More Egyptian History (as known in 1900) (1)

The other two pyramids, those nearest the cultivation, are of very different appearance. They are half-ruined, they are black in colour, and their whole effect is quite different from that of the stone pyramids. For they are built of brick, not of stone. They are pyramids, it is true, but of a different material and of a different date from those which we have been describing. They are built above the sepulchres of kings of the XIIth Dynasty, the Theban house which transferred its residence northwards to the neighbourhood of the ancient Northern capital. We have, in fact, reached the end of the Old Kingdom at Sakkera; at Dashir begin the sepulchres of the Middle Kingdom. Pyramids are still built, but they are not always of stone; brick is used, usually with stone in the interior. The general effect of these brick pyramids, when new, must have been indistinguishable from that of the stone ones, and even now, when it has become half-ruined, such a great brick pyramid as that of Usertsen (Senusret) III at Dashir is not
without impressiveness. After all, there is no reason why a brick building should be less admirable than a stone one. And in its own way the construction of such colossal masses of bricks as the two eastern pyramids of Dashir must have been as arduous, even as difficult, as that of building a moderate-sized stone pyramid. The photograph of the brick pyramids of Dashir on this page shows well the great size of these masses of brickwork, which are as impressive as any of the great brick structures of Babylonia and Assyria.

The XIIth Dynasty use of brick for the royal tombs was a return to the custom of earlier days, for from the time of Aha to that Tjeser, from the 1st Dynasty to the Hid, brick had been used for the building of the royal mastaba-tombs, out of which the pyramids had developed.

At this point, where we take leave of the great pyramids of the Old Kingdom, we may notice the latest theory as to the building of these monuments, which has of late years been enunciated by Dr. Borchardt, and is now generally accepted. The great Prussian explorer Lepsius, when he
examined the pyramids in the 'forties, came to the conclusion that each king, when he ascended the throne, planned a small pyramid for himself. This was built in a few years' time, and if his reign were short, or if he were unable to enlarge the pyramid for other reasons, it sufficed for
his tomb. If, however, his reign seemed likely to be one of some length, after the first plan was completed he enlarged his pyramid by building another and a larger one around it and over it. Then again, when this addition was finished, and the king still reigned and was in possession
of great resources, yet another coating, so to speak, was put on to the pyramid, and so on till colossal structures like the First and Second Pyramid of Giza, which, we know, belonged to kings who were unusually long-lived, were completed. And finally the aged monarch died, and was
buried in the huge tomb which his long life and his great power had enabled him to erect. This view appeared eminently reasonable at the time, and it seemed almost as though we ought to be able to tell whether a king had reigned long or not by the size of his pyramid, and even to obtain a rough idea of the length of his reign by counting the successive coats or accretions which it had received, much as we tell the age of a tree by the rings in its bole. A pyramid seemed to have
been constructed something after the manner of an onion or a Chinese puzzle-box.

Prof. Petrie, however, who examined the Griza pyramids in 1881, and carefully measured them all up and finally settled their trigonometrical relation, came to the conclusion that Lepsius's theory was entirely erroneous, and that every pyramid was built and now stands as it was
originally planned. Dr. Borchardt, however, who is an architect by profession, has examined the pyramids again, and has come to the conclusion that Prof. Petrie's
statement is not correct, and that there is an element of truth in Lepsius's hypothesis. He has shown that several of the pyramids, notably the First and Second at Giza, show unmistakable signs of a modified, altered, and enlarged plan; in fact, long-lived kings like Khufu seem to have added considerably to their pyramids and even to have entirely remodelled them on a larger scale. This has certainly been the case with the Great Pyramid. We can, then, accept Lepsius's theory as modified by Dr. Borchardt.

Another interesting point has arisen in connection with the Great Pyramid. Considerable difference of opinion has always existed between Egyptologists and the professors of European archaeology with regard to the antiquity of the knowledge of iron in Egypt. The majority of the Egyptologists have always maintained, on the authority of the inscriptions, that iron was known to the ancient Egyptians from the earliest period. They argued that the word for a certain metal in old Egyptian was the same as the Coptic word for "iron." They stated that in the most ancient religious texts the Egyptians spoke of the firmament of heaven as made of this metal, and they came to the conclusion that it was because this metal was blue in colour, the hue of iron or steel; and they further pointed out that some of the weapons in the tomb-paintings were painted blue and others red, some being of iron, that is to say, others of copper or bronze. Finally they brought forward as incontrovertible evidence an actual fragment of worked iron, which had been found between two of the inner blocks, down one of the air-shafts, in the Great Pyramid. Here was an actual piece of iron of the time of the IVth Dynasty, about 3500 B.C.

This conclusion was never accepted by the students of the development of the use of metal in prehistoric Europe, when they came to know of it. No doubt their incredulity was partly due to want of appreciation of the Egyptological evidence, partly to disinclination to accept a conclusion
which did not at all agree with the knowledge they had derived from their own study of prehistoric Europe. In Southern Europe it was quite certain that iron did not come into use till about 1000 B.C.; in Central Europe, where the discoveries at Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut exhibit the transition from the Age of Bronze to that of Iron, about 800 B.C. The exclusively Iron Age culture of La Tine cannot be dated earlier than the eighth century, if as early as that. How then was it possible that, if iron had been known to the Egyptians as early as 3500 B.C., its
knowledge should not have been communicated to the Europeans until over two thousand years later? No; iron could not have been really known to the Egyptians much before 1000 B.C. and the Egyptological evidence was all wrong. This line of argument was taken by the distinguished
Swedish archaeologist, Prof. Oscar Montelius, of Upsala, whose previous experience in dealing with the antiquities of Northern Europe, great as it was, was hardly sufficient to enable him to pronounce with authority on a point affecting far-away African Egypt. And when dealing with Greek prehistoric antiquities Prof. Montelius's views have hardly met with that ready agreement which all acknowledge to be his due when he is giving us the results of his ripe knowledge of Northern antiquities. He has, in fact, forgotten, as most "prehistoric" archaeologists do forget, that the antiquities of Scandinavia, Greece, Egypt, the Semites, the bronze-workers of Benin, the miners of Zimbabwe, and the Ohio mound-builders are not to be treated all together as a whole, and that hard and fast lines of development cannot be laid down for them, based on the experience of Scandinavia.