Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) by S. Spooner (pdf to ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Commission sent by Napoleon to examine the antiquities of Egypt, has

published a most valuable collection which have all the appearance of

spirited and characteristic resemblances. "I discovered," says he, "some

little chambers, on the walls of which were represented all kinds of

arms, such as panoplies, coats of mail, tigers' skins, bows, arrows,

quivers, pikes, javelins, sabres, helmets, and whips: in another was a

collection of household utensils, such as caskets, chests of drawers,

chairs, sofas, and beds, all of exquisite forms, and such as might well

grace the apartments of modern luxury. As these were probably accurate

representations of the objects themselves, it is almost a proof that the

ancient Egyptians employed for their furniture Indian wood, carved and

gilt, which they covered with embroidery. Besides these, were

represented various smaller articles, as vases, coffee-pots, ewers with

their basins, a tea-pot and basket. Another chamber was consecrated to

agriculture, in which were represented all its various instruments--a

sledge similar to those in use at present, a man sowing grain by the

side of a canal, from the borders of which the inundation is beginning

to retire, a field of corn reaped with a sickle, and fields of rice with

men watching them. In a fourth chamber was a figure clothed in white,

playing on a richly ornamented harp, with eleven strings."

Denon observed everything with the eye of an artist. Speaking of the

Necropolis, which consists of numerous double galleries of grottos,

excavated in the solid rock for nearly a mile and a half square, he

observes, "I was convinced by the magnificence both of the paintings and

sculptures, that I was among the tombs of great men and heros. The

sculpture in all is incomparably more labored and higher finished than

any I had seen in the temples; and I stood in astonishment at the high

perfection of the art, and its singular destiny to be devoted to places

of such silence and obscurity. In working these galleries, beds of a

very fine calcareous clay have occasionally been crossed, and here the

lines of the hieroglyphics have been cut with a firmness of touch and a

precision, of which marble offers but few examples. The figures have

elegance and correctness of contour, of which I never thought Egyptian

sculpture susceptible. Here, too, I could judge of the style of this

people in subjects which had neither hieroglyphic, nor historical, nor

scientific; for there were representations of small scenes taken from

nature, in which the stiff profile outlines, so common with Egyptian

artists, were exchanged for supple and natural attitudes; groups of

persons were given in perspective, and cut in deeper relief than I

should have supposed anything but metal could have been worked."

The Sepulchres of the Kings of Thebes are mentioned by Diodorus Siculus

as wonderful works, and such as could never be exceeded by anything

afterwards executed in this kind. He says that forty-seven of them were

mentioned in their history; that only seventeen of them remained to the

time of Ptolemy Lagus; adding that most of them were destroyed in his

time. Strabo says, that above the Memnonium, the precise locality of

Denon's description, were the sepulchres of the kings of Thebes, in

grottos cut out of the rock, being about forty in number, wonderfully

executed and worthy to be seen. In these, he says, were obelisks with

inscriptions on them, setting forth the riches, power, and empire of

these kings, as far as Scythia, Bactria, India, and Ionia, their great

revenues, and their immense armies, consisting of one million of men.

In Egypt, the honors paid to the dead partook of the nature of a

religious homage. By the process of embalming, they endeavored to

preserve the body from the common laws of nature; and they provided

those magnificent and durable habitations for the dead--sublime

monuments of human folly--which have not preserved but buried the memory

of their founders. By a singular fatality, the well-adapted punishment

of pride, the extraordinary precautions by which it seemed in a manner

to triumph over death, have only led to a more humiliating

disappointment. The splendor of the tomb has but attracted the violence

of rapine; the sarcophagus has been violated; and while other bodies

have quietly returned to their native dust in the bosom of their mother

earth, the Egyptian, converted into a mummy, has been preserved only to

the insults of curiosity, or avarice, or barbarism.

THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.

The pyramids of Egypt, especially the two largest of the group of Jizeh

or Gize, are the most stupendous masses of buildings in stone that human

labor has ever been known to accomplish, and have been the wonder of

ancient and modern times.--The number of the Egyptian pyramids, large

and small, is very considerable; they are situated on the west bank of

the Nile, and extend in an irregular line, and in groups at some

distance from each other, from the neighborhood of Jizeh, in 30° N.

Latitude, as far as sixty or seventy miles south of that place. The

pyramids of Jizeh are nearly opposite Cairo. They stand on a plateau or

terrace of limestone, which is a projection of the Lybian

mountain-chain. The surface of the terrace is barren and irregular, and

is covered with sand and small fragments of rock; its height, at the

base of the great pyramid, is one hundred and sixty four feet above the

ordinary level of the Nile, from which it is distant about five miles.

There are in this group three large pyramids, and several small ones.

Herodotus, who was born B.C. 484, visited these pyramids. He was

informed by the priests of Memphis, that the great pyramid was built by

Cheops, king of Egypt, about B.C. 900, and that one hundred thousand

workmen were employed twenty years in building it, and that the body of

Cheops was placed in a room beneath the bottom, surrounded by a vault,

to which the waters of the Nile were conveyed through a subterranean

tunnel. A chamber has been discovered under the centre of the pyramid,

but it is about fifty-six feet above the low-water mark of the Nile. The

second pyramid, Herodotus says, was built by Cephren or Cephrenes, the

brother and successor of Cheops, and the third by Mycerinus, the son of

Cheops. Herodotus also says that the two largest pyramids are wholly

covered with white marble; Diodorus and Pliny, that they are built of

this costly material. The account of Herodotus is confirmed by present

appearances. Denon, who accompanied the French expedition to Egypt, was

commissioned by Buonaparte to examine the great pyramid of Jizeh; three

hundred persons were appointed to this duty. They approached the borders

of the desert in boats, to within half a league of the pyramid, by means

of the canals from the Nile. Denon says, "the first impression made on

me by the sight of the pyramids, did not equal my expectations, for I

had no object with which to compare them; but on approaching them, and

seeing men at their base, their gigantic size became evident." When

Savary first visited these pyramids, he left Jizeh at one o'clock in the

morning, and soon reached them. The full moon illuminated their summits,

and they appeared to him "like rough, craggy peaks piercing the

clouds." Herodotus gives 800 feet as the height of the great pyramid,

and says this is likewise the length of its base, on each side; Strabo

makes it 625, and Diodorus 600. Modern measurements agree most nearly

with the latter.

The pyramid of Cheops consists of a series of platforms, each of which

is smaller than the one on which it rests, and consequently presents the

appearance of steps which diminish in length from the bottom to the top.

There are 203 of these steps, and the height of them decreases, but not

regularly, the greatest height being about four feet eight inches, and

the least about one foot eight inches. The horizontal lines of the

platforms are perfectly straight, the stones are cut and fitted to each

other with the greatest accuracy, and joined with a cement of lime, with

little or no sand in it. It has been ascertained that a bed has been cut

in the solid rock, eight inches deep, to receive the lowest external

course of stones. The vertical height, measured from this base in the

rock to the top of the highest platform now remaining, is 456 feet. This

last platform is thirty two feet eight inches square, and if to this

were added what is necessary to complete the pyramid, the total height

would be 479 feet. Each side of the base, measured round the stones let

into the rock, is 763 feet 5 inches, and the perimeter of the base is

about 3,053 feet. The measurements of travelers differ somewhat, but

the above are very nearly correct. The area of the base is 64,753

square yards, or about 13-1/3 acres. The surface of each face, not

including the base, is 25,493 square yards; and that of the four faces

is consequently 101,972 square yards, or more than 21 acres. The solid

contents of the pyramid, without making deductions for the small

interior chambers, is 3,394,307 cubic yards. Reckoning the total height

at 479 feet, the pyramid would be 15 feet higher than St. Peter's at

Rome, and 119 higher than St. Paul's, London. The entrance to the great

pyramid is on the north face, 47½ feet above the base, and on the level

of the fifteenth step from the foundation. The entrance is easily

reached by the mass of rubbish which has fallen or been thrown down from

the top. The passage to which this opening leads is 3 feet 7½ inches

square, with a downward inclination of about 26°. It is lined with slabs

of limestone, accurately joined together. This passage leads to another,

which has an ascending inclination of 27°. The descending passage is 73

feet long, to the place where it meets the ascending one, which is 109

feet long; at the top of this is a platform, where is the opening of a

well or shaft, which goes down into the body of the pyramid, and the

commencement of a horizontal gallery 127 feet long which leads to the

Queen's chamber, an apartment 17 feet long, 14 wide, and 12 high.

Another gallery, 132 feet long, 26½ high, and 7 wide, commences also at

this platform, and is continued in the same line as the former

ascending passage, till it reaches a landing place, from which a short

passage leads to a small chamber or vestibule, whence another short

passage leads to the King's chamber, which as well as the vestibule and

intermediate passage, is lined with large blocks of granite, well

worked. The king's chamber is 34½ feet long, 17 wide, and 19¾ high.

The roof is formed of nine slabs of granite, reaching from side to side;

the slabs are therefore more than 17 feet long by 3 feet 9½ inches wide.

This chamber contains a sarcophagus of red granite; the cover is gone,

having probably been broken and carried away. The sarcophagus is 7 feet

6½ inches long, 3 feet 3 inches wide, 3 feet 8½ inches high on the

outside, the bottom being 7½ inches thick. There are no hieroglyphics

upon it. Several other chambers have been discovered above the king's

chamber, but as they are not more than three or four feet high, they

were probably intended to lessen and break the weight of the mass above,

which would otherwise fall on the King's chamber.

In 1816, Captain Caviglia discovered that the entrance passage did not

terminate at the bottom of the ascending passage, but was continued

downwards in the same inclined plane of 26°, 200 feet further, and by a

short horizontal passage, opened on what appeared to be the bottom of

the well. The passage, however, continued in the same direction 23 feet

farther; then became narrower, and was continued horizontally 28 feet

more, where it opened into a large chamber cut out of the rock below

and under the centre of the pyramid. This chamber is about 26 by 27

feet. Another passage leads from this chamber 55 feet, where it appears

to terminate abruptly.

The well, which appeared to Mr. Davidson and Capt. Caviglia to descend

no lower than where it was intersected by the descending passage, its

depth there being 155 feet, was afterwards cleared out by the French to

the depth of near 208 feet, of which 145 feet are in the solid rock; so

that the base of the pyramid being 164 feet above the low water level of

the Nile, the present bottom of the well is 19 feet above the Nile; but

the actual bottom does not appear to have been reached. The temperature

within the body of the pyramid was found to be 81° 5', Farenheit, and in

the well it was still higher. Herodotus was informed that