_Pharaoh_,[172] the titular appellation of the monarchs of Egypt, being
but the _local modification_ of this our Irish _Phearagh_, the mind is
instinctively directed towards that great storehouse of bygone
consequence. And as the best authority that we can command in gaining any
insight into its reverses is through the medium of its own historians, let
us hear what Manetho, a priest of the country, thus transmits:--
“We had formerly,” says he, “a king named Timæus, in whose reign, I know
not why, but it pleased God to visit us with a blast of His displeasure;
when, on a sudden, there came upon this country a large body of _obscure
people_ from the East, and with great boldness invaded the land, and took
it without opposition. Their behaviour to the natives was very barbarous;
for they slaughtered the men, and made slaves of their wives and children.
The whole body of this people were called _Huksos_, or _Uksos_; that is,
Royal Shepherds: for the first syllable, in the _sacred dialect_,
signifies a ‘king,’ as the latter, in the popular language, signifies ‘a
shepherd.’ These two compounded together constitute the word Huksos. These
people are said to have been Arabians.”
“The Vedas, or Sanscrit records of Hindustan, furthermore state that these
invaders were the “Pali,” or shepherds, a powerful, warlike, and
enterprising Indian tribe. While the deadly aversion which existed in the
minds of the Egyptians against the name and office of a shepherd in
Joseph’s day, is a lasting memorial of their visit and their
severity.”[173]
They did not go, however, without leaving behind them other signs. The
pages of Herodotus afford ample evidence of the resemblance between the
Egyptian customs and those of the more remote East. By his description of
the rites and ceremonies, the mode of life, etc., of the priests of Egypt,
they are at once identified with the Brahmins of India. China still
celebrates that festival of lamps which was formerly universal throughout
the extent of Egypt;[174] and “we have the most indubitable authority for
stating that the sepoys in the British overland army from India, when they
beheld in Egypt the ruins of Dendera, prostrated themselves before the
remains of the ancient temples, and offered up adoration to them;
declaring, upon being asked the reason of this strange conduct, _that_
they _saw sculptured_ before them the Gods of their country.”[175]
But the most stupendous and appalling memento of their dominion and
science was the three great pyramids of Geeza, the erection of which,
Herodotus assures us (bk. ii. sec. 128), though the _priests_ would
attribute to Cheops, Cephrenes, and Mycerinus, three Egyptian kings, “yet
the _people_ ascribed them to a _shepherd_ named Philitis, _who at that
time fed his cattle_ in those places”; so consonant with the _invasion_
above authenticated. This is additionally confirmed by the Sanscrit
records already referred to, informing us of _three mountains_, Rucm-adri,
“the Mount of Gold,” Rajat-adri, “the Mount of Silver,” and Retu-adri,
“the Mount of Gems”; having been raised by that Indian colony who had
conquered Egypt; which is only a figurative denotation of those
_factitious heights_, those astounding monuments of religion and
ostentation, which were originally cased with _yellow_, _white_, and
_spotted marbles_, brought from the quarries of Arabia, until stripped by
the rapacity of succeeding colonies.
Belzoni’s testimony is decisive on this point, as his drawing of the
second pyramid represents the upper part of its casing remaining still
entire, about a third of the distance from the summit to the base
downwards. We meet with other pyramids, it is true, chiefly dispersed
about the Libyan deserts, but they are much inferior to the fore-mentioned
three, except one near the mummies, whose dimensions and structure are
very nearly the same with the largest Gezite one. This latter, according
to Greaves, is 693 feet square at the base; its perpendicular height 499
feet; that is, 62 feet higher than St. Peter’s at Rome, and 155 feet
higher than St. Paul’s in London; while the inclining height is 693 feet,
exactly equal to the breadth of the base; so that the angles and base make
an equilateral triangle.[176] Belzoni measures them all differently, and
gives to the second even greater dimensions than are _usually_ assigned to
the first or largest, viz. base, 684; perpendicular height, 456; central
line down front, from apex to base, 568; coating, from top to where it
ends, 140.
The variation arises from the circumstance of the latter gentleman’s
measurement having been taken after the base had been cleared away of all
sand and rubbish; while those of his predecessors applied only as taken
from the level of the surrounding heap. The small ones above noticed are
some quadrilateral, _some round, terminating like a sugar-loaf_, some
rising with a greater and some with a lesser inclination. All commence
immediately south of Cairo, but on the opposite side of the Nile, and
extend, in an uninterrupted range, for many miles in a southerly
direction, parallel with the banks of the river.
After what has been said above, I need scarcely allude to the ridiculous
supposition of those having been built by Joseph as granaries for his
corn! Their form and construction, ill adapted to such an occasion,
refutes that absurdity, as it does the derivation upon which it has been
founded, viz. the _Greek_ words πυρος, wheat, and αμαω, I gather; as if,
forsooth, an _Egyptian_ structure, erected before the _Greek_ language was
ever known to exist, should wait for a designation until Greece should be
pleased to christen it. Still more disposed must one be to discard with
contempt the usual derivation given them, of πυρ, fire; as this not only
labours under the weakness of the former, but betrays an ignorance of the
correct idea of the Greek word πυρος, of which πυρ, fire, is the true
derivation, “quia flammæ instar in _acutum_ tendit”;[177] intimating its
_continually tapering_ until it ends in a _point_; whereas the top of the
Egyptian _pyramids_ never does so end; that of the largest above described
ending in a flat of nine stones, besides two wanting at the angles, each
side of this platform being about sixteen feet; so that a considerable
number of people may stand on it, and have, as from most of ours, one of
the most beautiful prospects imaginable.
Wilkins’s derivation from _pouro_, a king, and _misi_, a race, would seem
plausible enough, being a purely Coptic or Egyptian analysis; but when we
consider the general ascription of them by the people to the _shepherd
Philitis_, whether as one of the _Pali_--that is, shepherds--or Uksi,
which meant the same--king-shepherds above adduced; or as _emphatically
the shepherd_, the son of Israel,[178] it argues a disposition on the part
of the people to assign the honour--if taken in the latter light--to the
workmen employed; if in the former, to a prince of a different dynasty
from those whom the Egyptian priests would fain associate with them. This
derivation, therefore, will not stand; and we have only to betake
ourselves to the ingenious conjecture of Lacroze,[179] which, perhaps,
may give more satisfaction respecting the etymology of the word _pyramid_.
Lacroze derives it from the _Sanscrit term_ Biroumas, and traces an
analogy between Brahma, Birma (which the Indians of Malabar pronounce
Biroumas), and the word Piromis, which means the same thing, namely, a
virtuous and upright character--Piromia meaning, according to him, in the
language of Ceylon, man in general.
Herodotus states,[180] that the priests of Egypt kept in a spacious
building large images of wood, representing all their preceding _high
priests_, arranged in genealogical order, every high priest placing his
image there during his life. They mentioned to Hecatæus, the historian,
when they were showing this edifice to him, that each of the images he saw
represented a _Piromis_, begotten by another _Piromis_, which word, says
Herodotus, signifies, in their language, a _virtuous_ and _honest man_. A
passage from Synesius, the celebrated bishop of Cyrene, in his treatise
“on Providence,” at once coincides with, and is illustrative of this
anecdote. “The father of Osiris and Typhon,” says he, “was at the same
time a _king_, a _priest_, and a _philosopher_. The Egyptian histories
also rank him among the gods; for the Egyptians are disposed to believe
that many divinities reigned in their country in succession before it was
governed by men, and before their kings were reckoned in a genealogical
order by _Peirom_ after Peirom.”
The Japanese celebrate an annual festival in honour of one _Pireun_, who,
they say, was many ages ago king of _Formosa_, and who, being disgusted
with the abandoned morals of his subjects--wealthy traders--consigned
himself solely to the worship of the gods. Forewarned in a dream, he took
flight from the impending visitation, and had scarcely sailed ere the
island, with its inhabitants, sunk to the bottom of the sea. As for the
good king, he arrived safe in China, whence he went over to Japan, where
he has been ever since honoured by the above commemoration.
The true Coptic name for those edifices is Pire monc--which signifies a
_sunbeam_[181]--not so much in allusion to their _form_ as to their
appropriation, which we shall make the subject of a separate inquiry.
It has, I trust, satisfactorily been proved that the erection and
nomination of those wondrous edifices were not of _native_ growth. It has,
I trust, additionally appeared that _both_ were essentially Indian. It may
not now be “ungermane to the matter,” if we would for a moment digress, to
consider the era of their probable date, as introductory to the character
of their probable destination.
Josephus expressly informs us that the Israelites were employed in the
construction of the pyramids. Is there any reason why we should doubt so
respectable an authority? Oh, yes, it is said the Scriptures are against
it--the task of the Israelites during their bondage being exclusively
confined to the making of brick. I deny that the Scriptures either allege
or insinuate any such thing. On the contrary, we may fairly infer, from
Ex. ix. 8, 10, that they were engaged in other servile offices; as also
from Ps. lxxxi. 6, where it is said, “I removed his shoulder from the
_burden_, and his hands were delivered from the _mortar-box_”--not _pots_,
as our translation has it; and such rendering is supported by the
Septuagint, Vulgate, Symmachus, and others.[182]
This ascription receives further countenance from a passage in Diodorus,
i. 2, where, referring to those immense piles, and the ideas of the
Egyptians themselves respecting them, he adds: “They say the first was
erected by Armæus, the second by Amosis, the third by Inaron.” Who is it
that pronounces the last two names, if only spelled, aMosis and inAron,
and recollects, at the same time, what the Scriptures tell us of Moses and
Aaron, that is not at once struck with the similarity of the sound? And as
to Armæus, why it bears so evident an affinity with Aramæus or Aramean,
that one cannot avoid connecting it with the “Aramite ready to perish,”
the very name given to Jacob, Deut. xxvi. 5.[183] Nothing, then, prevents,
so far as I can see, our concluding _one_ of those structures at least--I
say one at least to _conciliate_ the brick-party; and I think, besides, I
have read somewhere, that one of the pyramids, the smaller ones no doubt,
was built of such material--to have been the work of the sons of Israel.
And the rather as it was consonant with the uniform practice of the
ancient Oriental nations to employ captive foreigners on servile and
laborious works.
The usual time, too, assigned to the slavery of the Israelites corresponds
very nearly with that generally allotted to the erection of those masses.
The stay of the sons of Israel in the land of Egypt is generally
understood to have been two hundred and fifteen years. Of these Joseph
ruled seventy; forty is a fair average for the generation that
succeeded--which, added to his seventy, leaves one hundred and five years
to the Exodus. Now we learn from Herodotus that Cheops, the _reputed_
founder of the first or greatest of these pyramids, was the first also of
the Egyptian kings who oppressed, or in any way tyrannised over, his
subjects. His reign is stated to have been fifty years. Cephrenes, who
succeeded, showed himself in every respect his brother, barring, as the
other before him, the approach to every temple, stopping the performance
of the usual sacrifices, and keeping his subjects all the while employed
in every species of oppressive task and laborious drudgery. The period of
his reign is stated to have been fifty-six years, which, added to the
preceding fifty, make one hundred and six, exactly answering to the above
calculation.
The Exodus, besides, is stated to have occurred B.C. 1791; and Herodotus
and Diodorus together, while acknowledging their ignorance of the actual
date of the pyramids, and the impossibility, on their part, to ascertain
it, declare also their conviction that they must have been built at least
about that period.
I have thus, I trust, done honourable justice to the testimony of
Josephus. I have done so for many reasons--firstly, because of the
importance of the subject itself; secondly, from my respect for the merits
of the writer; and, thirdly, because that I think it very probable indeed
that the Israelites may have been occupied in the erection of some of the
minor and later pyramids. But _insuperable_ obstacles stand in the way of
our associating them with the structure of them _all_; and of these _one_
is, the improbability that the victorious invaders would single out the
inoffensive Israelites as particular objects of their oppression, when
policy should suggest to them a directly different course in securing
their adherence in opposition to the native residents. By Josephus’s
account, however, it would appear that the Israelites alone were engaged
upon those edifices; and the Scriptures themselves confine the intimation
of drudgery to the Israelitish race: it therefore is manifest that the
Egyptian _natives_ were favoured by the _then existing_ dynasty, while it
is on all hands agreed, that the _new_-comers had treated during the whole
period of their dominion, the _entire_ Egyptian nation with indiscriminate
rigour and chastisement.
Besides this, that deadly animosity existing in the Egyptian mind to the
name and profession of shepherds, above alluded to, at once identifies
their character with that of the “Uksi,” or “King-shepherds,” to whom we
have before referred, and proves the date of their invasion anterior in
point of time to Israel’s introduction into the land of Egypt. Joseph was
well aware of the particulars of this invasion, and of the sting it left
behind it in the mind of the Egyptians; and accordingly he acquaints his
brothers, whose “trade also had been about cattle,” that “every shepherd
was an abomination to the Egyptians.”[184]
Manetho himself, the Egyptian priest, is my voucher for this deduction,
when he says that, “After these--the shepherd-kings--came _another set of
people_ who were sojourners in Egypt, in the reign of Amenophis. These
chose themselves a leader one who was a priest of Heliopolis, and whose
name was Osarsiph; and after he had listed himself with this body of men
he changed his name to Moses.”
But this, it will be said, is at variance with Moses’ own account, which
states that he obtained his name on being rescued from a watery cradle by
Pharaoh’s daughter. Not in the least, I reply; for it is more than
probable that, after his slaying the Egyptian, and consequent flight, he
dropped his name to ensure concealment, and only resumed it on being
invested with his divine commission. Or, what is more likely still, and
perhaps the truth, that Osarsiph was the name which his “mother” had given
him, and which adhered to him until “he grew up,”--a term in Scripture
which expresses _mature_ age,--until when it was not that the princess had
designated him as Moses.
Strong, too, as my veneration is for Josephus, I cannot conceal either
from myself or from the reader, that his testimony in _this instance_ is
rather of a dubious character. The idea of interpolation I altogether
waive--it is, at _all times_, a contemptible subterfuge. I will take for
granted that the text is genuine; and, on the very face of it, it bears
the impress--in the first place, of inaccuracy, confounding the period of
his countrymen’s _servitude_ with that of their actual _sojourn_ in Egypt;
and, in the second place, of _indistinctness_, attaching a term of obloquy
to those edifices, without condescending to offer therefor any cause. Here
are his own words: “When time had obliterated the benefits of Joseph, and
the kingdom of Egypt had passed into another family, they inhumanely
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 (Nile); and, moreover, vexed our nation in constructing
FOOLISH PYRAMIDS, forced them to learn various arts, and inured them to
undergo great labours; and after this manner did they, for _four hundred
years_, endure bondage; the Egyptians doing that to destroy the Israelites
by overmuch labour, whilst we ourselves endeavoured to struggle against
all our difficulties.”
Now, it is not a little remarkable, as connecting the erection of the
pyramids with the “royal shepherd race,” the former occupants of the above
fertile territory, that those immense edifices happen to be situated in
the very vicinity of Goshen. Geeza, where the three _great ones_ stand, is
universally allowed to have been the site whereon Memphis once stood; and
as a west wind took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea (Ex.
x. 19), Goshen, which we find by Gen. xlv. 10, cannot have been far from
Joseph’s own residence, will be more aptly fixed in the vicinity of this
spot within the Heliopolitan nome, than within any other nome or
præfecture, particularly the Tanitic, “where the same wind,” as has been
justly remarked by Dr. Shaw, “would not have blown those insects into the
Red Sea, but into the Mediterranean, or else into the land of the
Philistines.” Goshen, then, was that part of “the land of Rameses,” “the
best of the land” (Gen. xlvii. 6-11) which lay in the neighbourhood of
Cairo, but on the opposite side of the Nile, where, as already observed,
the pyramids are first met with, and whence they proceed in a continued
line along the banks of the river, in a southerly direction for many miles
together.
After reading these details it will be impossible, I conceive, for any
dispassionate mind to remain longer in suspense as to the origin of the
pyramids. The doubt, too, and obscurity in which they have been
heretofore enveloped can be explained with similar ease, if we but
remember the execration in which their Cushite founders were held by the
Egyptians, and their consequent disinclination to associate their name
with such splendid memorials. With this view, indeed, it is not at all
improbable but that active legislative measures were adopted to cancel and
suppress every vestige of proof which could tend to perpetuate the memory
of the obnoxious erectors. So that we must not wonder if, after a lapse of
years, their history was as great a riddle to the Egyptians themselves as
that of _our pyramids_ is to the Irish nation.
A collateral cause for this universal ignorance of their use and origin
was the probable absence of letters on the part of the Egyptians, until
now, for the first time, introduced by those learned Arabians; and though
any one who is acquainted with the oriental disquisitions of Wilfrid, and
the coincidences he establishes between the ancient history of Egypt and
the account given of the customs and dynasties of that kingdom, as drawn
from the Hindoo Puranas, will at once admit that “there must have been a
period when a Hindoo power had reigned in Egypt by right of conquest,” and
established therein the peculiar rites of their religion with the elements
of literature and social civilisation, yet it is probable that during
their sojourn, which, we have seen, was a continued series of warfare,
they kept themselves aloof from all intercourse with the natives, and
checked, as much as possible, the circulation of their science among them.
Some _sparks_ of it, however, must inevitably have transpired; and the
Egyptian intellect was too finely constituted to be insensible to its
value, or allow it to extinguish without food; so that, in the time of
Moses, and long after, their learning and accomplishments were courted by
the philosophers of the day, and were so eminently conspicuous, as to
become a proverb (Acts Apost. vii. 22). Homer, we all know, visited that
favoured land--so did Pythagoras--so did Solon, Thales, Plato, and
Eudoxus; in short, all the sages of antiquity, of whom we read so much,
and whom we peruse with such _recuperative_ pleasure, either finished
their education in that favoured school, or conversed with those who had
themselves done so.
The Egyptians are said to have been the first who brought the “rules of
government,” with the art of making “life easy” and “a people happy”--the
_true end_ of worldly politics--to a regular system. But much as they
excelled other nations in scientific lore, in nothing was their
superiority so conspicuous as in that _magic_ art which enabled them to
cope, for so long a time, and under such trying varieties, even with the
prophet and ambassador of God himself.
These exhibitions are too stubbornly authenticated by scriptural proofs,
as well in the Old as in the New Testament,[185] for any one to affect
disbelief in them without at the same time disbelieving the authenticity
of the Scriptures themselves. Yes, I implicitly subscribe to the truth of
the narration; and as I mean to bring home their _initiation_ in the art,
as well as in their other several accomplishments, to the Chaldean
diviners, or _Aire Coti_ shepherds--a branch of the Tuath-de-danaan
colonists of this our western isle--from whom, or their relatives, under
the designation of Uksi, Indo-Scythæ, or Cushite shepherds--who, if not
all one and the same, were at least mixed and incorporated--the Egyptians
had imbibed it--this, I trust, will plead my excuse for obtruding its
notice here, as well as for dilating so much at large upon the early
history of Egypt.[186]