A.—FROM THE PYRAMID OF FIVE STEPS.
In the month of August, 1839, Mr. J. S. Perring, the distinguished Engineer, discovered a fourth entrance to this pyramid, which was found to communicate with a recess at the south-western corner of a large apartment described in his narrative. This communication is a horizontal gallery one hundred and sixty-six feet long, and the recess is seventy feet above the floor. “The southern end of the gallery,” observes Colonel Vyse, “was stopped up with sand; but for the length of one hundred and sixty feet from the interior it was open, and did not seem to have been previously visited, as nearly thirty mummies were found in it apparently undisturbed. They had neither coffins nor sarcophagi, nor, with the exception of three or four, any painted decorations. They crumbled to pieces on being touched, and could not be removed. Mr. Perring, therefore, proceeded to examine them. He found them enclosed in wrappers, with pitch and bitumen; but he did not meet with any of the objects usually deposited with mummies, excepting some of the common stone idols upon the body of the female. He therefore concluded that they were the bodies of persons employed in the building.”[[2]]
Fortunately for my inquiries, Mr. Gliddon was at hand when these relics were brought to light, and obtained them of Mr. Perring as a contribution to my researches. With the utmost care on Mr. Gliddon’s part, two of three reached me in safety, but the third was broken into numberless fragments. In fact, the consistence of these bones is but little firmer than unbaked clay, and the animal matter is nearly obliterated. If Mr. Perring’s opinion be correct, that the persons to whom these bodies belonged were coeval with the construction of the pyramid, we may with safety regard them as the most ancient human remains at present known to us. Whether, as that gentleman suggests, they pertained to workmen employed in building the pyramid, I will not pretend to decide; but although they present indifferent intellectual developments, their conformation is that of the Caucasian race.
Plate [I]., Fig. 1. (Cat. 838.) An oval head with a broad but rather low forehead, moderately elevated vertex, and full occiput. The superciliary ridges are prominent, the orbits oblong-oval, the nasal bones large, salient and aquiline, the teeth vertical and the whole facial structure delicate. The head of a woman of about forty years.[[3]]—I. C. 90 cubic inches. F. A. 81°. Pelasgic form.
Plate [I]., Fig. 2. (Cat. 837.) A large and ponderous skull, with, a broad but low forehead, and very prominent superciliary ridges. The vertex is elevated, the occipital region remarkably full, and the parietal diameter large. The bones of the face are delicately formed, the nose long and aquiline, the orbits rounded, the teeth vertical.—I. C. 97 cubic inches. F. A. 83°. Pelasgic form.
This is the skull of a man who may have reached his fiftieth year. The teeth are much worn, and parts of the sutures nearly obsolete. This person, long antecedent to his death, had received a severe wound over the right orbit, beginning at the nasal bone and extending upwards and outwards nearly two inches, fracturing and depressing both tables of the skull. The consequent deformity is manifest, although the cicatrization is complete.