Archaeological Essays Part 18

APPENDIX.

I.--DERIVATION OF THE TERM PYRAMID. (_Page_ 219.)

Professor Smyth suggests the origin of the term Pyramid from the two Coptic words, "_pyr_," "division," and "_met_," "ten." This derivation, which he first heard of in Cairo, is, he believes, a significant appellation for a metrological monument such as the Great Pyramid, and coincides with its five-sided, five-cornered, etc., features (see anteriorly, p. 255) and decimal divisions. But surely a name, which in this metrological and arithmetical view of "powers and times of ten and five," meant _division into ten_, and which divisional metrological ideas applied, according to Professor Smyth, to one pyramid only, namely the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, was not likely to have been applied as a general term to all the other pyramidal structures in Egypt--not one of which had, according to Professor Smyth himself, anything whatsoever of this metrological or divisional character in their composition and object. It is not likely that all these structures should have been named from a series of qualities supposed to belong to _one_; but altogether hidden and concealed, in these early times, even in that one pyramid, being for the information of future times and generations.

In a similar spirit of exclusiveness, Mr. John Taylor derives the word pyramid from the two Greek words [Greek: pyros], _wheat_, and [Greek: metron], _measure_--apparently in the belief that the coffer or sarcophagus within one pyramid (the Great Pyramid) was intended as a chaldron measure of wheat--though none of the sarcophagi, in any of the many other royal pyramidal sepulchres of Egypt, were at all intended for such standard measures; and although, according to Mr. Taylor's theory, the Greeks, too, who out of their own language applied the term of Pyramid, or Wheat-Measurer, to all these structures,--never dreamed of the Great Pyramid or of any other of them having locked up in one of its concealed chambers a supposed standard measure of capacity of wheat, water, etc., for all nations and all times.

Fifteen centuries ago, Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus derived the word pyramid from another Greek word [Greek: pyr], _fire_; because, as he argues, the Egyptian Pyramid rises to a sharp pointed top, like to the form of a fire or flame. This derivation, which, of course, excludes the mathematical idea of the sides of the pyramid being a series of flattened triangles that meet in a point at the apex, has been adopted by various authors.

Keats, the poor surgeon, but rich poet, who died at Rome at the early age of twenty-six, was buried in the beautiful Protestant Cemetery there, amid the ruins of the Aurelian Walls. His grave is surmounted by a pyramidal tomb, which Petrarch romantically ascribed to Remus, but which antiquarians generally accord, in conformity with the inscription which it bears, to Caius Cestius, a tribune of the people, who is remembered for nothing else than his sepulchre. In his elegy of Adonais, Sh.e.l.ley, in alluding to the resting-place of Keats beside this remarkable monument, brings in, with rare poetical power, the idea of the word pyramid being derived from [Greek: pyr], and signifying the shape of flame:--

And one keen _pyramid_ with edge sublime, Pavilioning the dust of him who planned This refuge for his memory, doth stand Life _flame transformed to marble_.[274]

If the word pyramid is of Greek origin, the suggestion of that able writer and scholar, Mr. Kenrick of York, is probably more true, viz.

that the term [Greek: pyramis] (from [Greek: pyros], wheat, and [Greek: melitos], honey) was applied by the Greeks to a pointed or cone-shaped cake, used by them at the feasts of Bacchus (as shown on the table at the reception of Bacchus by Icarus; see Hope's _Costumes_, vol. ii. p.

224), and when they became acquainted with the Pyramids of Egypt, they, in this as in other instances, applied a term to a thing till then unknown, from a thing well known to them; in the very same way as they applied to the tall pointed monoliths peculiar to Egypt, the word obelisk--no doubt a direct derivation from the familiar Greek word [Greek: obelos], a _spit_.

For a learned discussion on various other supposed origins of the word pyramid, see Jomard, in the _Description de l'Egypte_, vol. ii. p. 213, etc.

II.--ARCHAIC CIRCLE AND RING SCULPTURES. (_Page_ 222.)

Representations of incised cups, rings, circles, and spirals, are found on stones connected with other forms of ancient sculpture besides chambered barrows or cairns,--as on the lids of stone cists, megalithic circles, etc.; and, from this connection with the burial of the dead, these antique sculpturings were possibly of a religious character. In a work on "Archaic Sculpturings of Cups, Rings, etc. upon Stones and Rocks of Scotland, England, and other Countries," published last year by the author of the present communication, it was further argued that they were probably also ornamental in their character, in a chapter beginning as follows:--

"Without attempting to solve the mystery connected with these archaic lapidary cups and ring cuttings, I would venture to remark that there is one use for which some of these olden stone carvings were in all probability devoted--namely, ornamentation. From the very earliest historic periods in the architecture of Egypt, a.s.syria, Greece, etc., down to our own day, circles, single or double, and spirals, have formed, under various modifications, perhaps the most common fundamental types of lapidary decoration. In prehistoric times the same taste for circular sculpturings, however rough and rude, seems to have swayed the mind of archaic man. This observation as to the probable ornamental origin of our cup and ring carvings holds, in my opinion, far more strongly in respect to some antique stone cuttings in Ireland and in Brittany, than to the ruder and simpler forms that I have described as existing in Scotland and England. For instance, the cut single and double volutes, the complete and half-concentric circles, the zig-zag, and other patterns which cover almost entirely and completely some stones in those magnificent though rude western Pyramids that const.i.tute the grand old mausolea of Ireland and Brittany, appear to be, in great part at least, of an ornamental character, whatever else their import may be."

In a communication on the Great Pyramid, made to the Royal Society 16th December 1867, Professor Smyth most unexpectedly, and quite out of his way, took occasion to criticise severely the remarks contained in the preceding extract, on two grounds:

_First_, He laid down that the term pyramid was misapplied, as the term referred only to figures and structures of a special mathematical form; being apparently quite unaware that, as shown in the text and notes, pp.

219 and 220, it was often applied archaeologically to sepulchral mounds and erections that were not faced, and which did not consist of a series of triangles meeting in an apex.

_Secondly_, He objected to the statement that, "from the very earliest historic periods in the architecture of Egypt, a.s.syria, Greece, etc., circles and spirals, or modifications of them, const.i.tuted perhaps the most common fundamental types of lapidary decoration;" because, though circles, spirals, etc., occurred in the later architecture of Thebes, etc., yet in the Great Pyramid of Gizeh no such decorations were to be found, nor, indeed, lapidary decorations of any other kind. Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid, was, according to Manetho, "arrogant towards the G.o.ds." Was it this spirit of religious infidelity or scepticism that led to the rejection of any ornamentation? Professor Smyth notices what he himself terms an "ornament," "a most unique thing certainly," on the upper stone of what Greaves calls "the granite leaf"

portcullis, in the interior of the Great Pyramid (ii. 100), and he represents it, it is now said erroneously in plate xii. as a portion of a double circle instead of a general raised elevation.[275]

All the other Pyramids of Gizeh seem, like the Great Pyramid, wonderfully free from lapidary decorations on their interior walls, the exteriors of all of them being now too much dilapidated to offer any distinct proof in relation to the subject; though in Herodotus' time there were hieroglyphics, at least on the external surface of the Great Pyramid. The whole surface of the basalt sarcophagus in the Third Pyramid, or that of Mycerinus, was sculptured. "It was," to use the words of Baron Bunsen, "very beautifully carved in compartments, in the Doric style" (vol. ii. 168). This carving, in the well-known carpentry form, was, according to Mr. Fergusson, a representation of a palace (_Handbook of Architecture_, p. 222).

Fragments, however, of lapidary sculpture have been found among the ruins of Egyptian pyramids supposed to be older than those of Gizeh, or than their builders, the Memphite kings of the _fourth_ dynasty. Thus one of the most able and learned of modern Egyptologists, Baron Bunsen, has written at some length to show that the great northern brick pyramid of Dashoor belongs to the preceding or _third_ dynasty of kings. Colonel Vyse and Mr. Perring, when digging among its ruins, discovered two or three fragments of sculptured casing and other stones, with a few pieces presenting broken hieroglyphic inscriptions. One of the ornamented fragments represents a row of floreated-like decorations, and each decoration shows on its side a concentric circle, consisting of three rings,--the whole ornament being one which is found in later Egyptian eras, not unfrequently along the tops of walls in the interior of chambers, etc. Mr. Perring represents this fragment of sculpturing from the brick Pyramid of Dashoor, in his folio work, _The Pyramids of Gizeh_, plate xiii. Fig. 7. Hence among the very earliest Egyptian lapidary decorations we have, as in other countries, the appearance of the simple circular ornamentation.

Besides, more complex circular and spiral decorations, in the form of the well-known guilloche and scroll, were made use of in Egypt during the sixth dynasty, or immediately after the Memphite dynasty that reared the larger Pyramids of Gizeh. Thus, speaking of the ancient Egyptian architectural decorations, Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson observes--"The Egyptians did not always confine themselves to the mere imitation of natural objects for ornament; and their ceilings and cornices offer numerous graceful fancy devices, among which are the guilloche, miscalled Tuscan borders, the chevron, and the scroll patterns. They are to be met with in a tomb of the time of the sixth dynasty; they are therefore known in Egypt many ages before they were adopted by the Greeks, and the most complicated form of the guilloche covered a whole Egyptian ceiling, upwards of a thousand years before it was represented on those comparatively late objects found at Nineveh."--_Popular account of the Ancient Egyptians,_ ii. 290.

III.--ERA OF THE ARABIAN HISTORIAN, IBN ABD AL HAKM. (_Page_ 236.)

Professor Smyth owns that the grooves and pin holes which the coffer in the King's Chamber presents, were (to use his own words) "in fact to admit a sliding sarcophagus cover or lid" (see _ante_, p. 236, footnote). But in his recent communication to the Royal Society on the 20th April, he doubted Al Hakm's account of the mummy having been actually found in the sarcophagus when the King's Chamber was first entered by the Caliph Al Mamoon, in the ninth century, arguing, on the authority of a Glasgow gentleman, that the historian himself, Al Hakm, did not live for three or four centuries afterwards, and, therefore, could not be relied upon. But all this reasoning or a.s.sertion is simply a mistake. In a late letter (7th April), Dr. Rieu of the British Museum,--the chief living authority among us on any such Arabic question,--writes, "The statement relating to Al Mamoon's discovery could hardly rest on a better authority than that of Ibn Abd Al Hakm; for not only was he a contemporary writer (having died at Old Cairo, A.H. 269, that is, thirty-eight years after Al Mamoon's death), but he is constantly quoted by later writers as an historian of the highest authority. You will find a notice of him in Khallikan's _Biographical Dictionary_, vol. ii. etc." He was a native of Egypt, and chief of the Shafite sect. Born in A.D. 799, he died in A.D. 882, or at the age of 83.

IV.--LENGTH OF THE SARCOPHAGUS IN THE KING'S CHAMBER. (_Page_ 236.)

M. Jomard, in the _Description de l'Egypte_, drawn up by the French Academicians, remarks in vol. ii. p. 182, that looking to the length of the cavity or interior of the sarcophagus in the King's Chamber, that it could not hold within it a cartonage or mummy case, enclosing a man of the ordinary height. This statement proceeds entirely upon a miscalculation. The length of the interior or cavity of the sarcophagus is six and a half English feet; and the average stature of the ancient Egyptians, "judging from their mummies, did not" observes Mr. Kenrick, "exceed five feet and a half." (See his _Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. p. 97.) The s.p.a.ce thus left, of one foot, is much more than sufficient for the thickness of the two ends of a cartonage or mummy case; and the embalmed body was generally, or indeed always, closely packed within them. The length of the coffin was, long ago, quaintly observed Professor Greaves, "large enough to contain a most potent and dreadful monarch being dead, to whom, living, all Egypt was too strait and narrow a circuit" (_Works_, i. p. 131).

V.--MEMORANDUM ON THE CUBIT OF MEMPHIS AND THE SACRED CUBIT, BY SIR HENRY JAMES. (_Page_ 242.)

Sir Isaac Newton says, "for the precise determination of the cubit of Memphis I should choose to pitch upon the length of the chamber in the middle of the Pyramid, where the king's monument stood, which length contained 20 cubits, and was very carefully measured by Mr. Greaves."

(_See_ vol. ii. p. 362 of Professor Smyth's _Life at the Pyramids_, etc.)

Greaves' measures of the King's chamber are given at p. 335, vol. ii. of the same work.

The length of the chamber on the south side, he says, is

34380 feet = 20 cubits.

17190 " = 10 cubits.

12 ------- 206280 inches = 10 cubits, and 20628 " = 1 cubit of Memphis;

and Newton himself says, at p. 360, vol. ii. _Life at the Pyramids_,--

"The cubit of Memphis of 1719 English feet,"

12 ------ or 20628 inches,

and, therefore, there can be no possible doubt but that this is Newton's determination of the length of the cubit of Memphis.

But Newton goes on to say in the same page, the cubit "double the length of 12-3/8 English inches (=2475 inches) will be to the cubit of Memphis as 6 to 5."

Therefore, if we add 1/5 to 20628 inches, 4126 ------ we have 24754

as Newton's determination of the length of the Sacred Cubit.

Newton's determinations are therefore--

Length of Sacred Cubit 24754 inches.

" Cubit of Memphis 20628 "

The cubit measured by Mersennus (_see_ p. 362, vol. ii. _Life at the Pyramids_) was 23-1/4 Paris inches, and Mr. Greaves estimated the Paris foot as equal to 1068 of the English foot; therefore 2325 + 1068=24831 was the length of this cubit, if we take Greaves'

proportion of the Paris to the English foot; but by the more exact determination of the proportion of the Paris to the English foot made at the Ordnance Survey Office, Southampton, it is found to be as 1 to 106576 and 2325 + 106576=24780 English inches, which differs only in excess 026 from the length of the Sacred Cubit determined by Newton.

The double Royal Cubit of Karnak, which is in the British Museum, was found by Sir Henry James to measure 41398 inches; the length of the single cubit was therefore 20699 inches, and differs only in excess 071 inches from the length of the cubit of Memphis, as determined by Newton.

It will be observed that the lengths of the cubits derived by Newton from the length of the King's chamber are shorter than the measured lengths of the cubits which have come down to us. But if

we add 1/5 or = 4140 to the length of the Karnak cubit = 20699, ------ we have 24839 for the Sacred Cubit.

The one measured by Mersennus = 24780 and the ------ mean of the two = 24810, whilst the length derived by Newton was = 24754, showing ------ a difference of only 056 between the ======

length of the Sacred Cubit derived from the actual lengths of the two cubits which have come down to us, and the length of the Sacred Cubit derived by Newton from the length of the King's chamber.