Kitabı oku: «Myths and Marvels of Astronomy», sayfa 5

Of course the pyramidalists find a ready reply to such reasoning. They argue that, in the first place, it may have been by express design that the period of the earth's rotation was made to bear this particular relation to the period of gyration in the mighty precessional movement: which is much as though one should say that by express design the height of Monte Rosa contains as many feet as there are miles in the 6000th part of the sun's distance.²¹ Then, they urge, the architects were not bound to have a square base for the pyramid; they might have had an oblong or a triangular base, and so forth—all which accords very ill with the enthusiastic language in which the selection of a square base had on other accounts been applauded.

Next let us consider the height of the pyramid. According to the best modern measurements, it would seem that the height when (if ever) the pyramid terminated above in a pointed apex, must have been about 486 feet. And from the comparison of the best estimates of the base side with the best estimates of the height, it seems very likely indeed that the intention of the builders was to make the height bear to the perimeter of the base the same ratio which the radius of a circle bears to the circumference. Remembering the range of difference in the base measures it might be supposed that the exactness of the approximation to this ratio could not be determined very satisfactorily. But as certain casing stones have been discovered which indicate with considerable exactness the slope of the original plane-surfaces of the pyramid, the ratio of the height to the side of the base may be regarded as much more satisfactorily determined than the actual value of either dimension. Of course the pyramidalists claim a degree of precision indicating a most accurate knowledge of the ratio between the diameter and the circumference of a circle; and the angle of the only casing stone measured being diversely estimated at 51° 50' and 51° 52-¹⁄₄', they consider 50° 51' 14·3" the true value, and infer that the builders regarded the ratio as 3·14159 to 1. The real fact is, that the modern estimates of the dimensions of the casing stones (which, by the way, ought to agree better if these stones are as well made as stated) indicate the values 3·1439228 and 3·1396740 for the ratio; and all we can say is, that the ratio really used lay probably between these limits, though it may have been outside either. Now the approximation of either is not remarkably close. It requires no mathematical knowledge at all to determine the circumference of a circle much more exactly. 'I thought it very strange,' wrote a circle-squarer once to De Morgan (Budget of Paradoxes, p. 389), 'that so many great scholars in all ages should have failed in finding the true ratio, and have been determined to try myself.' 'I have been informed,' proceeds De Morgan, 'that this trial makes the diameter to the circumference as 64 to 201, giving the ratio equal to 3·1410625 exactly. The result was obtained by the discoverer in three weeks after he first heard of the existence of the difficulty. This quadrator has since published a little slip and entered it at Stationers' Hall. He says he has done it by actual measurement; and I hear from a private source that he uses a disc of twelve inches diameter which he rolls upon a straight rail.' The 'rolling is a very creditable one; it is as much below the mark as Archimedes was above it. Its performer is a joiner who evidently knows well what he is about when he measures; he is not wrong by 1 in 3000.' Such skilful mechanicians as the builders of the pyramid could have obtained a closer approximation still by mere measurement. Besides, as they were manifestly mathematicians, such an approximation as was obtained by Archimedes must have been well within their power; and that approximation lies well within the limits above indicated. Professor Smyth remarks that the ratio was 'a quantity which men in general, and all human science too, did not begin to trouble themselves about until long, long ages, languages, and nations had passed away after the building of the great pyramid; and after the sealing up, too, of that grand primeval and prehistoric monument of the patriarchal age of the earth according to Scripture.' I do not know where the Scripture records the sealing up of the great pyramid; but it is all but certain that during the very time when the pyramid was being built astronomical observations were in progress which, for their interpretation, involved of necessity a continual reference to the ratio in question. No one who considers the wonderful accuracy with which, nearly two thousand years before the Christian era, the Chaldæans had determined the famous cycle of the Saros, can doubt that they must have observed the heavenly bodies for several centuries before they could have achieved such a success; and the study of the motions of the celestial bodies compels 'men to trouble themselves' about the famous ratio of the circumference to the diameter.

We now come upon a new relation (contained in the dimensions of the pyramid as thus determined) which, by a strange coincidence, causes the height of the pyramid to appear to symbolise the distance of the sun. There were 5813 pyramid inches, or 5819 British inches, in the height of the pyramid according to the relations already indicated. Now, in the sun's distance, according to an estimate recently adopted and freely used,²² there are 91,400,000 miles or 5791 thousand millions of inches—that is, there are approximately as many thousand millions of inches in the sun's distance as there are inches in the height of the pyramid. If we take the relation as exact we should infer for the sun's distance 5819 thousand millions of inches, or 91,840,000 miles—an immense improvement on the estimate which for so many years occupied a place of honour in our books of astronomy. Besides, there is strong reason for believing that, when the results of recent observations are worked out, the estimated sun distance will be much nearer this pyramid value than even to the value 91,400,000 recently adopted. This result, which one would have thought so damaging to faith in the evidence from coincidence—nay, quite fatal after the other case in which a close coincidence had appeared by merest accident—is regarded by the pyramidalist as a perfect triumph for their faith.

They connect it with another coincidence, viz. that, assuming the height determined in the way already indicated, then it so happens that the height bears to half a diagonal of the base the ratio 9 to 10. Seeing that the perimeter of the base symbolises the annual motion of the earth round the sun, while the height represents the radius of a circle with that perimeter, it follows that the height should symbolise the sun's distance. 'That line, further,' says Professor Smyth (speaking on behalf of Mr. W. Petrie, the discoverer of this relation), 'must represent' this radius 'in the proportion of 1 to 1,000,000,000' (or ten raised to power nine), 'because amongst other reasons 10 to 9 is practically the shape of the great pyramid.' For this building 'has such an angle at the corners, that for every ten units its structure advances inwards on the diagonal of the base, it practically rises upwards, or points to sunshine' (sic) 'by nine. Nine, too, out of the ten characteristic parts (viz. five angles and five sides) being the number of those parts which the sun shines on in such a shaped pyramid, in such a latitude near the equator, out of a high sky, or, as the Peruvians say, when the sun sets on the pyramid with all its rays.' The coincidence itself on which this perverse reasoning rests is a singular one—singular, that is, as showing how close an accidental coincidence may run. It amounts to this, that if the number of days in the year be multiplied by 100, and a circle be drawn with a circumference containing 100 times as many inches as there are days in the year, the radius of the circle will be very nearly one 1,000,000,000th part of the sun's distance. Remembering that the pyramid inch is assumed to be one 500,000,000th part of the earth's diameter, we shall not be far from the truth in saying that, as a matter of fact, the earth by her orbital motion traverses each day a distance equal to two hundred times her own diameter. But, of course, this relation is altogether accidental. It has no real cause in nature.²³

Such relations show that mere numerical coincidences, however close, have little weight as evidence, except where they occur in series. Even then they require to be very cautiously regarded, seeing that the history of science records many instances where the apparent law of a series has been found to be falsified when the theory has been extended. Of course this reason is not quoted in order to throw doubt on the supposition that the height of the pyramid was intended to symbolise the sun's distance. That supposition is simply inadmissible if the hypothesis, according to which the height was already independently determined in another way, is admitted. Either hypothesis might be admitted were we not certain that the sun's distance could not possibly have been known to the builders of the pyramid; or both hypotheses may be rejected: but to admit both is out of the question.

Considering the multitude of dimensions of length, surface, capacity, and position, the great number of shapes, and the variety of material existing within the pyramid, and considering, further, the enormous number of relations (presented by modern science) from among which to choose, can it be wondered at if fresh coincidences are being continually recognised? If a dimension will not serve in one way, use can be found for it in another; for instance, if some measure of length does not correspond closely with any known dimension of the earth or of the solar system (an unlikely supposition), then it can be understood to typify an interval of time. If, even after trying all possible changes of that kind, no coincidence shows itself (which is all but impossible), then all that is needed to secure a coincidence is that the dimensions should be manipulated a little.

Let a single instance suffice to show how the pyramidalists (with perfect honesty of purpose) hunt down a coincidence. The slant tunnel already described has a transverse height, once no doubt uniform, now giving various measures from 47·14 pyramid inches to 47·32 inches, so that the vertical height from the known inclination of the tunnel would be estimated at somewhere between 52·64 inches and 52·85. Neither dimension corresponds very obviously with any measured distance in the earth or solar system. Nor when we try periods, areas, etc., does any very satisfactory coincidence present itself. But the difficulty is easily turned into a new proof of design. Putting all the observations together (says Professor Smyth), 'I deduced 47·24 pyramid inches to be the transverse height of the entrance passage; and computing from thence with the observed angle of inclination the vertical height, that came out 52·76 of the same inches. But the sum of those two heights, or the height taken up and down, equals 100 inches, which length, as elsewhere shown, is the general pyramid linear representation of a day of twenty-four hours. And the mean of the two heights, or the height taken one way only, and impartially to the middle point between them, equals fifty inches; which quantity is, therefore, the general pyramid linear representation of only half a day. In which case, let us ask what the entrance passage has to do with half rather than a whole day?'

On relations such as these, which, if really intended by the architect, would imply an utterly fatuous habit of concealing elaborately what he desired to symbolise, the pyramidalists base their belief that 'a Mighty Intelligence did both think out the plans for it, and compel unwilling and ignorant idolators, in a primal age of the world, to work mightily both for the future glory of the one true God of Revelation, and to establish lasting prophetic testimony touching a further development, still to take place, of the absolutely Divine Christian dispensation.'

III.
THE MYSTERY OF THE PYRAMIDS

Few subjects of inquiry have proved more perplexing than the question of the purpose for which the pyramids of Egypt were built. Even in the remotest ages of which we have historical record, nothing seems to have been known certainly on this point. For some reason or other, the builders of the pyramids concealed the object of these structures, and this so successfully that not even a tradition has reached us which purports to have been handed down from the epoch of the pyramids' construction. We find, indeed, some explanations given by the earliest historians; but they were professedly only hypothetical, like those advanced in more recent times. Including ancient and modern theories, we find a wide range of choice. Some have thought that these buildings were associated with the religion of the early Egyptians; others have suggested that they were tombs; others, that they combined the purposes of tombs and temples, that they were astronomical observatories, defences against the sands of the Great Desert, granaries like those made under Joseph's direction, places of resort during excessive overflows of the Nile; and many other uses have been suggested for them. But none of these ideas are found on close examination to be tenable as representing the sole purpose of the pyramids, and few of them have strong claims to be regarded as presenting even a chief object of these remarkable structures. The significant and perplexing history of the three oldest pyramids—the Great Pyramid of Cheops, Shofo, or Suphis, the pyramid of Chephren, and the pyramid of Mycerinus; and the most remarkable of all the facts known respecting the pyramids generally, viz., the circumstance that one pyramid after another was built as though each had become useless soon after it was finished, are left entirely unexplained by all the theories above mentioned, save one only, the tomb theory, and that does not afford by any means a satisfactory explanation of the circumstances.

I propose to give here a brief account of some of the most suggestive facts known respecting the pyramids, and, after considering the difficulties which beset the theories heretofore advanced, to indicate a theory (new so far as I know) which seems to me to correspond better with the facts than any heretofore advanced; I suggest it, however, rather for consideration than because I regard it as very convincingly supported by the evidence. In fact, to advance any theory at present with confident assurance of its correctness, would be simply to indicate a very limited acquaintance with the difficulties surrounding the subject.

Let us first consider a few of the more striking facts recorded by history or tradition, noting, as we proceed, whatever ideas they may suggest as to the intended character of these structures.

It is hardly necessary to say, perhaps, that the history of the Great Pyramid is of paramount importance in this inquiry. Whatever purpose pyramids were originally intended to subserve, must have been conceived by the builders of that pyramid. New ideas may have been superadded by the builders of later pyramids, but it is unlikely that the original purpose can have been entirely abandoned. Some great purpose there was, which the rulers of ancient Egypt proposed to fulfil by building very massive pyramidal structures on a particular plan. It is by inquiring into the history of the first and most massive of these structures, and by examining its construction, that we shall have the best chance of finding out what that great purpose was.

According to Herodotus, the kings who built the pyramids reigned not more than twenty-eight centuries ago; but there can be little doubt that Herodotus misunderstood the Egyptian priests from whom he derived his information, and that the real antiquity of the pyramid-kings was far greater. He tells us that, according to the Egyptian priests, Cheops 'on ascending the throne plunged into all manner of wickedness. He closed the temples, and forbade the Egyptians to offer sacrifice, compelling them instead to labour one and all in his service, viz., in building the Great Pyramid.' Still following his interpretation of the Egyptian account, we learn that one hundred thousand men were employed for twenty years in building the Great Pyramid, and that ten years were occupied in constructing a causeway by which to convey the stones to the place and in conveying them there. 'Cheops reigned fifty years; and was succeeded by his brother Chephren, who imitated the conduct of his predecessor, built a pyramid—but smaller than his brother's—and reigned fifty-six years. Thus during one hundred and six years, the temples were shut and never opened.' Moreover, Herodotus tells us that 'the Egyptians so detested the memory of these kings, that they do not much like even to mention their names. Hence they commonly call the pyramids after Philition, a shepherd who at that time fed his flocks about the place.' 'After Chephren, Mycerinus, son of Cheops, ascended the throne, he reopened the temples, and allowed the people to resume the practice of sacrifice. He, too, left a pyramid, but much inferior in size to his father's. It is built, for half of its height, of the stone of Ethiopia,' or, as Professor Smyth (whose extracts from Rawlinson's translation I have here followed) adds 'expensive red granite.' 'After Mycerinus, Asychis ascended the throne. He built the eastern gateway of the Temple of Vulcan (Phtha); and, being desirous of eclipsing all his predecessors on the throne, left as a monument of his reign a pyramid of brick.'

This account is so suggestive, as will presently be shown, that it may be well to inquire whether it can be relied on. Now, although there can be no doubt that Herodotus misunderstood the Egyptians in some matters, and in particular as to the chronological order of the dynasties, placing the pyramid kings far too late, yet in other respects he seems not only to have understood them correctly, but also to have received a correct account from them. The order of the kings above named corresponds with the sequence given by Manetho, and also found in monumental and hieroglyphic records. Manetho gives the names Suphis I., Suphis II., and Mencheres, instead of Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus; while, according to the modern Egyptologists, Herodotus's Cheops was Shofo, Shufu, or Koufou; Chephren was Shafre, while he was also called Nou-Shofo or Noum-Shufu as the brother of Shofo; and Mycerinus was Menhere or Menkerre. But the identity of these kings is not questioned. As to the true dates there is much doubt, and it is probable that the question will long continue open; but the determination of the exact epochs when the several pyramids were built is not very important in connection with our present inquiry. We may, on the whole, fairly take the points quoted above from Herodotus, and proceed to consider the significance of the narrative, with sufficient confidence that in all essential respects it is trustworthy.

There are several very strange features in the account.

In the first place, it is manifest that Cheops (to call the first king by the name most familiar to the general reader) attached great importance to the building of his pyramid. It has been said, and perhaps justly, that it would be more interesting to know the plan of the architect who devised the pyramid than the purpose of the king who built it. But the two things are closely connected. The architect must have satisfied the king that some highly important purpose in which the king himself was interested, would be subserved by the structure. Whether the king was persuaded to undertake the work as a matter of duty, or only to advance his own interests, may not be so clear. But that the king was most thoroughly in earnest about the work is certain. A monarch in those times would assuredly not have devoted an enormous amount of labour and material to such a scheme unless he was thoroughly convinced of its great importance. That the welfare of his people was not considered by Cheops in building the Great Pyramid is almost equally certain. He might, indeed, have had a scheme for their good which either he did not care to explain to them or which they could not understand. But the most natural inference from the narrative is that his purpose had no reference whatever to their welfare. For though one could understand his own subjects hating him while he was all the time working for their good, it is obvious that his memory would not have been hated if some important good had eventually been gained from his scheme. Many a far-seeing ruler has been hated while living on account of the very work for which his memory has been revered. But the memory of Cheops and his successors was held in detestation.

May we, however, suppose that, though Cheops had not the welfare of his own people in his thoughts, his purpose was nevertheless not selfish, but intended in some way to promote the welfare of the human race? I say his purpose, because, whoever originated the scheme, Cheops carried it out; it was by means of his wealth and through his power that the pyramid was built. This is the view adopted by Professor Piazzi Smyth and others, in our own time, and first suggested by John Taylor. 'Whereas other writers,' says Smyth, 'have generally esteemed that the mysterious persons who directed the building of the Great Pyramid (and to whom the Egyptians, in their traditions, and for ages afterwards, gave an immoral and even abominable character) must therefore have been very bad indeed, so that the world at large has always been fond of standing on, kicking, and insulting that dead lion, whom they really knew not; he, Mr. John Taylor, seeing how religiously bad the Egyptians themselves were, was led to conclude, on the contrary, that those they hated (and could never sufficiently abuse) might, perhaps, have been pre-eminently good; or were, at all events, of different religious faith from themselves.' 'Combining this with certain unmistakable historical facts,' Mr. Taylor deduced reasons for believing that the directors of the building designed to record in its proportions, and in its interior features, certain important religious and scientific truths, not for the people then living, but for men who were to come 4000 years or so after.

I have already considered at length (see the preceding Essay) the evidence on which this strange theory rests. But there are certain matters connecting it with the above narrative which must here be noticed. The mention of the shepherd Philition, who fed his flocks about the place where the Great Pyramid was built, is a singular feature of Herodotus's narrative. It reads like some strange misinterpretation of the story related to him by the Egyptian priests. It is obvious that if the word Philition did not represent a people, but a person, this person must have been very eminent and distinguished—a shepherd-king, not a mere shepherd. Rawlinson, in a note on this portion of the narrative of Herodotus, suggests that Philitis was probably a shepherd-prince from Palestine, perhaps of Philistine descent, 'but so powerful and domineering, that it may be traditions of his oppressions in that earlier age which, mixed up afterwards in the minds of later Egyptians with the evils inflicted on their country by the subsequent shepherds of better known dynasties, lent so much fear to their religious hate of Shepherd times and that name.' Smyth, somewhat modifying this view, and considering certain remarks of Manetho respecting an alleged invasion of Egypt by shepherd-kings, 'men of an ignoble race (from the Egyptian point of view) who had the confidence to invade our country, and easily subdued it to their power without a battle,' comes to the conclusion that some Shemite prince, 'a contemporary of, but rather older than, the Patriarch Abraham,' visited Egypt at this time, and obtained such influence over the mind of Cheops as to persuade him to erect the pyramid. According to Smyth, the prince was no other than Melchizedek, king of Salem, and the influence he exerted was supernatural. With such developments of the theory we need not trouble ourselves. It seems tolerably clear that certain shepherd-chiefs who came to Egypt during Cheops' reign were connected in some way with the designing of the Great Pyramid. It is clear also that they were men of a different religion from the Egyptians, and persuaded Cheops to abandon the religion of his people. Taylor, Smyth, and the Pyramidalists generally, consider this sufficient to prove that the pyramid was erected for some purpose connected with religion. 'The pyramid,' in fine, says Smyth, 'was charged by God's inspired shepherd-prince, in the beginning of human time, to keep a certain message secret and inviolable for 4000 years, and it has done so; and in the next thousand years it was to enunciate that message to all men, with more than traditional force, more than all the authenticity of copied manuscripts or reputed history; and that part of the pyramid's usefulness is now beginning.'

There are many very obvious difficulties surrounding this theory; as, for example (i.) the absurd waste of power in setting supernatural machinery at work 4000 years ago with cumbrous devices to record its object, when the same machinery, much more simply employed now, would effect the alleged purpose far more thoroughly; (ii.) the enormous amount of human misery and its attendant hatreds brought about by this alleged divine scheme; and (iii.) the futility of an arrangement by which the pyramid was only to subserve its purpose when it had lost that perfection of shape on which its entire significance depended, according to the theory itself. But, apart from these, there is a difficulty, nowhere noticed by Smyth or his followers, which is fatal, I conceive, to this theory of the pyramid's purpose. The second pyramid, though slightly inferior to the first in size, and probably far inferior in quality of masonry, is still a structure of enormous dimensions, which must have required many years of labour from tens of thousands of workmen. Now, it seems impossible to explain why Chephren built this second pyramid, if we adopt Smyth's theory respecting the first pyramid. For either Chephren knew the purpose for which the Great Pyramid was built, or he did not know it. If he knew that purpose, and it was that indicated by Smyth, then he also knew that no second pyramid was wanted. On that hypothesis, all the labour bestowed on the second pyramid was wittingly and wilfully wasted. This, of course is incredible. But, on the other hand, if Chephren did not know what was the purpose for which the Great Pyramid was built, what reason could Chephren have had for building a pyramid at all? The only answer to this question seems to be that Chephren built the second pyramid in hopes of finding out why his brother had built the first, and this answer is simply absurd. It is clear enough that whatever purpose Cheops had in building the first pyramid, Chephren must have had a similar purpose in building the second; and we require a theory which shall at least explain why the first pyramid did not subserve for Chephren the purpose which it subserved or was meant to subserve for Cheops. The same reasoning may be extended to the third pyramid, to the fourth, and in fine to all the pyramids, forty or so in number, included under the general designation of the Pyramids of Ghizeh or Jeezeh. The extension of the principle to pyramids later than the second is especially important as showing that the difference of religion insisted on by Smyth has no direct bearing on the question of the purpose for which the Great Pyramid itself was constructed. For Mycerinus either never left or else returned to the religion of the Egyptians. Yet he also built a pyramid, which, though far inferior in size to the pyramids built by his father and uncle, was still a massive structure, and relatively more costly even than theirs, because built of expensive granite. The pyramid built by Asychis, though smaller still, was remarkable as built of brick; in fact, we are expressly told that Asychis desired to eclipse all his predecessors in such labours, and accordingly left this brick pyramid as a monument of his reign.

We are forced, in fact, to believe that there was some special relation between the pyramid and its builder, seeing that each one of these kings wanted a pyramid of his own. This applies to the Great Pyramid quite as much as to the others, despite the superior excellence of that structure. Or rather, the argument derives its chief force from the superiority of the Great Pyramid. If Chephren, no longer perhaps having the assistance of the shepherd-architects in planning and superintending the work, was unable to construct a pyramid so perfect and so stately as his brother's, the very fact that he nevertheless built a pyramid shows that the Great Pyramid did not fulfil for Chephren the purpose which it fulfilled for Cheops. But, if Smyth's theory were true, the Great Pyramid would have fulfilled finally and for all men the purpose for which it was built. Since this was manifestly not the case, that theory is, I submit, demonstrably erroneous.

It was probably the consideration of this point, viz. that each king had a pyramid constructed for himself, which led to the theory that the pyramids were intended to serve as tombs. This theory was once very generally entertained. Thus we find Humboldt, in his remarks on American pyramids, referring to the tomb theory of the Egyptian pyramids as though it were open to no question. 'When we consider,' he says, 'the pyramidical monuments of Egypt, of Asia, and of the New Continent, from the same point of view, we see that, though their form is alike, their destination was altogether different. The group of pyramids of Ghizeh and at Sakhara in Egypt; the triangular pyramid of the Queen of the Scythians, Zarina, which was a stadium high and three in circumference, and which was decorated with a colossal figure; the fourteen Etruscan pyramids, which are said to have been enclosed in the labyrinth of the king Porsenna, at Clusium—were reared to serve as the sepulchres of the illustrious dead. Nothing is more natural to men than to commemorate the spot where rest the ashes of those whose memory they cherish whether it be, as in the infancy of the race, by simple mounds of earth, or, in later periods, by the towering height of the tumulus. Those of the Chinese and of Thibet have only a few metres of elevation. Farther to the west the dimensions increase; the tumulus of the king Alyattes, father of Crœsus, in Lydia, was six stadia, and that of Ninus was more than ten stadia in diameter. In the north of Europe the sepulchre of the Scandinavian king Gormus and the queen Daneboda, covered with mounds of earth, are three hundred metres broad, and more than thirty high.'