In the days of Malcolm, therefore, and of Canute, the history of this pyramid was as difficult of solution as it was in those of Pennant and of Cordiner. And there is no question but that the two monarchs looked, with as much wonder, upon the hieroglyphics along its sides, as did the two antiquarians, who would fain associate them with them.
It is to me marvellous, how persons, in the possession of common reason could, contrary to all the evidence of observation and history, look upon the Danish invasion as the epoch of all enlightenment! and the Danes, themselves, as the heaven-sent importers of its blessings! Yet, whatever may have been the case with some hopeful scions of this order, Mr. Cordiner, at all events, appears to have been honest, and if he missed the direction of historical verity, it was less his fault than his misfortune.
Who can say so much for Ledwich?
The following extract will justify the tribute here paid to the sincerity of Mr. Cordiner’s investigations “These monuments,” says he, “are all said to have been erected in memory of defeats of the Danes, but there does not appear any reference that the hieroglyphics on them can have to such events. That they have been raised on interesting occasions there can be little doubt, perhaps in memory of the most renowned chieftains and their exploits who first embraced Christianity.”
They who first “embraced Christianity” were no “chieftains”; or such as were, had no “exploits” to record. But it was not so with the professors of the primeval “cross,” in the revelation of Budhism, the transmigrations of which were but typically pourtrayed on this enduring column. And in confirmation hereof, Mr. Gordon affirms that he has “distinguished upon it several figures of a monstrous form, resembling four-footed beasts with human heads!”
Carnac, in Upper Egypt, retains a monolith of the same symbolic character. It is eighty feet high, composed of a single block of black granite, presenting a beautifully polished surface on each of its four sides. The hieroglyphics upon it represent the lifetime of Thot, or Budda, until you at last see him enthroned in heaven, at the top.
“He seems, indeed,” says Hamilton, “to have been considered either by himself, his subjects, or his successors, as a peculiar favourite of heaven. He is frequently on his knees, receiving from Isis and Osiris, together with their blessing, the insignia of royalty, and even of divinity. The hawk is always flying about him. Two priests are performing upon him the mysterious ceremony of pouring the cruces ansatas, or crosses with rings, over his head; at which time he wears a common dress and close cap. Hermes and Osiris are pointing out to him a particular line in a graduated scale, allusive it may be to the periodical inundation of the Nile, or the administration of strict justice: or (combined with the preceding scene) to the ceremony of ‘initiation into the religious mysteries.’”[377]
The number of feet in the pillar corresponds too, if I mistake not, with that of the years of his recorded pilgrimage.
Captain Head describes, in his splendid work, the avenue which leads to the temple to which this belongs, in the following terms:—“Fragments of sphinxes line the sides of the road at intervals of ten or twelve feet, and usher the visitor to the magnificent granite propylon, or gateway, whose grandeur for a time monopolises the attention, and makes him who gazes on it at a loss to decide whether he shall remain adoring its fine proportions, or advance and examine the carvings which embellish its front. Is this ‘the land made waste by the hand of strangers, who destroy the walls, and cause the images to cease?’ The fragments of desolation that lie scattered around are identified with the predictions of the inspired historians, by whom we are enabled to estimate the ‘palmy state’ of this once mighty kingdom, whose gigantic monuments fully verify all that has been said or sung of its pristine splendour.”