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

the Great Pyramid to the descendants of Seth, Josephus has evidently considered Sistthrus (= Egyptian Sesostris), another form of Xisuthrus, to be the Babylonian equivalent of the Seth of Genesis.

All traditions thus agree that the construction of the Great Pyramid was pre-Deluge, and in this connection it is interesting to note that the earliest known Egyptian record of this flood is dated 200 years after the Deluge occurred, and it actually fell during the reign of Pepi II, a monarch of the Sixth Dynasty—Khufu, the Great Pyramid king, being the first ruler of the fourth Dynastywithout it being known in Egypt at the time. This record, when it did reach Egypt, was known as the “ Destruction of Mankind ”’, and placed its location in a country remote from Egypt Plato’s statement that the Deluge did not reach Egypt also implies that the Egyptians had no distinct flood legend. The only faint Egyptian parallel to the Deluge of Genesis is the legend of Osiris floating in a chest, into which he had been beguiled by his brother Set, at the time of his death. (See Note B 1.)

When we examine the available evidence from Egyptological sources respecting the circumstances under which the Great Pyramid was erected, we find that the tradition of the Copts that it was built 300 years before the Deluge is well substantiated. (See Note F 1.)

Hardly any ancient historical chronology has been subject to such wide variations—amounting to thousands of yearsas has that of the different Egyptian dynasties, particularly the early ones, though these wide limits have of recent years been considerably narrowed, so that there is more general agreement now than formerly. At the same time, the extreme antiquity also attributed to them is to-day

1 Vide Charts 15 and 28 in Davidson’s Connected History of Early Egypt, Babylonia, and Central Asia.

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