XVIII.

THE EARLIEST EXCAVATIONS.

GRAVES AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION.—DIFFERENT MODES OF BURIAL.—TOMBS.—THE MOST EXTENSIVE TOMBS.—OBJECT OF THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.—A VISIT TO THE GREAT PYRAMID AND ITS DESCRIPTION.—DIFFICULTIES OF CLIMBING.—THE TOMBS OF THEBES.—A FAT AMERICAN’S ADVENTURE.—ENTERING THE TOMB OF ASSASSEEF.—RECITING POETRY UNDER DISADVANTAGES.—SWALLOWING A BAT.—JACK’S DISGUST.—FATE OF A FAT MAN.—STUCK IN A PASSAGE-WAY.—HOW THE ARABS REMOVED HIM.

There is little or no reason to doubt that the earliest excavations ever made by human hands were for purposes of sepulture. The burial of the dead, or rather the disposition of their bodies, has been a necessity in all countries and all ages since the days of the Garden of Eden. Some nations have practised cremation, and there are many arguments in its favor; but with most of these nations it was the custom to gather the ashes of the dead into urns, which were buried with much formality. Among some of our western tribes of Indians the bodies of the dead are placed on scaffoldings of poles several feet high, and there left to the action of the elements. This practice had its origin in the absence of all tools suitable for digging in the earth, and possibly from a vague theory that the body of the deceased should be raised towards the home of the Great Spirit beyond the skies. Some of the ancient nations had a theory concerning cremation, which was, that the flame, rising towards heaven, carried the spirit of the deceased and enabled it to reach the mansions of the blest. On the same theory the Chinese write or print their prayers on paper, and then burn the paper; the flame carries the prayer upward, and as light and heat come fromthe Controller of the universe, they are considered the proper vehicles for the transmission of appeals to his mercy, his pity, and his infinite love.

AUSTRALIAN NATIVES BURNING THEIR DEAD.

AN INDIAN BURIAL PLACE.

EARLIEST FORM OF SEPULTURE.

The earliest form of sepulture was in the grave, a simple trench a few feet in depth. With the dawn of civilization came the tomb, rudely constructed of stones piled together, or cut out of the solid rock. The most elaborate specimens of the latter kind of tomb are in Egypt; thousands of years ago they were constructed, and to this day they remain, and are regarded with wonder by travellers from all the nations of the globe. The most extensive tombs of modern times bear no comparison to those which are found in the lands bordering on the Nile. The pyramids of Ghizeh, immense mounds of stone, and constructed with the greatest care and engineering skill, are the tombs of the rulers of Egypt in the days of her greatness and prosperity. The pyramid of Cheops rises to a height of nearly five hundred feet, and is of proportional width at its base. Down deep in its centre is the coffin of the man whose name has been given to the pyramid; thousands of years have passed since this huge tomb was constructed, and it will doubtless remain for thousands of years to come. No tomb of modern times approaches it in grandeur, or gives promise of outlasting it.

Though the opposite of underground in their character, and erected rather in the interest of death than in that of life, the great pyramids deserve a description here. Excavations were made for their foundations, and the interior chambers, where rest the coffins of those for whom they were erected, are, for all practical purposes, as much underground as they would be in the deepest coal mine of England or America. The pyramids are mostly on the west bank of the Nile, not far from Cairo; tourists designing to visit them make Cairo their starting-point, and from that city several groups are in full view. Altogether about seventy pyramids have been counted in this region, and the remains of many others are visible. Decay’s effacing fingers are constantly at work; forty centuries have passed since the pyramids were erected,and their durable character can be readily inferred when we remember how long they have stood.

A sepulchral chamber was first excavated in the rock, and during the life of the king who was to repose within it, the work of building the pyramid was pressed forward. It was generally completed before he died, and therefore he had the consolation of knowing that he would not be kept waiting around for his tomb to be constructed. The structure was made over this chamber, an elegant coffin of stone being first placed within it. A passage-way about four feet high and three feet wide was kept open, so that the body of the king could be carried to the sepulchral chamber when the proper time arrived for depositing it in its coffin. The pyramid was practically solid, as the chamber and passages leading to it were the only hollow spaces. The sides of the pyramids were directed to the four cardinal points of the compass, and their exactness in this particular leads to the supposition that the ancients were acquainted with the principles of surveying as practised by modern engineers.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE PYRAMIDS.

The pyramids were constructed of red granite from quarries at Assouan, and other points of the Nile, and of a hard limestone from quarries at Makotam and Tourah. The blocks were very large, and it must have required a vast amount of mechanical power and engineering skill to quarry them and move them to the places where they are now found. Many engineers think that the Egyptians must have possessed some mechanical power which has been lost and become unknown to the people of the present century. Especially is this the case with the huge stones at the top of the pyramids, where the number of persons who could work must have been very small for want of room. Other engineers say that the ordinary derrick on a large scale would have been sufficient for the purpose, and it is pretty certain that this instrument was used, as holes have been found in the stones, where it is supposed the feet of the derricks were placed. Others think that the blocks were moved by human power, of which the kings had an unlimited quantity at their command. Onetheory is, that as fast as the courses of stone in a pyramid were laid, the earth was piled around it so as to form an incline, where the blocks could be slowly rolled. When the last course, at the top, was laid, the pyramid would have the appearance of a hill with gradually sloping sides. The earth could then be removed, and when it was all carried away the pyramid would stand as it was intended to stand. It is true that this mode of work would require an immense force of men; but what did the kings of Egypt care for the toil of their subjects? The kings owned the land and the people, and could do as they pleased with either.

THE PYRAMID OF CHEOPS.

The pyramid of Cheops, known as the Great Pyramid, was twenty years in building, and it is said by Herodotus to have required the labor of a hundred thousand men during that time. Cheops stopped all other works connected with religious rites until the pyramid was completed. To facilitate the transportation of stone from the Tourah quarries, a causeway was built three thousand feet long, sixty feet wide, and fifty feet high, which is said to have required ten years for its completion. A railway engineer of the present day would have finished this causeway in a month, provided he could have the unlimited supply of laborers possessed by the Egyptian kings.

The Great Pyramid covers an area of between twelve and thirteen acres; the side of its square measures seven hundred and forty-six feet, and its height is four hundred and fifty feet. It was originally seven hundred and sixty feet square and four hundred and eighty feet high; its outer portions have been removed to furnish stone for building purposes in Cairo. Originally, it was a perfect pyramid; the builders began at the top and filled in, with small stone and cement, the angles formed by the recession of each layer beyond the one below it. Each side was thus left with an even surface sloping at an angle of 51° 50´. The outer casing being removed has left the courses of stone in the form of steps nearly four feet high, so that the ascent is not an easy one. There are always plenty of Arabs hanging around the pyramid ready toassist a traveller who wishes to ascend to the summit. By pulling and pushing him over the steps, they get him up at a reasonably rapid rate; but the exercise is of such a nature, that it frequently leaves him feeling very much as if he had been passed through a patent clothes wringer.

The pyramid contains about eighty-two millions of cubic feet of masonry, and the total weight of the stone used in its construction is estimated at more than six million tons. The entrance is on the north face, fifty feet above the base, and about twenty-four feet from the central line. The passage-way is low and narrow, and extends, in a downward slope of twenty-six degrees, three hundred and twenty feet to the sepulchral chamber. The chamber is forty-six feet long, twenty-seven feet wide, and eleven feet high. There is a branch passage-way leading from the main one, which terminates in a smaller room, called the Queen’s Chamber; it is supposed that this room was intended for the resting-place of the queen’s body, but it contains no sarcophagus.

THE KING’S CHAMBER.

In the apartment known as the King’s Chamber, the walls and roof are of a highly polished granite, in slabs of great size. The only article of furniture in it is a sarcophagus of red granite, seven and a half feet long, three feet wide, and nearly four feet high. It is too large to be moved through the passage, and must have been placed in the room before the roof was covered. It is supposed that it contained a wooden coffin with the mummy of the king, and that these were taken away when the pyramid was first opened and plundered. In the construction of the pyramids, arrangements were made for closing the passages with blocks of granite, which have greatly retarded all attempts at exploration. It is supposed that there are other apartments yet undiscovered in the Great Pyramid; and at some future day an enterprising and patient explorer may be rewarded with important revelations.

Nearly a thousand years ago, the Great Pyramid was visited, and plundered, and the work of destruction has been renewed at various intervals since that time. But notwithstanding the centuries that have passed since the first visit, new apartmentsand passages have been discovered within the past thirty years, and several important facts in the history of the pyramids have been obtained from the hieroglyphics on the stones of the interior. Another pyramid near the great one was explored in 1837; a sarcophagus was found, and with it was a mummy case of King Menkuré, but the mummy was gone where the woodbine twineth, or somewhere else. Near the pyramids there is a great number of tombs, some built above the surface, and some excavated in the rock.

The Arabs have opened nearly all the tombs and plundered them of their contents. They have no respect for dead Egyptians, and whenever they find the entrance to a tomb beneath the sands that have been blown from the desert, they quickly open the receptacle and search it for articles of value. The Egyptians used to embalm the bodies of their dead with the greatest care. Professors of the art of embalming were numerous; and judging by the extent of their work, they must have been in constant practice. The first step in the Egyptian method was to put the body in a sort of spicy pickle, where it was kept for two or three months. The viscera and all internal organs were removed to give a better chance to the pickle; and when the work was sufficiently advanced, the body was dried, filled with preserving gums and spices, and properly bandaged. The bandaging of a mummy was one of the fine arts, and sometimes a hundred yards of cloth would be required for a single subject. Every toe and finger had its separate bandage, and the preserving articles were so soaked into the bandages and plastered over them, that there was sometimes more gum and bandage than body.

PREPARING A MUMMY.

MUMMIES BURNED FOR FUEL.

A close-fitting case or coffin was put outside the mummy, and he was then ready to be packed away for any number of centuries. He kept well, for the work was thoroughly done; and mummies are constantly found in good preservation after a rest of four or five thousand years. The Arabs rob the tombs, and break up the mummies for the gold and silver which were concealed about them; and many a mummy hascome to grief in consequence of attempting to take his money along with him. After the mummy is broken up he makes very good fuel; the Arabs occasionally burn him; and in the early days of the Cairo and Suez Railway, the firemen on the locomotives found that mummies, cut into proper lengths, made a very good substitute for wood and coal. The gums and rags that preserved the mummy are combustible, and thus facilitate his destruction. Arabs and railway stokers are, like the law, no respecters of persons, especially if the persons have been dead forty or fifty centuries. It amuses and benefits these modern Vandals to burn mummies; and it is proper to say, that the mummies don’t appear to mind it.

The subterranean tombs and other excavations on the Nile are numerous, and sometimes of great extent. Several of them are so large, that travellers who ventured into them without proper guides have been lost, and have perished for want of food and light. A modern visitor says that after going through several tombs, he felt very much as if he had been rolled in an iron mill. The passages leading into the tombs are long and dark; sometimes they extend hundreds of feet in an indefinite sort of way, and not by a straight course, as a respectable tomb ought to have its entrance. A slender man can get along much more easily than a fat one; the latter gets stuck sometimes, and can easily fancy himself a number ten gun-wad forced into a number eight barrel. An acquaintance of mine once vowed that not for the whole of Egypt would he venture into a tomb again, and that he had done with explorations.

“Ask him about the tomb of Assasseef at Thebes,” said a mutual acquaintance, who was sitting between us. We were in acaféat Rome, and whiling away an evening after a visit to the Coliseum, and the ruins in its vicinity.

“Hang Thebes and all it contains,” was the curt reply. “Well, if you insist upon it, you shall have it on condition that you won’t speak of it again.”

We made the required promise; and after taking an extra sip of brandy and water, he began.

DAHABIEHS AND DONKEYS.

“There were two of us, and we were making the journeyof the Nile in a dahabieh. You know what beastly things those dahabiehs are generally, though sometimes you find one that is quite comfortable. Why the beggarly Egyptians don’t call them boats, and be done with it, I never could understand. We landed at Luxor; and after looking at the ruins there, we rode to the tombs of the kings, seven or eight miles away. They mounted me on a donkey so small, that my feet dragged on the ground, and I had to take a reef in my legs to keep from wearing away my boot soles. Jack, my companion, said, that if I wore spurs, I would have to buckle them on just below my knee, as I could not raise my heels without having them so far aft, that they would not reach the animal. There was no necessity for spurs, as we had a boy to run astern of the donkey, and give him an occasional turn in the tail to help him along. The boy kept a firm hold of the tail most of the time, and was helped along by it more than the donkey was. At one time, when we were on the edge of a little ridge, the donkey watched his chance, and let his heels fly into the stomach of the urchin. A prize-fighter couldn’t have made a better blow. The boy went rolling down the ridge, and I thought we should have to pay for him, or buy a new one.

“He scrambled up again, and wasn’t hurt at all. Evidently he was used to that sort of thing, but I don’t believe he liked it, for he made some remarks that sounded very much like swearing. I gave him half a franc, and he appeared satisfied, and ready to be kicked again. He went around behind the donkey, and got into position; but the beast wouldn’t respond for an encore, and so the thing was dropped. But you can believe the boy gave that tail fits for the rest of the ride; and by the time we were through, it looked like a piece of old rope with half the strands gone.

“Jack was poetic, and began to blow and recite verses; but I couldn’t think of anything except Old Hundred, and the Last Rose of Summer. They wouldn’t do for the occasion, and so I amused myself with looking around at the sand and rubbish, and wondering why people came there to seethem. Thebes must have been a nice sort of a city, but it is very much out of repair now. It is very good as a ruin, but wouldn’t be worth much for anything else. All around us there were the remains of temples and palaces that must have cost a great deal of money when they were built. Our guide kept talking about tombs and other cheerful subjects, and by and by he took us to the tomb of Assasseef. I didn’t care much about going in, as it was nothing but a hole in the ground, anyhow. Jack insisted, and so we tried it.

THE TOMBS OF THE EGYPTIAN KINGS AT THEBES.

HALL IN THE TOMB OF ASSASSEEF.

ASSASSEEF AND HIS TOMB.

“Assasseef wasn’t a king, but only a wealthy old priest, who had made money by speculation in stocks or some other way, and wanted to make a permanent investment. So he went into the tomb business, and built a very comfortable one, and larger than any of his neighbors. It has an outer court a hundred feet long, and two thirds wide, and the underground passages run nearly a thousand feet into the mountain. It was all well enough as long as we were above ground, but when we went below it wasn’t so comfortable. The walls were black and dirty; the passages were narrow and dusty, and sometimes they were so low that we had to crawl. The bats had a pre-emption claim to the place, and didn’t like to be disturbed. They flapped their wings in our faces, and flew around in a way that wasn’t pleasant. Jack opened his mouth once to spout a verse of poetry, and got a number three bat between his teeth before he finished the first line. I used to chaff him about it afterwards, and he threatened to batmein the mouth if I didn’t stop.

“There were so many bats that the noise they made in the empty vaults and passages seemed like distant thunder, and I began to think the mountain would tumble in. The guide went ahead; and whenever we began to talk of giving it up, he would tell about some wonderful thing a little farther on.

“A good many of the passages were so low and narrow that I had to be pulled in and out by the heels, and it didn’t take long to disgust me. I was as dusty as if I had made the campaign of Virginia without being brushed, and the dust I had picked up wasn’t of the best kind either. It consisted of pulverizedmummy and other relics of ancient Egypt; and I think I should have made a very good show-piece if I had come home in just the condition in which I emerged from that tomb.

STUCK IN AN UNDERGROUND PASSAGE.

“The joke kept growing worse, till they got me in a place where I had to expel all my breath to crawl through. We got into a sort of room where an Egyptian named something or other had spent thirty-five or forty centuries of his mummy existence; but the place was about as attractive as a bath tub. The mummy had gone, and taken his baggage with him, all but the bats, which kept flying around and making themselves uncomfortable. But when we went to get out, the job was serious. The passage-way, as we came into this tomb, was a descending one, and I got into it by going stern foremost, as a ship drops down a current to pick up a new anchoring spot. But in going out I had to climb up, and that wasn’t so easy. The space wasn’t large enough for a man of my size to crawl well, as you have to raise your body a little every time you push yourself forward with your hands. For the same reason I couldn’t get a purchase with my feet, and I hadn’t gone five yards before I stopped. The guide and one of our water-carriers were ahead, while Jack was behind me, and had an Arab to bring up the rear. I yelled out that I couldn’t get farther, and the train came to a stop.

“I was frightened, and that made me swell up like your finger when you have a ring on that is a size or so too small. I filled that passage-way as a cork fills the neck of a bottle, and I couldn’t stir any more than if I had been anchored. The guide got hold of my arms and pulled, but he couldn’t do anything, especially as the place wasn’t adapted to towing purposes. What was to be done I couldn’t tell; and I began to think I should have to stay there, and be converted into a mummy for the amusement of future visitors.

“Jack and the Arab finally pulled me back by the heels, and the Arab went for a rope. When he brought it we arranged for a new departure. They wanted to put the rope around my neck and pull me along; but I objected to this, as it might result in stretching my neck a little longer than I wantedit. I looped the thing around me just below the arms; and then the guide and the water-carrier went ahead, and towed me along. It was no easy work, but they got me out at last into the larger passages, where I could get along comparatively easy. The guide said something about a fine tomb farther in the mountain, but I had had all the tombs I wanted for that day, and made as straight a course as I could for the outside. And you don’t catch me in a tomb of that sort again if you give me all the kings in Egypt.

CONDITION OF THE MUMMY MARKET.

“When we got outside, we found a crowd of Arabs with fragments of mummy for sale. They had legs, and arms, and heads in abundance, but the market was rather too high to suit me. In fact I didn’t want any mummy, and told the guide to set the fellows adrift. Jack bought a dried arm, and took it back to the boat, but I believe he threw it overboard a few days later. After that adventure, I visited a good many ruins, but only went where I had daylight to guide me. Whenever they told me of a beautiful tomb, and the wonders that it contained, I admitted that it must be very nice, and took everything they said in good faith. I was willing to see the tombs by proxy; and when Jack went inside, I staid where I could look at the Arabs, and study the columns of the ruined temples.”

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