(6.) Coffer cut with ledges and catch-holes for a lid, like other sarcophagi.—More damaging details still remain in relation to the coffer as "a grand standard measure of capacity," and prove that its object or function was very different. In his first work Professor Smyth describes the coffer as showing no "symptoms" whatever of grooves, or catchpins or other fastenings or a lid. "More modern accounts," he re-observes, "have been further precise in describing the smooth and geometrical finish of the upper part of the coffer's sides, without any of those grooves, dovetails, or steady-pin-holes which have been found elsewhere in true polished sarcophagi, where the firm fastening of the lid is one of the most essential features of the whole business." Mr. Perring, however, delineated the catchpin-holes for a lid in the coffer thirty years ago.[248] On his late visit to it Professor Smyth found its western side lowered down in its whole extent to nearly an inch and three-quarters (or more exactly, 1·72 inch), and ledges cut out around the interior of the other sides at the same height. Should we measure on this western side from this actual ledge brim, or from the imaginary higher brim? If reckoned as the true brim, "this ledge" (according to Professor Smyth) would "take away near 4000 inches from the cubic capacity of the vessel." Besides, he found three holes cut on the top of the coffer's lowered western side, as in all the other Egyptian sarcophagi, where these holes are used along with the ledge and grooves to admit, and form a simple mechanism to lock the lids of such stone chests.[249] In other words, it presents the usual ledge and apparatus pertaining to Egyptian stone sarcophagi, and served as such.
(7.) Sepulchral contents of Coffer when first discovered.—When, about a thousand years ago, the Caliph Al Mamoon tunnelled into the interior of the pyramid, he detected by the accidental falling, it is said, of a granite portcullis, the passage to the King's Chamber, shut up from the building of the pyramid to that time. "Then" (to quote the words of Professor Smyth) "the treasures of the pyramid, sealed up almost from the days of Noah, and undesecrated by mortal eye for 3000 years, lay full in their grasp before them." On this occasion, to quote the words of Ibn Abd Al Hakm or Hokm—a contemporary Arabian writer, and a historian of high authority,[250] who was born, lived, and died in Egypt—they found in the pyramid, "towards the top, a chamber [now the so-called King's Chamber] with an hollow stone [or coffer] in which there was a statue [of stone] like a man, and within it a man upon whom was a breastplate of gold set with jewels; upon this breastplate was a sword of inestimable price, and at his head a carbuncle of the bigness of an egg, shining like the light of the day; and upon him were characters writ with a pen,[251] which no man understood"[252]—a description stating, down to the so-called "statue," mummy-case, or cartonage, and the hieroglyphics upon the cere-cloth, the arrangements now well known to belong to the higher class of Egyptian mummies.
In short (to quote the words of Professor Smyth), "that wonder within a wonder of the Great Pyramid—viz., the porphyry coffer,"—that "chief mystery and boon to the human race which the Great Pyramid was built to enshrine,"—"this vessel of exquisite meaning," and of "far-reaching characteristics,"—mathematically formed under alleged Divine inspiration as a measure of capacity (and, according to M. Jomard, probably of length also) for all men and all nations, for all time,—and particularly for these latter profane times,—is, in simple truth, nothing more and nothing less than—an old and somewhat misshapen stone coffin.
Standard of Linear Measure in the Great Pyramid.
The standard in the Great Pyramid, according to Messrs. Taylor and Smyth, for linear measurements, is the length of the base line or lines of the pyramid. This, Professor Smyth states, is "the function proper of the pyramids base." It is professed also that in this base line there has been found a new mythical inch—one-thousandth of an inch longer than the British standard inch; and in the last sections of his late work Professor Smyth has earnestly attempted to show that the status of the kingdoms of Europe in the general and moral world may be measured in accordance with their present deviation from or conformity to this suppositious pyramidal standard in their modes of national measurement.[253] "For the linear measure" (says Professor Smyth) "of the base line of this colossal monument, viewed in the light of the philosophical connection between time and space, has yielded a standard measure of length which is more admirably and learnedly earth-commensurable than anything which has ever yet entered into the mind of man to conceive, even up to the last discovery in modern metrological science, whether in England, France, or Germany."
The engineers and mathematicians of different countries have repeatedly measured arcs of meridians to find the form and dimensions of the earth, and the French made the metre (their standard of length), 1/10,000,000 of the quadrant of the meridian. Professor Smyth holds that the basis line of the pyramid has been laid down by Divine authority as such a guiding standard measure.
What, then, is the exact length of one of its basis lines? The sides of the pyramid have been measured by many different measurers. Linear standards have, says Professor Smyth, "been already looked for by many and many an author on the sides of the base of the Great Pyramid, even before they knew that the terminal points of those magnificent base lines had been carefully marked in the solid rock of the hill by the socket-holes of the builders." But—as in the case of the cubic capacity of the coffer—these measurers sadly disagree with each other in their measurements, which, in fact, vary from some 7500 or 8000 inches to 9000 and upwards. Thus, for example, Strabo makes it under 600 Grecian feet, or under 7500 English inches; Dr. Shawe makes it 8040 inches; Shelton makes it 8184 inches; Greaves, 8316; Davison, 8952: Caviglia, 9072; the French academicians, 9163; Dr. Perry, 9360, etc., etc.
At the time at which Professor Smyth was living at the Pyramids, Mr. Inglis of Glasgow visited it, and, for correct measurement, laid bare for the first time the four corner sockets. Mr. Inglis's measurements not only differed from all the other measurements of "one side" base lines made before him, but he makes the four sides differ from each other; one of them—namely, the north side—being longer than the other three. Strangely, Professor Smyth, though in Egypt for the purpose of measuring the different parts of the pyramid—and holding that its base line ought to be our grand standard of measure, and further holding that the base line could only be accurately ascertained by measuring from socket to socket—never attempted that linear measurement himself after the sockets were cleared. These four corner sockets were never exposed before in historic times; and it may be very long before an opportunity of seeing and using them again shall ever be afforded to any other measurers.