Part 43

On the 28th of _December_ I went to see the Pyramids the third time with some strangers. In our way we were mightily troubled with a very thick mist, which lasted till ten in the morning; and we found a great deal of mud in the trenches and ditches, which was not yet dry since the retreat of the river, so that we were carry’d over upon the _Moors_ backs that were with us.

At this time I went up to the top of the great Pyramid, and I observed as at the first, that the place where the Pyramids stand is a pure rock, cover’d over with white sand, which appears sufficiently by the ditches and caves round about the Pyramids cut in the rock.

2. The rock is to be seen, upon which stands the greatest Pyramid, by a hole at one of the angles, between the east and the north sides.

3. The Pyramids are not built with marble, as some say, but with a white sandy stone very hard.

4. The greatest hath but two hundred and six steps; and tho’ Monsieur _Thevenot_ saith that it hath two hundred and eight, this proceeds from his not taking notice that two steps are broken into four.

5. On the top of the greatest Pyramid there was anciently a statue or _Colosse_. This appears, because it is not sharp as the others but plain; and there are yet to be seen great pits, which were to keep fast the _Colosse_ from falling.

At present there is nothing on the top but many letters of the names of persons of all nations, who have left them to witness that they had been there. There is no sign of the play at _Manacala_, which a _Coptie_ told me was there imprinted in the days of the _Pharaohs_.

6. The Stones of the biggest Pyramid are not equal, for some of the undermost are four foot high, some three foot and an half, and five foot long. The stones of the middle are three foot and five inches high, and the uppermost stones are but two foot high, and three and an half long.

7. The sides of the Pyramids are not equal; for in the greatest it is visible, and so in the others, that the north side is longer than that which stretches from east to west.

8. In all the Pyramids there are very deep wells cut in the rock square; as I have seen in more than ten.

On the 26th day of _June_ I went the fourth time to see the Pyramids, in the company of Monsieur _Sabatery_ Vice-consul of _Alexandria_.

In the passage to old _Cairo_, on the other side of the river, I took notice of one thing very remarkable in it’s channel; the water was perfectly green, as a cake cover’d over with green grass. This was the first time that I saw it of this colour; which caused me to ask of the boatmen what this green colour was; they told me, that the river _Nilus_ did then putrify, that it had continued so fifteen days, and would be so five more. Some of them said, that there was none could remember to have seen the river so green as that year, 1672.

To return again to the Pyramids, I went up this time to the top of the highest Pyramid, I entered into the chamber, but saw no new thing which could cause me either to change or add to my former observation. It is needless to speak of it’s dimensions, seeing so many travellers have already publish’d them, as Monsieur _Thevenot_ in his _Levant_ travels.

From the Pyramids we went to take a view of the caves that are adjoining. There are many, all cut in the side of a rock; their outsides are out of order, without any proportion, but their inside very equal and polish’d. In every one there is a deep square well, cut in the rock, where the _Egyptians_ did put the body of that person for whom the cave was made; for it was their sepulchre. The walls of many of these caves are full of hieroglyphic figures carved in the rock. In some they are but small, in others very lively. In one I numbered sixteen great figures, that represented eight men and eight women, holding one another by the hands, with many other small figures or shapes, on both sides.

The great Pyramid is five hundred and twenty foot high upon a base of six hundred and eighty two foot square; the platform at top is sixteen foot and two thirds square, and is composed of twelve large stones, yet this from below appears to the eye a sharp point. A strong man cannot throw a stone from the top, so as to make it fall beyond the steps or basis of the Pyramid.

_Of the SPHYNX._

We saw next the _Sphynx_, near the Pyramids, on the east side. On the top stands the head of a woman of an extraordinary bigness and height. The _Arabians_ call it _Abul-hon_, or _Abul-houl_.

_Pliny_ saith, that it was the tomb of King _Amasis_. I imagine that this _Sphynx_ was a sepulchre, but we cannot understand that it belonged to _Amasis_; for all the records and traditions of this _Sphynx_ are lost.

That it is a tomb may appear, first by it’s situation, which is in a place that was in former ages a burying place; and near the Pyramids and mortuary caves. Secondly, it is to be imagined that it was a sepulchre from it’s building. In the hinder part is a cave under ground, of a bigness answerable to that of the head, into which I have look’d by an entrance that leads into it, so that it could serve to no other purpose, but to keep a dead corps.

Some _Franks_ have, out of an excess of curiosity, climb’d up by the means of rope-ladders, to see whether this head was hollow, or massy, and they have found it to be hollow, but filled at present with sand.

The neck is worn out round about, which causeth men to imagine that it will not be able to support the weight of that great head.

_Of the wells where the ~Mummies~ are._

When we had fully view’d this _Sphynx_, we took the road that leads to _Saccara_, a village, at four hours travelling from the Pyramids, and about eight from _Cairo_ towards the south. The burying-place of the Mummies is near adjoining to this village.

And because it was very late, and that we were to agree with the _Arabians_ of the village about the price, the number and quality of the wells that they were to open for us, we stopt there all night, and the next morning we took with us twelve horsemen, to guard us, of the _Arabians_; with them we went to this burying place, where the Mummies are in caves under ground.

The first well that we saw was that of birds embalm’d; when we had caused the sand that stops the well’s mouth to be removed, through which we were to go down, and from thence to enter into the cave, we caused ourselves to be let down one after another, by tying a double rope about our middles. As soon as we were at the bottom, and that every one had lighted his taper, and several matches that we had brought, we went into the cave creeping upon our bellies. The cave is an alley in the rock, about the height of a man, and about the breadth of a perch, and of an extraordinary length. We found there many other allies on both hands, cut in the rock, where were many large stores full of earthen pots, covered over with coverings of the same substance. In these pots were embalm’d birds of all kinds, every bird in it’s own pot. And as I thought that the remembrance of a custom so ancient and superstitious was worthy of our notice, I brought about half a dozen with me, some I have sent to the King’s library. We found also some hens-eggs empty, but entire, without any ill smell or crack.

When we had view’d sufficiently this cave, we returned up in the same manner that we went down, and found another open’d, called the _Virgin_, which is that was never opened before. According to our orders to the _Arabians_, Monsieur _Tiger_ and the others went down in the same manner as into the former, I alone could not follow them, because of a _quartan_ fever, which had troubled me fourteen months, and took me at that very moment; but I lost nothing by that; for these gentlemen told me at their return, that they found an horrid stench and a close air, that put out their candles and their matches also, every time that they endeavour’d to light them, which caused them to get up again without entring farther. They told me that this well was much deeper than the former.

We caused another to be opened, which was not a Virgin-well, as the former, because it was not so deep. I ventured into that, notwithstanding my indisposition.

We found there two Mummies, a great one and a little one of a child, both in coffins; the greatest was of marble, upon the covering it had the likeness of the person for whom it was made. We caused these biers or coffins to be open’d, but found nothing extraordinary, therefore we made no account of them, and left them where we found them.

We went down next into a cave, call’d _The Church_, which was not so deep as the former. It was nothing but a long alley under ground, well plaistered, and painted all over with hieroglyphic figures round about the sides. It was almost all full of sand, which caused us to creep along upon our knees.

If the reader desires a prospect, and a description of this ancient burying-place, let him think upon a boundless champain, even and covered over with sand, where neither trees, nor grass, nor houses, nor any such thing is to be seen; let him represent to himself the superficies of this large field full of dry bones of arms, legs, feet, and heads; full of scattered pieces of wood of coffins, of little idols, some of wood, others of plaister embolish’d with green, and mark’d before and behind with hieroglyphic letters. These idols the _Arabians_ have taken from the broken Mummies, which they have cast away. In some places you may see great tomb-stones, full of cyphers and enigmatical figures, that represent something of chymistry, and of other sciences and mysteries, and full of strange characters that are no Hieroglyphics. Whilst I was looking upon this spectacle, the _Arabians_ brought me two, whereof I caused the copies to be drawn as soon as I was returned to _Cairo_.

You have here a description of some relicts of the grandeur and vanity of the ancient _Egyptians_, and the mournful signs of man’s mortality. The first sight is able to dash a person newly arrived out of countenance, and to affright him; I mean the sight of so many bones all scattered up and down, one would think that here hath been a grievous fight.

In this champain or field here are fifteen Pyramids; three are of an extraordinary bigness, which seem to have been favoured by time; for they appear entire without much decay. Here is also an entrance into every one, that shews a long alley which leads to a chamber; Monsieur _de Tiger_ went into that which is farthest from the village, commonly named _The Pyramid of Rodope_, where he found nothing in the chamber.

This Pyramid is built as a pavillion. The _Franks_ say, that _Rodope_, a famous strumpet, caused it to be built with the money that she had gotten with the loss of her honour. But this is doubtless an error, if it be true what _Pliny_ saith, that the Pyramid of _Rodope_ was but small, though very beautiful; therefore this, which is one of the greatest in all _Egypt_, cannot be that of _Rodope_. These are the words of _Pliny_: _Supremumque illud ne quis Regum opes miretur, minimam extitisse laudatissimam à Rodope meretricula factam. Æsopi fabularum Philosophi conserva quondam, & contubirnalis hæc fuit, majore miraculo tantas opes meretricio esse conquisitas quæstu._

For the others that are in the same field, time hath almost worn them out; for they are but so many heaps of sand, which have scarce the shape and shadow of what they have been heretofore.

Here is also a square heap of very great hewn stones. The _Arabians_ name it _Mastabet Faraoun_; for they say, that when the _Pharaohs_, Kings of _Egypt_, were to declare and give a new law to the people, they stood on the top of this heap. But these are the traditions of the poor _Arabians_ that have nothing of certainty.

To return to the wells of the Mummies; as soon as the _Franks_ have visited any, the wind, or the _Arabians_ fill the entry again full of sand, to get a little money at the second opening: This is the greatest gain of these wretches. The least they take for to open a Virgin-well is thirty piasters, because they that cause the well to be opened, have the liberty to carry away all the curiosities and Mummies that he finds there.

_A description of an entire body of a ~Mummy~._

This was a long and large body, in a very thick coffin of wood, shut close on all sides; the timber was not at all rotten, and we found it to be Sycamore-wood, which in _Egypt_ they call _Pharaoh_’s fig-tree, that does not rot so soon as other wood. Upon the coffin the face of him that was within it was cut in embossed work. Some coffins there are also of stone, with the face of the person within, cut in boss, and Hieroglyphics all along the length of it. There are two of these stones in the house of Monsieur _Fouquet_ at St _Mande_, and I had two of them also, of which one was broken at _Alexandria_, and the other, I brought home with me very whole, which weighs betwixt seven and eight hundred weight. Some of these coffins are made of several pieces of cloth pasted together, which are as strong as the wooden ones. I have one of this kind in my closet, made of above forty cloths glew’d or pasted together in thickness, which are not in the least rotten; it is cover’d all over with Idols and Hieroglyphics, painted on a very thin plaister, with which the outside cloth is daub’d over, but it is a little spoil’d, the plaister in some places being rubbed off. Among these figures there is a compartment at the lower end, two inches broad, and a foot long, being painted cross-ways over the coffin, wherein may be seen the manner how the ancient _Egyptians_ embalm’d dead bodies. In the middle of this compartment there is a long table shaped like a lion, on the back of which the body that is to be embalm’d is laid at length, and hard by there is a man with a knife in his hand opening the body; this man hath on a vizard mask, shaped like the beak of a sparrow-hawk, which without doubt was the custom of their embalmers, who made use of that kind of mask, that they might not breathe in the corruption that might evaporate from the death bodies, as the Physicians of _Italy_ do at present, who in time of a plague never stir abroad without a mask of this kind, in the long nose of which they put perfumes; though I make no doubt, but the mask I speak of is the head of _Osiris_, which the _Egyptians_ represented with the head of a sparrow-hawk, as they did _Anubis_ with the head of a dog, the _Nile_ with a lion’s head, _&c._ But as a surer mark that it is an embalming, there are four vessels without handles upon the aforesaid table, which could be nothing else but the vessels wherein the necessary drugs were kept not only for embalming, as _Balm_, _Cedria_, _&c._ but also for the wrapping up and incrustation of the body, as _Bitumen_ and others; by the sides of the table there are several persons standing and sitting in divers postures. Within this coffin is the figure of a naked maid with her arms stretched out.

But to return to my first discourse. This wooden coffin I mention’d being broken to pieces with hatchets, we found an entire body in it, which lay in this manner: The face was cover’d, as commonly all the rest are, with a kind of head-piece of cloth fitted with plaister, on which the countenance of that person was represented in gold, and when we took off the helmet, we found nothing of the face remaining, which is commonly reduced to ashes; I believe it is, because it will not admit of gumming so well as the other parts of the body. However, I brought to _Paris_ the head of a Mummy whole and entire, but it is all covered with fillets of cloth, so neatly fitted, that they hinder not, but one may see the shape of the eyes, nose, and mouth. The rest of the body was swathed with little bands of cloth very neatly made, but wrapped about with so many casts and turnings, that I believe there were a thousand ells in it; and certainly it is so rare a way of swathing and binding, that I think it cannot be imitated at present, as many Chirurgions have acknowledged to me. Along the brest and belly there was a band of cloth three good fingers broad, and a large foot and an half long, it was fastened to the other bands, and upon it were several Hieroglyphics done in gold. I took this writing and folded it up, that I might the more conveniently carry it up with me. I hoped to have found idols in that coffin, knowing that they interred many with their dead, either of stone, copper, or green earth, as I have several that have been found in these bodies, but finding none, I thought there might be some within his body; for after they had embowel’d them, they often enclosed idols within their bellies; for that end I had it broken up, but we could find nothing. I considered then that balm which is now quite lost, it is black, hard, and shines like pitch, having much such a smell, but more pleasant, that kept bodies entire, and, I believe, the sand contributed not a little thereto, for even in the greatest desarts of _Arabia_, sometimes the dead bodies of men and dogs, are found entire, who falling asleep, and staying behind the caravans, are covered over with an ocean of sand driven by the high winds in which the bodies being bury’d, are by the dryness and salt that is in the sand, which dries up all the humidity of them, preserved entire, and are afterwards found, when another wind blowing, carries off the sand again. Many think that the bodies so dry’d are the true Mummy; it is a mistake, and that which Merchants bring into Christendom, to be used in medicine, is the Mummy we first described. Near the room I went into there were several other full of bodies, but seeing the entries into them were full of sand, I call’d to them above to pull me up again by the same rope, with which I was let down, being much dissatisfy’d with my _Moors_, who had open’d so sorry a pit for me. When I was got up I look’d upon my cloth, whereon were characters of gold, but was much vex’d to see that all the letters disappeared, and that by my own fault, because I had folded it together when it was very humid, and so all the gold and paint stuck to the opposite sides; whereas I should have brought it up open and dry’d it in the sun. But I have others that are finer, which are only a little spoiled in the bringing. I brought with me also some hands of Mummies, which are as entire at present as ever they were. I had also the good fortune to buy upon the place some idols of the _Moors_, who come and sell them to the _Franks_ in the city. These idols are of several sorts, and in many postures, there are of them of copper, of several sorts of stone, and several sorts of earth also; at least I have some of all these kinds, all which I am very sure have been taken out of Mummies, and cannot be said to be counterfeit, for besides that they have not the art to do it, they sell them at so easy a rate, that the very materials are worth more. This is all I could observe of the Pyramids and Mummies; and hence it appears, that the ancient _Egyptians_ spent more in their tombs than during their whole lives; and one reason they gave for that was, that their houses were only for living a short time in, and their tombs the palaces that were to be inhabited by their souls for many ages. Not far from these Mummies, towards the _Nile_, are some remains of a large town, which was _Memphis_, the inhabitants whereof were buried there, the ancients never burying their dead within towns, for fear of infecting the air, none but Christians, who mind not that, bury their dead any where. Now, to prove that these great ruins are the remains of _Memphis_, _Pliny_ affirms it, when he says, that the Pyramids are betwixt the _Delta_ of _Egypt_ and the city of _Memphis_ on the side of _Africa_. At length we returned by old _Cairo_, and saw all that is curious, or worth being seen in it.

_A Letter from ~Dublin~, concerning the ~Porphyry Pillars~ in ~Egypt~. By Dr ~Huntingdon~._

_SIR_,

You engage me after a very undeniable manner, as I perceive by the minutes of your philosophical society, to send you some account of the porphyry pillars in _Egypt_; and though I could have satisfied your curiosity much better in this matter, had you thought of it when I was amongst my papers in _Oxford_, yet rather than hazard your good opinion, or give the least pretence of disrespect to your worthy company, for whose persons and designs I have so just an esteem and veneration: I here send not what’s fit for me to write, or you to read, but what I can remember upon this subject.

Nor do I intend to speak concerning the nature or composition of stones in general, or of porphyry more particularly, but meerly as to matter of fact, so far chiefly as it fell under my own cognizance, _i. e._ if you please, rather like an Historian than a Philosopher.

In the first place then, I think it may be taken for granted, that there is no such quarry, or rock of stone rather, in all the lower parts of _Egypt_; for so far as the _Nile_ overflows is perfect soil. A sample whereof I hope you still retain, and let me entreat you to be very exact in weighing it this year, that you may be sure whether it be heavier in the time of the inundation, as is generally believed, than before or after: And when, and in what proportion it increases.

The boundaries of this overflow, which are never ten miles from the channel, that I saw, generally scarce half of it, and in some places but a mile or two (the _Delta_ still excepted, which is universally covered, all but the north side to the sea, and a little to the east for some miles above _Damiata_) are rising hills of sand, beyond which is perfect desart, upon the _Afric_ side, the _Lybian_. [Higher south I have been told, there are rocks nearer the river, and in some places straiten it.] But under those sands is a yielding stone, not much harder than chalk, though not so white, and very easily managed, as at the _Mummies_ deep spacious vaults, which were the old repositories for the dead. And the like also may be said of those cells or sepulchres which are hewn purely out of the rocky earth three quarters of a mile on the south of _Alexandria_. Albeit nearer the sea there are stones of a harder kind, and with which they build; but by their mouldering away, as appears by the remains of houses within the walls of the city, ’tis plain they can’t endure the weather, which is sufficiently corroding there. The iron which once plated their thick wooden gates being mostly eaten away, and the deep characters upon the sides of these very porphyry pillars exceedingly defaced. Indeed about _Memphis_, _i. e._ by the Pyramids, they have a milder air, and the hieroglyphics cut in those stones will last well enough, till they shall be removed into a rougher: But then they’ll crizle and scale, as I found by sad experience. For having procured four stones, the best marked with those figures of antiquity I could meet with, and sent them down to _Alexandria_, in order to their transportation for _England_, I found them, upon my second voyage into _Egypt_, very much injured, being put into the custom-house-yard (where they lie still embargo’d) by the _Aga_, who demanded an intolerable sum for liberty to ship them, as you may remember I told you the story.