WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Storehouses of the King; Or, the Pyramids of Egypt / What They Are and Who Built Them cover

The Storehouses of the King; Or, the Pyramids of Egypt / What They Are and Who Built Them

Chapter 17: APPENDIX III.
By Jane van Gelder
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

History - AncientHistory - Religious

About This Book

The work advances an interpretation that the Egyptian pyramids functioned as royal storehouses and granaries established under the direction of the biblical Joseph, and that their interior passages and the Sphinx correspond to practical entrances and storage arrangements. It links Joseph as builder and Moses as recorder, treats the Tower of Babel as a conceptual prototype, and situates the Hebrew sojourn in Egypt alongside these structures. Later chapters consider Moses' missions, comparative ancient granaries, and the reputed death and apotheosis of Moses. Appendices compile discussions of famine records, the Septuagint translation, Herodotus' descriptions, harvest feast practices, and prophetic material about Egypt.

APPENDIX III.

An Extract from the Works of Herodotus[101] concerning
the Pyramids of Egypt.

The Egyptians say that this Cheops[102] reigned fifty years; and when he died, his brother Chephren succeeded to the kingdom; and he followed the same practices as the other, both in other respects, and in building a pyramid; which does not come up to the dimensions of his brother’s, for I myself measured them; nor has it subterraneous chambers; nor does a channel from the Nile flow to it, as to the other; but this flows through an artificial aqueduct round an island within, in which they say the body of Cheops is laid.

Having laid the first course of variegated Ethiopian stones, less in height than the other by forty feet, he built it near the large Pyramid. They both stand on the same hill,[103] which is about a hundred feet high. Chephren, they said, reigned fifty-six years.

Thus one hundred and six years are reckoned, during which the Egyptians suffered all kinds of calamities,[104] and for this length of time the temples were closed and never opened. From the hatred they bear them, the Egyptians are not very willing to mention their names; but call the Pyramids after Philition,[105] a shepherd, who at that time kept his cattle in those parts.