[216] Notice sommaire des Monuments Égyptiens exposés dans les Galeries du Louvre (4th edition, 1865, p. 56).
[217] Ἐξεποιήθη δ' ὦν τὰ ἀνώτατα αὐτῆς πρῶτα, μετὰ δὲ τὰ ἑπόμενα τούτων ἐξεποίευν ... (ii. 125).
[218] Σύναρμον δὲ καὶ κατεξεσμένον τὸ πᾶν ἔργον, ὥστε δοκεῖν ὅλου τοῦ κατασκευάσματος μίαν εἶναι πέτρας συμφυίαν, p. 2,259, A. So, too, the elder Pliny, though with rather less precision: "Est autem saxo naturali elaborata et lubrica" (Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 12).
[219] According to Jomard, the casing stones of the Great Pyramid were "a compact grey limestone, harder and more homogeneous than those of the body of the building" (Description de l'Égypte, t. v. p. 640); but according to Philo, this casing was formed, as we have already said, of various materials, so we need feel no surprise if blocks of granite or other rock are shown to have formed part of it.
[220] Journal des Savants, August, 1841.
[221] Bædeker, Egypt, part i. p. 338 (ed. of 1878). Herodotus (ii. 127) says that the first course of the Great Pyramid was built of a parti-coloured Ethiopian stone (ὑποδείμας τὸν πρῶτον δόμον λίθου Αἰθιοπικοῦ ποικίλου). By Ethiopian stone we must understand, as several illustrations prove, the granite of Syene. The Greek historian seems to have thought that the whole of the first course, throughout the thickness of the pyramid, was of this stone. His mistake was a natural one. In his time the pyramid was in a good state of preservation, and he never thought of asking whether or no the core was of the same material as the outer case.
[222] On the other hand, these awkwardly shaped prisms offered less inducement to those who looked upon the pyramids as open quarries than the easily squared blocks of Cheops, while their position in the angles of the internal masonry enabled them to keep their places independently of the lower courses of the casing.—Ed.
[223] The determination to use a concrete such as that described affords a good reason for the prismatic shape of the granite blocks used in the lower courses. It would evidently be easy enough to cover the pyramid with a coat of cement—working downwards—if its surface did not greatly overpass the salient angles of the steps, while the difficulty would be enormously increased if the coat were to have a considerable thickness of its own independently of the pyramid, like the casing shown in [Fig. 155].—Ed.
[224] Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités, vol. v. p. 7.
[225] G. Charmes, in the Journal des Débats, February 8, 1881.