Myths and Marvels of Astronomy
good, it is obvious that his memory would not have been hated if some
important good had eventually been gained from his scheme. Many a
far-seeing ruler has been hated while living on account of the very work
for which his memory has been revered. But the memory of Cheops and his
successors was held in detestation.
May we, however, suppose that, though Cheops had not the welfare of his
own people in his thoughts, his purpose was nevertheless not selfish,
but intended in some way to promote the welfare of the human race? I say
his purpose, because, whoever originated the scheme, Cheops carried it
out; it was by means of his wealth and through his power that the
pyramid was built. This is the view adopted by Professor Piazzi Smyth
and others, in our own time, and first suggested by John Taylor.
'Whereas other writers,' says Smyth, 'have generally esteemed that the
mysterious persons who directed the building of the Great Pyramid (and
to whom the Egyptians, in their traditions, and for ages afterwards,
gave an immoral and even abominable character) must therefore have been
very bad indeed, so that the world at large has always been fond of
standing on, kicking, and insulting that dead lion, whom they really
knew not; he, Mr. John Taylor, seeing how religiously bad the Egyptians
themselves were, was led to conclude, on the contrary, that those _they_
hated (and could never sufficiently abuse) might, perhaps, have been
pre-eminently good; or were, at all events, of _different religious
faith_ from themselves.' 'Combining this with certain unmistakable
historical facts,' Mr. Taylor deduced reasons for believing that the
directors of the building designed to record in its proportions, and in
its interior features, certain important religious and scientific
truths, not for the people then living, but for men who were to come
4000 years or so after.
I have already considered at length (see the preceding Essay) the
evidence on which this strange theory rests. But there are certain
matters connecting it with the above narrative which must here be
noticed. The mention of the shepherd Philition, who fed his flocks about
the place where the Great Pyramid was built, is a singular feature of
Herodotus's narrative. It reads like some strange misinterpretation of
the story related to him by the Egyptian priests. It is obvious that if
the word Philition did not represent a people, but a person, this
person must have been very eminent and distinguished--a shepherd-king,
not a mere shepherd. Rawlinson, in a note on this portion of the
narrative of Herodotus, suggests that Philitis was probably a
shepherd-prince from Palestine, perhaps of Philistine descent, 'but so
powerful and domineering, that it may be traditions of his oppressions
in that earlier age which, mixed up afterwards in the minds of later
Egyptians with the evils inflicted on their country by the subsequent
shepherds of better known dynasties, lent so much fear to their
religious hate of Shepherd times and that name.' Smyth, somewhat
modifying this view, and considering certain remarks of Manetho
respecting an alleged invasion of Egypt by shepherd-kings, 'men of an
ignoble race (from the Egyptian point of view) who had the confidence to
invade our country, and easily subdued it to their power without a
battle,' comes to the conclusion that some Shemite prince, 'a
contemporary of, but rather older than, the Patriarch Abraham,' visited
Egypt at this time, and obtained such influence over the mind of Cheops
as to persuade him to erect the pyramid. According to Smyth, the prince
was no other than Melchizedek, king of Salem, and the influence he
exerted was supernatural. With such developments of the theory we need
not trouble ourselves. It seems tolerably clear that certain
shepherd-chiefs who came to Egypt during Cheops' reign were connected in
some way with the designing of the Great Pyramid. It is clear also that
they were men of a different religion from the Egyptians, and persuaded
Cheops to abandon the religion of his people. Taylor, Smyth, and the
Pyramidalists generally, consider this sufficient to prove that the
pyramid was erected for some purpose connected with religion. 'The
pyramid,' in fine, says Smyth, 'was charged by God's inspired
shepherd-prince, in the beginning of human time, to keep a certain
message secret and inviolable for 4000 years, and it has done so; and in
the next thousand years it was to enunciate that message to all men,
with more than traditional force, more than all the authenticity of
copied manuscripts or reputed history; and that part of the pyramid's
usefulness is now beginning.'
There are many very obvious difficulties surrounding this theory; as,
for example (i.) the absurd waste of power in setting supernatural
machinery at work 4000 years ago with cumbrous devices to record its
object, when the same machinery, much more simply employed now, would
effect the alleged purpose far more thoroughly; (ii.) the enormous
amount of human misery and its attendant hatreds brought about by this
alleged divine scheme; and (iii.) the futility of an arrangement by
which the pyramid was only to subserve its purpose when it had lost that
perfection of shape on which its entire significance depended, according
to the theory itself. But, apart from these, there is a difficulty,
nowhere noticed by Smyth or his followers, which is fatal, I conceive,
to this theory of the pyramid's purpose. The second pyramid, though
slightly inferior to the first in size, and probably far inferior in
quality of masonry, is still a structure of enormous dimensions, which
must have required many years of labour from tens of thousands of
workmen. Now, it seems impossible to explain why Chephren built this
second pyramid, if we adopt Smyth's theory respecting the first pyramid.
For either Chephren knew the purpose for which the Great Pyramid was
built, or he did not know it. If he knew that purpose, and it was that
indicated by Smyth, then he also knew that no second pyramid was wanted.
On that hypothesis, all the labour bestowed on the second pyramid was
wittingly and wilfully wasted. This, of course is incredible. But, on
the other hand, if Chephren did not know what was the purpose for which
the Great Pyramid was built, what reason could Chephren have had for
building a pyramid at all? The only answer to this question seems to be
that Chephren built the second pyramid in hopes of finding out why his
brother had built the first, and this answer is simply absurd. It is
clear enough that whatever purpose Cheops had in building the first
pyramid, Chephren must have had a similar purpose in building the
second; and we require a theory which shall at least explain why the
first pyramid did not subserve for Chephren the purpose which it
subserved or was meant to subserve for Cheops. The same reasoning may be
extended to the third pyramid, to the fourth, and in fine to all the
pyramids, forty or so in number, included under the general designation
of the Pyramids of Ghizeh or Jeezeh. The extension of the principle to
pyramids later than the second is especially important as showing that
the difference of religion insisted on by Smyth has no direct bearing on
the question of the purpose for which the Great Pyramid itself was
constructed. For Mycerinus either never left or else returned to the
religion of the Egyptians. Yet he also built a pyramid, which, though
far inferior in size to the pyramids built by his father and uncle, was
still a massive structure, and relatively more costly even than theirs,
because built of expensive granite. The pyramid built by Asychis, though
smaller still, was remarkable as built of brick; in fact, we are
expressly told that Asychis desired to eclipse all his predecessors in
such labours, and accordingly left this brick pyramid as a monument of
his reign.
We are forced, in fact, to believe that there was some special relation
between the pyramid and its builder, seeing that each one of these kings
wanted a pyramid of his own. This applies to the Great Pyramid quite as
much as to the others, despite the superior excellence of that
structure. Or rather, the argument derives its chief force from the
superiority of the Great Pyramid. If Chephren, no longer perhaps having
the assistance of the shepherd-architects in planning and superintending
the work, was unable to construct a pyramid so perfect and so stately as
his brother's, the very fact that he nevertheless built a pyramid shows
that the Great Pyramid did not fulfil for Chephren the purpose which it
fulfilled for Cheops. But, if Smyth's theory were true, the Great
Pyramid would have fulfilled finally and for all men the purpose for
which it was built. Since this was manifestly not the case, that theory
is, I submit, demonstrably erroneous.
It was probably the consideration of this point, viz. that each king had
a pyramid constructed for himself, which led to the theory that the
pyramids were intended to serve as tombs. This theory was once very
generally entertained. Thus we find Humboldt, in his remarks on American
pyramids, referring to the tomb theory of the Egyptian pyramids as
though it were open to no question. 'When we consider,' he says, 'the
pyramidical monuments of Egypt, of Asia, and of the New Continent, from
the same point of view, we see that, though their form is alike, their
destination was altogether different. The group of pyramids of Ghizeh
and at Sakhara in Egypt; the triangular pyramid of the Queen of the
Scythians, Zarina, which was a stadium high and three in circumference,
and which was decorated with a colossal figure; the fourteen Etruscan
pyramids, which are said to have been enclosed in the labyrinth of the
king Porsenna, at Clusium--were reared to serve as the sepulchres of the
illustrious dead. Nothing is more natural to men than to commemorate the
spot where rest the ashes of those whose memory they cherish whether it
be, as in the infancy of the race, by simple mounds of earth, or, in
later periods, by the towering height of the tumulus. Those of the
Chinese and of Thibet have only a few metres of elevation. Farther to
the west the dimensions increase; the tumulus of the king Alyattes,
father of Croesus, in Lydia, was six stadia, and that of Ninus was
more than ten stadia in diameter. In the north of Europe the sepulchre
of the Scandinavian king Gormus and the queen Daneboda, covered with
mounds of earth, are three hundred metres broad, and more than thirty
high.'
But while we have abundant reason for believing that in Egypt, even in
the days of Cheops and Chephren, extreme importance was attached to the
character of the place of burial for distinguished persons, there is
nothing in what is known respecting earlier Egyptian ideas to suggest
the probability that any monarch would have devoted many years of his
subjects' labour, and vast stores of material, to erect a mass of
masonry like the Great Pyramid, solely to receive his own body after
death. Far less have we any reason for supposing that many monarchs in
succession would do this, each having a separate tomb built for him. It
might have been conceivable, had only the Great Pyramid been erected,
that the structure had been raised as a mausoleum for all the kings and
princes of the dynasty. But it seems utterly incredible that such a
building as the Great Pyramid should have been erected for one king's
body only--and that, not in the way described by Humboldt, when he
speaks of men commemorating the spot where rest the remains of those
whose memory they cherish, but at the expense of the king himself whose
body was to be there deposited. Besides, the first pyramid, the one
whose history must be regarded as most significant of the true purpose