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Memphis; Tombs and Pyramids of Sakkara 32s
Memphis having been built of mud some thousands of
years ago, and having been annually inundated by the Nile
for a good part of the time, has, except in its higher portions,
made itself the subject of a new proverb : " Mud thou art, to
mud thou shalt return." But, as you approach the Sakkara
Pyramids, its site is above flood-level ; and here you find mud-
brick buildings which would not have survived one English
June, much less five thousand years. These mud bricks look
more like peats than anything else : you could use peats for
building in Egypt if the fire-insurance companies, which are
mostly Scotch, did not object.
When the last bit of inundation is passed, and you clamber
up to the plateau on which the Sakkara Pyramids stand, you
see a splendid stretch of desert—more imposing than the
desert at Ghizeh because it is more open—more interesting,
except for the Sphinx and the classical Pyramids which
adorn Ghizeh. For of Ghizeh the city we know little, but we
know that underneath this desert are square miles of build-
ings which formed part of the world's first great capital, the
Memphis of Menes.
The Step-Pyramid, the oldest of all the Pyramids, looks
bowed with age, while the two great Pyramids of Ghizeh
are types of immortality in their immutable outlines.
That plateau of Sakkara hides in its bosom secrets marvellous
even for Egypt, the land of marvels—the catacombs
of the Apis bulls, the mortuary chamber of the Pyramid of
Unas, the tombs of the Persians, the mastabas of Thi and
Mereruka, the Memphite avenue of sphinxes.
The great avenue of sphinxes, discovered with such sound
audacity by Mariette, is said to be seventy feet under the
sand again.
The Chapel of the dead Pharaoh in the Pyramid of Unas
remains in its original perfection and beauty. One of the
long shoots by which you enter pyramids— passages almost
too steep for you to keep your footing, conducts you into
the mortuary chambers, whose high-pitched roofs are painted
like a starry sky, and whose walls are panelled with alabaster
engraved with the oldest religious writing in all old Egypt.