| CAMEL MAN OF THE ABABDE TRIBE. | SHAGEEA OF THE DESERT. |
April 1. This afternoon we spent three hours in sailing eight miles to the pyramids of Nouri. They are situated in a slightly elevated part of the desert, a full half hour’s walk from the river. There are traces of thirty-five pyramids, of which about fifteen only are in any kind of preservation. These are not very interesting, except as tombs, and from their imposing appearance, not being ornamented with porticoes or hieroglyphic inscriptions. The pyramids are all at right angles, and their direction is generally nearly the same. Their size varies from 110 feet square to 20. (See plan, [Plate XXXII.], and picturesque view, [Plate XXXI.]) There are eight above 80 feet square, and four more above 70 feet square: their height is generally about the same as their diameter.
[Plate XXXI.] is the most picturesque of three views which I made of these pyramids; but the most remarkable for size does not appear in this view. The plan will show that it measures at the base about 110 feet square. It consisted of three stages. Part of one having fallen, discovers another pyramid underneath. They seem to have added this second pyramid around the inner one, in order to increase its size, or, perhaps, to make the body underneath doubly difficult to get at. The Egyptian method of building pyramids with stages was, I think, by first erecting a pyramid with a very acute angle, and then building around it the first stage from the summit, and so on, in like manner, as many as were required.
The pyramids are surrounded by the desert, which, I conceive, has already covered the remains of several others. The waves of the great Libyan ocean have probably swallowed up the traces of the city and its temples, which, from the extent and imposing appearance of its cemetery, must have been considerable. The interior of some of the pyramids is of puddingstone, very much decomposed. The sandstone with which these monuments are covered, and often constructed, is rather soft, as is nearly all the sandstone in Ethiopia; which circumstance, and also their very great antiquity, may be the reason, perhaps, of the very dilapidated state of the ruins.
Close to these pyramids, and almost surrounding them, are the traces of a canal from the Nile; which, according to my information, reaches for a considerable distance into the desert. This circumstance proves that the cultivated land extended much farther into the interior than at present. Cailliaud supposed this place to have been the cemetery of Gibel el Birkel; arguing that Thebes also had her tombs on the opposite side of the river. But those of Gournah, and in the Valley of the Kings, if not close to what formed part of the great city of Thebes,—which, however, is very probable, from the numerous splendid temples and palaces, of which there are still magnificent remains on that side,—were, at all events, in the suburb, and exactly opposite the great city, and not eight miles distant up the river, as these are from Gibel el Birkel. Moreover, the tombs at Thebes are on the western side, probably because the mountains on that side are nearer to the river, and afforded greater facilities for excavations than those of the eastern range. That the inhabitants of Gibel el Birkel, therefore, should have chosen this place for their necropolis, when they had space for hundreds on the spot where her pyramids are now standing, or, at all events, might have erected them, if they preferred it, immediately opposite on the western side of the river, is an idea which no person who reflects on the subject can entertain. They are most probably the tombs of another dynasty, and of a city whose name may be among the many we meet with in the itineraries. We may guess which of them it was; but such surmises, without any proofs to support them, are entirely useless.
Pl. 31.
| On stone by W. P. Sherlock, from a Drawing by G. A. Hoskins Esqr. | Printed by C. Hullmandel. |
PYRAMIDS OF NOURI.
Published by Longman, Rees & Co. April 6th. 1835.