“The sepulchre was now found to open into a number of chambers of different dimensions, with corridors and staircases. Of the chambers, the first was a beautiful hall, twenty-seven feet six inches by twenty-five feet ten inches, in which were four pillars, each three feet square. At the end of this room I call the Entrance-hall,” says the famous discoverer, “is a large door, from which three steps lead down into a chamber with two pillars. This is twenty-eight feet two inches by twenty-five feet six inches. The pillars are three feet ten inches square. I gave it the name of the Drawing-room; for it is covered with figures, which, though only outlined, are so fine and perfect, that you would think they had been drawn only the day before. Returning into the Entrance-hall, we saw on the left of the aperture a large staircase, which descended into a corridor. It is thirteen feet four inches long, seven and a half wide, and has eighteen steps. At the bottom we entered a beautiful corridor, thirty-six feet six inches by six feet eleven inches. We perceived that the paintings became more perfect as we advanced farther into the interior. They retained their gloss, or a kind of varnish over the colours, which had a beautiful effect. The figures are painted on a white ground. At the end of this corridor we descended ten steps, which I call the small stairs, into another, seventeen feet two inches by ten feet five inches. From this we entered a small chamber, twenty feet four inches by thirteen feet eight inches, to which I gave the name of the Room of Beauties; for it is adorned with the most beautiful figures in basso relievo, like all the rest, and painted. When standing in the centre of this chamber, the traveller is surrounded by an assembly of Egyptian gods and goddesses.
“Proceeding further, we entered a large hall, twenty-seven feet nine inches by twenty-six feet ten inches. In this hall are two rows of square pillars, three on each side of the entrance, forming a line with the corridors. At each side of this hall is a small chamber. This hall I termed the Hall of Pillars: the chamber on the right Isis’ Room, as in it a large cow is painted: that on the left, the Room of Mysteries, from the mysterious figures it exhibits. At the end of this hall we entered a large saloon with an arched roof or ceiling, which is separated from the Hall of Pillars only by a step, so that the two may be reckoned one.
Temple of Isis.
“The saloon is thirty-one feet ten inches by twenty-seven feet. On the right of the saloon is a small chamber without anything in it, roughly cut, as if unfinished, and without painting: on the left we entered a chamber with two square pillars, twenty-five feet eight inches by twenty-two feet ten inches. This I called the Sideboard Room, as it has a projection of three feet in a form of a sideboard all round, which was perhaps intended to contain the articles necessary for the funeral ceremony. The pillars are three feet four inches square, and the whole beautifully painted as the rest. At the same end of the room, and facing the Hall of Pillars, we entered by a large door into another chamber with four pillars, one of which is fallen down. This chamber is forty-three feet four inches by seventeen feet six inches; the pillars three feet seven inches square. It is covered with white plaster, where the rock did not cut smoothly, but there is no painting on it. I named it the Bull’s, or Apis’ Room, as we found the carcase of a bull in it, embalmed with asphaltum; and also, scattered in various places, an immense quantity of small wooden figures of mummies, six or eight inches long, and covered with asphaltum to preserve them. There were some other figures of fine earth baked, coloured blue, and strongly varnished. On each side of the two little rooms were wooden statues standing erect, four feet high, with a circular hollow inside, as if to contain a roll of papyrus, which I have no doubt they did. We found likewise fragments of other statues of wood and of composition.
“But the description of what we found in the centre of the saloon, and which I have reserved till this place, merits the most particular attention, not having its equal in the world, and being such as we had no idea could exist. It is a sarcophagus of the finest oriental alabaster, nine feet five inches long, and three feet seven inches wide. Its thickness is only two inches; and it is transparent when a light is placed inside of it. It is minutely sculptured within and without with several hundred figures, which do not exceed two inches in height, and represent, as I suppose, the whole of the funeral procession and ceremonies relating to the deceased, united with several emblems. I cannot give an adequate idea of this beautiful and invaluable piece of antiquity, and can only say that nothing has been brought into Europe from Egypt that can be compared with it. The cover was not there; it had been taken out, and broken into several pieces, which we found in digging before the first entrance. The sarcophagus was over a staircase in the centre of the saloon, which communicated in a subterraneous passage, leading downwards, three hundred feet in length. At the end of this passage we found a great quantity of bats’ dung, which choked it up, so that we could go no further without digging. It was nearly filled up too by the falling in of the upper part.”
This sarcophagus is now to be seen in Sir John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The sight of it will richly repay the visitor. Copies of the figures on the walls of the tomb are to be seen in the Egyptian rooms of the British Museum, and form not the least striking of its vast collection of curiosities.
Perhaps the most arduous of Belzoni’s enterprises was the opening of the second pyramid of Ghiza, known by the name of Cephrenes, as the largest pyramid is known by the name of Cheops. Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, was informed that this pyramid had no subterranean chambers, and his information being found in latter ages to be generally correct, may be supposed to have operated in preventing that curiosity which prompted the opening of the great pyramid of Cheops by Shaw. Belzoni, however, perceived certain indications of sufficient weight to induce him to make the attempt.
“The opening of this pyramid,” says Mr. Salt, the English consul-general, “had long been considered an object of so hopeless a nature that it is difficult to conceive how any person could be found sanguine enough to make the attempt; and even after the discovery, with great labour, of the forced entrance, it required great perseverance in Belzoni, and confidence in his own views, to induce him to continue the operation, when it became evident that the extensive labours of his predecessors in the enterprise had completely failed. The direct manner in which he dug down upon the door affords the most incontestable proof that chance had nothing to do with the discovery itself, of which Belzoni has given a very clear description.”
“On my return to Cairo,” says he, “I again went to visit the celebrated pyramids of Ghiza; and on viewing that of Cephrenes I could not help reflecting how many travellers of different nations, who had visited this spot, contented themselves with looking at the outside of the pyramid, and went away without inquiring whether any and what chambers exist within it; satisfied, perhaps, with the report of the Egyptian priests, ‘that the pyramid of Cheops only contained chambers in its interior.’ I then began to consider the possibility of opening this pyramid. The attempt was, perhaps, presumptuous; and the risk of undertaking such an immense work without success deterred me in some degree from the enterprise. I am not certain whether love for antiquity, an ardent curiosity, or ambition, spurred me on most in spite of every obstacle, but I determined at length to commence the operation.