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

MYSTERY OF THE GREAT PYRAMID

It is consequently a chamber of the wing, and is described in the Ritual as the “Chamber of the Grand Orient ” wherein the divine Osiris is wakened from, his slumbers.

Here, again, is revealed the true reasons for certain features which have led Egyptologists astray in their efforts to account for them. They call this coffer a sarcophagus or coffin, and while it has grooves in its top edges on three sides and a cut out ledge along the fourth to correspond, as if intended for a lid, such as all true sarcophagi have, no such lid, nor any possible fragments of one, have ever been known. Ever since the upper interior parts of the Great Pyramid were first entered in the time of Al Mamoun, this coffer has always been described as a Jlidless stone box, the apparent preparation for a lid being another instance, like those already noted, of a blind on the part of the builder intentionally to deceive and hide its real purpose.

This provision for a lid, coupled with the fact that the coffer has never contained a body, suggested to Piazzi Smyth the description of a “blind sarcophagus”, a symbolical coffin For a real sarcophagus would signify the triumph of death ; here we have what appears to be a tomb, but which, on the contrary, is in reality no such thing, but a symbol of Life Eternal.

“In truth,’ writes Marsham Adams, “the Great Pyramid is the House of a Tomb ; but it is not a closed but an open tomb. It is the tomb, not of a man, but of a god : not of the dead, but of the risen. It is the tomb of the divine Osiris, whose birth on earth, descent into the underworld, victory over the serpent Apep, resurrection and judgment of the dead, were the most prominent features in the creed of Egypt, and in unison with whom the holy departed achieved the path of illumination, and passed in safety the

1 See Note AA. 104