waste of so much toil, for a purpose of so little advantage even to
the single mortal, for whom it was intended.
I t has been conjectured, indeed, that the pyramids were temples,
or altars, dedicated to the Sun. But that an edifice nearly
solid, and to the narrow chamber of which all access was carefully
excluded, should have been intended for a temple, is palpably absurd:
and what sacrifices could be offered on a structure of such
height, terminating in a point, and the sides of which were rendered
smooth, as if to frustrate all attempts to ascend it? The
writer of the article on this subject in the Encyclopaedia Britan-
nica, however, considers this supposition as well founded, and as
supported by the accounts we have from the Asiatic Society, that
the hindoos erected large statues of their gods Seeva and Mehedeo,
all of a conical or pyramidal figure. But were the pyramids the
statues of an egyptian god, it is scarcely probable, that they should
be confined to the extent of country between Meduun and Cairo, be
found there in such numbers, and be repeated in such a manner
as the four we have mentioned, the disposition of which will appear
from Mr. Reveley’s sketch annexed. □
Q=i
* Colossal Sphinx.
The etymology of the appellation pyramid, which Mr. Silvester
de Sacy has lately given in the Magazin encyclopédique,
may perhaps be adduced as countenancing the above conjecture:
for he derives it with much plausibility from an egyptian root,
signifying something sacred, or set apart from men’s use. But,
not to mention the little stress that can be laid on etymologies,
often fanciful, and at best dubious, this derivation is as suitable to
à tomb as to a temple, for nothing was more sacred to the ancient
egyptians than thé repositories of the dead.
An ingenious gentleman of Germany, Mr. Witte, who never
saw them by the by, has endeavoured to maintain the hypothesis
of their being the work of nature, not of art: and he goes so far
as to ascribe the same origin to the ruins of Persepolis, Balbec,
and Palmyra, the palaces of the incas in Peru, the temple of J u piter
at Girgenti, in Sicily, and even to Stonehenge on Salisbury
plain. Mr. Bryant, too, imagines, that the three largest at least
are not artificial structures of stone and mortar, but solid rocks,
cut into a pyramidal shape, and afterward cased'.with stone. The
opinion of Mr. Bruce approaches this; and it appears highly probable,
that as much of the stratum of rock, on which they , are
raised, as could be made subservient to the purpose, was employed
in the lower part of the structure. Yet it seems unquestionable,
that all above the great gallery and sepulchral chamber at least
must have been the work of art ; for, as Mr. Reveley observes, and
this is conformable to the testimony of others, the great gallery,
chamber, and sarcophagus, are of granite; which could not have
been brought in through the passage leading to them from the side
of the pyramid; and cannot be in it’s natural situation, in the centre
of such a mass of soft freestone.
F