The dawn of history : an introduction to pre-historic study / edited by C.F. Keary.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The dawn of history : an introduction to pre-historic study / edited by C.F. Keary. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    69/380 (page 53)
    dynastic lists, whose authenticity is admitted, and the re- mains of no mean civilization in the buildings contemporary with these earliest chronicles. Egyptian history maybe said to begin with the builders of the pyramids. But the pyramids themselves are nothing else than the children of the tumuli of the second stone age. We may call them a sort of crystallized tumuli— barrows of stone instead of earth. But, in truth, the earliest pyramids were probably not built of stone. It is generally believed that the stone pyramids which we see to-day at Giza and Sakkara were preceded by pyramids of unbaked brick. And what are such buildings of unbaked brick save carefully raised mounds of earth ? Here, then, we get the nearest meeting-point between the stone age and the age of history. Again, the principle upon which were constructed the Egyptian tombs—of which the pyramids were only the most conspicuous forms—were precisely the same as the principles which governed the construction of the more elaborate barrows. These last had not only a chamber for the dead. This chamber was in many cases approached by a passage also made of stones covered with earth; and there can be no question that the mouth of the tomb was used as a sort of ante-room in which the relatives of the dead might hold their wake, or funeral feast. Here have been found the traces of fires, the remains of animals, fragments of vessels of pottery, etc., used or consumed in the feasts. We may believe that the ceremony was repeated at stated intervals. The very same principle governed the con- struction of the Egyptian tombs. These likewise (in their earliest known forms) consisted of an inner tomb and of an outer chamber ; generally between the one and the other there was a passage. The outer chamber is that to which archaeologists have given the name of mastaba. In it