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Pyramid

a massive structure of masonry peculiar to Egypt, though somewhat similar structures have been found in Mexico, Nubia, and elsewhere. The pyramids of history and literature are confined to middle Egypt. They are tombs, standing in ancient cemeteries. There are five groups, all on the west bank of the Nile. Beginning at the old burial ground of Gizeh, opposite Cairo, a few miles above the beginning of the delta, they extend south for sixty or seventy miles. There are about forty pyramids in all. The most notable group is that of Gizeh. It consists of three large pyramids and several small ones. The largest of all is the so-called Pyramid of Cheops. It differs from the others chiefly in size. It rests on a square base and has four equal triangular sides sloping up to a point. The Great Pyramid, as it is also called, is without doubt the largest structure ever built by man. It is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the only one which remains. The base is about 756 feet on a side. The perpendicular height was originally 481 feet, but thirty feet of the apex have disappeared. The mathematically curious have noticed that the base lacks but six-tenths of an inch of being a perfect square, and but twelve seconds of a degree of being a perfect rectangle, and that the ratio of the height and the sum of the four sides is equal to the ratio of the radius of a circle and the circumference. This pyramid covers a space of over twelve acres.

According to Herodotus, whose authority may have been tradition or mere conjecture, 100,000 men were occupied thirty years in quarrying the stone and building the pyramid. The principal stone used was a white limestone or marble. Huge blocks were cut from the quarries with bronze saws set with diamond or corundum teeth. Some sort of hoisting machinery was used, no doubt, for handling the blocks, but no information on this head has come down. Two hundred and three courses of these blocks are still in place, giving the outer surface a terraced appearance. It is with reference to this step-like structure of the masonry that Longfellow in his Ladder of St. Augustine writes:

The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The blocks employed in the lower courses are four feet ten inches high. Each block weighs over fifty tons. They are fitted together with such exactness that the joints can hardly be detected. When completed, the outer surface was finished with smaller stones and mortar, but this casing has fallen away leaving the terraces in view. It is estimated that the entire edifice contained over 143,000,000 cubic feet of masonry.

A passage about four feet high and three feet and one-half in width enters the northern face of the pyramid about forty-nine feet above the base. It slopes slightly downward, until it reaches a chamber 321 feet from the entrance. This chamber is forty-six feet long by twenty-seven feet wide and eleven and one-half feet high. It is lined with polished slabs of red granite. Single slabs reach from the floor to the ceiling. It is roofed with nine large slabs, highly polished and joined closely together. This chamber contains a sarcophagus of red granite, nothing else. It is conjectured that it was the burial place of the great Cheops, but that his wooden coffin and mummy have been removed. The sarcophagus is too large to have been brought in through the passage. It must have been put in place when the pyramid was in process of erection. This chamber is in the living rock beneath the foundation of the pyramid. The passage is continued beyond the chamber over fifty feet through the rock without apparent purpose. A branch from the main passage leads off in a slightly upward direction toward the center of the pyramid. It also has several branches terminating in chambers. Two of these, for want of better names, are known as the king's chamber and the queen's chamber respectively. The king's chamber is thirty-four feet long by seventeen feet wide and nineteen feet in height. The queen's chamber is smaller. Both are finished in highly polished granite.

A careful survey of the pyramids shows that they are all built with their sides facing toward the four points of the compass. Each was in all probability surrounded by a stone wall. Traces indicate that a temple was built on the east side of each pyramid, so that worshipers faced directly west, toward the burial place of the king.

The pyramids stand in ancient burying grounds. Each is a mausoleum and monument combined. Each was designed to contain the remains of a single person. The passage leading to the sepulchral chamber zigzags frequently from one direction to another, as though to obscure the entrance. Without doubt, heavy blocks of stone set on pivots served as doors. One chamber is described as entered from the top by a circular opening, which was closed by a huge red granite plug, fitting like a cork into the neck of a bottle. Texts of a religious nature, cut in hieroglyphic characters, are found adorning the sepulchral chambers. It is impossible to assign dates with any degree of accuracy, but it is believed that the period of pyramid building extended through twenty centuries, and that none were built later than 2500 or 2000 B. C.