M. Jomard, in the Description de l'Egypte, drawn up by the French Academicians, remarks in vol. ii. p. 182, that looking to the length of the cavity or interior of the sarcophagus in the King's Chamber, that it could not hold within it a cartonage or mummy case, enclosing a man of the ordinary height. This statement proceeds entirely upon a miscalculation. The length of the interior or cavity of the sarcophagus is six and a half English feet; and the average stature of the ancient Egyptians, "judging from their mummies, did not" observes Mr. Kenrick, "exceed five feet and a half." (See his Ancient Egypt, vol. i. p. 97.) The space thus left, of one foot, is much more than sufficient for the thickness of the two ends of a cartonage or mummy case; and the embalmed body was generally, or indeed always, closely packed within them. The length of the coffin was, long ago, quaintly observed Professor Greaves, "large enough to contain a most potent and dreadful monarch being dead, to whom, living, all Egypt was too strait and narrow a circuit" (Works, i. p. 131).
V.—MEMORANDUM ON THE CUBIT OF MEMPHIS AND THE SACRED CUBIT, BY SIR HENRY JAMES. (Page [242].)
Sir Isaac Newton says, "for the precise determination of the cubit of Memphis I should choose to pitch upon the length of the chamber in the middle of the Pyramid, where the king's monument stood, which length contained 20 cubits, and was very carefully measured by Mr. Greaves." (See vol. ii. p. 362 of Professor Smyth's Life at the Pyramids, etc.)
Greaves' measures of the King's chamber are given at p. 335, vol. ii. of the same work.
The length of the chamber on the south side, he says, is
34·380 feet = 20 cubits.
17·190 " = 10 cubits.
12
———-
206·280 inches = 10 cubits,
and 20·628 " = 1 cubit of Memphis;
and Newton himself says, at p. 360, vol. ii. Life at the Pyramids,—
"The cubit of Memphis of 1·719 English feet,"
12
———
or 20·628 inches,
and, therefore, there can be no possible doubt but that this is Newton's determination of the length of the cubit of Memphis.
But Newton goes on to say in the same page, the cubit "double the length of 12-3/8 English inches (=24·75 inches) will be to the cubit of Memphis as 6 to 5."