The mystery of the Great pyramid : traditions concerning it and its connection with the Egyptian Book of the dead : with numerous illustrations

THEORIES AND TRADITIONS

that “* the descendants of Seth, after perfecting their study of astronomy, set out for Egypt, and there embodied their discoveries in the building of two ‘pillars’ (ie. monuments), one in stone and the other in brick, in order that this knowledge might not be lost before these discoveries were sufficiently known, upon Adam’s prediction that the world was to be destroyed by a flood... . and in order to exhibit them to mankind . . . Now this pillar remains in the land of Siriad (the Siriadic, or Dogstar, land of Egypt) to this day.”

A similar tradition is ascribed to Enoch who, “ foreseeing the destruction of the earth, inscribed the science of astronomy upon two pillars’? (Vyse). This Enoch of tradition was a composite character, combining in one person the characteristics of Noah and of the Enoch of Genesis. It was the traditions of this Noah-Enoch character which Berosus collected and evolved therefrom the individual Babylonian tradition called Xisuthrus, who—like Noah—was saved from the Flood in an ark, but immediately on coming out of it, was—like Enochtaken up into the skies. Consequently, we find Berosus attributing to Xisuthrus the same vision that is also attributed to Enoch and (by the Copts) to Surid. According to Berosus, Xisuthrus was instructed “‘to commit to writing a history of the beginning, progress, and final conclusion of all things . . . and to bury these accounts securely in the city of the Sun at Sippara.”

Coptic tradition, as related by Masoudi, makes the Great Pyramid the hiding place of these records ; Josephus, when speaking of two pillars as their repository—one in brick and the other in stone—thus appears to include both Coptic and Chaldean traditions, the “ brick pillar ” meaning the inscribed clay bricks or cylinders which constituted the books of the ancient Babylonians. Also, in ascribing

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