on which a second central mass was raised, and a pyramid of two degrees without filled-in angles was formed. At this stage again the work could be completed if necessary, or if the king still lived each platform from the lowest could be increased on the same principle. The form of the pyramid of steps at Sakkarah, the central monument of the necropolis of Memphis, is a good illustration of the general principle, and the change of angle in the southern pyramid of Dahshoor is valuable as a probable instance of hasty completion.
The manner in which the pyramids were built is thus clear enough: the mechanical skill their construction shows must remain a marvel. The main materials were indeed quarried from the limestone rock on which the monuments stand, but the finest quality used was brought from quarries on the opposite side of the river, and, in the instances in which granite was employed, usually for details, from the First Cataract. How were the vast blocks lowered from the quarries and transported to the river, how embarked, again transported to the edge of the desert, raised to the low table-land on which the pyramids stand, and then elevated to the heights required, in the case of the Great Pyramid up to above four hundred and fifty feet, and how were not alone the casing-stones, but also the stones lining and roofing the narrow passages and chambers, fitted with an exactness that has never been surpassed? We know from their pictures something of the machinery of the Egyptians, how they transported huge masses of stone by the use of the labor of men or oxen, on sledges moving on rollers, and we also know that great causeways led up from the valley of the Nile to the plateau of the pyramids. But this is all. Of their mode of raising masses we are wholly ignorant. People have talked of mounds up which the stones were dragged to build the pyramids, but the work of constructing an easy incline for a pyramid four hundred and sixty feet high would have been tremendous, and the materials, unless it was built of stone, would not have been at hand. At present we are as far as ever from a solution of this curious problem.
The Great Pyramid was originally four hundred and eighty feet high, and each side of its base measured seven hundred and sixty-four feet, dimensions slightly reduced by its use as a quarry in later times. The successive Muslim capitals of Egypt, of which Cairo is the latest, have been built of the monuments of Memphis. The city and its temples have disappeared, and left scarcely a trace; yet the larger pyramids have lost but a small proportion of their materials, and where there are marks of ruin, it is rather due to the efforts of explorers than to the actual removal of the stones from the site. Seen from afar, on what Horace well calls their royal site, the vastness of the pyramids strikes us; as we approach them, and begin to distinguish the courses of stone, this impression wanes, to return with an oppressive force as we stand beneath them. All other works of man are dwarfed by them, but it must be remembered that no other works of man occupied a whole nation, as it is all but certain the greater pyramids did, for one or even two generations each. No public works save the pyramids are known of the Memphite kingdom. When true public works begin, pyramids become far less costly, like that of the wise king who excavated the Lake Mœris.
The object of each pyramid was to entomb a single mummied king: sometimes two sepulchral chambers may point to a double burial: in one case an early monument, the third pyramid, seems to have been enlarged by a later sovereign; but in general each monument seems to have been designed for a single entombment. The purpose of so vast a labor is no longer a mystery if we may assume that the Egyptians held the preservation of the body to be essential to immortality. It is certain that all Egyptian tombs were constructed under the influence of a belief in the immortality of the soul. The final aim of the pyramid-builders was that each head of the religion and State should rest securely in these vast monuments, whose form is a type of immortality, resting on the solid rock, themselves solid and indestructible, yet pointing heavenwards. It is a weakness of practical natures to laugh with Pliny at the pyramids, as mere monuments of human vanity. We forget the human weakness of personal commemoration when we remember that the pyramids are material records of a belief in immortality, the oldest and the most enduring.
Of the chapels in front of each pyramid there are but scanty remains. A priesthood was attached to each, and we know that as late as the time of the Saïte kings, in the sixth century b.c., the priesthood of some of these pyramid kings was still maintained. That one of these is a king whom Herodotus charges with hostility to religion, is a curious commentary on the historian's untrustworthiness when dealing
