ANTIQUITY AND CHARACTER OF THE PYRAMID CIVILIZATION.
The riddle of the world.—POPE.
That the three great Pyramids of Gizeh were erected by Chufu, Schafra,
and Menkeres, the Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus of Herodotus, we now
know with as much certainty as that we owe the Pantheon to Agrippa, and
the Coliseum to the Flavian Emperors. We also know with equal certainty
that they were built between five and six thousand years ago. From these
Pyramids to the Faioum extends along the edge of the desert a region
of Pyramids, and of circumjacent Necropoleis. Not far from an hundred
Pyramids have been already noted. These were the tombs of royalty. The
uncrowned members of the royal family, the ministers of state, the
priests, and the other great men of the dynasties of the Old Monarchy,
lie buried around. Their tombs, excavated and built in the rock, are
innumerable. Some of them reaching seventy feet, or more, back into the
mountain (the tombs of the New Monarchy at Thebes were several times
as large), are constructed of enormous pieces of polished granite,
most exquisitely fitted together. Some are covered with sculptures
and paintings, traced with much freedom, and a grand and pleasing
simplicity. They describe the offices, occupations, and possessions, and
the religious ideas and practices of those for whom they were constructed.
Great was the antiquity of Thebes before European history begins to dawn.
It was declining before the foundations of Rome were laid. Its palmy days
ante-dated that event by as long a period as separates us from the first
Crusade. But the building of the great Pyramids of Gizeh preceded the
earliest traditions of Thebes by a thousand years.
In this Pyramid region, and its Necropoleis, we have a chapter in the
history of our race, the importance of which every one can comprehend. It
is a history which, while in the main it omits events, gives us fuller,
and more genuine and authentic materials than any written history could
give, for a complete understanding of the everyday life, and arts of the
people. And the time for which it gives us this information is so remote,
that there is no contemporary history of any other people, which we can
compare with it, or with which we can in any way bring it into connexion.
It has nowhere any points of contact. It is a rich stream of history that
runs through a barren waste of early time, like the Nile itself through
the Libyan Desert, with a complete absence of affluents.
Having, then, made out the position of this epoch with respect to general
history, the next point is to ascertain as distinctly as we can what
were the arts, the knowledge, the manners, the customs of the period,
that is of those who were buried in these Pyramids and Necropoleis. When
they lived, and what they were, give to them their historic interest and
importance.
The mere naked fact that the Great Pyramid was built implies that at
that, time, agriculture was so advanced, and, in consequence, so
productive, and that society was so thoroughly organized, as to enable
the country to maintain for thirty years 100,000 men while occupied in
the unproductive labour of cutting and moving the stones employed in
its construction. To which we must add the 100,000 men engaged for the
ten previous years upon the great causeway which crossed the western
plain, from the river to the site of the Pyramid, and over which all the
materials for the Pyramid were brought. Modern Egypt could not do this.
We should find it an enormous tax even upon our resources.
There is also implied in the cutting and dressing of this vast amount of
stone, the supply of a corresponding amount of tools; and as granite was
at that time used largely in the construction of some of the tombs and
Pyramids, it implies that those tools were of the best temper.
It must also be remembered that some of these Pyramids had crossed the
Nile. The unwieldy and ponderous stones of which they were constructed
had been quarried in the Arabian range, and brought across the river
to the African range on which the Pyramids stand. What granite had
been required had been brought, the whole length of the valley, from
Syené. How much mechanical contrivance does this imply! All these great
blocks had to be lifted out of the quarry, to be brought down to the
river, carried across, some even between five and six hundred miles down
the river, and then again across the cultivated western plain to the
first stage of the Libyan hills. They had to be lowered into the boats
and lifted out of them. The inclined causeway was made of dressed and
polished blocks of black basalt, a kind of stone extremely difficult to
work. It was a mile in length. And when the blocks for the Pyramid had
at last reached the further end of the causeway, they had to be lifted
into their place in a building that was carried to a height of 480 feet.
Herodotus mentions the succession of machines by which they were elevated
from the bottom to the top. The mechanical arrangements, then, must have
been well planned and executed.
In these great works we see that nothing was overlooked, or neglected.
Everything that could happen was anticipated, and calculated with the
utmost nicety, and completely and successfully provided for. This would,
in itself alone, imply much accumulated knowledge, and habits of mind
which nothing but long ages of civilization can give. No rude people can
make nice calculations, can summon before themselves for consideration
all the conditions of a problem, or take precautions against what may
happen thousands of years after their time.
If, then, we look at these structures, such as we have them now before
our eyes, and work out in our minds the conditions, both contemporary and
precedent, involved in the single fact of their having been built, we see
distinctly that we are not contemplating one of the earlier stages, but
a very advanced stage, of civilization. All traces of the inception of
the useful arts, and of social organization, are utterly wanting. We have
before us a great community which, when seen for the first time, appears,
Minerva-like, full-grown and completely equipped.
This is seen with equal distinctness in the representations of the common
arts, and of the ordinary occurrences and practices of life, as we find
them on the tombs. They are such as belong to a civilized people. Among
the former we may instance the manufacture of glass, and the enamelling
of earthenware with coloured glazes; and among the latter the making of
inventories of the property of deceased persons.
The religion, too, we see, had already attained its full development. Its
doctrines were matured, all its symbols had been decided upon, and an
order of men had been set apart for the maintenance of the knowledge of
it, and for the celebration of its services.
The hierarchy also of society was now completely established, and
had been long unhesitatingly acquiesced in. There are no indications
here either of growth, or of decay, or of any disposition to unsettle
anything. The order of society is received as the order of Nature, is
administered by a regular form of government, and crowned by a splendid
court.
But—and this is as surprising as anything we meet with belonging to those
times—they were already in possession of their hieroglyphical method of
writing, and were using it regularly and largely in their monumental
records; and, which is still more significant, had discovered how to form
papyrus-rolls, that is to say paper, for its reception. Nor is there
any indication of a time when their ancestors have been without it. In
this, as in the other matters I have mentioned, there is no substantial
difference between the primæval monarchy, before the invasion of the
Hyksos, and the revived monarchy, which flourished after the expulsion of
the Hyksos.
From whence, then, did this remote civilization come? Was it indigenous,
or was it from abroad? or, if derived from these two sources, in what
degree did each contribute? Is there any possibility of recovering any
of the early dates, or of at all measuring roughly any of the periods
of the early history? I have already said something on these questions,
and shall return to them, whenever we shall have reached any point, from
which there may appear to be emitted some ray of light which falls upon
them.