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

TRADITIONS REGARDING THE BUILDERS

Dynasty, which acknowledged their supremacy until the war of independence drove them out.) The arrival of the (so-called) Shepherd kings, however, took place in 1937 B.c., a long time after the Great Pyramid had been erected, and coincided with the close of Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty, during the reign of Senusert II.

It seems more probable that a band of Asiatic or Euphratean colonists, with very advanced scientific and mathematical knowledge, entered Egypt and organized the erection of the Great Pyramid and other works, these colonists being religiously and morally on a higher plane than the Egyptians. This would account for the statements of Herodotus and of Manetho—the latter also speaks of King Suphis (Khufu) and his immediate successors as being of a “ different race ’—that the pagan ceremonies of Egypt were suppressed and their temples closed during the construction of the Great Pyramid, statements which have been confirmed by Sir Flinders Petrie as the result of archeological research (see Note G). This would also account for the omission of pictures and hieroglyphic inscriptions or other adornment, such as are found lavishly employed on later pyramids and tombs, from the Great Pyramid, for the solitary instance of a hieroglyph found upon it—to be referred to later in its proper place—and which was originally hidden from sight, has quite a different intention to the writings usually found on all purely Egyptian monuments.

The closing of the temples, too, would explain the statements of Herodotus, Manetho, and other writers, that the Egyptians regarded Khufu and Khafra with hatred because of the toilsomeness of their works and

1 This identification of the Great Pyramid builders with the Hyksos kings of Egypt is due to the statements of Manetho, who has mixed them up with the history of a long-subsequent dynasty, owing to a similarity of circumstances.