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CHAPTER XXX
On the Pyramids
" Their size' alone and their form remains. Stripped of their brilliant white,
smooth casing, once covered with strange carvings and paintings, bereft of the
huge precincts and stone gateways, they appear barbarous, rude, rugged, almost
meaningless shapes of forgotten power. And the Sphinx is more wonderful,
more mysterious still— Horemku the ancient. No one can tell when the Sphinx
came into being. There is a legend that it was in existence at the time when
Chephren built his pyramid. Thothmes IV. cleared away the sand in which
it was buried, at the command— given in a dream—of Harmachis, who claimed
that it was his statue. Probably a far greater antiquity belongs to it, for
Princess Honitsen, daughter of Cheops (builder of the Great Pyramid), speaks
in an inscription on a stele, of a ' Temple of the Sphinx '
as existing in
her day.
" We see the Sphinx now defaced and mutilated, though Arab writers
speak of its once strangely beautiful features. A suggestion as to this is that
perhaps it is the sole survivor of a more ancient civilisation still, far beyond
our ken, for the Egyptian craftsmen whom we know did not aim at beauty
in itself: tied by convention, the keynote of their work was grandeur
immensity that disclaimed projiortion. And yet, there, close to their most
ancient monuments, is that figure, perfect in proportion, form, and line, and
once in beauty a deeper, more mystical symbol than their most cunning
gravings, more real in life than their most immense statues." Rene Francis.
THE
Pyramids are to Cairo what the Forum is to Rome.
They arc of the highest beauty, and the highest
antiquity. It is as impossible not to be astonished by the
Pyramids as it is impossible not to be astonished by the
' According to Dr. Budge, in Cook's Handbook for Egypt, the Great
Pyramid, that of Cheops, measures 775 feet along each of its four sides, and, though
it has lost 30 feet of its height, is still 451 feet high; it contains 85,000,000
cubit feet of stone, and has a hall inside it more than 150 feet long and
nearly 30 feet high. The second Pyramid is about 700 feel along each side,
and is one foot lower than the other. The third Pyramid is 350 feel along
each side, and about 210 feet high.
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