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

were written upon the Great Pyramid ; while Masoudi’s account implies these writings were supposed to be inside the edifice, both the former state they were engraved on the casing-stones. The almost complete destruction of the casing, however, in the course of past ages, commencing with a severe earthquake in A.D. 1301, which ruined the city of Cairo and led to spoliation of the Gizeh pyramidsand particularly the Great Pyramid—for building material, has made it impossible to verify these statements, but from what we now know about the character of the Great Pyramid, such inscriptions are unlikely while the existing casing-stones on the north and south sides of the lowest course show no traces of any such writings. Neither do the existing casing-stones of any of the pyramids show inscriptions on them.

Herodotus tells us that these supposed inscriptions in Egyptian characters purported to give—“ according to his interpreter ’—the sum expended in supplying the army of workmen with “ onions and garlic ” to the amount of a thousand talents. Probably what Herodotus saw were graffiti left by visitors on the lower casing-stones, which his guide pretended to translate, for the vegetables mentioned represented Egyptian characters, not the vegetables themselves. “ When one considers the large amount of graffiti which are to be seen on every ancient building of importance, it seems almost impossible but that the Great Pyramid—one of the most renowned and visited of all—should not have been similarly covered with ancient scribbles ”’ (Petrie),

Abd-al-Latif, however, implies that the whole exterior of the Great Pyramid was covered with inscriptions : “These stones,” he writes, “‘ are covered with writing in that ancient character of which no one now knows the value. These inscriptions are so numerous that if one

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