[226] Moniteur Égyptien, March 15, 1881.
[227] The causeway which led to the Pyramid of Cheops still exists for some 400 yards of its length; here and there it rises as much as eighty-six feet above the surface of the plateau. A similar causeway is to be distinguished on the eastern side of the Third Pyramid. At Abou-Roash, at Abousir, and elsewhere, similar remains are to be found.
[228] Description de l'Égypte, vol. v. p. 643. See also in the plates, Antiquités, vol. v. Pl. xvi. Fig. 2. According to Jomard, the surbase of the second pyramid was in two parts—a stylobate, 10 feet high and 5 feet thick, and a plinth about 3 feet high.
[229] Herodotus, ii. 126.
[230] Jomard remarks that the upper part of the second pyramid still reflects the rays of the sun. "It still possesses," he says, "a portion of its polished casing, which reflects the rays of the sun and declares its identity to people at a vast distance."
[231] Description de l'Égypte, Antiquités, vol. v. p. 597.
[232] Pseudo-Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, c. xx. M. Maspero finds, however, no confirmation of this statement in the monuments themselves. "All the tombs which have yet been discovered at Abydos," he says (Revue Critique, January 31, 1881), "are those of Egyptians domiciled at Abydos. But the author from whom this Plutarch derived his inspiration must have known the ancient fiction according to which the soul could only pass into the next world by betaking itself to Abydos, and thence through the opening to the west of that town which gave access to the regions of Ament. Hence the voyage of the dead to Abydos which we find so often represented on tombs; an imaginary voyage, as the mummy would be reposing safely at Thebes or Memphis ([Fig. 159]). At all events, the family, after the death of its head, or any Egyptian during his own life, could deposit upon the ladder of Osiris a stele, upon which the tomb actually containing his body could be represented and unmistakably identified with its original by the formula inscribed upon it."
[233] Mariette, Abydos, Description des Fouilles exécutées sur l'Emplacement de cette Ville, folio, vol. i. 1869; vol. ii. 1880. Mariette thought that the sacred tomb was probably in the immediate neighbourhood of the artificial mound called Koum-es-Soultan, which may cover its very site. In the article which we quote above, M. Maspero has set forth the considerations which lead him to think that the staircase of Osiris, upon which the consecrated steles were placed, was the flight of steps which led up to the temple of that god. Consequently the tomb of Osiris, at Abydos as at Denderah, would be upon the roof of his temple.
[234] Mariette, Voyage dans la Haute-Égypte, vol. i. 1879.
[235] Ibidem.