The first, or Great Pyramid, was the sepulchre of the Cheops of
Herodotus, the Chembes, or Chemmis, of Diodorus, and the Suphis of
Manetho and Eratosthenes. Its height was 480 feet 9 inches, and its
base 764 feet square. In other words, it was higher than St. Paul's
Cathedral, and built on an area the size of Lincoln's Inn Fields. It
has been, however, much spoiled, and stripped of its exterior blocks
for the building of Cairo. The original sepulchral chamber, called
the Subterranean Apartment, 46 feet by 27 feet, and 11 feet 6 inches
high, has been hewn in the solid rock, and was reached by the original
passage of 320 feet long, which descended to it by an entrance at
the foot of the pyramid. A second chamber, with a triangular roof,
17 feet by 18 feet 9 inches, and 20 feet 3 inches high, was entered
by a passage rising to an inclination of 26° 18', terminating in a
horizontal passage. It is called the Queen's Chamber, and occupies a
position nearly in the centre of the pyramid. The monument--probably
owing to the long life attained by the monarch--still progressing,
a third chamber, called the King's, was finally constructed, by
prolonging the ascending passage of the Queen's Chamber for 150 feet
farther into the very centre of the pyramid, and, after a short
horizontal passage, making a room 17 feet 1 inch by 34 feet 3 inches,
and 19 feet 1 inch high. The changes which took place in this pyramid
gave rise to various traditions, even in the days of Herodotus, Cheops
being reported to lie buried in a chamber surrounded by the waters of
the Nile. It took a long time for its construction--100,000 men being
employed on it probably for above half a century, the duration of the
reign of Cheops. The operations in this pyramid by General Vyse gave
rise to the discovery of marks scrawled in red ochre in a kind of
cursive hieroglyph, on the blocks brought from the quarries of Tourah.
These contained the name and titles of Khufu (the hieroglyphic form of
Cheops); numerals and directions for the position of materials, etc.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--_Mummies of Cats and Dogs._--British Museum and
Museum of the Louvre.]
The second Pyramid was built by Suphis II., or Kephren, who reigned
66 years, according to Manethro, and who appears to have attained a
great age. It has two sepulchral chambers, and must have been broken
into by the Calif Alaziz Othman Ben-Yousouf, A.D. 1196. Subsequently
it was opened by Belzoni. The masonry is inferior to that of the first
Pyramid, but it was anciently cased below with red granite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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