THE PYRAMIDS REVISITED
This is the third time that I have made lengthy visits to the Pyramids
of Egypt. On my first trip I rode to them on a donkey. The next time I
came out from Cairo in a comfortable carriage, and to-day I passed over
the same route on an electric trolley, paying seven and a half cents for
the trip. The street cars to the Pyramids start at the end of the bridge,
opposite Cairo, and pass along the side of the wide avenue shaded by
acacia trees. The cars are open so that one can look out over the Nile
valley as he goes. We whizzed by caravans of donkeys, loaded with all
sorts of farm products, and by camels, ridden by gowned men, bobbing up
and down in the saddles as they went. There were men, women, and children
on foot, and veiled women on donkeys.
The cars were filled with Egyptians. Two dark-faced men in black
gowns and white turbans sat on the seat beside me. In front was a
yellow-skinned Arab dandy in a red fez and long gown, while just behind
me sat a woman with a black veil fastened to her head-dress by a brass
spool. As we neared the Pyramids we stopped at a café where American
drinks were sold, and a little farther on was a great modern hotel with
telephones and electric lights.
When I previously visited Egypt, the sands about the Pyramids were
almost as smooth as those of the seashore. I galloped on my donkey over
them and had no idea that I was tramping down innumerable graves.
But now—what changes the excavators and archæologists have made! I n
walking over the same ground to-day I had to pick my way in and out
through a vast network of half-broken-down tombs, from which the sands
had been shovelled, and climb across piles of sun-dried brick which were
made by the Egyptians at the time old King Cheops reigned. In one place
I saw a gang of half-naked, brown-skinned _fellaheen_ shovelling the
earth into the cars in which it is carried far out in the desert. When
the work is in full play an endless chain of cars of sand moves across
this cemetery. There is a double track with turntables at the ends, and
the arrangements are such that the sand can be taken out at the rate of
half a ton per minute. For a long time seventy-two men were employed, and
the result is that some most interesting historical material has been
collected.
Some of the most important archæological work now going on in Egypt is
in the hands of the Americans. Our scientists are making explorations
in Nubia, away up the Nile, and are opening up temples and tombs in the
desert near Luxor. They have already discovered the burial places of
several kings who reigned over four thousand years ago, and unearthed the
tomb of Queen Hatshepsut, whose sarcophagus is now on view in the museum
at Cairo.
Right here two American institutions have a large force of natives at
work and have uncovered a cemetery under the shadow of the Pyramids of
the time when the greatest of them was built. This cemetery includes
the tombs not only of the rich, but also of the poor, and the relics,
statues, and other things found in it enable one to reconstruct the
lives of those who were buried here forty centuries ago.
The excavations which are being made near the Great Pyramid are in the
interest of Harvard College and the Boston Museum. They furnish the money
and Dr. George Reisner, one of the most efficient archæologists of the
day, has charge of the work. Dr. Reisner came to Egypt as the head of
the Hearst Expedition. He worked for it several years, making valuable
explorations far up the Nile. He discovered there the flint-working camps
of the people of the prehistoric period, and he explored the quarries
which date back to the time of the Ptolemies. He also unearthed the site
of a large town which was in existence fifteen hundred years before
Christ and excavated a mass of valuable material therefrom. He then came
nearer Cairo and uncovered cemeteries of ancient times, which give us a
new view of Egyptian civilization.
It was in connection with the Boston Museum that he began his work at
the Pyramids. As it is now carried on, of the share which falls to the
United States the museum gets the art discoveries, while Harvard receives
everything found bearing upon history and ethnology. One half of all that
is unearthed goes to the Egyptian government and the other half to the
United States.
The story of the allotment of the archæological territory about the
Pyramids is interesting. The Egyptian government was anxious to have the
country excavated, and there were three nations ready to do the work.
The three were Germany, Italy, and the United States. Archæologists came
here as representatives from each of these countries and the whole of
the Gizeh Pyramid field was turned over to them with the understanding
that Egypt was to have half of the discoveries. Then the question came
up as to how the site should be divided. As it was then, it was a great
area of sand not far from the banks of the Nile with the big Pyramid of
Cheops and the smaller ones of Khefren and Mycerinus rising out of it,
each being quite a distance apart from the others. Each nation wished to
do independent work; so the archæologists finally agreed to divide the
territory into three sections and cast lots for them. I am told that Mrs.
Reisner held the straws. In the drawing, the United States got the tract
just north of the Great Pyramid and Germany and Italy the tracts to the
south of it. Our area was thought to be the best of all and Uncle Sam’s
luck has been nowhere better evidenced than right here. We are making
more finds than both the other nations put together and are bringing new
life to the pages of history.
I went out to the Pyramids to-day and called upon the chief of the
American excavation works. I find he has built himself a home under the
shadow of old Cheops. He is beyond the greatest of the Pyramids, with
the sands reaching out for miles away on the north, south, and west
of him. His house is built of stones which probably came from these
ancient monuments. It is a long, one-story structure, not over twelve
feet in height, but large enough to contain a laboratory, a photographic
establishment, and the necessary equipment of an archæologist.
One part of it is the living quarters of Dr. Reisner and his family. He
has his wife and baby with him, and as we chatted together his little
daughter, a bright-eyed infant not more than a year or so old, played
about our feet. The baby was born here on the edge of the Libyan Desert,
and her youth and the age of old Cheops, that great tomb of more than
four thousand years ago, were striking in their contrast. As I looked at
the little one I thought of the tombs of the babies which her father is
now excavating.
During my stay we examined some photographs of the recent discoveries.
One represented three statues of a well-to-do couple who lived here in
those bygone ages. They were Teti and his wife. The faces were life-like
and I doubt not that Mr. and Mrs. Teti sat for them.
There were other photographs of objects found in the cemetery of the
rich, as well as of some found in the cemetery of the poor. The higher
classes of that time were buried nearer the Pyramids, while beyond them,
farther up the desert, were the burial places of the poor. Each poor
person had a little coffin-like hole in the ground built round with
stones. These holes were close together, making a great series of stone
boxes that remind one of the compartments of an egg crate.
I took a donkey for my ride to the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and went
clear around the huge mass, climbing again up the stones. As I sat on the
top I could see the work going on in the sands below me, and I repeopled
them with the men now being dug up under the superintendence of our
Americans. In my mind’s eye I could see them as they toiled. I could see
them dragging the great blocks over the road of polished stone, which
had been made for the purpose, and observe the sweat rolling down their
dusty faces in this blazing sun of Egypt as, under the lashes of their
taskmasters, the great pile grew.
Most of the great stone blocks of which the Pyramid was built weigh at
least two tons, while some of the larger ones which cover the King’s
Chamber inside the structure weigh sixty tons. It is estimated that the
Great Pyramid contains nearly ninety million cubic feet of limestone.
This is so much that if it could be split into flags four inches thick,
it would furnish enough to make a pavement two feet wide reaching over
sea and land clear around the globe.
When Cheops completed this great structure he faced the exterior with
limestone and granite slabs. The sides were as smooth as glass and met
in a point at the top. The length of each side was eighteen feet greater
than it is now. Indeed, as the bright sun played upon its polished
surface the Pyramid must have formed a magnificent sight.
As it is to-day, when one views it from afar, the Great Pyramid still
looks like one smooth block of stone. It is only when he comes closer
that he sees it is made of many blocks. The Pyramid is built of yellow
limestone and conglomerate. The stones are piled one on the other in
regular layers. There is no cement between them, but they are chinked
with a rough mortar which has withstood the weather for all these ages.
I dug at some of this mortar with my knife, but could not loosen it, and
went from block to block along the great structure on the side facing the
western desert, finding the mortar everywhere solid.
And this huge pile was built over forty centuries ago. It seems a long
time, but when you figure out how many lives it means it is not so old
after all. Every one of us knows one hundred men who have reached forty
years. Their aggregate lives, if patched together, would go back to the
beginning of this monument. In other words, if a man at forty should have
a child and that child should live to be forty and then have a child, and
the programme of life should so continue, it would take only one hundred
such generations to reach to the days when the breath from the garlic and
onions eaten by those one hundred thousand men polluted this desert air.
Indeed, the world is not old, and it is not hard to realize that those
people of the past had the same troubles, the same worries, and the same
tastes as we have. I can take you through tombs not far from Cairo upon
the walls of which are portrayed the life work of the men of ancient
Egypt. You may see them using the same farm tools that the _fellaheen_
use now. They plough, they reap, and thresh. They drink wine and gorge
themselves with food. In one of the tombs I saw the picture of a woman
milking a cow while her daughter held the calf back by the knees to
prevent it from sucking. In another painting I saw the method of cooking,
and in another observed those old Egyptians stuffing live geese with food
to enlarge their livers. They were making _pâté de foie gras_, just as
the Germans stuff geese for the same purpose to-day.
Leaving the Pyramid of Cheops, I crossed over to take a look at the other
two which form the rest of the great trio of Gizeh, and I have since been
up to the site of old Memphis, where are the Pyramids of Sakkarah, eleven
in number. Along this plateau, running up the Nile, are to be found the
remains of a large number of Pyramids. There are also some in the Faiyum,
and others far up the river in ancient Ethiopia. The latter are taller in
proportion to their bases than the Egyptian Pyramids, and they generally
have a hall with sculptures facing the east to commemorate the dead.
Most of the stones of the Pyramids here came from the plateau upon which
they stand or from the Mokattam hills about twelve miles away on the
other side of the Nile. There was an inclined plane leading to the river,
on which are still to be seen the ruts in the stone road cut out by the
runners of the sledges carrying these great blocks. There are pictures on
some of the monuments which show how the stones were drawn on sledges by
oxen and men. In one of the pictures a man is pouring oil on the roadbed.
On the Island of Madeira, where the natives drag sleds by hand up and
down the hills, they grease their sled runners, but the ancient Egyptians
greased not only the runners but the roads as well.
I was much interested in the interior of the Great Pyramid. The mighty
structure is supposed to be solid, with the exception of three chambers,
connected with the outside by passageways and ventilated by air-shafts.
These chambers undoubtedly once contained great treasures of gold and
silver, but they were robbed in the first instance over three thousand
years ago and it is known that the Persians, the Romans, and the Arabs
all tried to dig into them to find the valuables they were supposed to
hold.
It was with three half-naked Bedouins that I climbed up to the entrance
which leads into old Cheops. There is a hole about forty-five feet above
the desert on the north side. Going in here, we came into a narrow stone
passage so low that I had to crawl on my hands and knees. The passage
first sloped downward and then up, and finally, pushed and pulled by my
dark guides, I got into a great narrow hall. After passing through this,
I entered again the room where old Cheops, the king, rested undisturbed
for a thousand years or so before the looters came.
[Illustration: The Alabaster Sphinx is one of the evidences of splendour
of the ancient city of Memphis, seat of kings, with streets so long that
to walk from end to end was said to be half a day’s journey.]
[Illustration: Inside the great museum at Cairo are the mummies of
Egyptian royalty, which, with countless relics and records and the new
discoveries of the archæologists, reveal in intimate detail the life of
these people of thousands of years ago.]
By going back through the hall one reaches another passageway which
slopes downward to the Queen’s Chamber. Below this, reached by another
passage connecting with that I first entered, there is a subterranean
chamber far under the base of the Pyramid itself. The whole structure is
intensely interesting, and if it could be explored by diamond drills or
in some other way, other chambers might possibly be found in the parts
now looked upon as solid.