By several authorities the largest[242] of the group of pyramids at
Gizeh, or "Great Pyramid," has been maintained--and particularly of late
by Gabb, Jomard, Taylor, and Professor Smyth--not to be a royal
mausoleum, but to be a marvellous metrological monument, built some
forty centuries ago, as "a necessarily material centre," to hold and
contain within it, and in its structure, material standards, "in a
practicable and reliable shape," "down to the ends of the world," as
measures of length, capacity, weight, etc., for men and nations for all
time--"a monument" (in the language of Professor Smyth) "devoted to
weights and measures, not so much as a place of frequent reference for
them, but one where the original standards were to be preserved for some
thousands of years, safe from the vicissitudes of empires and the decay
of nations." Messrs. Taylor and Smyth further hold that this Great
Pyramid was built for these purposes of mensuration under Divine
inspiration--the standards being, through superhuman origination and
guidance, made and protected by it till they came to be understood and
interpreted in these latter times. For, observes Professor Smyth, "the
Great Pyramid was a sealed book to all the world _until_ this present
day, when modern science, aided in part by the dilapidation of the
building and the structural features thereby opened up--has at length
been able to assign the chief interpretations." Professor Smyth has, in
his remarkable devotedness and enthusiasm, lately measured most of the
principal points in the Great Pyramid; and for the great zeal, labour,
and ability which he has displayed in this self-imposed mission, the
Society have very properly and justly bestowed upon him the Keith Medal.
But the exactitude of the measures does not necessarily imply exactitude
in the reasoning upon them; and on what grounds can it be possibly
regarded as a metrological monument and not a sepulchre, is legitimately
the subject of our present inquiry. In such an investigation springs up
first this question--
_Who was the Architect of the Great Pyramid?_
Mr. Taylor ascribes to Noah the original idea of the metrological
structure of the Great Pyramid. "To Noah" (observes Mr. Taylor) "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. He was born 600 years before
the Flood and lived 350 years after that event, dying in the year 1998
B.C. Supposing the pyramids were commenced in 2160 B.C. (that is 4000
years ago), _they_ were founded 168 years before the death of Noah. We
are told" (Mr. Taylor continues) "that Noah was a 'preacher of
righteousness,' but nothing could more illustrate this character of a
preacher of righteousness after the Flood than that he should be the
first to publish a system of weights and measures for the use of all
mankind, based upon the measure of the earth." Professor Smyth,
computing by another chronology, rejects the presence of Noah, and makes
a shepherd--Philition, slightly and incidentally alluded to in a single
passage by Herodotus[243]--the presiding and directing genius of the
structure;--holding him to be a Cushite skilled in building, and under
whose inspired direction the pyramid rose, containing within it
miraculous measures and standards of capacity, weight, length, heat,
etc.
THE COFFER IN THE KING'S CHAMBER IN THE GREAT PYRAMID AN ALLEGED
STANDARD FOR MEASURES OF CAPACITY.
A granite coffer, stone box, or sarcophagus standing in that interior
cell of the pyramid, called the King's Chamber, is held by Messrs.
Taylor and Smyth to have been hewn out and placed there as a measure of
capacity for the world, so that the ancient Hebrew, Grecian, and Roman
measures of capacity on the one hand, and our modern Anglo-Saxon on the
other, are all derived, directly or indirectly, from the parent
measurements of this granite vessel. "For," argues Mr. Taylor, "the
porphyry coffer in the King's Chamber was intended to be a standard
measure of capacity and weights for all nations; and all chief nations
did originally receive their weights and measures from thence."
The works of these authors show, in numerous passages and extracts,[244]
that, in their belief, the great object for which the whole pyramid was
created, was the preservation of this coffer as a standard of measures,
and the "whole pyramid arranged in subservience to it." The accounts of
it published by Mr. Taylor, and in Mr. Smyth's first work, further aver
that the coffer is, internally and externally, a rectangular figure of
mathematical form, and of "exquisite geometric truth," "highly polished,
and of a fine bell-metal consistency" (p. 99). "The chest or coffer in
the Great Pyramid" (writes Mr. Taylor in 1859) "is so shaped as to be in
every part rectangular from side to side, and from end to end, and the
bottom is also cut at right angles to the sides and end, and made
perfectly level." "The coffer," said Professor Smyth in 1864, "exhibits
to us a standard measure of 4000 years ago, with the tenacity and
hardness of its substance unimpaired, and the polish and evenness of its
surface untouched by nature through all that length of time."
But later inquiries and observations upset entirely all these notions
and strong averments in regard to the coffer. For--
* * * * *
(1.) _The Coffer, though an alleged actual standard of capacity-measure,
has yet been found difficult or impossible to measure._--In his first
work, "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," Professor Smyth had cited
the measurements of it, made and published by twenty-five different
observers, several of whom had gone about the matter with great
mathematical accuracy.[245] Though imagined to be a great standard of
measure, yet all these twenty-five, as Professor Smyth owned, varied
from each other in their accounts of this imaginary standard in "every
element of length, breadth, and depth, both inside and outside."
Professor Smyth has latterly measured it himself, and this twenty-sixth
measurement varies again from all the preceding twenty-five. Surely a
measure of capacity should be measureable. Its mensurability indeed
ought to be its most unquestionable quality; but this imagined standard
has proved virtually unmeasurable--in so far at least that its
twenty-six different and skilled measurers all differ from each other
in respect to its dimensions. Still, says Professor Smyth, "this affair
of the coffer's precise size is _the question of questions_."
* * * * *
(2.) _Discordance between its actual and its theoretical
measure._--Professor Smyth holds that _theoretically_ its capacity ought
to be 71,250 "pyramidal" cubic inches, for that cubic size would make it
the exact measure for a chaldron, or practically the vessel would then
contain exactly four quarters of wheat, etc. Yet Professor Smyth himself
found it some 60 cubic inches less than this; while also the
measurements of Professor Greaves, one of the most accurate measurers of
all, make it 250 cubic inches, and those of Dr. Whitman 14,000 _below_
this professed standard. On the other hand, the measurements of Colonel
Howard Vyse make it more than 100, those of Dr. Wilson more than 500,
and those of the French academicians who accompanied the Napoleonic
expedition to Egypt, about 6000 cubic inches _above_ the theoretical
size which Professor Smyth has latterly fixed on.
* * * * *
(3.) _Its theoretical measure varied._--The _actual_ measure of the
coffer has varied in the hands of all its twenty-six measurers. But even
its _theoretical_ measure is varied also; for the size which the old
coffer really _ought_ to have as "a grand capacity standard," is,
strangely enough, not a determined quantity. In his last work (1867),
Professor Smyth declares, as just stated, its proper theoretical cubic
capacity to be 71,250 pyramidal cubic inches. But in his first work
(1864), he declared something different, for "we _elect_," says he, "to
take 70,970.2 English cubic inches (or 70,900 pyramidal cubic inches) as
the true, because the theoretically _proved_ contents of the porphyry
coffer, and therefore accept these numbers as giving the cubic size of
the grand _standard_ measure of capacity in the Great Pyramid." Again,
however, Mr. Taylor, who, previously to Professor Smyth, was the great
advocate of the coffer being a marvellous standard of capacity measure
for all nations, ancient and modern, declares its measure to be neither
of the above quantities, but 71,328 cubic inches, or a cube of the
ancient cubit of Karnak.[246] A vessel cannot be a measure of capacity
whose own standard theoretical size is thus declared to vary somewhat
every few years by those very men who maintain that it is a standard.
But whether its capacity is 71,250, or 70,970, or 71,328, it is quite
equally held up by Messrs Taylor and Smyth that the Sacred Laver of the
Israelites, and the Molten Sea of the Scriptures, also conform and
correspond to its (yet undetermined) standard "with _all_ conceivable
practical exactness;" though the standard of capacity to which they thus
conform and correspond is itself a size or standard which has not been
yet fixed with any exactness. Professor Smyth, in speaking of the
calculations and theoretical dimensions of this coffer--as published by
Mr. Jopling, a believer in its wonderful standard character--critically
and correctly observes, "Some very astonishing results were brought out
in the play of arithmetical numerations."
* * * * *
(4.) _The dilapidation of the Coffer._--Thirty years ago this stone
coffer was pointed out, and indeed delineated by Mr. Perring, as "_not_
particularly well polished," and "chipped and broken at the edges."
Professor Smyth, in his late travels to Egypt, states that he found
every possible line and edge of it chipped away with large chips along
the top, both inside and outside, "chip upon chip, woefully spoiling the
original figure; along all the corners of the upright sides too, and
even along every corner of the bottom, while the upper south-eastern
corner of the whole vessel is positively broken away to a depth and
breadth of nearly a third of the whole." Yet this broken and damaged
stone vessel is professed to be the _permanent_ and perfect miraculous
standard of capacity-measure for the world for "present and still future
times;" and, according to Mr. Taylor--that it might serve this purpose,
"is formed of one block of the hardest kind of material, such as
porphyry or granite, _in order_ that it might _not_ fall into decay;"
for "in this porphyry coffer we have" (writes Professor Smyth in 1864)
"the very closing end and aim of the whole pyramid."
* * * * *
(5.) _Alleged mathematical form of the Coffer erroneous._--But in regard
to the coffer as an exquisite and marvellous standard of capacity to be
revealed in these latter times, worse facts than these are divulged by
the tables, etc., of measurements which Professor Smyth has recently
published of this stone vessel or chest. His published measurements show
that it is not at all a vessel, as was averred a few years ago, of pure
mathematical form; for, externally, it is in length an inch greater on
one side than another; in breadth half-an-inch broader at one point than
at some other point; its bottom at one part is nearly a whole inch
thicker than it is at some other parts; and in thickness its sides vary
in some points about a quarter of an inch near the top. "But," Professor
Smyth adds, "if calipered lower down, it is extremely probable that a
_notably_ different thickness would have been found there;"--though it
does not appear why they were not thus calipered.[247] Further,
externally, "all the sides" (says Professor Smyth) "were slightly
hollow, excepting the east side;" and the "two external ends" also show
some "concavity" in form. "The outside," (he avows) "of the vessel was
found to be by no means so perfectly accurate as many would have
expected, for the length was greater on one side than the other, and
_different_ also according to the height at which the measure was made."
"The workmanship" (he elsewhere describes) "of the _inside_ is in
advance of the outside, but yet _not_ perfect." For internally there is
a convergence at the bottom towards the centre; both in length and in
breadth the interior differs about half-an-inch at one point from
another point; the "extreme points" (also) "of the corners of the bottom
not being perfectly worked out to the intersection of the general planes
of the entire sides;" and thus its cavity seems really of a form utterly
unmeasurable in a correct way by mere linear measurement--the only
measure yet attempted. If it were an object of the slightest moment,
perhaps liquid measurements would be more successful in ascertaining at
least as much of the mensuration of the lower part of the coffer as
still remains.
* * * * *
(6.) _Coffer cut with ledges and catch-holes for a lid, like other
sarcophagi._--More damaging details still remain in relation to the
coffer as "a grand standard measure of capacity," and prove that its
object or function was very different. In his first work Professor Smyth
describes the coffer as showing no "symptoms" whatever of grooves, or
catchpins or other fastenings or a lid. "More modern accounts," he
re-observes, "have been further precise in describing the smooth and
geometrical finish of the upper part of the coffer's sides, _without
any_ of those grooves, dovetails, or steady-pin-holes which have been
found elsewhere in true polished sarcophagi, where the firm fastening of
the lid is one of the most essential features of the whole business."
Mr. Perring, however, delineated the catchpin-holes for a lid in the
coffer thirty years ago.[248] On his late visit to it Professor Smyth
found its western side lowered down in its whole extent to nearly an
inch and three-quarters (or more exactly, 1.72 inch), and ledges cut out
around the interior of the other sides at the same height. Should we
measure on this western side from this actual ledge brim, or from the
imaginary higher brim? If reckoned as the true brim, "this ledge"
(according to Professor Smyth) would "take away near 4000 inches from
the cubic capacity of the vessel." Besides, he found three holes cut on
the top of the coffer's lowered western side, as in all the other
Egyptian sarcophagi, where these holes are used along with the ledge and
grooves to admit, and form a simple mechanism to lock the lids of such
stone chests.[249] In other words, it presents the usual ledge and
apparatus pertaining to Egyptian stone sarcophagi, and served as such.
* * * * *
(7.) _Sepulchral contents of Coffer when first discovered._--When, about
a thousand years ago, the Caliph Al Mamoon tunnelled into the interior
of the pyramid, he detected by the accidental falling, it is said, of a
granite portcullis, the passage to the King's Chamber, shut up from the
building of the pyramid to that time. "Then" (to quote the words of
Professor Smyth) "the treasures of the pyramid, sealed up almost from
the days of Noah, and undesecrated by mortal eye for 3000 years, lay
full in their grasp before them." On this occasion, to quote the words
of Ibn Abd Al Hakm or Hokm--a contemporary Arabian writer, and a
historian of high authority,[250] who was born, lived, and died in
Egypt--they found in the pyramid, "towards the top, a chamber [now the
so-called King's Chamber] with an hollow stone [or coffer] in which
there was a statue [of stone] like a man, and within it a man upon whom
was a breastplate of gold set with jewels; upon this breastplate was a
sword of inestimable price, and at his head a carbuncle of the bigness
of an egg, shining like the light of the day; and upon him were
characters writ with a pen,[251] which no man understood"[252]--a
description stating, down to the so-called "statue," mummy-case, or
cartonage, and the hieroglyphics upon the cere-cloth, the arrangements
now well known to belong to the higher class of Egyptian mummies.
In short (to quote the words of Professor Smyth), "that wonder within a
wonder of the Great Pyramid--viz., the porphyry coffer,"--that "chief
mystery and boon to the human race which the Great Pyramid was built to
enshrine,"--"this vessel of exquisite meaning," and of "far-reaching
characteristics,"--mathematically formed under alleged Divine
inspiration as a measure of capacity (and, according to M. Jomard,
probably of length also) for all men and all nations, for all time,--and
particularly for these latter profane times,--is, in simple truth,
nothing more and nothing less than--an old and somewhat misshapen stone
coffin.