[236] In his Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, Dr. Daniel Wilson states (vol. i. p. 87), that "the Chambered Cairn properly possesses as its peculiar characteristic the enclosed catacombs and galleries of megalithic masonry, branching off into various chambers symmetrically arranged, and frequently exhibiting traces of constructive skill, such as realise in some degree the idea of the regular pyramid." He speaks again of the stone barrows or cairns of Scotland as "monumental pyramids" (vol. i. p. 67); of the earth barrow being an "earth pyramid or tumulus" (p. 70); of Silbury Hill as an "earth pyramid" (p. 62): and in the same page, in alluding to the large barrow-tomb of the ancient British chief or warrior, he states, "in its later circular forms we see the rude type of the great pyramids of Egypt." The same learned author, in his work on Prehistoric Man, refers to the great monuments of the American mound-builders as "earth pyramids" (p. 202), "huge earth pyramids" (p. 205), "pyramidal earth-works" (p. 203); etc.
[237] In his History of Scotland, Mr. Burton speaks of the barrows of New Grange and Maeshowe (Orkney), as erections which "may justly be called minor pyramids" (vol. i. p. 114).
[238] In mentioning the great numbers of sepulchral barrows spread over the world, Sir John Lubbock observes—"In our own island they may be seen on almost every down; in the Orkneys alone it is estimated that two thousand still remain; and in Denmark they are even more abundant; they are found all over Europe from the shores of the Atlantic to the Oural Mountains; in Asia they are scattered over the great steppes from the borders of Russia to the Pacific Ocean, and from the plains of Siberia to those of Hindostan; in America we are told that they are numbered by thousands and tens of thousands; nor are they wanting in Africa, where the pyramids themselves exhibit the most magnificent development of the same idea; so that the whole world is studded with these burial-places of the dead."—Prehistoric Times, p. 85. See similar remarks in Dr. Clarke's Travels, 4th edition, vol. i. p. 276, vol. ii. p. 75, etc.
[239] Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson thinks that the pyramids of Sakkara are probably older than the other groups of these structures, as those of Gizeh or the Great Pyramid erected during the fourth dynasty of kings.—See Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. chap. viii. Manetho assigns to Uènophes, one of the monarchs in the first dynasty, the erection of the Pyramids of Cochome. See Kenrick's Ancient Egypt, ii. p. 112, 122, 123; Bunsen's Egypt, ii. 99, etc.
[240] On these Archaic forms of sculpture, see Appendix, No. II. In many barrows the gallery in its course—and in some as it enters the crypt—is contracted, and more or less occluded by obstructions of stone, etc., which Mr. Kenrick likens to the granite portcullises in the Great Pyramid. See his Ancient Egypt, vol. i. p. 121.
[241] Mr. Birch, however—and it is impossible to cite a higher authority in such a question—holds the cartouches of Shufu and Nu Shufu to refer only to one personage—namely, the Cheops of Herodotus; and, believing with Mr. Wilde and Professor Lepsius, that the pyramids were as royal sepulchres built and methodically extended and enlarged as the reigns of their intended occupants lengthened out, he ascribes the unusual size of the Great Pyramid to the unusual length—as testified by Manetho, etc.—of the reign of Cheops; the erection of a sepulchral chamber in its built portion above being, perhaps, a step adopted in consequence of some ascertained deficiency in the rock chamber or gallery below. Indeed, the subterranean chamber under the Great Pyramid has, to use Professor Smyth's words, only been "begun to be cut out of the rock from the ceiling downwards, and left in that unfinished state." (Vol. i. 156.) Mr. Perring, who—as engineer—measured, worked, and excavated so very much at the Pyramids of Gizeh, under Colonel Howard Vyse, held, at the end of his researches, that "the principal chamber" in the Second Pyramid is still undetected. See Vyse's Pyramid of Gizeh, vol. i. 99.
[242] The Mexican Pyramid of Cholula has a base of more than 1420 feet, and is hence about twice the length of the basis of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. See Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, book iii. chap. i., and book v. chap. iv.
[243] Herodotus states that the Egyptians detested the memories of the kings who built the two larger Pyramids, viz., Cheops and Cephren; and hence, he adds, "they commonly call the Pyramids after Philition, a shepherd, who at that time fed his flocks about the place." They thus called the Second, as well as the Great Pyramid, after him (iii. § 128); but, according to Professor Smyth, the Second Pyramid, though architecturally similar to the first, and almost equal in size, has nothing about it of the "superhuman" character of the Great Pyramid.
[244] The extracts within inverted commas, here, and in other parts, are from—(1.) Mr. John Taylor's work, entitled The Great Pyramid—Why was it Built, and Who Built it? London, 1859; and (2.) Professor Smyth's work, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, Edinburgh, 1864; (3.) his later three-volume work, Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, Edinburgh, 1867; and (4.) Recent Measures at the Great Pyramid, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for 1865-66.
[245] Professor Smyth has omitted to state—what, after all, it was perhaps unnecessary to state—that one set of these measurements, which he has tabulated and published, viz., that given by Dr. Whitman, was taken for him "by a British officer of engineers;" as, when Dr. Whitman visited Gizeh, he did not himself examine the interior of the Great Pyramid.—See Colonel Vyse's work, vol. ii. p. 286.