A History of Mourning

by Richard Davey

Fig. 3.—The Pyramids and Great Sphinx.—From a pen-and-ink sketch by Horace Vernet.

The first, or Great Pyramid, was the sepulchre of the Cheops of Herodotus, the Chembes, or Chemmis, of Diodorus, and the Suphis of Manetho and Eratosthenes. Its height was 480 feet 9 inches, and its base 764 feet square. In other words, it was higher than St. Paul's Cathedral, and built on an area the size of Lincoln's Inn Fields. It has been, however, much spoiled, and stripped of its exterior blocks for the building of Cairo. The original sepulchral chamber, called the Subterranean Apartment, 46 feet by 27 feet, and 11 feet 6 inches high, has been hewn in the solid rock, and was reached by the original passage of 320 feet long, which descended to it by an entrance at the foot of the pyramid. A second chamber, with a triangular roof, 17 feet by 18 feet 9 inches, and 20 feet 3 inches high, was entered by a passage rising to an inclination of 26° 18', terminating in a horizontal passage. It is called the Queen's Chamber, and occupies a position nearly in the centre of the pyramid. The monument—probably owing to the long life attained by the monarch—still progressing, a third chamber, called the King's, was finally constructed, by prolonging the ascending passage of the Queen's Chamber for 150 feet farther into the very centre of the pyramid, and, after a short horizontal passage, making a room 17 feet 1 inch by 34 feet 3 inches, and 19 feet 1 inch high. The changes which took place in this pyramid gave rise to various traditions, even in the days of Herodotus, Cheops being reported to lie buried in a chamber surrounded by the waters of the Nile. It took a long time for its construction—100,000 men being employed on it probably for above half a century, the duration of the reign of Cheops. The operations in this pyramid by General Vyse gave rise to the discovery of marks scrawled in red ochre in a kind of cursive hieroglyph, on the blocks brought from the quarries of Tourah. These contained the name and titles of Khufu (the hieroglyphic form of Cheops); numerals and directions for the position of materials, etc.

Fig. 4.—Mummies of Cats and Dogs.—British Museum and Museum of the Louvre.

The second Pyramid was built by Suphis II., or Kephren, who reigned 66 years, according to Manethro, and who appears to have attained a great age. It has two sepulchral chambers, and must have been broken into by the Calif Alaziz Othman Ben-Yousouf, A.D. 1196. Subsequently it was opened by Belzoni. The masonry is inferior to that of the first Pyramid, but it was anciently cased below with red granite.

The third Pyramid, built by Menkara, who reigned 63 years, is much smaller than the other two, and has also two sepulchral chambers, both in the solid rock. The lower chamber, which held a sarcophagus of rectangular shape of whinstone, had a pointed roof, cut like an arch inside; but the cedar coffin, in shape of a mummy, had been removed to the upper or large apartment, and its contents there rifled. Amongst the debris of the coffin and in the chambers were found the legs and part of the trunk of a body with linen wrapper, supposed by some to belong to the monarch, but by others to an Arab, on account of the anchylosed right knee. This body and fragments of the coffin were brought to the British Museum; but the stone sarcophagus was unfortunately lost off Carthagena, by the sinking of the vessel in which it was being transported to England.

There are six other Pyramids of inferior size and interest at Gizeh; one at Abou Rouash, which is ruined, but of large dimensions; another at Zowyet El Arrian, still more ruined; another at Reegah, a spot in the vicinity of Abooseer, also much dilapidated, and built for the monarch User-en-Ra, by some supposed to be Busiris. There are five of these monuments at Abooseer, one with a name supposed to be that of a monarch of the Third Dynasty; and another with that of the king Sahura. A group of eleven Pyramids remains at Sakkara, and five other Pyramids are at Dashour, the northernmost of which, built of brick, is supposed to be that of the king Asychis of Herodotus, and has a name of a king apparently about the Twelfth Dynasty. Others are at Meydoon and Illahoon, Biahmo and Medinat El Fyoum, apparently the sepulchres of the last kings of the Twelfth Dynasty.

In Nubia, the ancient Æthiopia, are several Pyramids, the tombs of the monarchs of Meroë and of some of the Ethiopian conquerors of Egypt. They are taller in proportion to their base than the Egyptian Pyramids, and generally have a sepulchral hall, or propylon, with sculptures, which faces the east. The principal groups of these Pyramids are at Bege Rauie, or Begromi, 17º N. lat., in one of which, gold rings and other objects of late art, resembling that of the Ptolemaic period, were found.

The numerous Pyramids of Mexico are of vast size and importance, but their purpose is not yet fully ascertained. Completely covered as they are with dense vegetation, filled with venomous reptiles, they are difficult to investigate, but they were evidently much the same in shape and structure as the Egyptian, and their entrances were richly sculptured.

The art of preserving the body after death by embalming was invented by the Egyptians, whose prepared bodies are known by the name of mummies. This art seems to have derived its origin from the idea that the preservation of the body was necessary for the return of the soul to the human form after it had completed its cycle of existence of three or ten thousand years. Physical and sanitary reasons may also have induced the ancient Egyptians; and the legend of Osiris, whose body, destroyed by Typhon, was found by Isis, and embalmed by his son Anubis, gave a religious sanction to the rite, all deceased persons being supposed to be embalmed after the model of Osiris in the abuton of Philæ. One of the earliest embalmments on record is that of the patriarch Jacob; and the body of Joseph was thus prepared, and transported out of Egypt. The following seems to have been the usual rule observed after death. The relations of the deceased went through the city chanting a wail for the dead. The corpse of a male was at once committed into the charge of undertakers; if a female, it was detained at home until decomposition had begun. The paraschistes, or flank-inciser of the district, a person of low class, conveyed the corpse home. A scribe marked with a reed-pen a line on the left side beneath the ribs, down which line the paraschistes made a deep incision with a rude knife of stone, or probably flint. He was then pelted by those around with stones, and pursued with curses. Then the taricheutes, or preparer, proceeded to arrange the corpse for the reception of the salts and spices necessary for its preservation, and the future operations depended on the sum to be expended upon the task. When Herodotus visited Egypt, three methods prevailed: the first, accessible only to the wealthy, consisted in passing peculiar drugs through the nostrils, into the cavities of the skull, rinsing the body in palm wine, and filling it with resins, cassia, and other substances, and stitching up the incision in the left flank. The mummy was then steeped in natron for 70 days, and wrapped up in linen cemented by gums, and set upright in a wooden coffin against the walls of the house or tomb. This process cost what would now amount in our money to about £725. The second process consisted in injecting into the body cedar oil, soaking it in a solution of natron for 70 days, which eventually destroyed everything but the skin and bones. The expense was a mina, relatively, about £243. In the third process, used for the poorer classes, the corpse was simply washed in myrrh, and salted for 70 days. When thus prepared the bodies were ready for sepulture, but they were often kept some time before burial—often at home—and were even produced at festive entertainments, to recall to the guests the transient lot of humanity. All classes were embalmed, even malefactors; and those who were drowned in the Nile or killed by crocodiles received an embalmment from the city nearest to which the accident occurred.