THE GREAT PYRAMID OF EGYPT.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 52, 11 February 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE GREAT PYRAMID OF EGYPT.

The most ancient structure remaining in Egypt is the Great Pyramid—one of those mighty works wherein, as Denon says, men seem to have wished to measure themselves with nature. Quaint old Fuller says, “the Pyramids are in their dotage, and have forgotten their makers’ names.” Moore calls the great one. in his exquisite prose poem, “The Epicurean,” “The watchtower of time, from whose Summit, when about to expire, he will take his last look.” Hercdotus, who visited Egypt about 450 years B.C. (some say 500), or more than 2300 years ago, epoke even then with uncertainty of their date. The erection, however, is usually ascribed to Suphis (considered to be the Cheops of Herodotus), who reigned soon after Menes, and they may he called 4000 years old ; Bunsen savs 5000!

The Pyramid still seems strong enough to set time at defiance for ages —let us hope that man may not come in to the Destroyer’s aid. According to Herodotus (Euterpe), 100,000 men were employed, who were relieved every three months, in hewing stones in the Arabian mountains, dragging them to the banks of the Nile, and transporting them to the required spot. Ten years were consumed in the labour of forming the road through which the stones were to’ be drawn. In the whole, according to Pliny, “366,000 men were employed twenty years together.’’ It has been calculated that if it were required again to raise the stones from tire quarries, and place them at their present height, the action of the steamengines of England, which are managed at most by 60,000 men, would produce the same effect in eighteen hpurst lu this calculation it is supposed that the “Pyramid occupied 100.000 men twenty years. The base of the Great Pyramid was 761 feet square (it is now. 746 feet) and maj’ be considered verv nearly the size of the area now occupied by Liucbln’s-Inn-Fields; In truth, however, the area, large as it looks, is -not so large as that occupied by the Pyramid. An ■architect megaured the “Fields” one fine” htooSTnjfit'"night, and found the dimensions between tie houses 625 feet 6 inches from north to south; and 831 feet from east to west, giving an area of 12 .acres, while the Pyramid occupies 13.1. The present height is 450 feet 9 inches; measured up the angle, it is 568 feet; it was formerly 611 feet in this line. The Pyramid "is constructed externally in steps, varying from 2 feet 2 inches in height to 4 feet 10 inches, up which those who desire to ascend are dragaed by the native guides; originally these were cased to present a flat surface. The top is flat, about 32 feet square. The ascent is' not easy, and requires a steady head, as may be imagined, when we remember hqw much higher it is than St. Paul’s. Even more so the descent. The stones employed in the construction vary from 5 feet in length to 30 feet, and from 3 feet to 4 feet in height. There are many other small pyramids to the south of the great one.