The Great Pyramid: Its History and Teachings (1879)
Download: PDF — The Great Pyramid: Its History and Teachings (1879)
This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes.
Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at http://books.google.com/ THE GREAT PYRAMID:
ITS HISTORY AND TEACHINGS.
f.
T. SEPTIMUS MARKS.
600018961V
THE GREAT PYRAMID:
ITS
History and Teachings.
VERTICAL SECTION
RANEAN
ABER
ite Inundation THE GREAT PYRAMID:
ITS
History and Teachings.
A L E C T U R E
Delivered to an Association of Christian Young Men, at Hackney, 12th December, 1877,
BY
T. SEPTIMUS MARKS.
WITH A DIAGRAM.
BODLEIANA
SEP 80
LONDON:
S. W. PARTRIDGE & CO., 9, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1879.
Limp Cloth, 1/6. Cloth Boards, 2/- .
221 . f . 122 .
Whatever profits may arise from the sale of this Lecture will be devoted to the circulation of the Scriptures abroad.
PREFACE.
ITH but little inclination for Egyptological research, it would scarcely have occurred to me that the Great Pyramid would be a profitable subject for consideration, had I not found
that it had a history of its own, and lessons to teach, of a peculiarly interesting nature, which marked it as having an origin and character altogether distinct from Egypt. I was reading a work, in 3 vols., by Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, entitled, "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid," to which my attention had been called by Mr. Casey's pamphlet, "Philitis," when I was asked by an Association of Christian young men to give them a lecture. My mind was, at the time, so occupied with the subject before me, that I at once decided to give them the benefit of my study. I found, however, that it was more difficult to master, and put in a clear and connected form, than I at first imagined; and it was equally difficult to condense into the short space of time necessarily occupied in the delivery of a lecture. Here Mr. Smyth's other work, "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," greatly assisted me, and as these are the only reliable text books on the subject for exact measurements and precise description, I have found it advisable, for the sake of correctness, in some of the descriptive and scientific portions, to occasionally borrow his language, or interweave it with my own.
For such as desire a fuller insight into this subject I cannot do better than commend to their notice Mr. Piazzi Smyth's two works to which I have referred, published by Daldy, Isbister, and Co., 56, Ludgate Hill.
The first volume of "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid" contains a most interesting record of his four months' residence on the Pyramid Hill with his wife, and abounds with some very striking features of Arab life. During this time he took the whole of the measurements detailed in the second volume, giving, in the third volume, a summary of the special features he observed, with his comments thereon. In the present edition of "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid" he not only gives his own conclusions, but the results of the calculations made by many Pyramid students from his measurements, which, at the time they were taken, he little thought would have afforded so large a field for further inquiry, both scientific and sacred. Both his works are furnished with many diagrams and graphic illustrations of various portions of the building, both inside and out.
The subject is one of intense interest from whichever point of view it may be looked at; and there is such an evident and peculiar connection of all the parts of the Pyramid with each other, and with the heavens and the earth, as to leave no doubt upon an unprejudiced mind that its architect had a deep design and settled purpose in its construction. Whether the Scriptural symbolisms have been rightly apprehended or not, the building certainly affords plenty of scope for parabolic instruction; and as, under the head of "Its Sacred and Prophetic Teachings," I have been led to consider not only the past, but also the present and future dispensations, as revealed in the Word of God, and set forth in this mighty symbol, I am encouraged to hope that, in yielding to the solicitations of many of my friends to have this Paper printed, the perusal of its contents will not be without profit and blessing.
I must, however, here remind my readers that the only revelation God has given to man, and on which we may rest with unerring certainty, is the Word of God contained in the Holy Scriptures, and whatever speaks not in accordance with that Word should be unhesitatingly rejected.
That Word is the test by which everything must be tried, and if the architect of the Great Pyramid were divinely instructed in its erection, we shall find all its teachings to be in accord with the revealed Word of God.
Again, while the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork, and the wonders of creation around us manifest His eternal power and Godhead, the Word of God alone points out clearly and unmistakably the utter ruin and depravity of our nature, and the remedy provided by God in the gift of His Son for our salvation.
That same Word declares that the second coming of the Lord draweth nigh, and surely everything betokens His near approach. It will be to the world as sudden and unexpected as was the flood in the days of Noah, and many a couple that will then be working together in the field or at the mill, or at rest in one bed, will be suddenly separated; the one shall be taken and the other left. The Lord Jesus will then, according to His promise, gather His saints to Himself, and when His shout of joy rends the air, "the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain (the living saints) shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thess. iv. 16, 17). "Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." "Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching."
Having thus secured His redeemed, He will, accompanied by them, "be revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power" (2 Thess.
i. 7-9).
From that fearful wrath there is but one way of escape—a way provided by God Himself, who is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" or change of mind. He so loved the world, that, when He saw us all utterly ruined and undone, He gave His only begotten Son to die, the just for the unjust; and that He might be a just God as well as a Saviour, He caused the iniquities of us all to meet on Him, dealing with Him after our sins, and rewarding Him according to our iniquities; that who-soever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Thus has the divine Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, met all the claims of a holy God. "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and He that believeth not the Son, shall not sec life; but the wrath of God abideth on Him" (Acts iv. 12; John iii. 36).
These are the true sayings of God; and whatever views may be entertained of the Great Pyramid and its lessons, this Word of our God—which tells us of our condition and danger, which points us to the perfect security and everlasting strength of the Rock of Ages, and warns us not to neglect so great salvation—shall stand for ever. If, however, we do find in the stones of the Great Pyramid a parable of these and other kindred truths, and a substantial portraiture of the house which fell not because it was founded upon a rock, leading us to seek for a solution of its meaning in the Word of God, the consideration of our subject will not have been in vain.
October, 1879.
CONTENTS.
THE GREAT PYRAMID. PAGE
ITS HISTORY . . . . . . . . . 7
ITS SCIENTIFIC TEACHINGS . . . 26
ITS SACRED AND PROPHETIC TEACHINGS . . 54
INDEX TO PASSAGES AND CHAMBERS IN THE GREAT PYRAMID.
ENTRANCE PASSAGE . 16, 37, 62, 66, 68
SUBTERRANEAN CHAMBER 17, 62, 84
FIRST ASCENDING PASSAGE 19, 62, 69
HORIZONTAL PASSAGE 20, 50, 70
GRAND GALLERY 20, 38, 63, 73
ANTECHAMBER 21, 29, 39, 80
QUEEN'S CHAMBER 21, 50, 70, 71
KING'S CHAMBER 23, 40, 83 A TABLE
SHOWING SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL MEASUREMENTS, &c., OF THE GREAT PYRAMID.
1 Pyramid inch = 1.001 British inch = 1⁄500,1⁄000,1⁄000 of earth's polar diameter.
25 Pyramid inches = 25.025 British inches = 1 sacred or pyramid cubit.
Original base-side length of Pyramid = 9131.05 pyramid inches; 9 1 3 1 · 0 5 ÷2 5=3 6 5 · 2 4 2 , &c., length in days of solar year.
Original length of the two diagonals of base = 25,827 pyramid inches; 25,827 in an inch to a year = number of years occupied in the precession of the equinoxes.
Original vertical height of Pyramid = 5813 pyramid inches; 5 8 1 3 pyramid inches ×1 09=9 1, 8 4 0, 0 0 0 British miles; distance of sun from the earth.
As 5813 : 9131 × 2:::1:3'14159, &c., or the proportion of the diameter of a circle to its circumference.
1 Pyramid pound weight = 1.028 of the British pound avoirdupois =weight of 5 cubic pyramid inches of earth's mean density.
1 Pyramid pint measure = 0.987 of the old British wine pint = 1 pyramid pound or 5× 5.7 cubic pyramid inches of water at temperature of 50° pyramid.
Temperature of King's Chamber 50° pyramid = 68° Fahrenheit = 1⁄5 between freezing and boiling points of water; mean temperature of all lands; most suitable for health of man.
Length of descending passage to its intersection by floor of first ascending passage = 985 pyramid inches = in an inch to a year, period from the Flood to Moses.
Length of first ascending passage = 1542 pyramid inches = in an inch to a year, the Hebrew dispensation from Moses to Christ.
Length of Grand Gallery = 1881.4 pyramid inches = ?
Pyramid's own memorial date of foundation, 2170 B.C.
THE GREAT PYRAMID:
ITS HISTORY AND TEACHINGS.
I.—ITS HISTORY.
THE early history of Egypt is involved in such a cloud of mystery as to make it exceedingly difficult to unravel the origin of the remarkable people who there founded the oldest and most enduring kingdom that the world ever saw; and yet, in order to investigate our subject, it is necessary to enquire who these people were, and from whence they originally came.
Their chronology affords no data for ascertaining the period when they first emerged, suddenly, and apparently without a period of preparation, into a kingdom; for the different systems of reckoning employed by them, the shortness of their years, and the national custom of dating in kings' reigns only, without the use of the controlling date of any cycle, renders the subject exceedingly obscure. From their monumental history it seems evident that from their very first settlement in the country they were possessed of the arts of civilisation, which they must have brought with them from elsewhere; and if we had only profane history to guide us, we might easily be led into a belief of some of the theories that place the beginning of Egypt as a nation from 5,000 to 20,000 years before Christ.
But happily we have before us the Word of the living God,the only trustworthy account of the history of the world,the only reliable source from whence to learn from a divine standpoint the origin of nations.
After the enumeration in Genesis x. of "the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations" it is recorded that "by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood." But before their division we read, "the whole earth was of one language and of one speech," dwelling in the plain of Shinar. Here they impiously set themselves to build a city and tower whose top might reach to heaven, and, said they, "Let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." "And they had brick for stone and slime had they for mortar," the very opposites of the materials subsequently employed in rearing the Great Pyramid. The history is familiar to us all; the Lord Himself came down, confounded their language, and "scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth;" each company separated from the other by another speech and language, and driven forth as by an unseen power, north, south, east, and west, to be guided to their final resting-place by the same hand that impelled them onwards.
Thus their defiance of Heaven was for the time frustrated, and although but the rubbish mounds of that mighty tower now remain to bear witness of their intention, the time is not far distant when another effort will be made to rebuild a central monarchy on perhaps the same spot, for the purpose of bringing all nations into a confederacy or brotherhood without God, and then, for the last time, Babylon shall be overthrown and sink as lead in the mighty waters, and the enduring kingdom of the Son of God be established on this earth.
Among the companies that went forth from Shinar were the children of Mizraim, one of the sons of Ham, who seem at once to have established themselves in Egypt, and in a very short period of time to have forgotten God, and fallen into the bestial worship of which all their monuments and records testify. For between 300 and 400 years there is but little trustworthy information as to their history, but with the fourth Memphite dynasty, the history of Egypt begins to assume greater importance. The first monarch of this line was Senefru or Soris, and it was in the reign of his successor, Khufu, Suphis or Cheops, as he is variously called, that the Great Pyramid of Egypt was built, the oldest and most enduring building ever erected.
Herodotus is the first to give us any detailed account respecting this wonderful building, and he procured his information from an Egyptian priest about 1,725 years after the erection of the Pyramid, and 445 years before the Christian era, according to whom "Cheops on ascending the throne plunged into all manner of wickedness. He closed the temples, and forbade the Egyptians to offer sacrifice to their gods, compelling them instead to labour one and all in his service, viz—in building the Great Pyramid. He reigned 50 years, and was succeeded by his brother Chephren, who imitated the conduct of his predecessor, built a Pyramid, but smaller than his brother's, called the Second Pyramid, and reigned 56 years. Thus, during 106 years, the temples were shut and never opened. The Egyptians so detest the memory of these kings that they do not like even to mention their names. Hence they commonly call the Pyramids (the Great and the Second) after Philition (or Philitis), a shepherd, who at that time fed his flock about that place."
Manetho, too, the celebrated Egyptian historian, thus writes:—"We had formerly a king whose name was Timeus. In his time it came to pass, I know not how, that God was displeased with us; and there came up from the east, in a strange manner, men of an ignoble race, who had the confidence to invade our country, and who easily subdued it by their power without a battle. All this invading nation was styled Hyksos, that is, shepherd kings."
It would seem therefore that this shepherd-prince, Philitis, coming from Arabia or Palestine, was probably the architect of the Great Pyramid, and that he was enabled to exert such an amount of mental control over King Cheops, possibly by some spiritual influence in connection with the service of the only true God, as to induce him to shut up the idolatrous temples and compel his subjects to labour in the erection of this wonderful building, destined to be an enduring witness of truths, unknown to them then, but to be brought to light when the necessity for them in the purpose of God should arise. It is on record that, while, as we have seen, the Egyptians hated, they implicitly obeyed, the power that made them work on the Great Pyramid, and it may be that the traditions of this forced conscription got mixed up afterwards in the minds of later Egyptians with the evils inflicted on their country by the subsequent shepherds of the 15th to 17th dynasties, and thus made the name of a shepherd an abomination to the Egyptians. The statement of the Egyptian priest to Herodotus, that Cheops plunged into all manner of wickedness, may be explained by his having overturned the national religion, under the influence of Philitis, and substituted probably for the time the more simple worship of God; but as the natural heart of man has ever the same downward tendencies, no sooner was the restraint removed than they returned with fresh zest to their idolatrous practices.
For 30 years, according to Herodotus, 100,000 men are said to have been employed in the construction of the Great Pyramid, and at the end of this time, Philitis, and his people "to the number of not less than 240,000, quitted Egypt by capitulation with all their families and effects, and proceeded to Judaea, and built there," says Manetho, "a city of sufficient size to contain this multitude of men, and named it Jerusalem."
If, therefore, Philitis built Jerusalem after executing his colossal work in the erection of the Great Pyramid from 2170 to 2140 B.C., he must have been a contemporary of, but much older than, the patriarch Abraham, whose birth we suppose to have taken place about the time the Pyramid was commenced. Bearing this in mind, we find that about 50 years after the completion of the Pyramid, the King of Salem, or Jerusalem as it was afterwards called, was a very remarkable person, who blessed Abraham and to whom Abraham gave tithes, who was priest as well as king; in short that mysterious royal character, Melchizedek, which is evidently his typical and not his proper name; "he being first by interpretation King of Righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is King of Peace," but of whose birth and death under that name no record is given. It is therefore highly probable that Philitis and Melchizedek were the same person.
If it be further asked, who then was Melchizedek? the answer may be given, that many circumstances and authorities combine to show that he could have been no other than the patriarch Shem. Our time will not allow us to enter upon this subject further than to say, that as the head of his tribe or family, the father of the race in which Abraham was born, he would be, as was the custom in patriarchal times, the priest of the family, and would naturally also be the dispenser of justice, and the arbiter of peace amongst his descendants; hence his titles, King of Justice and King of Peace.
This will account for the way in which he meets Abraham, giving him the patriarchal blessing, bringing forth the bread and wine for his refreshment, and receiving from him the homage due to so exalted a personage. This portion of the subject is, however, fully discussed by Calmet in his Dictionary (art. Melchizedek), to which I must refer you for further particulars.
If, then, Philitis, Melchizedek, and Shem were one and the same person, we can the better understand how, having been engaged with his father, under divine instruction, in the building of the Ark, the architect of the Great Pyramid should have entrusted to him the scientific and other teachings embodied in that wonderful structure, the marvellous features of which we shall presently proceed to consider.
Before doing so, however, it may be well here briefly to allude to the other pyramids, the grander specimens of which, thirty-seven in number, stretch for some fifty miles along the western or African side of the Nile Valley. There can be no doubt that the greater number, if not the whole of these, were built by the Egyptians as sepulchres for their great dead, and that in the erection of them they endeavoured to imitate as well as they could, the more ordinary mechanical features of the great work on which they had been so long employed; but in none of them do we find any ascending passages or upper chambers as in the Great Pyramid, nor do any of them exhibit that nicety of proportion and exactness of measurement which characterize the parent work.
While, too, in most of the other pyramids there can be traced some reference in hieroglyphic or pictorial adornment to the idolatry of Egypt, there is not throughout the whole of the Great Pyramid a single vestige of heathenism, both the exterior and interior being absolutely free from all engraved or sculptured work, as well as from everything relating to idolatry, or hieroglyphics of any kind, with the exception of some quarry marks of the workmen, that were discovered in the excavations made by Col. Howard Vyse, on some of the interior masonry never intended to be seen.
The Great Pyramid, the northernmost of all the rest, forms one of a group of nine stone pyramids, standing on the levelled crest of the hill of Jeezeh or Gizeh, in view of the ancient Memphis, and not far from Cairo. Of these, two were built very shortly after the erection of the first, and exhibit much of the constructive skill and mechanical ability of the Egyptians, but without that perfection of finish, nor, so far as can be ascertained, the scientific teaching embodied in the first, which, as Professor Smyth says, "transcends in value all the rest, and stands out distinct and distinguished from all its fellows by its giant size, its wondrous internal structure, its superior age, more frequent historical notice, and yet the hitherto inscrutable destiny of its purpose; the greatest of the seven old wonders of the world in the days of the Greeks, and the only one of them all which is still in existence on the surface of the earth."
Here, then, at the apex of the Delta, the architect of this great monument chose the site for his stupendous work—a building whose base covers over thirteen square acres of the levelled solid rock on which it is founded, and which alone could have borne, through all the vicissitudes of storms and earthquakes, this mountain of masonry, computed to contain five million tons of huge squared stones.
Its four corner stones were let into sockets cut sharp down into the living rock, into and upon which it was so built as to make the building and its rock-bed foundation one. Its four sides face exactly the four cardinal points of the heavens. It stands, as has been demonstrated by Professor Smyth, on a meridian and in a latitude (30°) in which there is more earth and less sea than any other, and is in the geographical centre of the land surface of the whole world; while, being the centre of an arc which sweeps the Delta of Lower Egypt, it is in the centre, and, at the same time, at the border of the sector-shaped land of Egypt (Isaiah xix. 19). It is the oldest, largest, highest, and most substantial stone monument ever erected by the hands of man, and may be said to be a pure and perfect pyramid, whose height is to its perimeter as the radius of a circle to its circumference.
For ten years, it is said, the builders were occupied "in making a great causeway from the Nile bank to the Pyramid hill, over which were drawn or moved to their final position, the huge masses of squared stone that had been rafted down the river from their distant southern quarries" (some of which, the quarries of Syene, were 500 miles distant), and during the succeeding 20 years, 100,000 men were employed in the construction of the monument.
It is probable, as a member of the craft has urged, that Freemasonry owes its origin to the erection of the Pyramid; their peculiar signs—sun, moon, compasses, square, triangle, &c.—all having a reference to the characteristics of the building, its base being the perfect square, its side the sacred triangle, and so on.
It is further supposed that the Egyptians were engaged on the great mass of the building, but were barred from the secret chambers and ascending passages, which were wrought only by the initiated, who came with Philitis, and who were sworn to secrecy. If this be so, it may account for the Egyptians knowing nothing of the ascending passages or upper chambers, and for the absence of such in all the later Pyramids. It is not, however, my province to give an opinion on this point, but I record it as not without interest in connection with our subject.
As in giving a description of the building I shall have to deal with measurements, I may here mention that the standard of measure used by the architect appears to have been an inch, just one-thousandth part longer than the British inch; twenty-five of these inches being the cubit, a measure probably identical in length with that previously used by Noah in building the Ark, and afterwards divinely dictated to Moses for the Tabernacle and its furniture; and to Solomon for the construction of the Temple on Mount Moriah, and about which I shall have something further to say presently.
The original vertical height of the building was 485 feet (or 5,813 pyramid inches), and the measure of each of its sides 762 feet (or 9,131 pyramid inches). It was cased when completed with blocks of smooth, white limestone, almost like marble, in a sloping plane; exhibiting matchless workmanship, marvellously correct and true, the blocks having a height of nearly 5 feet, a breadth of 8 feet, and a length perhaps of 12 feet, joined together with a film of white cement no thicker than a sheet of silver paper; the whole rising at an angle of 5 1° 5 1′ 1 4 · 3′′ ; every one of the measurements and angles, as we shall presently see, carrying with them astronomical and scientific teaching of the utmost import.
A spectator would thus have before him a vast shadowless monument, reflecting from its pure white and polished sides the sparkling rays of an Egyptian sun; and so, for 3,000 years or thereabouts, it presented this outward aspect of simple truth and beauty to the world, the general tradition being that it was built to contain in its subterranean chamber the body of King Cheops. This, however, could not have been the case, as Herodotus observes that, in consequence of the people being exasperated against him, by reason of the toilsomeness of the works, they threatened to tear in pieces his dead body, whereupon he commanded his friends to bury him in an obscure place, and he was accordingly buried in a sepulchral chamber near the Pyramid, in a spot insulated by trenches, introducing the waters of the Nile; and this must have been more than 50 feet lower than the very bottom of even the unfinished subterranean chamber, the deepest work found yet underneath the Great Pyramid.
The entrance to the Pyramid was through a long, inclined, descending passage trending down from the north, and entered at a point about 49 feet above the ground, near the middle of the northern side. This passage was of very small bore being only about 41 inches in width and 47 inches in transverse height, descending at an angle of 2 6° 1 8′ and having a length of nearly 370 feet (or a little over 4,400 pyramid inches), ending in a subterranean, excavated, rock chamber about 100 feet vertically under the centre of the base of the whole monument. "This subterranean chamber had been begun to be carved out deep in the heart of the rock with admirable skill.
For the workmen having cut their way down to the necessary depth by the passage, commenced with the chamber's ceiling, making it exquisitely smooth, though 46 feet long by 28 feet broad; then sinking down the walls therefrom in vertical planes, there was every promise of their having presently, at that 100 foot depth, inside the otherwise solid limestone mountain, a rectangular hollow or chamber, whose walls, ceiling, and floor, should all be perfect pattern planes. But when they had cut downwards from the ceiling to a depth of about 4 feet at the west end, and 13 feet at the east end, they stopped in the very midst of their work. A very small bored passage was pushed on into the rock merely a few feet further towards the south, and then that was also left unfinished; a similar abortive attempt was likewise made downwards; and the whole floor from one end of the chamber to the other, was left thus a lamentable scene of up-and-down and fragmentary confusion,"* verily as it were the true locality of the "stones or darkness and the shadow death" (Job xxviii. 3).
It would appear from the descriptions given by Herodotus, Strabo, and Pliny, that access was gained to the descending passage by the sliding of a certain removable stone at its entrance, and through this, at rare intervals, did those whose curiosity prompted them, pass, as is evident from the fact that M. Caviglia found in 1820 good blackened Roman letters on the roof of the subterranean chamber, as if some ancient Roman had used his lamp to memorialize his visit to the place.
This then was all that was known of the interior of the Pyramid up to about 1,000 years ago; for after the classic came the dark ages, the entrance into the Pyramid was forgotten, its secret lost, and there only hung about it a traditional halo, an indistinct idea, that within what was supposed to be this royal tomb of King Cheops, there was untold wealth.
After the conquest of Egypt by the Saracens in the 7th century, and when the Turks had begun to settle down as a somewhat civilized people, there came in A.D. 820, the Caliph Al Mamoun, "a Caliph with an enquiring turn of mind, like his father, Haroun Alraschid, of the 'Arabian Nights,'" says Mr.'Piazzi Smyth, from whose interesting work, "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," I have gathered the following particulars of this Caliph's forced entry into the Pyramid. When he desired to enter the building, he found no one who could give him any reliable information, but had only an indistinct rumour to guide him towards trying the northern rather than any other side of the monument. Accustomed to the gratification of his every wish, and with the most astonishing accounts of the contents of the three Pyramids of Jeezeh, which were said to be filled with treasures of gold, silver, and precious stones, with instruments of iron and vessels of earth, with arms which rust not, with glass that might be bended and yet not broken, and all kinds of exciting wonders, such as could be only imagined by a people believing seriously in enchantments and genii, Al Mamoun determined to force the building of the Great Pyramid to disclose to him its secrets, and so he directed his Mahommedan workmen to begin near the base of the middle of the northern side, while the real entrance was about 25 feet away to the east. Weeks and months were consumed in their toilsome exertions, when, having penetrated about 100 feet in depth from the entrance, it was remembered that an old king had found, on making a calculation, that all the wealth of Egypt in his time would not enable him to destroy one of the Pyramids.
But one day when the murmuring disciples of the false Prophet, being thoroughly exhausted by their apparently fruitless labour, were almost becoming openly rebellious, "they heard a great stone evidently fall in some hollow space, within no more than a few feet on one side of them! Energetically, they instantly pushed on in the direction of the strange noise; hammers, and fire, and vinegar being employed, again and again, until breaking through a wall surface, they burst into the hollow way of the descending passage, 'exceeding dark, dreadful to look at, and difficult to pass,' as they said." Here was exposed what Greeks and Romans, Persians and Egyptians never saw; for the 'falling of that stone revealed the chief leading secret of the building, for the first time since its erection. "This large angular fitting stone that had made for ages, with its lower flat side, a smooth and polished portion of the ceiling of the inclined and narrow entrance-passage, quite undistinguishable from any other part of the whole of its line, had now dropped on to the floor before their eyes; and revealed that there was, just behind it, or at and in that point of the ceiling which it had covered, the end of another passage, clearly ascending therefrom and towards the south, out of this descending one. . . . But that ascending passage itself was still closed by an adamantine portcullis, or rather stopper, formed by a series of huge granite plugs of square wedge-like shape, dropped or slided down and then jammed in immovably from above. To break them in pieces within the confined entrance-passage space, was quite out of the question, so the grim crew of Saracen Mussulmans broke away sideways or roundabout to the west, through the smaller ordinary masonry (by a huge chasm still used by all who enter into the further interior) to the newly-discovered ascending passage, at a point past the terrific hardness of its lower granite obstruction."
Still they found the passage-way blocked, but the filling material at that part was only limestone. "But as fast as they broke up and pulled out the pieces of one of the blocks, other blocks above it, also of a bore just to fill its full dimensions, slided down from above." Nothing, however, would daunt the "Commander of the Faithful," and so stone after stone was broken bit by bit to little pieces, until the passage just above the granite port-cullis was found to be free from obstruction.
The treasures of the Great Pyramid, so long sealed up, appeared now to lay full in their grasp before them. Thirsting for the promised wealth, on they went, up no less than 110 feet of the steep incline (which, with the length of the granite portcullis, makes the length of this passage from its commencement 1,542 pyramid inches) on their hands and knees, through a passage of smooth white limestone resembling marble, but only 47 inches in transverse height, and 41 inches in breadth, until they suddenly emerged into a long, tall gallery, now called the Grand Gallery, of seven times the passage height, or about 28 feet, the walls on either side being composed of seven courses of stone, overlapping each other. All was black as night, the gallery still ascending at the strange, steep angle of 2 6° 1 8′ (the same angle as the descending passage), and leading them up and away further "into the very inmost heart of darkness or this imprisoning mountain of stone."
In front of them, on first entering this Grand Gallery, but on the level, they saw another low, narrow, horizontal passage, passing under the inclined plane of the Grand Gallery, and leading to what is now called the Queen's Chamber; while on their right hand, nearly 3 feet from the entrance of the gallery, is a black, ominous-looking well's mouth, more than 140 feet deep, leading down first to a natural grotto in the rock, and then to the lowest part of the descending entrance-passage, near to the subterranean chamber.
The way up the Grand Gallery was still narrow, for although the width of this lofty hall is 82 inches, or nearly 7 feet, there is on each side a bench, or ramp, of the same marble-like stone, about 21 inches high and 20 inches wide, leaving only a passage-way to walk in of 41 inches. Upon the top of these benches, near the angle where they join with the wall, are spaces or holes cut in the stone, varying from 19 to 24 inches long, about 6 inches broad, and from 7 to 11 inches deep, and of these ramp holes there are 28 on either side; all, except the lowest two and upper one of which, are distinguished by a piece of stone, 13 inches broad and 18 high, being let into the wall vertically and immediately over them, 24 of these being crossed slantingly by a broad, transverse, shallow groove, measuring about 22 inches long, 12 broad, and 1 deep.
Up this long ascending floor-line then, for about 150 feet more, they had to push their dangerous and slippery way; then near the top, a step 3 feet high landed them on even ground once more; and a short distance further on (the total length of the Grand Gallery being 1881.4 pyramid inches) they encountered a very low short passage, bringing them into what is termed the Antechamber, which is, roughly, nearly 10 feet long, 12 feet 6 inches high, and about 5 feet 6 inches in width. Here again they had to creep under a hanging portcullis of granite, then through another low doorway, in large blocks of solid red granite, 100 inches long, when they stood upright without further hindrance in the Grand Chamber, now called the King's Chamber, "which was, and is still, the conclusion of everything forming the Great Pyramid's interior; the chamber to which, and for which, and towards which, the whole Great Pyramid was built.
A right noble apartment, roughly, 34 feet long, 17 feet broad, and 19 feet high, of polished red granite throughout, both walls, floor, and ceiling, in blocks squared and true, and put together with such exquisite skill" that the point of a penknife could not be made to penetrate the joints, nor could anything be desired more solidly noble and refined. But where is the promised treasure? What do they find there? Only an empty granite chest or coffer without a lid! And so to stop their murmurings and threatenings, the Caliph had a large sum secretly brought from his treasury, and buried by night in a certain spot near the end of his own quarried entrance hole, where, being caused to dig just there, they found to their surprise this golden treasure, which, when they counted, amounted to just sufficient to cover the expenses incurred in the undertaking.
Many years after this, there began that despoiling of its outside which was carried on by many generations of Egyptian viceroys systematically, until all the white and polished blocks of the casing (except the two which Col. Howard Vyse was to bring to light 1,000 years afterwards) had been removed for the building of Cairo and other new Mussulman cities.
With its beauty thus marred, and its top stone and chief corner-stone gone, this emblem of truth still retained all its solidity, its courses, of stonework having been so exquisitely fitted and cemented together as to defy all ordinary efforts of demolition, thus putting it out of the power of any one, except at enormous expense, to do it further harm.
In the year 1638 John Greaves, afterwards Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, visited the Pyramids in the course of his travels. The Great Pyramid especially attracted his attention, and he made a minute examination of it, taking careful measurements of the whole of its passages and chambers, and describing methodically its excellencies of construction, "the smoothness and evenness of the work, the close knitting of the joints," and the extreme accuracy with which the height and breadth of the several passages is kept up through their entire length. "The structure of it," says he, "hath been the labour of an exquisite hand;" while more than once he hints his belief that some hidden truths were contained in its many remarkable features. It was from his measures that Sir Isaac Newton deduced a value for the sacred cubit, which we shall presently see was a close approximation to what has since been shown to be its probably exact length.
The next systematic and more detailed measurement of the Pyramid was instituted by Buonaparte when in occupation of Egypt in 1798, and the precise measurements then taken of every part of the building, by his corps of savants, have a special value as affording independent evidence on the subject.
Subsequently in 1837 the energetic Col. Howard Vyse spent £10,000 in exploring it, afterwards publishing its history, and giving from his own measurements and explorations the most full and exact particulars of pyramid facts that had up to that time been ascertained. It was in answer to a letter from him, on his return from his exploration in 1838, that Sir John Herschel pointed out that the angle of the entrance passage had a special astronomical meaning, and was evidently intended to indicate the date of the Pyramid's erection as being the year 2170 B.C., when at midnight of the autumnal equinox this passage pointed directly to the then Polar Star α Draconis, which was on the meridian below the Pole and at the particular distance from the Pole of 3°42′ indicated by the entrance-passage.
This has since then been confirmed by the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, who, in endeavouring to find the reason why the Pyramid architect made the entrance-passage to point to α Draconis at its lower or less important culmination only, made the further discovery that a more important star for chronology, Alcyone, the chief star in the Pleiades group, was at the same instant at its upper culmination crossing the meridian above the Pole, coincidently with the vernal equinoctial point.
This was the first ray of light as to the use and meaning of this vast structure, and it presently began to be asked, if one astronomical truth were here set forth, why not many; and, why not geometrical, geographical, metrological, and other kindred teachings? But it was reserved for the late Mr. John Taylor, the publisher to the London University, in Gower Street, in the year 1859, by means of his book, "The Great Pyramid: Why was it Built, and Who Built it?" to suggest, after 30 years' study of all accessible data, "that that greatest piece of architectural antiquity on the earth was built according to a plan furnished by Divine inspiration, even as the Pentateuch, 800 years afterwards, was written by the same supernatural help." The general public were not a little startled by this remarkable announcement, and naturally enough received it with some amount of disfavour; but Mr. Taylor, although advanced in years, persevered in his researches, and in January, 1864, added a smaller pamphlet on the subject of linear measure in connection with the ancient standards, shortly after which he died at the age of 84.
With almost his last breath he emphatically confided the subject that had for years occupied his attention, to Mr. Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, who, during the last few months of his life, had been in close correspondence with him upon it.
In the same year Mr. Smyth published the first edition of his work, entitled "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," which was written with the disadvantage of having no very certain measurements on which to depend.
Finding that nothing short of practical examination and instrumental measure on the spot could effectually solve the problem confided to him, Mr. Smyth, with thorough devotion to the cause he had espoused, determined to proceed to Egypt, and in spite of many obstacles and difficulties in his way, he set sail for the land of the Pharaohs, accompanied by his wife, in November, 1864, provided with the best instruments that the most advanced skill could produce. Here, during a four months' residence on the Great Pyramid hill, during which he worked oftentimes by night as well as by day, he succeeded in obtaining the most complete and minute set of measurements and scientific observations that in all probability have ever been taken in connection with any other building, and these were given to the world, in 1867, in his three volumes of "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid."
Since then, the sacred theory has been remarkably confirmed and extended, and the measurements taken by Mr. Smyth in 1864, "though," as he says, "in total ignorance at the time of any theoretical importance attachable to them," have served as the basis for the calculations of Pyramid students all over the world; many of the results of their independent discoveries being found in the third edition of "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," published in September, 1877.
Thus it will be seen that these measurements, which are open to the criticism of all enquirers, could not have been made to suit the theories and teachings that have since been and are still being evolved from them, which we now proceed to consider.
II. ITS SCIENTIFIC TEACHINGS.
THE word pyramid, which Herodotus was the first to make use of, is supposed to be derived either from the Greek πυρος—wheat, and μετρον—measure; or else from the Coptic (which is more probable), pyr division, and met—ten. Either of these derivations may well serve to illustrate its purpose, as, by line and angle, in number, weight and measure (MENE, TEKEL, PERES), are all its truths set forth.
This fact alone may well, at the outset, arrest our attention as being so unlike the works of man. Here are no written characters to explain the meaning of this mountainous mass of masonry; yet never did stones, and only stones, teach before such a lesson—a lesson only to be learnt as we learn the wonderful works of God in the Creation around us, by painstaking and persevering study. As, too, when we analyse the works of God, we find the greatest wonders lie hidden beneath the surface out of sight, until "sought out of them that have pleasure therein," and brought to light; so with this remarkable building, its richest truths were hidden, as the kernel in the shell, in the deep recesses of its sealed-up passages and chambers, until, at the appointed time, it has been made to disclose its secrets and bring to light its hidden truths.
The first propounded theorem of Mr. Taylor, with regard to the Great Pyramid's shape, is that the vertical height of the monument in its original condition, was to twice the breadth of its square base, as the diameter to the circumference of a circle, i.e., as 5813:9131×2::1: 3.14159, &c.-or, that the sum of the measured four sides of its base bore the same relation to its vertical height that the circumference of a circle bears to its radius.
"Now this," says Mr. Piazzi Smyth, "is neither more nor less than the celebrated practical problem of the mediæval and modern ages of Europe, commonly known as the squaring of the circle; and the thing was thus practically done, truly and properly at the Great Pyramid, thousands of years before; for it was accomplished by the architect who designed that Pyramid, when, over and above deciding that the building was to be a square based pyramid, he also ordained that its height, which ascending at another angle, might have been anything, was to bear such a particular proportion to the breadth of its base as should bring out the nearest possible value of what is expressed in mathematics by the symbol of the Greek letter π (pi), or the proportion of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. This, as is well known, can only be expressed in figures by an interminable fraction as before stated, viz., 1:3.14159, &c.
"If, therefore, this quantity is really found built into the Great Pyramid with exactness as well as magnitude, characterizing the whole of that vast mass, it must have been the result either of some most marvellous accident or of some deep wisdom and settled determined purpose, not less, too, than 3,000 years in advance of the learned world in the building's own time.
"Of the scientific value of this quantity there is, and can be, in the present day, no doubt in any school or university all the world over; for experience has shown that neither mathematics nor mechanics can progress in any country in modern times without knowing well the numerical value and calculational quantity of π. "
But John Taylor had only the comparatively incomplete measures of Howard Vyse and others, to guide him, and these, too, expressed in British inches, which, although approximating to correctness, had yet to be tested. When, however, they were tested by the Astronomer Royal of Scotland, as shown by his carefully recorded measurements of every part of the building, inside and out, there was so eminent a confirmation of the truth of Mr. Taylor's theory as to leave no doubt of its correctness.
Before, however, proceeding further, the question naturally arises, what standard of measure did the architect of the Pyramid use in planning and erecting his lasting monument? as upon a correct answer to this question depend the greater part of the Pyramid's lessons.
The profane cubit of Egypt was 20.68 inches, as was also that of Babylon and Nineveh, and this profane cubit was always used by those countries who through all history are found arrayed in religion against Israel and against Israel's God. We can scarcely therefore expect that such a standard of measure would be used in the erection of a building of such a character as the Great Pyramid. The length of the sacred, or Hebrew, cubit is not accurately known, but Sir Isaac Newton, in his dissertation on cubits, arrives at the conclusion, after much study, that the sacred cubit is either 24 inches with a large fraction or 25 inches with a small fraction, and this would appear to be confirmed by the Prophet Ezekiel, who, writing his prophecy in the land of the Chaldeans where the profane cubit would be in use, has distinctly revealed to him (chap.
xliii. 13) that the cubit to be used in the erection of the future Temple is "a cubit and a hand breadth," that is about 25 inches. Just such a cubit as this is recorded in the Great Pyramid in its own peculiar way, for both in the Antechamber and in the Queen's Chamber there are certain indications of measure, which, when applied to the various parts of the building, give such results as to leave no doubt that here is intentionally and unmistakably recorded the Pyramid's standard of measure.
THE ANTECHAMBER is a small and very remarkable room, entered from the southern end of the Grand Gallery by a passage or doorway 41.4 pyramid inches wide, 43.6 high, and 53 long, the shortest of all the passages in the Pyramid, and lower than any of those preceding it. The chamber itself, which is composed partly of limestone and partly of granite, is 116.260 pyramid inches long from north to south (made up of 103.03 of granite, and 13.23 of limestone), 65.2 in its utmost breadth from east to west, and 149.44 high; but it has a sort of granite wainscot on either side, of sufficient thickness to reduce the width of the room at its floor level, to about 41 inches. On the east side this wainscot is only 103.03 inches high, but on the west side the height of it is 111.8 inches, and it is otherwise full of detail which cannot well be described here. The south wall is vertically divided into five equal spaces by four lines cut deep into the wall over the doorway leading into the King's Chamber.
There is, however, yet a more remarkable feature in this interesting Antechamber. Immediately on entering it, 21 inches from the doorway in the north wall, is a huge slab of granite, composed of two pieces joined together one above another, about 48 inches high, 48 in its utmost breadth, and 15 inches thick, extending across the room, having the appearance of a portcullis, but resting on the solid stone wainscot, and leaving a space of 57 inches between its top and the ceiling, and 43.7 inches between its bottom and the floor; and on this block or granite leaf, as Professor Greaves called it (from the so-called leaf or slat or sliding-door over the waterway of a lock-gate in an English navigation canal), is a projecting boss just 5.005 British inches broad, and this, the fifth part of the cubit which we find symbolized elsewhere, is divided before our eyes into five again; for the thickness of this remarkable boss is one-fifth of its breadth, the granite leaf having been reduced by one inch over the remainder of its surface, in order to leave this boss standing out in relief. This boss, too, is not in the centre of the granite leaf, but exactly one pyramid inch away on one side of the centre, as if the architect would thus so duplicate his standard of measure, and on such a solid mass of masonry, as to render it next to impossible for it to be lost. Further, the distance from the centre of the boss to the eastern end of the granite leaf, in its well cut groove in the granite wainscot, is just 25 of these inches, so that we have tied up here the whole cubit, its fifth part or palm, and its twenty-fifth part or inch unit. In the Queen's Chamber also (which I will describe more fully presently) we find a similar method employed of indicating a small but important quantity by an eccentric arrangement of some more important architectural feature; for a remarkable niche in the east wall, which is the only architectural adornment of this Chamber, is strangely, not in the central vertical line of that wall, but is removed southward therefrom by just the quantity of 25.025 British inches, or one pyramid or sacred Hebrew cubit length.
We perceive by these measures that the number 5 is at the foundation of much of the teaching connected with the Pyramid, as it is indeed the first and most characteristic of the Pyramid numbers. Whether, in its erection, this number was so impressed on the Egyptian workers as to make it especially hateful to them, cannot now be told, but it is certain that they afterwards had a peculiar objection to it. Sir Gardner Wilkinson speaks of 5 as being the evil number in modern Egypt still; it is marked o on their watches; and 5, or any of its multiples, would seem to have been always repulsive to them. When, therefore, the Israelites went out from their Egyptian bondage with a high hand (Exodus xiv. 8), itself a symbol of 5, and marshalled by five in a rank (Exodus xiii. 18, margin), it must have been especially galling to their late masters.
If what I have already advanced of the design and character of this building be true, it is highly improbable that this standard of measure, so carefully set forth, is a mere arbitrary whim of the architect; and as the size of the earth can be the only unfailing and unchanging datum from whence to derive a standard of measure, we may expect that the pyramid inch and cubit (the latter agreeing with Sir Isaac Newton's theory of the sacred cubit being 25 inches with a small fraction, and with the cubit and hand breadth of Ezekiel), bear some proportion to earth commensurability.
It is only since Newton's time that men knew anything exact about, or have attributed anything peculiar to, the length of the earth's axis of rotation as different from any other diameter thereof; and it is only very modern science that has been able to arrive, after performing gigantic trigonometrical operations, at any approach to accurate knowledge of the true length of the earth's axis of rotation—that is, its polar diameter. Their best results oscillate between 500,378,000 English inches and 500,560,000, and the probability is that the mean of these figures, or about 500,500,000 is correct. We need not, therefore, be surprised to find that in this building, where the ruling numbers are 5 and 10, the pyramid cubit of 25'025 British inches is exactly the ten-millionth part of the earth's semi axis of rotation; the pyramid inch being the five hundred-millionth part of the earth's polar diameter. From this inch our British inch, which is just one-thousandth part less, was probably originally derived, having, during the lapse of ages, lost a thousandth part of its proper length. In 1869 Sir John Herschel, in defending our traditional national measures against those who were moving Parliament to introduce the French system, unconsciously confirmed this, when he urged that the true basis for a scientific unit of measure is the earth's polar axis, and that if that be divided into five hundred million parts, one such part will differ from the standard British inch by the infinitesimal amount of only one-thousandth.
With this pyramid standard of measure, bearing as we have seen an exact relation to the only true and unchanging standard in the knowledge of man, viz., the polar axis of the earth, let us see what lessons we can derive by its application to the building, and how the external and internal measurements of its various parts are controlled and affected by it; for having now found the key to many of its secrets, we may proceed to unlock its treasures.
First, then, it has been found, after the most careful measurements have been taken, corrected by our own Royal Engineers, that each side of the Great Pyramid's base, measures 9,140 British inches, or 9,131.05 pyramid inches. The united length of the four sides, therefore, is 36,524.2 of the same pyramid inches, or at a rate of 100 of these inches to a day, the whole perimeter of the building, that is, the total measurements of the four sides of its base, is here found to symbolize the EXACT LENGTH IN DAYS OF THE SOLAR YEAR, viz., 365.242, &c., or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 49 seconds and a fraction, which makes it necessary for us to add on one day every four years and to omit one day every hundred years to keep our reckoning nearly right.
This is again shown in the measurement of only one of its sides—9,131.05—which divided by the pyramid cubit gives of course the same result.
Now it must be borne in mind that the Egyptians knew nothing of the exact Solar year, as they reckoned time by the risings and settings of the dog-star Sirius, thus very much shortening time-measure as they had already shortened the cubit; so that more than Egyptian wisdom is displayed here, and that which we have scarcely arrived at in our day is here grandly monumentalized.
But another and much longer measure of time is recorded in this building; no less than the grand cycle called the "PRECESSION OF THE EQUINOXES." For a full explanation of the meaning of this term, I must refer you to a scientific book bearing on such subjects: it will be sufficient here to say that, owing to the attracttion of the sun and moon, but especially that of the moon, upon the protuberant parts of the earth about the equator, causing an eccentric motion of the earth, the equinoxes take place about twenty minutes of time earlier every year, and thus the face of the heavens and the times of the seasons are very slowly and gradually being altered, so that it has been computed by various astronomers that from 24,800 to 25,920 years are required to complete the period of equinoctial precession, and when fully completed, and not till then, the heavens will once more present the same appearance as at the commencement of the cycle.
…