The Various Egypt Pyramids

There are numerous pyramids in Egypt. Including all sizes and forms, perhaps three dozen may still be found. They belong to different ages, from B.C. 2170 down to B.C. 1800. Externally, they all are more or less of the same general form. A few are not much inferior in dimensions, materials, and outward finish to the Great Pyramid itself. But there is one, the northernmost of the line, which has ever held the pre-eminence, and which has always been regarded with the greatest interest.

The sacred books of the Hindoos speak of three pyramids in Egypt, and they describe this as " the golden mountain," and the other two as mountains of silver and less valuable material. By a sort of intuition, all nations and tongues unite in recognizing this one as The Great Pyramid. It covers the most space. It occupies the most commanding position. It is built with most skill and perfection of workmanship. And its summit rises higher heavenward than that of any other.

This greatest of the pyramids is also the oldest of them. Lepsius says, " The builders of the Great Pyramid seem to assert their right to form the commencement of monumental history." " To the Pyramid of Cheops the first link of our whole monumental history is fastened immovably, not for Egyptian, but for universal history." Prof. Smyth holds that " the world has no material and contemporary record of intellectual man earlier than the Gre.tt Pyramid." Beckett Denison agrees that this is " the earliest and largest of all the pyramids." Hales in his Analysis, Sharpe in his History of Egypt, Bunsen in his Egypts Place in History, and the best authors in general, make the same representations. There is no evidence on earth, known to man, that ever a true pyramid was built before the erection of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh.

Here, then, is a fact to start with which utterly confounds the ordinary laws in human affairs. The arts of man left to himself, never attain perfection at once. At all times and in all countries, there is invariably a series of crude attempts and imperfect beginnings first, and thence a gradual advance from a less perfect to a more complete. Styles of architecture do not spring into existence like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, fullgrown and perfect from the start. But here all ordinary laws are reversed, and the classic dream finds reality. As with the beginning of our race, so with the pyramids, the most perfect is first and what comes after is deteriorate. The Great Pyramid comes upon the scene and maintains its grand superiority forever, without any preceding type of its class whence the idea was evolved. Kenan says, "It has no archaic epoch." Osburn says, " It bursts upon us at once in the flower of its highest perfection." It suddenly takes its place in the world in all its matchless magnificence, "without" father, without mother," and as clean apart from all evolution as if it had dropped down from the unknown heavens. We can no more account for its appearance in this fashion on ordinary principles than we can account for the being of Adam without a special Divine intervention.

This pyramid once in existence, it is not difficult to account for all the rest. Having been taught how to build it, and with the grand model ever before them, men could easily build more. But how to get the original with its , transcendent superiority to all others is the trouble. The theory of Mr. Taylor and Prof. Smyth would admirably solve the riddle ; but apart from that, there is no knowledge of man by which it can be solved. People may guess and suppose ; but they can tell us nothing. The evidences also are, that the whole family of Egyptian pyramids, and there are no others, is made up of mere blind and bungling imitations of the Great Pyramid. They take its general form, but they every one miss its intellectuality and take on none of their own. None of them has any upper openings or chambers ; and the reason is furnished in what Al Mamoun on making his forced entrance found in the Great Pyramid, to wit, the fact that its upward passage-way was stopped by its builders, filled up, hidden, and then for the first time discovered. These upper openings, though the main features of the Great Pyramid's interior, were wholly unknown to the copyists, and hence were not copied. The downward passage and the subterranean chamber were known, and could be inspected ; hence these features appear in all the pyramids. It would be difficult to conceive more conclusive internal evidences of mere imitation, or of the certainty that the Great Pyramid is the real original of all pyramids. All the rest are but vulgar and unmeaning piles of stones in comparison with it.