Egyptian belief and modern thought / by James Bonwick.

  • James Bonwick
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Egyptian belief and modern thought / by James Bonwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    25/474 (page 11)
    city. The earliest of them, according to Mr. Fergusson, the architectural writer, show “evident symptoms of having been borrowed from a wooden original.” M. Chabas is content with remarking, “A certain number of these tombs have been constructed at the same time as the Great Pyramid, and finished before that colossal monu- ment.” But as the Pyramids of Saqqarah are more ancient than those of Gizeh, so are the graves of its Necropolis. It is, at least, a recognised fact, that both those of Gizeh and Saqqarah were closed up altogether against fresh interments in the sixth dynasty; probably 5000 years since. M. Renan refers to the long streets of magnificent sepulchres around the Great Pyramids as, “ those precious specimens of Egyptian sculpture four thousand years before Jesus Clu'ist;” and adds that “ the tombs so numerous in the lands of Sakkara, and at the foot of the pyramids, are all dated from the first six dynasties.” Dr. Birch, of our Museum^ declares most of those around the Great Pyramid to be the princes and other members of the family or time of Khufu, the Cheops who built the pyramid. M. Mariette Bey delights in comparing the solidity and eood taste of the edifices of the Ancient Empire with those of later and richer times. The writer was charmed and astonished at the collection which that distinguished Frenchman, now worthily raised to such dignity by the Viceroy, had gathered at the Boulaq Museum, near Cairo. The tombs of the Ancient Empire are nowhere else so nobly and completely illustrated. The relics of wooden doors of the mastaba are remarkably preserved. Huge slabs against the Museum walls make known the everyday life of that remote epoch. There are to be seen represent- ed, men engaged at their various trades and amusements, women in domestic engagements and social enjoyment,