.mstance would perhaps account for its size and the duplicity and position of its sepulchral chambers.[241]

The pyramid standing next the Great Pyramid, and nearly of equal size, is said by Herodotus to have been raised by the brother of Cheops. The other pyramids at Gizeh are usually regarded as later in date. But the exact era of the reign or reigns of their builders has not as yet been determined, in consequence of the break made in Egyptian chronology by the invasion of the Shepherd Kings.

In their mode of building, the various pyramids of Gizeh, etc., are all similar, and the Great Pyramid does not specially differ from the others. "There is nothing" (observes Professor Smyth) "in the stone-upon-stone composition of the Great Pyramid which speaks of the mere building problem to be solved there, as being of a different character, or requiring inventions by man of absolutely higher order than elsewhere." But the Great Pyramid has been imagined to contain some hidden symbols and meanings. For "it is the manner of the Pyramid"

(according to Professor Smyth) "not to wear its most vital truths in prominent outside positions."

ALLEGED METROLOGICAL OBJECT OF THE GREAT PYRAMID.

By several authorities the largest[242] of the group of pyramids at Gizeh, or "Great Pyramid," has been maintained--and particularly of late by Gabb, Jomard, Taylor, and Professor Smyth--not to be a royal mausoleum, but to be a marvellous metrological monument, built some forty centuries ago, as "a necessarily material centre," to hold and contain within it, and in its structure, material standards, "in a practicable and reliable shape," "down to the ends of the world," as measures of length, capacity, weight, etc., for men and nations for all time--"a monument" (in the language of Professor Smyth) "devoted to weights and measures, not so much as a place of frequent reference for them, but one where the original standards were to be preserved for some thousands of years, safe from the vicissitudes of empires and the decay of nations." Messrs. Taylor and Smyth further hold that this Great Pyramid was built for these purposes of mensuration under Divine inspiration--the standards being, through superhuman origination and guidance, made and protected by it till they came to be understood and interpreted in these latter times. For, observes Professor Smyth, "the Great Pyramid was a sealed book to all the world _until_ this present day, when modern science, aided in part by the dilapidation of the building and the structural features thereby opened up--has at length been able to a.s.sign the chief interpretations." Professor Smyth has, in his remarkable devotedness and enthusiasm, lately measured most of the princ.i.p.al points in the Great Pyramid; and for the great zeal, labour, and ability which he has displayed in this self-imposed mission, the Society have very properly and justly bestowed upon him the Keith Medal.

But the exact.i.tude of the measures does not necessarily imply exact.i.tude in the reasoning upon them; and on what grounds can it be possibly regarded as a metrological monument and not a sepulchre, is legitimately the subject of our present inquiry. In such an investigation springs up first this question--

_Who was the Architect of the Great Pyramid?_

Mr. Taylor ascribes to Noah the original idea of the metrological structure of the Great Pyramid. "To Noah" (observes Mr. Taylor) "we must ascribe the original idea, the presiding mind, and the benevolent purpose. He who built the Ark, was of all men the most competent to direct the building of the Great Pyramid. He was born 600 years before the Flood and lived 350 years after that event, dying in the year 1998 B.C. Supposing the pyramids were commenced in 2160 B.C. (that is 4000 years ago), _they_ were founded 168 years before the death of Noah. We are told" (Mr. Taylor continues) "that Noah was a 'preacher of righteousness,' but nothing could more ill.u.s.trate this character of a preacher of righteousness after the Flood than that he should be the first to publish a system of weights and measures for the use of all mankind, based upon the measure of the earth." Professor Smyth, computing by another chronology, rejects the presence of Noah, and makes a shepherd--Philition, slightly and incidentally alluded to in a single pa.s.sage by Herodotus[243]--the presiding and directing genius of the structure;--holding him to be a Cus.h.i.te skilled in building, and under whose inspired direction the pyramid rose, containing within it miraculous measures and standards of capacity, weight, length, heat, etc.

THE COFFER IN THE KING'S CHAMBER IN THE GREAT PYRAMID AN ALLEGED STANDARD FOR MEASURES OF CAPACITY.

A granite coffer, stone box, or sarcophagus standing in that interior cell of the pyramid, called the King's Chamber, is held by Messrs.

Taylor and Smyth to have been hewn out and placed there as a measure of capacity for the world, so that the ancient Hebrew, Grecian, and Roman measures of capacity on the one hand, and our modern Anglo-Saxon on the other, are all derived, directly or indirectly, from the parent measurements of this granite vessel. "For," argues Mr. Taylor, "the porphyry coffer in the King's Chamber was intended to be a standard measure of capacity and weights for all nations; and all chief nations did originally receive their weights and measures from thence."

The works of these authors show, in numerous pa.s.sages and extracts,[244]

that, in their belief, the great object for which the whole pyramid was created, was the preservation of this coffer as a standard of measures, and the "whole pyramid arranged in subservience to it." The accounts of it published by Mr. Taylor, and in Mr. Smyth's first work, further aver that the coffer is, internally and externally, a rectangular figure of mathematical form, and of "exquisite geometric truth," "highly polished, and of a fine bell-metal consistency" (p. 99). "The chest or coffer in the Great Pyramid" (writes Mr. Taylor in 1859) "is so shaped as to be in every part rectangular from side to side, and from end to end, and the bottom is also cut at right angles to the sides and end, and made perfectly level." "The coffer," said Professor Smyth in 1864, "exhibits to us a standard measure of 4000 years ago, with the tenacity and hardness of its substance unimpaired, and the polish and evenness of its surface untouched by nature through all that length of time."

But later inquiries and observations upset entirely all these notions and strong averments in regard to the coffer. For--

(1.) _The Coffer, though an alleged actual standard of capacity-measure, has yet been found difficult or impossible to measure._--In his first work, "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," Professor Smyth had cited the measurements of it, made and published by twenty-five different observers, several of whom had gone about the matter with great mathematical accuracy.[245] Though imagined to be a great standard of measure, yet all these twenty-five, as Professor Smyth owned, varied from each other in their accounts of this imaginary standard in "every element of length, breadth, and depth, both inside and outside."

Professor Smyth has latterly measured it himself, and this twenty-sixth measurement varies again from all the preceding twenty-five. Surely a measure of capacity should be measureable. Its mensurability indeed ought to be its most unquestionable quality; but this imagined standard has proved virtually unmeasurable--in so far at least that its twenty-six different and skilled measurers all differ from each other in respect to its dimensions. Still, says Professor Smyth, "this affair of the coffer's precise size is _the question of questions_."

(2.) _Discordance between its actual and its theoretical measure._--Professor Smyth holds that _theoretically_ its capacity ought to be 71,250 "pyramidal" cubic inches, for that cubic size would make it the exact measure for a chaldron, or practically the vessel would then contain exactly four quarters of wheat, etc. Yet Professor Smyth himself found it some 60 cubic inches less than this; while also the measurements of Professor Greaves, one of the most accurate measurers of all, make it 250 cubic inches, and those of Dr. Whitman 14,000 _below_ this professed standard. On the other hand, the measurements of Colonel Howard Vyse make it more than 100, those of Dr. Wilson more than 500, and those of the French academicians who accompanied the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt, about 6000 cubic inches _above_ the theoretical size which Professor Smyth has latterly fixed on.

(3.) _Its theoretical measure varied._--The _actual_ measure of the coffer has varied in the hands of all its twenty-six measurers. But even its _theoretical_ measure is varied also; for the size which the old coffer really _ought_ to have as "a grand capacity standard," is, strangely enough, not a determined quant.i.ty. In his last work (1867), Professor Smyth declares, as just stated, its proper theoretical cubic capacity to be 71,250 pyramidal cubic inches. But in his first work (1864), he declared something different, for "we _elect_," says he, "to take 70,9702 English cubic inches (or 70,900 pyramidal cubic inches) as the true, because the theoretically _proved_ contents of the porphyry coffer, and therefore accept these numbers as giving the cubic size of the grand _standard_ measure of capacity in the Great Pyramid." Again, however, Mr. Taylor, who, previously to Professor Smyth, was the great advocate of the coffer being a marvellous standard of capacity measure for all nations, ancient and modern, declares its measure to be neither of the above quant.i.ties, but 71,328 cubic inches, or a cube of the ancient cubit of Karnak.[246] A vessel cannot be a measure of capacity whose own standard theoretical size is thus declared to vary somewhat every few years by those very men who maintain that it is a standard.

But whether its capacity is 71,250, or 70,970, or 71,328, it is quite equally held up by Messrs Taylor and Smyth that the Sacred Laver of the Israelites, and the Molten Sea of the Scriptures, also conform and correspond to its (yet undetermined) standard "with _all_ conceivable practical exactness;" though the standard of capacity to which they thus conform and correspond is itself a size or standard which has not been yet fixed with any exactness. Professor Smyth, in speaking of the calculations and theoretical dimensions of this coffer--as published by Mr. Jopling, a believer in its wonderful standard character--critically and correctly observes, "Some very astonishing results were brought out in the play of arithmetical numerations."

(4.) _The dilapidation of the Coffer._--Thirty years ago this stone coffer was pointed out, and indeed delineated by Mr. Perring, as "_not_ particularly well polished," and "chipped and broken at the edges."

Professor Smyth, in his late travels to Egypt, states that he found every possible line and edge of it chipped away with large chips along the top, both inside and outside, "chip upon chip, woefully spoiling the original figure; along all the corners of the upright sides too, and even along every corner of the bottom, while the upper south-eastern corner of the whole vessel is positively broken away to a depth and breadth of nearly a third of the whole." Yet this broken and damaged stone vessel is professed to be the _permanent_ and perfect miraculous standard of capacity-measure for the world for "present and still future times;" and, according to Mr. Taylor--that it might serve this purpose, "is formed of one block of the hardest kind of material, such as porphyry or granite, _in order_ that it might _not_ fall into decay;"

for "in this porphyry coffer we have" (writes Professor Smyth in 1864) "the very closing end and aim of the whole pyramid."

(5.) _Alleged mathematical form of the Coffer erroneous._--But in regard to the coffer as an exquisite and marvellous standard of capacity to be revealed in these latter times, worse facts than these are divulged by the tables, etc., of measurements which Professor Smyth has recently published of this stone vessel or chest. His published measurements show that it is not at all a vessel, as was averred a few years ago, of pure mathematical form; for, externally, it is in length an inch greater on one side than another; in breadth half-an-inch broader at one point than at some other point; its bottom at one part is nearly a whole inch thicker than it is at some other parts; and in thickness its sides vary in some points about a quarter of an inch near the top. "But," Professor Smyth adds, "if calipered lower down, it is extremely probable that a _notably_ different thickness would have been found there;"--though it does not appear why they were not thus calipered.[247] Further, externally, "all the sides" (says Professor Smyth) "were slightly hollow, excepting the east side;" and the "two external ends" also show some "concavity" in form. "The outside," (he avows) "of the vessel was found to be by no means so perfectly accurate as many would have expected, for the length was greater on one side than the other, and _different_ also according to the height at which the measure was made."

"The workmanship" (he elsewhere describes) "of the _inside_ is in advance of the outside, but yet _not_ perfect." For internally there is a convergence at the bottom towards the centre; both in length and in breadth the interior differs about half-an-inch at one point from another point; the "extreme points" (also) "of the corners of the bottom not being perfectly worked out to the intersection of the general planes of the entire sides;" and thus its cavity seems really of a form utterly unmeasurable in a correct way by mere linear measurement--the only measure yet attempted. If it were an object of the slightest moment, perhaps liquid measurements would be more successful in ascertaining at least as much of the mensuration of the lower part of the coffer as still remains.

(6.) _Coffer cut with ledges and catch-holes for a lid, like other sarcophagi._--More damaging details still remain in relation to the coffer as "a grand standard measure of capacity," and prove that its object or function was very different. In his first work Professor Smyth describes the coffer as showing no "symptoms" whatever of grooves, or catchpins or other fastenings or a lid. "More modern accounts," he re-observes, "have been further precise in describing the smooth and geometrical finish of the upper part of the coffer's sides, _without any_ of those grooves, dovetails, or steady-pin-holes which have been found elsewhere in true polished sarcophagi, where the firm fastening of the lid is one of the most essential features of the whole business."

Mr. Perring, however, delineated the catchpin-holes for a lid in the coffer thirty years ago.[248] On his late visit to it Professor Smyth found its western side lowered down in its whole extent to nearly an inch and three-quarters (or more exactly, 172 inch), and ledges cut out around the interior of the other sides at the same height. Should we measure on this western side from this actual ledge brim, or from the imaginary higher brim? If reckoned as the true brim, "this ledge"

(according to Professor Smyth) would "take away near 4000 inches from the cubic capacity of the vessel." Besides, he found three holes cut on the top of the coffer's lowered western side, as in all the other Egyptian sarcophagi, where these holes are used along with the ledge and grooves to admit, and form a simple mechanism to lock the lids of such stone chests.[249] In other words, it presents the usual ledge and apparatus pertaining to Egyptian stone sarcophagi, and served as such.

(7.) _Sepulchral contents of Coffer when first discovered._--When, about a thousand years ago, the Caliph Al Mamoon tunnelled into the interior of the pyramid, he detected by the accidental falling, it is said, of a granite portcullis, the pa.s.sage to the King's Chamber, shut up from the building of the pyramid to that time. "Then" (to quote the words of Professor Smyth) "the treasures of the pyramid, sealed up almost from the days of Noah, and undesecrated by mortal eye for 3000 years, lay full in their grasp before them." On this occasion, to quote the words of Ibn Abd Al Hakm or Hokm--a contemporary Arabian writer, and a historian of high authority,[250] who was born, lived, and died in Egypt--they found in the pyramid, "towards the top, a chamber [now the so-called King's Chamber] with an hollow stone [or coffer] in which there was a statue [of stone] like a man, and within it a man upon whom was a breastplate of gold set with jewels; upon this breastplate was a sword of inestimable price, and at his head a carbuncle of the bigness of an egg, shining like the light of the day; and upon him were characters writ with a pen,[251] which no man understood"[252]--a description stating, down to the so-called "statue," mummy-case, or cartonage, and the hieroglyphics upon the cere-cloth, the arrangements now well known to belong to the higher cla.s.s of Egyptian mummies.

In short (to quote the words of Professor Smyth), "that wonder within a wonder of the Great Pyramid--viz., the porphyry coffer,"--that "chief mystery and boon to the human race which the Great Pyramid was built to enshrine,"--"this vessel of exquisite meaning," and of "far-reaching characteristics,"--mathematically formed under alleged Divine inspiration as a measure of capacity (and, according to M. Jomard, probably of length also) for all men and all nations, for all time,--and particularly for these latter profane times,--is, in simple truth, nothing more and nothing less than--an old and somewhat misshapen stone coffin.

STANDARD OF LINEAR MEASURE IN THE GREAT PYRAMID.

The standard in the Great Pyramid, according to Messrs. Taylor and Smyth, for _linear_ measurements, is the length of the base line or lines of the pyramid. This, Professor Smyth states, is "_the function proper of the pyramids base_." It is professed also that in this base line there has been found a new mythical inch--one-thousandth of an inch longer than the British standard inch; and in the last sections of his late work Professor Smyth has earnestly attempted to show that the status of the kingdoms of Europe in the general and moral world may be measured in accordance with their present deviation from or conformity to this suppositious pyramidal standard in their modes of national measurement.[253] "For the linear measure" (says Professor Smyth) "of the base line of this colossal monument, viewed in the light of the philosophical connection between time and s.p.a.ce, has yielded a standard measure of length which is more admirably and learnedly earth-commensurable than anything which has ever yet entered into the mind of man to conceive, even up to the last discovery in modern metrological science, whether in England, France, or Germany."

The engineers and mathematicians of different countries have repeatedly measured arcs of meridians to find the form and dimensions of the earth, and the French made the metre (their standard of length), 1/10,000,000 of the quadrant of the meridian. Professor Smyth holds that the basis line of the pyramid has been laid down by Divine authority as such a guiding standard measure.