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

THEORIES AND TRADITIONS

Even the earliest records we have refrain from saying anything definite about it, and Egyptologists as a body still cling to the tombic theory of it as the solution, chiefly because other—and later—pyramids were intended as such. Thus, for example, the Cambridge Ancient History, recently published, which may be regarded as the mouthpiece of present-day Egyptology, referring to Gizeh, says (vol. i, p. 281): “‘ There they (Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura) erected the most magnificent pyramids of all, the mighty three that mark the culminating point of this type of royal grave” (our italics). Of these three pyramids, Menkaura’s alone was used as a tomb, since his sarcophagus and wooden coffin, inscribed with his name and titles, have been found in its chambers; Khafra’s was not so used, and even his name has not been found inscribed on any part of it, while it is doubtful—for reasons to be given later—if it was even intended to be his burial place ; while Khufu’s was neither intended nor used as a tomb. Seeing, also, that these three pyramids are the earliest true pyramids of any, and are only exceeded in age by, perhaps, three other structures of pyramidal form, so that the great majority of Egyptian pyramids were constructed after them, the inference from the above statement that they “mark the culminating point” of this type of buildingnamely that they were the last (a point to be noticed again later)—is also erroneous.

For reasons unnecessary to state here, but which have been given in our other work on the Great Pyramid, the architect—not necessarily the same individual as the monarch, Khufu (or Cheops), with whose name the Great Pyramid has always been associated 1—concealed the real object of the structure he raised, and he did this so successfully that not even a tradition has come down to us

1 See Note D. 9