A Miracle in Stone (1877)
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A MIRACLE IN STONE:
OR
THE GREAT PYRAMID OF EGYPT.
BY
JOSEPH A. SEISS, D.D., Pastor of the Church of the Holy Communion, Philada., Pa.,
AUTHOR OF " LAST TIMES, " " LECTURES ON THE GOSPELS, " " LECTURES ON THE APOCALYPSE, " " THE GOSPEL IN LEVITICUS, " ETC.
"In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord; and it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of Hosts in the land of Egypt."—Is. 19:19, 20.
FOURTH EDITION ENLARGED.
PHILADELPHIA: PORTER & COATES, 822 CHESTNUT STREET.
ANDOVER-HARVARD THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
H 6 2, 7 ' 3
Ju. 3, 1940
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, By JOSEPH A. SEISS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
PREFACE.
This book is meant to give a succinct comprehensive account of the oldest and greatest existing monument of intellectual man, particularly of the recent discoveries and claims with regard to it.
If the half that learned and scientific investigators allege respecting the Great Pyramid of Gizeh be true, it is one of the most interesting objects on earth, and ought to command universal attention. It has been unhesitatingly pronounced, and perhaps it is, "the most important discovery made in our day and generation."
Simply as an architectural achievement, this mysterious pillar, from the time of Alexander the Great, has held its place at the head of the list of "The Seven Wonders of the World." But, under the researches and studies of mathematicians, astronomers, Egyptologists, and divines, it has of late been made to assume a character vastly more remarkable. Facts and coincidences so numerous and extraordinary have been evolved, that some of the most sober and philosophic minds have been startled by them. It would verily seem as if it were about to prove itself a sort of key to the universe—a symbol of the profoundest truths of science, of religion, and of all the past and future history of man. So at least many competent
(8) persons have been led to regard it, after the most thorough sifting which the appliances of modern science and intelligence have been able to give it.
Particularly in Scotland, England, and France has the subject elicited much earnest interest. Quite a number of works and treatises, most of them voluminous, costly, and learned, have been devoted to it, and not without a marked and serious impression. St. John Vincent Day, Fellow of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, member of sundry institutions of Engineers, and honorable librarian of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, says:
"A former published work on the subject, besides one or two papers in the transactions of a scientific Society, have of necessity brought me into contact with every shade of opinion as to the various theories respecting the Pyramid, and the facts belonging to it. I have thus been enabled, both by verbal and written discussions and arguments, to ascertain the weight of evidence on which theories, assertions, contradictions, and alleged facts have been supported; and I can only state that in those cases where the Pyramid subject has been examined into with a diligent spirit of inquiry, that is with the aim of not merely strengthening preconceived notions or prejudices, but to evolve absolute realities, I have not yet met any one but who is more or less convinced by the modern theory."—Preface to Papers on the Great Pyramid, 1870.
In this country, the publications on the subject have been very circumscribed. A few tracts, short papers, review articles, or incidental discussions in connection with other subjects, is about all that has thus far appeared from the American press.
And as the European books are mostly large, expensive, and not readily accessible, comparatively few among us have had the opportunity of learning what has developed in this interesting field. A just résumé of the matter, of moderate length and price, in plain and easy form, would seem to be needed and specially in place.
In the absence of anything of the sort, and with a view to what might in measure supply the want, the preparation of the following Lectures was undertaken. How far the effort has succeeded, the candid reader will determine. It has at least been honest. Persuaded of the varied worth of the subject, the author has endeavored to be accurate in his presentations, and as thorough as the space would allow. For his data concerning the Pyramid he has been obliged to rely on the original works of explorers, to which due reference is given. Though in Egypt in the latter part of 1864, with a view to some personal examinations, a severe sickness, contracted in Syria and Palestine, prevented him from accomplishing the purpose for which he visited the land of the Pharaohs. But his interest did not therefore abate. In 1869 he gave out a small publication on the Great Pyramid, and having tried to master and digest what has thus far been adduced by others, he now ventures a larger exhibition of the case as it presents itself to him. The intricacies of mathematics and astronomy, so deeply involved in these pyramid investigations, he has intentionally avoided, seeking rather to explain for the many than to demonstrate for the few.
He has confined himself mostly to descriptions and statements of results, which he has sought to give in a way which all readers of average intelligence can readily follow and understand.
If what he has thus produced is so far favored as to promote a more general and deeper inquiry and study into this surprising and most perfect monument of primeval man, the chief object of the author will have been attained. The interest awakened by the Lectures at their oral delivery during the past winter, and the numerous applications to procure them in print, also encourage the belief that, with the notes and amplifications since added, they may perchance be acceptable and serve a good purpose. With the hope, therefore, of thus contributing something towards the furtherance of correct science, true philosophy, and a proper Christianity, the author herewith commits these sheets to the press, and to an appreciative and indulgent public.
TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
The new Lecture now added to this book has been deemed necessary to complete the presentation of the subject. It contains all that the author has at present to say on the state of the questions involved. A thorough Index to the whole is also given. It is hoped that these additions will greatly enhance the value of the work.
PHILADELPHIA, September, 1878.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE, . . . . . . . . . . Page 3
DIAGRAM, . . . . . . . . . “ 10
LECTURE FIRST.
GENERAL FACTS AND SCIENTIFIC FEATURES.
INTRODUCTION, p. 13; The Chart, p. 15; The History, p. 21; Modern Scientific Theory, p. 32; Pyramid Form and Proportions, p. 41; Pyramid Numbers, p. 45; Size of Great Pyramid, p. 50; Standard of Linear Measure, p. 57; Weight and Capacity Measure, p. 65; The Coffer and the Ark of Covenant, p. 68; Temperature, p. 70; A Metrological Monument, p. 71; The Pyramid's Astronomy, p. 74; The Pyramid's Chronology, p. 79; Septenaries and Sabbaths, p. 87; The Centre of the Universe, p. 90; Whence this Wisdom, p. 91.
LECTURE SECOND.
MODERN DISCOVERIES AND BIBLICAL CONNECTIONS.
Our Era, p. 102; Egypt's Past, p. 105; The Great Pyramid's Disclosures, p. 107; The Pyramid and the Prophets, p. 108; The Pyramid and the Book of Job, p. 114; The Pyramid and Christ, p. 120; The Pyramid and the Christian Dispensation, p. 128; The Pyramid and Theology, p. 137; The Pyramid and the Day of Judgment, p. 150; The Pyramid and the Jew, p. 153; The Pyramid and Heaven, p. 159; The Pyramid and the Spiritual Universe, p. 163; The Pyramid and Jerusalem, p. 166.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE THIRD.
ANALYSIS OF TRADITIONS, OPINIONS, AND RESULTS.
The Ancient Traditions, p. 172; More Modern Opinions, p. 178; The Tomb Theory, p. 180; Something More than a Tomb, p. 185; Not a Temple of Idolatry, p. 192; Historic Fragments, p. 194; Who was Melchisedec, p. 203; The Primitive Civilizers, p. 210; Job and Philitis, p. 217; Results, p. 221; Primeval Man, p. 227; Use of the Pyramid respecting Faith, p. 231.
LECTURE FOURTH.
SUPPLEMENTAL OBSERVATIONS.
(Added to Fourth Edition.)
Intent of this Lecture, p. 233; A Few Testimonies, p. 234; Adverse Criticisms, p. 240; The Verdict of "Not Proven," p. 245; Something is proven, p. 255; Adverse Inquiries, p. 265; The Pyramid and False Philosophy, p. 280; Some Additional Particulars, p. 291; Outcome of the Grand Gallery, p. 303; Time of the End, p. 310; Conclusion, p. 316.
APPENDIX.
EXTRACTS FROM RECENT WRITERS.
Rev. Joseph T. Goodsir, p. 319; J. Ralston Skinner, p. 324; Charles Casey, Esq., p. 326; John Taylor, p. 327; Prof. Piazzi Smyth, p. 329; J.G., in Edinburg Courant, p. 324.
INDEX, (by R. F. W.,) pp. 337-346.
"Every student who enters upon a scientific pursuit, especially if at a somewhat advanced period of life, will find not only that he has much to learn, but much also to unlearn. As a first preparation, therefore, for the course he is about to commence, he must loosen his hold on all crude and hastily adopted notions, and must strengthen himself, by something of an effort and a resolve, for the unprejudiced admission of any conclusion which shall appear to be supported by careful observation and logical argument, even should it prove of a nature adverse to notions he may have previously formed for himself, or taken up, without examination, on the credit of others. Such an effort is, in fact, a commencement of that intellectual discipline which forms one of the most important ends of all science."—Sir John Herschel.
"The fair question is, does the newly proposed view remove more difficulties, require fewer assumptions, and present more consistency with observed facts, than that which it seeks to supersede? If so, the philosopher will adopt it, and the world will follow the philosopher."—Grove's Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
IS. XIX. 19.20.— AN ALTAR TO IN THE MIDST OF EGYPT.
IS. XIX. 19.20.— AN ALTAR TO בְּאָתִין IN THE MIDST OF EGYPT.
THE GREAT PYRAMID. BUILT, 2170 B. C.
THIRD PYRAMID.
SECOND PYRAMID.
A, A, A, A, Corner sockets of the Pyramid's base.
B, B, B, Pyramid cut in half, viewed from the east.
C, C, C, Entrance passage.
D, D, First ascending passage.
E, E, E, The well.
H, Horizontal passage to Queen's Chamber.
I, Sabbatic or Queen's Chamber.
J, Grand niche in Queen's Chamber.
K, K, Ventilating tubes to Queen's Chamber.
L, Grand Gallery.
M, M, M, Rampstones, incisions, and vertical settings along the sides of Grand Gallery's base.
Grand Gallery's base.
N, Great step at south end of Grand Gallery.
O, Granite leaf in anteroom to King's Chamber.
P, P, Anteroom to King's Chamber.
Q, King's Chamber.
R. Grand Coffer in King's Chamber.
S, S, S, S, S, Chambers of construction. T, T, Ventilating tubes to King's Chamber. U, Supposed undiscovered Chamber.
V, V, Cartouches of the two Kings, Shufu and Nem-Shufu, otherwise called Cheops or Suphis, and Sen-Suphis or Noh-Suphis, under whose co-regency the Great Pyramid was built.
W, W, Sections of next two pyramids, showing their interior openings.
X, X, Al Mamoun's forced passage.
Y, Time-marks of the building of the pyramid.
Z, Z, Z, Z, Casing-stones, now gone.
The shading in crossed lines indicates what parts of the Pyramid are red granite; the other portions, as far as known, are of limestone, of a color approaching yellowish-white.
By the use of a magnifier the lettering and indications on the diagram will be brought out in ample distinctness, where not sufficiently clear to the naked eye.
(11) As wards, who long suppose All that they spend to be Their guardian's liberality, Not what inheritance bestows, Their thanks to others ignorantly pay For that which they At last perceive to be their own, To their rich ancestors obliged alone;— So we vainly thought Ourselves to Greece much bound For arts which we have found To be from higher ages brought, By their as well as our forefathers taught.
Gale's " Court of the Gentiles."
A MIRACLE IN STONE: OR,
THE GREAT PYRAMID OF EGYPT.
Lecture First.
GENERAL FACTS AND SCIENTIFIC FEATURES.
NE of the ablest of England's Egyptological writers has said that Egypt is the anomaly of the earth's present surface. The very adaptations and adjustments of the air and solar distances, by which vegetable life is sustained in other countries, here give place to another code, framed expressly for the Nile. The same may be said of it with regard to its place in history. It has always been somewhat aside from the general current of affairs, having its own unique constitution and life, and yet closely related to all civilized humanity. Through whatever path, sacred or profane, we propose to go back to the beginnings, Egypt is never entirely out of view. Closely secluded from
(18)
all the rest of the world—the Japan of the ages—it still lies at the gateway of the traditions of Judea, Greece and Rome; intermingles with all the Divine administrations, and connects, in one way or another, with some of the most famous names and events in the annals of time.
It is a land which has been reclaimed and created by the Nile, that "High Priest of streams,"
Whose waves have cast.
More riches round them, as the current rolled Through many climes its solitary flood, Than if they surged with gold.
The shoreline, around the several mouths of this mysterious river, describes a large semicircle, to which the emptying streams run out like the ribs of a spread fan, or like so many spokes of a wheel. The centre of this arc is the first rocky elevation on the south, about ten miles west of Cairo. And, strange to say, that centre is artificially and indelibly marked by a massive stone structure, of almost solid cyclopean masonry, of a form found in no other country, and at once the largest and oldest building now standing on the face of the earth. This hoary monumental pile is The Great Pyramid of Gizeh, of which it is my purpose to present some account.
THE CHART.
In order to aid the mind by means of the eye, I have caused a diagram of the Great Pyramid to be prepared, which, if first carefully examined, will materially contribute to a clear understanding of what is to be said. A few explanations may be necessary, and hence are here given.
The large square, marked by heavy black lines, indicates the base of the edifice, which covers about thirteen acres of ground, equal to about four ordinary blocks of our city, including their streets. The darkened triangular mass represents the body of the pyramid, showing the slopes of the sides as they rise to a point at the summit. The lines on the outside mark the original size, as covered with polished casing-stones, all of which have been quarried off by the Moslems, to build and ornament the mosques and houses of Cairo, or to be burnt for lime. About thirty feet of the original edifice has also disappeared from the top, leaving perhaps twenty-four feet square of level space, from which the strongest man cannot throw a stone, or shoot an arrow, far enough to fall clear of the base. Even with so much of the summit gone, it is still more than double the height of the highest steeple or tower in Philadelphia, and higher than the highest known steeple or tower in the world.
The elevation shows the pyramid cut in half, from north to south, in order to give a view of the interior. As here seen, the spectator is looking from east to west. There are no known openings but those which appear in these open and unshaded spaces. The dark square toward the top (U) indicates an imaginary room which is believed to exist, but not yet discovered.
The only entrance into the edifice, as left by the builders, is that low and narrow square tube, which begins high up on the north side, and runs obliquely down to an unfinished room in the solid rock, about one hundred feet below the levelled surface on which the pyramid stands. The size of this entrance passage is not quite four feet high, and a little over three feet five inches wide. A man needs to stoop considerably to pass through it, and to take heed to his steps on account of the steep incline, originally finished as smooth as a slate, from top to bottom.
The first upward passage is directly over the entrance-tube, and is of the same general size and character. It follows the same direction from north to south, and conducts to a high, long and beautifully finished opening, whose floor-line is continuous with the passage of ascent to it.
This is the Grand Gallery, twenty-eight feet high, each of whose sides is built of seven courses of overlapping stones. It is covered by thirty-six large stones stretching across the top. It is a little over eighteen hundred and eighty-two inches long, and suddenly terminates against an end wall, which leans inward. The further opening is low and small again, leading into a sort of narrow anteroom, in which a double and heavy granite block hangs from grooves in the side walls.
Then follows another low entrance leading into what is called the King's Chamber, the highest and largest known room in the edifice. In this chamber stands the only article of furniture in the pyramid, the celebrated granite Coffer. Above this room are shown what are called the chambers of construction, indicating how the builders arranged to keep the weight of the superincumbent mass from crushing in the ceiling of the King's Chamber, which ceiling consists of nine powerful blocks of granite, stretching from one side to the other. The dark or crossed shadings about this chamber indicate the stones to be granite, all the rest of the building not so marked is of light limestone.
This room is an oblong square, four hundred and twelve inches long, two hundred and six broad and two hundred and thirty high. It is ventilated by two tubes, running from it to the outer surface.
Directly under the Grand Gallery, and running in the same direction from north to south, is a horizontal passage, which starts on a level with the entrance into the Grand Gallery, and leads to what is called the Queen's Chamber. The floor of this room, if floor it may be called, measures two hundred and five by two hundred and twenty-six inches, and stands on the twenty-fifth course of masonry, as the King's Chamber stands on the fiftieth course. It has a pointed arch ceiling. Though excellently finished, this room has neither ornament nor furniture. There is a line marked evenly around its sides at the height of the passage of entrance, and a remarkable niche in its east wall, the top of which is twenty-five inches across and twenty-five inches south from the vertical centre of the wall into which it is cut. This room also has two tubes leading from it, only recently discovered, which the builders left concealed by a thin scale over each. They are cut regularly, and approach inward through the walls to within one inch of the inner surface, which was left as though no such openings existed back of it.
Whether these tubes extend to the outer surface has not been ascertained.
Nearly three feet from the beginning of the Grand Gallery, on the west side, is a torn and ragged opening, in which is the gaping mouth of a strange well, running irregularly and somewhat tortuously down through the masonry and original rock, till it strikes the main entrance a short way above the subterranean chamber. Nearly half the way down it expands into a rough grotto or wide bulge in the opening, making a large irregular subterranean bowl.
Below the entrance passage, and a little to the west of it, the dark and rugged opening shown represents the hole made by one of the Mohammedan caliphs, about A.D. 825, who thus cut into the pyramid in search of treasures, not knowing that there was an open passage not far above.
The small black squares represented at the corners of the base indicate the peculiar sockets, cut eight inches into the living rock, into which the foundation corner-stones were set. These are characteristics of the Great Pyramid, in which it differs from all others, and are of special value, in the present ruinous condition of the edifice, in ascertaining the exact original corners and the precise lengths of the sides.
The encompassing circle, drawn to the radius of the pyramid's height, indicates the mathematical idea to which the whole building is constructed; the length of the four sides of the square base being the same as the circumference described by a sphere, of which the vertical height is the radius. It shows the edifice in that remarkable feature, to wit, a practical squaring of the circle.
The smaller pyramids below represent the next in size and age to the Great Pyramid. They are introduced for no other purpose than to show the difference of interior between them and it; on which difference an argument is founded to prove them mere ignorant imitations of the Great Pyramid, and not at all to be classed with it in intellectuality and design.
The hieroglyphics are reproductions of the cartouches of the two kings, Shufu and Nem-Shufu, who occupied the throne at the time the Great Pyramid was built. They were discovered by Colonel Howard Vyse, in 1837, roughly painted on the undressed sides of the stones in the upper chambers of construction, which were never opened until he forced a way up to them.
THE HISTORY.
There is no known time within our historic periods when this pyramid was not famous. Herodotus, the so-called Father of History, as early as 445 B.C., made a personal examination of it, and devoted some most interesting paragraphs to it. It was then already considered very ancient. Traditional accounts of its erection he gathered through an interpreter from an Egyptian priest, and these he has recorded with much particularity. His own appreciation of the structure, and of the causeway over which the materials were conveyed, was that of wonder and admiration.*
Homer does not seem to make any allusion to it, perhaps for the reason that it had no connection with mythology, or with any of his heroes.
Eratosthenes (236 B.C.), Diodorus Siculus (60 B.C.), and Strabo and Pliny (about the beginning of our era), all wrote of it. The latter, in referring to the Pyramids, also says, "The authors who have written upon them are Herodotus, Euhemerus, Durius Samius, Aristagoras, Dionysius, Artemedorus, Alexander, Polyhistor, Butorides, Autisthenes, Demetrius, Demoteles, and Apion."*
But though the Great Pyramid has been standing in its place for 4000 years, it is only within a very recent period that there has been any rational appreciation of it. For 3000 years of its existence, up to the time of the mediæval Caliph Al Mamoun, no mortal man, perhaps, ever penetrated into its upper passages and main openings. Certainly, for many centuries before him, it was completely closed up, no entrance to it being known any more to any human being.
This son of Haroun Al Raschid of the "Arabian Nights," flattered and almost worshipped as a god, was so wrought upon by the romancers and fabulists of his court that he was led to believe the Great Pyramid crowded full of precious treasures. All the dazzling riches, jewels, medicines, charms, and sciences of Sheddad Ben Ad, the Mussulman's great ante-diluvian king of the earth, were made to glitter before the avaricious fancy of Al Mamoun. He therefore set his hosts at work to quarry out an opening into the wonderful treasure-house, full of astonishing riches indeed, but not of the sort of which he was dreaming.
With the crude instruments and poor knowledge which his hordes possessed, it proved no easy task to cut through that grand masonry. Again and again the thing was pronounced impossible. But Mohammedan fanaticism and tyranny proved equal to the undertaking; not, however, without straining everything to the very utmost, and Al Mamoun's own power to the point of revolution. The excavation was driven in full one hundred feet, with everything solid up to that point. Having expended all this labor to no effect, all further effort was about to be abandoned, when a singular, perhaps providential, occurrence served to reanimate exertion. The sound of a falling stone in some open space not far beyond them was heard, which incited them to dig and bore on, till presently they broke through into the regular passage-way. They struck this tube just where the first ascending passage forks off from the descending one. The stone which had fallen was one which hung in the top of the entrance passage, quite concealing the fact of another and upward way. But the newly uncovered passage they found stopped by a heavy stone portcullis, fitted into it from above as tight as a cork in the mouth of a bottle.
It was impossible to remove it. It remains there still. Al Mamoun caused his men to dig and blast around it. But even beyond the portcullis, the whole passage was filled up with great stones from top to bottom. Removing one, the next slid down in its place; and so another and another, each of which was removed, till at length the entire upward avenue was freed from obstructions. Up went the bearded crew, shouting the name of Allah, in full confidence that the promised treasures were now within their grasp. "Up," as Prof. Smyth describes it, "up no less than one hundred and ten feet of the steep incline, crouched hands and knees and chin together, through a passage of royally polished limestone, but only forty-seven inches high and forty-one broad, they had painfully to crawl, with their torches burning low." Thence they emerged into the Grand Gallery, long and tall, seven times as high as the passage through which they came, empty, however, and darker than night. Still the way was narrow and steep, only six feet wide at any point, and contracted to three at the floor, though too high for the power of their smoky lights to illuminate. Up and up the smooth and long ascending floor-line the marauders pushed their slippery and doubtful way, till near the end of the Grand Gallery.
Then they clambered over a three-foot step; then bowed their heads beneath a low doorway, bounded on all sides with awful blocks of frowning red granite; and then leaped without further hindrance into the Grand Chamber, the first to enter since the Great Pyramid was built.* A noble chamber did these maddened Moslems also find it, clean and garnished, every surface of polished red granite, and everything indicative of master builders.
But the coveted gold and treasures were not there. Nothing was there but black and solemn emptiness. There stood a solitary stone chest, indeed, fashioned out of a single block, polished within and without, and sonorous as a bell, but open, lidless, and empty as the space around it. The caliph was astounded. His quarriers muttered their anathemas over their deception into such enormous, unrequited, and fruitless labors. Nor could Al Mamoun quiet the outbreaking indignation toward him and his courtiers, except by one of those saintly frauds in which Mohammedanism is so facile. He commanded the discontents to go dig at a spot which he indicated, where they soon came upon a sum of gold, exactly equal to the wages claimed for their work, which gold he had himself secretly deposited at the place. When it was found, he could not repress his astonishment that those mighty kings before the flood were so full of inspiration as to be able to count so truly what it would cost in Arab labor to break open their pyramid!
But the great mysterious structure was now open. Henceforward any one with interest and courage enough to attempt it might enter, examine, study, and find out what he could.
For centuries the Arabians went in and out betimes, when able to overcome their superstitious fears. Some of their marvellous tales of small miracles and vulgar wonders have been put on record. But apart from the mere fact of the forcible entrance by Al Mamoun, it is agreed that scarcely a shred of their testimony is at all credible.* We must therefore depend on the explorations and accounts of the more observant, appreciative, and philosophic European mind for our knowledge of the Great Pyramid.
In some instances, however, the case is not much improved. Sir John Mandeville, perhaps the greatest English traveller of the middle ages, who spent thirty-three years in wanderings through the East, visited Egypt and the Pyramids about A.D.1350, and has left us a theory concerning them, but confesses that he was afraid to enter them, because they were reputed to be full of serpents!*
The earliest writer of modern times from whom we have any scientific data with regard to the Great Pyramid is Mr. John Greaves, Savilian Professor of Astronomy in the University of Oxford.
At his own private expense he left London in the spring of 1637 for the special purpose of thoroughly exploring these ancient edifices, and in 1646 published his Pyramidographia, giving the results of his laborious observations and measurements, which are of particular worth in obtaining an accurate knowledge of this subject. But he was soon followed by other explorers, French, English, Dutch, Germans, and Italians.*
Special additions were made to the stock of Pyramid information by Nathaniel Davison, British Consul at Algiers (1763), who resided three years in Egypt, frequently visited the Great Pyramid, discovered the first of those chambers of construction above the so-called King's Chamber, drew a profile of the original casing-stones, and made the first diagram of the supposed appearance of this pillar when it stood complete. † When Napoleon was engaged with his military operations in Egypt (1799), the French savants who accompanied his expedition also did important service in furnishing a knowledge of the Great Pyramid.
They surveyed the ground. They determined the value of the location in trigonometrical relations. They found two of the "encastrements," or incisions in the rock, meant to serve as sockets for the original corner-stones of the foundation. Their observations and mostly very accurate measurements, with cuts, engravings, and descriptions of the Great Pyramid, were subsequently published, in large and elegant form.*
Very splendid contributions to our knowledge of the subject were made by Colonel (afterwards General) Howard Vyse in his three large royal octavo volumes, containing the results of seven months' labor, with a hundred or more assistants, in exploring and measuring the Pyramids, in 1837.
It is he especially who, at the expense of a large fortune, laid the foundations for some of the most brilliant and important developments to be found in all the scientific world of our century. He reopened the ragged hole driven into the stupendous edifice by the semi-savages of Al Mamoun, and made some others himself, part of which were equally fruitless. He uncovered again the two indented sockets of the north base corners. He discovered and reopened the remarkable ventilating tubes of the King's Chamber. He cut a way through the masonry above that chamber, and found four other openings besides the one discovered by Davison. He found in those recesses various quarry-marks in red paint, proving that writing was known and practiced in the fourth Egyptian dynasty. Among these marks were the cartouches of the co-sovereign brothers who reigned at the time the Great Pyramid was built. He also found some of the original casing-stones still fast in their places, as well as portions of a splendid pavement which once surrounded the edifice. In addition to these new discoveries he fully confirmed what had been ascertained before, and served to bring this marvellous structure within the sphere of modern scientific investigation.
Through him, Sir John Herschel espoused the belief that the Great Pyramid possesses a truly astronomical character, and that its narrow tubic entrance pointed to some polar star, from which the date of the building is determinable. At Vyse's instance this astronomer made the calculation, and found the pointing to indicate the same period of time which, on other and independent data, had been concluded as the period of the Great Pyramid's building. And thus was laid the basis from which a new theory of this marvellous pillar has sprung.
THE MODERN SCIENTIFIC THEORY.
Taking what had thus been produced with regard to the Great Pyramid, John Taylor (one of the firm of Taylor & Hessey, publishers of the London Magazine, and subsequently of the firm of Taylor & Wallace, publishers to the University of London), undertook to wrestle with the questions: Why was this pyramid built? And who built it? Canvassing the whole problem in the light of history, religion, and science, he came to some very surprising conclusions, involving an altogether new departure in Pyramid investigations, and enunciating a number of facts with regard to the mathematical features of the Great Pyramid, which once were ridiculed, but are now generally admitted as demonstrably true.
In 1859 he published a small volume, in which he proposed "to recover a lost leaf in the world's history," and gave his processes and the results. Without having seen the Great Pyramid, but on the basis of the facts recorded by others, he gave it as his theory and conviction that the real architects of this edifice were not Egyptians, but men of quite another faith and branch of the human family, who, by an impulse and commission from heaven, and by the special aid of the Most High, induced and superintended the erection of that mighty structure, as a memorial for long after times, to serve as a witness of inspiration, and of the truth and purposes of God, over against the falsities and corruptions of a degenerate and ever degenerating world. In other words, he claimed to find, in the shape, arrangements, measures, and various indications of the Great Pyramid, an intellectuality and numerical knowledge of grand cosmical phenomena of earth and heavens, which neither Egypt nor any of the nations possessed, or could even understand, from a thousand years ago, back to the origin of nations.
This was a bold, striking, and far-reaching presentation, and one well worthy of the attention of the thinkers of our age, both religious and philosophical. Very few, however, paid much attention to his vigorous little book. Yet the grounds on which he proceeded and the processes employed, were so purely within the domain of science, and hence so easy of decisive refutation if not true, that scientists could hardly be fair to their profession without some investigation of the matter. Sir John Herschel was certainly much impressed with some of the results and conclusions brought out by Mr. Taylor, and also very powerfully used them in his papers on the standard of British measures, over against the falsely founded system of metres, originated by the French infidels and communists.
A few years after the appearance of Mr. Taylor's book, it arrested the attention and enlisted the interest of Prof. C. Piazzi Smyth, of Edinburgh, Astronomer Royal for Scotland. Having investigated the subject to some extent, he presented a paper to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, in 1864, giving the results of his researches and calculations to test the truth of some of Mr. Taylor's startling presentations, and setting forth his acquiescence in many of the details, though on somewhat different grounds.
These investigations and conclusions of Prof. Smyth were published the same year, in his book, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, a new, revised, and enlarged edition of which was published in 1874. This book, in its revised form, is perhaps the best from which to get a full impression, within a limited space, of the nature and grounds of the modern scientific theory on the subject.
The better to satisfy himself, and in order to clear up some matters of uncertainty in the case, Prof. Smyth, at his own expense, went to Egypt, and spent the winter and spring of 1865, devoting the time to the work of testing, by the best modern scientific appliances, what others had recorded concerning this pyramid. To facilitate his operations, he and his brave wife took up their abode in some of the tombs in the vicinity, where they lived and worked from the first of January to the end of April. The results of these self-denying labors were given to the public in three brilliant volumes, in 1867, entitled, Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, with a sequel in the year following, On the Antiquity of Intellectual Man.
From the publication of these very valuable books, various discussions in learned societies and the public prints followed; new investigators entered upon the subject; and many converts to the new theory were made.
A number of able papers appeared, confirming and enlarging what had previously been deduced, and fully supporting the scientifically grounded and growing belief that this venerable pillar has about it something more than a mere tomb for some rich and ambitious old Pharaoh, and something infinitely more than was ever in the power of the Egyptians to originate, or even to understand. In other words, that it was designed and erected under the special guidance and direction of God, and bears a somewhat similar relation to the physical universe which the Bible bears to the spiritual.
Upon first blush such a theory would seem to be the very height of fanaticism and nonsense. And so a few, in their offended conceit and prejudice, rather than from any solid scientific reasons, have regarded it. As commonly, in all such cases, the power of coarse ridicule has been brought to bear against it; but thus far no candid and thorough attempt has been made to overcome the many solid and outstanding evidences on which it rests. Goodsir, in his volume on Ethnic Inspiration, has justly said, "The scientific symbolism of that world's wonder now stands nearly disclosed to view, resting on its own independent basis of proof, which is not only vouched for, but defended by advocates undeniably competent to their work, and as yet occupying inexpugnably their ground."
Every attack upon it thus far has resulted in such signal failure as the more to confirm it.
It is of course impossible here to go into all the particulars, processes, and scientific inductions on which this theory rests. These are given, in all their surprising force, in the able original works to which I have referred, and to which I direct all who wish to sift the matter thoroughly or inform themselves fully. Mathematicians and scientists will find enough there to call all their knowledge into play, and to occupy their inquiries and skill for as much time as they may have to give. My office is of a much simpler and easier sort. A brief résumé of the principal facts, to enable those who hear me to form some fair opinion of the matter, is all that I propose, feeling that if I can succeed in this, I shall have done something of worth in making known the wonders of wisdom so long ago treasured up in the Great Pyramid of Gizeh.
THE VARIOUS PYRAMIDS.
There are numerous pyramids in Egypt. Including all sizes and forms, perhaps three dozen may still be found. They belong to different ages, from B.C. 2170 down to B.C. 1800. Externally, they all are more or less of the same general form. A few are not much inferior in dimensions, materials, and outward finish to the Great Pyramid itself. But there is one, the northernmost of the line, which has ever held the pre-eminence, and which has always been regarded with the greatest interest. The sacred books of the Hindoos speak of three pyramids in Egypt, and they describe this as "the golden mountain," and the other two as mountains of silver and less valuable material. By a sort of intuition, all nations and tongues unite in recognizing this one as The Great Pyramid. It covers the most space. It occupies the most commanding position. It is built with most skill and perfection of workmanship. And its summit rises higher heavenward than that of any other.
This greatest of the pyramids is also the oldest of them. Lepsius says, "The builders of the Great Pyramid seem to assert their right to form the commencement of monumental history."
"To the Pyramid of Cheops the first link of our whole monumental history is fastened immovably, not for Egyptian, but for universal history." Prof. Smyth holds that "the world has no material and contemporary record of intellectual man earlier than the Great Pyramid." Beckett Denison agrees that this is "the earliest and largest of all the pyramids." Hales in his Analysis, Sharpe in his History of Egypt, Bunsen in his Egypt's Place in History, and the best authors in general, make the same representations. There is no evidence on earth, known to man, that ever a true pyramid was built before the erection of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh.
Here, then, is a fact to start with which utterly confounds the ordinary laws in human affairs. The arts of man left to himself, never attain perfection at once. At all times and in all countries, there is invariably a series of crude attempts and imperfect beginnings first, and thence a gradual advance from a less perfect to a more complete. Styles of architecture do not spring into existence like Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, fullgrown and perfect from the start. But here all ordinary laws are reversed, and the classic dream finds reality. As with the beginning of our race, so with the pyramids, the most perfect is first and what comes after is deteriorate.
The Great Pyramid comes upon the scene and maintains its grand superiority forever, without any preceding type of its class whence the idea was evolved. Renan says, "It has no archaic epoch." Osburn says, "It bursts upon us at once in the flower of its highest perfection." It suddenly takes its place in the world in all its matchless magnificence, "without father, without mother," and as clean apart from all evolution as if it had dropped down from the unknown heavens. We can no more account for its appearance in this fashion on ordinary principles than we can account for the being of Adam without a special Divine intervention.
This pyramid once in existence, it is not difficult to account for all the rest. Having been taught how to build it, and with the grand model ever before them, men could easily build more. But how to get the original with its transcendent superiority to all others is the trouble. The theory of Mr. Taylor and Prof. Smyth would admirably solve the riddle; but apart from that, there is no knowledge of man by which it can be solved. People may guess and suppose; but they can tell us nothing.
The evidences also are, that the whole family of Egyptian pyramids, and there are no others, is made up of mere blind and bungling imitations of the Great Pyramid. They take its general form, but they every one miss its intellectuality and take on none of their own. None of them has any upper openings or chambers; and the reason is furnished in what Al Mamoun on making his forced entrance found in the Great Pyramid, to wit, the fact that its upward passage-way was stopped by its builders, filled up, hidden, and then for the first time discovered. These upper openings, though the main features of the Great Pyramid's interior, were wholly unknown to the copyists, and hence were not copied. The downward passage and the subterranean chamber were known, and could be inspected; hence these features appear in all the pyramids. It would be difficult to conceive more conclusive internal evidences of mere imitation, or of the certainty that the Great Pyramid is the real original of all pyramids. All the rest are but vulgar and unmeaning piles of stones in comparison with it.
FORM AND PROPORTIONS.
A building having a square base and its four sides equally sloped inwards to a single point at the top is a pyramid.
There may be other and various pyramidal forms, but they are not true pyramids. In stone architecture such a figure requires the edifice to be solid, or mainly so, and can furnish very little internal space for any practical use. It is therefore a style of building which is itself something peculiar and quite unfitted to any of the ordinary purposes for which man erects edifices.
But not all pyramids have the same relative proportions or degree of slope in their sides. In this respect the Great Pyramid stands alone among all other pyramids or buildings on earth. Plato says, that "God perpetually geometrizes," and this pyramid presents a clear and solid geometric figure with all its proportions conformed to each other.
Science has frequently alluded to a certain triplicity or triunity of nature, assuming something of the character of a law of creation, and traceable as a sort of pervading analogy of Providence. Poets, those close observers and portrayers of nature, have likewise referred to it. The crust of the earth is composed of a grand triplicity of primary, secondary, and tertiary stratifications. Comte beheld the laws of mind as made up of supernatural, metaphysical, and positive stages in mental evolution.
Burke thought he saw a parallel between mythology and geology, and classified the former according to the three stages of the earth's formation. A modern chemist reduces all the properties of matter to attraction, repulsion, and vitality. And a late attempt to give "a basic outline of universology," comprises all things in unism, duism, and trinism. Without accepting these things as settled truths, they yet serve to show a primary something, which, to the most observant minds, bespeaks an original triplicity, putting itself forth as a rudimental law. And if the Great Pyramid was really intended to symbolize the universe, we would also expect to find in it some recognition of this triplicity or triunity. Accordingly we do find this to be the fundamental figure of the Great Pyramid, which is at the same time the geometrical skeleton of the earth, if not also of the whole physical and spiritual universe.
It was a great achievement of our science to ascertain that the earth is a revolving globe. But this spherity is the mere clothing of a mathematical figure to which it is formed. As a revolving body, the earth has an axis of rotation, that is, it makes all its revolutions in one and the same unvarying direction, indicating a primary straight line through its centre to its poles.
Using this as a base line, which it is in fact, and drawing two equal lines from the surface at the poles to the highest point of surface at the equator, the result is one of the simplest compound figures in geometry—a triangle—just what we have in the outline figure of the Great Pyramid, and in each of its four faces.
Examining this figure more closely, still other remarkable properties appear. Viewed as a triangle, if we square its base line, as squared in fact in the Great Pyramid, and add together the lengths of the four sides, we have the exact equal of a circle drawn with the vertical height for a radius. In other words, we have here a figure of the framework of the earth, and that figure possessed of the proportion which is known to mathematicians as the π proportion,—thus presenting a practical solution of that puzzling problem which has cracked so many mediæval and modern brains, to wit, the quadrature of the circle. Hence John Taylor says of the builders of the Great Pyramid, that "they imagined the earth to be a sphere, and as they knew that the radius of a circle must bear a certain proportion to its circumference, they built a four-sided pyramid of such a height in proportion to its base, that its perpendicular would be the radius of a sphere equal to the perimeter of the base."
The other pyramids have the same general form copied after this, but these mathematical proportions and signs of high intellectuality appear nowhere but in the Great Pyramid. And when Jomard says, "The pyramids have preserved to us the certain type of the size of the terrestrial globe," he utters a great truth, but what is not true in any definite measure save of the Great Pyramid.
PYRAMID NUMBERS.
The peculiar figure and shape of the Great Pyramid fixes a certain system of numbers. It has five corners: four equal corners at the base and one unique corner at the summit. Hence it has five sides; four equal triangular sides and the square under-side on which it stands. Here is an emphatic count of fives doubled into the convenient decimal. This count is so inherent and marked as to be a strong characteristic, calling for the number five, and multiples, powers and geometrical proportions of it, as loudly as stones can be made to speak.
From this also it would seem to have its name. Though different authors have sought to derive this word from the Greek, Arabic, and other sources, the evidence is rather that it came direct from the builders of the edifice, and was meant to describe it in the common language then used in the country. The nearest to that language is the Coptic. And in the ancient Coptic, pyr means division, the same as peres in Daniel's interpretation of the handwriting on the wall; and met means ten. Chevalier Bunsen, without thought of combining them for the derivation of the word pyramid, gives these words separately and affixes to them these significations.* And putting them together—pyr-met—we have the name given to this structure. And that name, in the language of the ancient Egyptians, means the division of ten.
Accordingly a system of fiveness runs through the Great Pyramid and its measure references. Counting five times five courses of the masonry from the base upwards we are brought to the floor of the so-called Queen's Chamber. The measures of that chamber all answer to a standard of five times five inches.
It is characterized by a deep sunken niche in one of its walls, which niche is three times five feet high, consisting of five strongly marked stories, the topmost five times five inches across, and its inner edge just five times five inches from the perpendicular centre of the wall into which it is cut. So if we count five times five courses higher, or ten times five from the base, the last brings us on the floor of the King's Chamber, whose walls are composed of twenty times five stones, arranged in five horizontal courses. The base line of the lowest course is five inches below the level of the floor, and with these five inches off, this course embraces a space just ten five times the cubic contents of the Coffer. Above the King's Chamber are five chambers of construction, and the Coffer itself has five solid external sides.
This intense fiveness could not have been accidental, and likewise corresponds with the arrangements of God, both in nature and revelation. Note the fiveness of termination to each limb of the human body, the five senses, the five books of Moses, the twice five precepts of the Decalogue. But this is not all. Science now tells us that the diameter of the earth at the poles is five hundred millions of units, about the length of our inches. Five times five of these units or inches is the twice ten millionth part of the earth's axis of rotation.
Ten times ten of these units or inches counted for a day, when divided into the united lengths of the Great Pyramid's four sides, give the exact number of days in the true year. As near as science has been able to determine the mean density of the earth (5.70), five cubic inches of it weighs just the fifty times fiftieth part of the Coffer's contents of water at a temperature of one-fifth of the distance which the mercury rises from the freezing to the boiling point.
Nine is another number very specially marked in the Great Pyramid, particularly in its sunward portions and tendencies. Its practical shaping is nine to ten. For every ten feet that its corners retreat diagonally inwards in the process of building they rise upward or sunward nine feet.* At high noon the sun shines on all five of its corners and four of its sides, counting nine of its most characteristic parts.
The Grand Gallery is roofed with four times nine stones, and the main chamber with exactly nine. And here again we have a nature reference which nations have expended millions to ascertain. The vertical height of the Great Pyramid multiplied by 10 to the 9th power (10°) tells the mean distance of the sun from the earth, that is one thousand million times the pyramid's height, or 91,840,000 miles.
The sun-distance used to be put down by astronomy at nearly 96,000,000 miles. Later computations, at the opposition of Mars in 1862, reduced this estimate to between ninety-one and ninety-three millions. The results of the observations of the transit of Venus in 1874 have confirmed these lower figures, making the limit of uncertainty to lie between ninety-one and ninety-two and a half millions.
Taking the mean of the estimates as the best that modern science has been able to present, we have a very close agreement with the Great Pyramid's symbolizations. And when science has once definitely settled the point, there is now every indication that the figures will agree precisely with what was not only known to the architects of this pyramid, but was by them imperishably memorialized in stone more than 4000 years ago!
All this proves not only intelligent design on the part of these builders, but an acquaintance with nature, and a genius for the expression of nature's truths in the forms and measures of a plain, simple, and enduring structure, which any less attainment than that of our greatest living astronomers and savants could not so much as understand.
SIZE OF THE GREAT PYRAMID.
The opinion was given by Lepsius, and from him has been largely accepted as a law in Egyptian pyramid building, that each king, when he came to the throne, began to excavate a subterranean chamber with an inclined passage, which chamber was meant for his tomb; the first year he covered it with a few squared blocks of stone, the next added more, and so continued till he died, leaving it to his successor to finish and close the edifice.
Hence the size of each pyramid would depend upon the accident of the duration of the king's life. Perhaps it was so after pyramids came to be a fashion, though some long-lived kings have only small pyramids. But it is very certain that the Great Pyramid did not grow in this way. Its whole character was calculated and determined beforehand. The drafts of its architects still exist, graven in the rocks, as Job wished that his words might be in order to last forever. There they are in the immediate vicinity of the great building, the projection of whose shape and features, without and within, they still show to every one who wishes to examine them. By them it is proven that the whole structure in its angles and mathematical proportions was contemplated and designed from the start.* Besides, the subterranean chamber of the Great Pyramid which this "law" would require to be finished first
dominant angles of the exterior of the Great Pyramid. To determine whether this idea was true or not, I determined to measure all the angles rather carefully." "Most happily, toc, every part of them which has to enter into the measurement, still exist visibly and tangibly; so that good painstaking modern observation is perfectly able of itself, either to prove or disprove what has just been advanced," i.e., their correspondence to the angle of the foot of the Great Pyramid.—"Life and Work at Great Pyramid," vol. ii, p. 125, vol. iii, p. 28.
"For several reasons I consider these trenches have been originally incised for instructing the masons in the exact angular character of the very mathematically formed building they were engaged on, and while the work was in progress."—"Antiquity of Intellectual Man," p. 192.
"If you take the Great Pyramid as it was when in masonry progress or without its final casing film, and if from the centre of the then base you draw its proportion π circle, the conjoined axes of north and south azimuth trenches will form a tangent to that circle at its most protuberant point in front of the middle east side. And further, if from the points toward the north and south extremities of the east side of base where the π circle cuts into the area of the base you draw rectangular offsets from that side eastward, these offsets will be found to define the places of the admirably square cut outer ends of both north and south azimuth trenches with as much accuracy as the present standing and broken sides of the pyramid admit of in their measurement."—Mr. W. Petrie, quoted by Prof. Smyth.
Besides these trenches there is also a system of inclined tunnels cut into the rock of the hill, which some have taken to be the remains or the commencement of another pyramid of small size. But Prof. Smyth found them arranged on the same principles contained in the Great Pyramid, and only in it. He says of them: "There is a long descending entrance passage, an upward and opposite rising passage from the middle of that like the Great Pyramid's first ascending passage; then the is just that part which never was finished at all.
It is only half cut out,—a mere pit without a bottom. Herodotus also gathered from the Egyptians themselves that ten years were spent in building preparatory works, which are hardly less remarkable and elaborate than the pyramid itself, and that everything was organized on an immense scale, keeping 100,000 men continually at work, relaying them every three months. Furthermore, all the searchings into this pyramid have failed to reveal any signs of the patching of one year's work to that of another, or any arrangements for such a contingency as the possible death of the king before the work was complete. On the contrary, everything argues one continuous and fore-calculated job, evenly carried through from beginning to end, just as a farmer would build his barn or a baker his oven.
Hence if there is anything in Lepsius's "law of pyramid building," the Great Pyramid never came under it, but received its being and dimensions from a foregoing plan of the whole, pursued from commencement to completion without interruption or any thought of it.
An immense amount of careful endeavor has been expended by different men at different periods to ascertain the precise measurements of the Great Pyramid's base sides. And since the discovery of the corner sockets it would seem as if there should be no difficulty in arriving at exact data on that point. But the length to be measured is so great, and the mounds of rubbish lying between the points from which the measure is to be taken are so immense and irregular, that absolute certainty has not been reached and cannot be till some rich man, society, or government performs the work of removing the impediments and opens a clear way from corner to corner. The measurements thus far made from these sockets by scientific men give us a mean of nine thousand one hundred and forty of our inches as the length of either of the Great Pyramid's four sides, that is, a fraction over seven hundred and sixty-one and a half feet, or nearly one-sixth of a mile.*
With this measure for the base of the sides, and the angle of 5 1° 5 1′ 1 4′ ′ for their slope, the lines intersect in a point of perpendicular altitude five thousand eight hundred and nineteen inches from the level of the pavement discovered by Colonel Vyse. But there are other ways of ascertaining the height. By the barometer, by trigonometry, and by the actual measurement of the heights of the two hun-
The following is a list of these measures:
The French savants in 1799, north side only, 9163 Eng. inches.
Colonel Howard Vyse in 1836, " " " 9168 " "
Mahmoud Bey in 1862, " " " 9162 " "
Aiton and Inglis in 1865, mean of four sides, 9110 " "
English Ordnance Surveyors in 1869, mean
of four sides,
9130 " "
Mean of the five.
9144 " " dred and two remaining courses of the masonry, the elevation to the present plateau at the top can be taken.
And by eight of the most distinguished measurers who have performed the operation, from Jomard and Cecile to Aiton and Inglis, the mean comes out five thousand four hundred and forty inches. Prof. Smyth makes it five thousand four hundred and forty-five. Each side of the present summit area is four hundred inches. Adding one hundred inches, the thickness of the casing stones, to each side, the square would be six hundred inches on each outer line. At the angle of 51° 51′ 14′′ this would give a vertical height of three hundred and eighty-two inches, yielding 5440+382=5822 of our inches as the full original height of the Great Pyramid. The same estimate is confirmed on other and independent methods of computation; thus also confirming the estimate of the length of the base sides, the one process yielding within three inches of what is reached by the other.
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