Who Built the Egypt Pyramids?

Aliens did. Just kidding.

An Arab tradition states that Gian ben Gian, the distinguished pre.Adamite Monarch of the "World, reared it. Firouzabadi was assured that the Adamites very early procured its erection. The Rav. T. Gabb, in 1808, declared it " the production of those immediate descendants of Seth and the Faithful who adhered to them." Ho meets one supposed difficulty thus : — " Surely," says he, " the immediate descendants of Seth and Enos were of larger stature than we are." In that way he saw how they could lift stones which other men must needs lift " by jacks." The very sands at its base made the good man exclaim, " This pyramid must have been erected by the Antediluvians ; and the universal Deluge, called Noah's Flood, and the description of it in Holy Writ, will account, in a satisfactory manner, for the lodgment of sands on the surface of the extensive rock." He adds, " These sands, on the subsiding of the waters, were probably very near the summit of the pyramid."

Josephus rehearses the tradition of the Shemites going to Siriad, or Egypt, and erecting there two monuments, one of brick and one of stone, on which they inscribed astronomical discoveries ; and one of these must, it is said, be the pyramid. Mr. John Taylor, the celebrated writer on " The Great Pyramid, Who built it 1 and Why was it built ? " says, " To Noah 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."

But honest John Greaves, who visited Egypt in 1637, gathering fable and fact in his travels, gives this excellent story from an Arabic book, which he translated : — " The writer of the book, entitled Morat Alzeman, .writes : ' They differ concerning him that built the pyramids. Some say Joseph, some say Nimrod, some Dalukah the queen, and some that the Egyptians built them before the Floud, for they foresaw that it would be, and they carried thither their treasures, but it profited them nothing. In another place he tels us from the Coptites (or Egyptians) that these two greater pyramids, and the lesser, which is coloured, are Sepulchers. In the East pyramid is King Saurid, in the West pyramid his brother Hougib, and in the coloured pyramid Mtzfarinoun, the sonne of Hougib.

The Sabieans relate that one of them is the sepulcher of Shiit (that is, Seth), and the second sepulcher of Sab, the sonne of Hermes, from whom they are called Sabceans. They goe in pilgrimage thither, and sacrifice at them a cocke and a black calfe, and offer up incense.'Ibn Abd Alkokm, another Arabian, discoursing of this Argument, confesses that he could not find amongst the learned men in (Egypt, any certaine relation concerning them. Wherefore what is more reasonable (saith he) then that the pyramids were built before the Floud ? For if they had be.en built after, there would have been some memory of them amongst men ; at last he concludes, The greatest part of chronologers affirmed that he which built the pyramids was Saurid ibn Salhouk, the King of Egypt, who was before the Floud 300 yeares.

And this opinion he confirmes out of the books of the Egyptians ; To which he addes, The Coptites mention in their books, that upon them is an inscription ingraven ; the exposition of it in Arabicke is this ; ' I Saurid, the king, built the Pyramids in such and such a time, and finished them in six yeares; he that comes after me, and sayes he is eqnall to me, let him destroy them in six hundred yeares ; and yet it is knowne that it is easier to plucke down then to build ; and when I had finished them, I covered them with SMin, and let him cover them with slats' The same relation I found in severall others of them."

Josephus, fall of the glorification of his people, and having the average oriental disregard of strict veracity, and nearly the average oriental power of constructive invention, inclines to the erection by his forefathers. ".The Egyptians," he says, "inhumanly treated the Israelites, and wore them down in various labours, for they ordered them to divert the course of the river (Nile) into many ditches, and to build walls, and raise mounds, by which to confine the inundations of the river ; and, moreover, vexed our nation in constructing foolish pyramids."

Mr. Yeates suspects they had nothing to do at Gizeh, but may have made brick ones elsewhere. Norden, the Danish traveller, in 1737, has similar doubts, since the Bible spoke of bricks, and not of stone structures there. " As to what concerns the works on which the Israelites were employed in Egypt," he writes, " I admit that I have not been able to find any remains of bricks burnt in the fire." Calmet supposed Moses and Aaron were foremen of the works. Melchizedek is another of the reported builders.

It appears from Herodotus, whose tales are often mystifying enough, that, though Cheops and his brother erected the pyramids, " no Egyptian will mention their names ; but they always attribute their pyramids to one Philition (Philitis), a shepherd, who kept his cattle in those parts." We are further told that this man left Egypt with a following of 240,000 men, and proceeded to the foundation of Jerusalem.

Upon this; it is concluded by some that the monuments were erected by the shepherd race. Lord Lindsay says, " There is much reason to believe that they were built by the royal shepherds of Egypt, who afterwards became the Philistines." Mr. Sharpe, the Egyptologist, observes, " The curious remark of Herodotus, that they were called by the name of the shepherd Philitis, is not of sufficient weight against the foregoing reasons to lead us to the conclusion that they were built by the above-mentioned Philistine shepherds." But others have discovered, by arguments convincing to themselves, that this Philitis was none other than the Biblical Melchizedek, seeing that he was King of Salem, that is, of Jerusalem, founded by Philitis.

The shepherd story brings to mind the Hindoo narrative of some early race of India, the Pali, who were a shepherd people, ancestors of the present aboriginal Bheels, succeeding once in conquering Egypt. Their stronghold, Abaris, is, in Sanscrit, a shepherd; Goshena, in Sanscrit, is the land of shepherds. Tracey, E. N., advance in the theory, and proclaim the very Saviour Himself the builder. These are the Captain's words in a recent work : " We may from Scripture show that our Lord, as Melchisedek, had to do with the Great Pyramid, as the Great Architect thereof; for God, speaking to Job out of the whirlwind, demands of him (Job xxxviii. 18), ' Hist thou perceived the breadth of the earth f Declare if thou knowest it all.' This implies that none but God Himself could know it, consequently, none could have been the architect of the Great Pyramid but one who knew the counsels of the Almighty ; and who could this be but our Lord Jesus Christ ? " He further affirms : — " The first appearance of our Lord as Melchisedek, King of Salem, leads me to believe that all His appearances from Babel to Abraham were as Melchisedek."
Elsewhere he writes, " Melchisedek was really our Lord."