Chapter VIII: Letter VII

SAQÂRA. _March 18, 1843._

A short time ago, I made a trip, in company with Abeken and Bonomi, to the more distant pyramids of Lisht and Meidûm. The latter interested me particularly, as it has solved for me the riddle of pyramidal construction, on which I had long been employed.[19] It lies almost in the valley of the plain, close by the Bahr Jussuf, and is only just removed from the level of inundation, but it towers so loftily and grandly from the low neighbourhood that it attracts attention from a great distance. From a casing of rubbish that surrounds almost the half of it, to the height of 120 feet, a square, sharp-edged centre rises after the manner of a tower, which lessens but little at the top, _i. e._ in an angle of 74°. At the elevation of another 100 feet there is a platform on which, in the same angle, stands a slenderer tower of moderate height, which again supports the remains of a third elevation in the middle of its flat upper side. The walls of the principal tower are mostly polished, flat, but are interrupted by rough bands, the reason of which seems hardly comprehensible. On a closer examination, however, I found also within the half-ruined building, round the foot, smoothened walls rising at the same angle as the tower, before which there lay other walls, following each other like shells. At last I discovered that the whole structure had proceeded from a little pyramid, which had been built in steps to about the height of 40 feet, and had then been enlarged and raised in all directions by a stone casing of 15 to 20 feet in breadth, till at last the great steps were filled out to a surface, and the whole received the usual pyramidal form.

This gradual accumulation explains the monstrous size of single pyramids among so many smaller ones. Each king commenced the construction of his pyramid at his accession; he made it but small at first, in order to secure himself a perfect grave even if his reign should be but short. With the passing years of his government, however, he enlarged it by adding outer casings, until he thought himself near the end of his days. If he died during the erection of it, the outermost casing only was finished, and thus the size of the pyramid stood ever in proportion to the length of the king’s reign. Had the other determinative relations remained the same in the lapse of ages, one might have told off the number of years of each monarch’s reign by the casings of the pyramids, like the annual rings of trees.

Yet the great enigma of the bearded giant Sphinx remains unsolved! When and by whom was this colossus raised, and what was its signification? We must leave this question to be decided by our future and more fortunate successors. It is almost half-buried in sand, and the granite stele of eleven feet in height between his paws, forming alone the back wall of a small temple erected here, was altogether concealed; for the immense excavations which were undertaken by Caviglia, in 1818, have long since tracelessly disappeared. By the labour of some sixty to eighty persons for several days, we arrived almost at the base of the stele, which I had immediately sketched, pressed in paper, and cast, in order to erect it at Berlin. This stele, on which the Sphinx itself is represented, was erected by Tuthmosis IV., and is dated in the first years of his government; he must therefore have found the colossus there. We are accustomed to find the Sphinx in Egypt used as the sign for a king, and, indeed, usually as some particular king, whose features it would appear to preserve, and therefore they are always Androsphinxes, with the solitary exception of a female Sphinx, which represents the wife of King Horus. In hieroglyphical writings the Sphinx is named Neb, “the Lord,” and forms, among other instances, the middle syllable of the name of King Necta-neb-us.

But what king is represented by the monster? It stands before the second pyramid, that of Shafra (Chephren), not directly in the axis, but parallel with the sides of the temple lying before it, and precisely as if the northern rock by the Sphinx had been intended for a corresponding sculpture; besides this, it was usual for Sphinxes, Rams, statues, and obelisks, to be placed in pairs before the entrances of the temples. What a mighty impression, however, would two such giant guardians, between which the ancient pathway to the temple of Chephren led, have made upon the approaching worshipper! They would have been worthy of that age of colossal monuments, and in right proportions to the pyramid behind. I cannot deny that this connection would best satisfy me. What would have induced the Thebaïc kings of the eighteenth dynasty, the only ones of the New Empire to be thought of, to adorn the Memphitic Necropolis with such a world-wonder without any connection with its surrounding objects? Add to this, that in an almost destroyed line of the Tuthmosis stele, King Chephren is named; a portion of his royal cartouche, unfortunately quite single, is yet preserved; it undoubtedly had some reference to the builder of the pyramid lying behind it.

But the question again arises:--If King Chephren be here represented, why does it not bear his name? On the contrary, it is named Har-em-chu, “Horus in the horizon,” that is to say, the Sungod, the type of all kings, and Harmachis, in a Greek inscription found before the Sphinx. It does not seem at all unlikely to me, that upon this rests the fable of Pliny, according to which a King Amasis (Armasis? Ἅρμαχις) lies interred within the Sphinx;[20] for in a real burial there can be no belief. Another consideration is that I have not found the representation of the Sphinx in those most ancient times of the pyramid builders; but that must not be accepted as conclusive, as the Sphinx is not often found in the inscriptions and representations of the new empire.[21] In short, the Œdipus for this king of all Sphinxes is yet wanting. Whoever would drain the immeasurable sand-flood which buries the tombs themselves, and lay open the base of the Sphinx, the ancient temple path, and the surrounding hills, could easily decide it.

But with the enigmas of history there are joined many riddles and wonders of nature, which I must not leave quite unnoticed. The newest of all, at least, I must describe.

I had descended with Abeken into a mummy pit, to open some newly-discovered sarcophagi, and was not a little astonished, upon descending, to find myself in a regular snow-drift of locusts, which, almost darkening the heavens, flew over our heads from the south-west from the desert in hundreds of thousands to the valley. I took it for a single flight, and called my companions from the tombs where they were busy, that they might see this Egyptian wonder ere it was over. But the flight continued; indeed the work-people said it had begun an hour before. Then we first observed that the whole region near and far was covered with locusts. I sent an attendant into the desert, to discover the breadth of the flock. He ran for the distance of a quarter of an hour, then returned and told us that, as far as he could see, there was no end to them. I rode home in the midst of the locust shower. At the edge of the fruitful plain they fell down in showers; and so it went on the whole day till the evening, and so the next day from morning till evening, and the third; in short, to the sixth day, indeed in weaker flights much longer. Yesterday it did seem that a storm of rain in the desert had knocked down and destroyed the last of them. The Arabs are now lighting great fires of smoke in the fields, and clattering and making loud noises all day long to preserve their crops from the unexpected invasion. It will, however, do little good. Like a new animated vegetation, these millions of winged spoilers cover even the neighbouring sandhills, so that scarcely anything is to be seen of the ground; and when they rise from one place, they immediately fall down somewhere in the neighbourhood; they are tired with their long journey, and seem to have lost all fear of their natural enemies, men, animals, smoke, and noise, in their furious wish to fill their stomachs, and in the feeling of their immense number. The most wonderful thing, in my estimation, is their flight over the naked wilderness and the instinct which has guided them from some oasis over the inhospitable desert to the fat soil of the Nile vale. Fourteen years ago, it seems, this Egyptian plague last visited Egypt with the same force. The popular idea is, that they are sent by the comet which we have observed for twelve days in the south-west, and which, as it is now no longer obscured by the rays of the moon, stretches forth its stately tail across the heavens in the hours of night. The zodiacal light, too, so seldom seen in the north, has lately been visible for several nights in succession.

At this place have I first been able to settle my account with Gizeh, and to put together the historical results of the investigation. I have every reason to rejoice at the consequences; the fourth and fifth dynasties are completed all except one king.

I have just received the rather illegible drawing of a stone in a wall at the village of Abusir, which presents a row of kings of the fourth and fifth dynasties, and, as it would seem, in chronological order. I am on the point of riding over to see the original.