One of the Pyramids at Sakkara is almost a rival for
the full-grown monster at Ghizeh; others are scarcely more than
vast heaps of brick and stone: these last suggested to me the idea
that after all the Pyramid is nothing more nor less than a variety
of the sepulchral mound so common in most countries (including, I
believe, Hindustan, from whence the Egyptians are supposed to have
come). Men accustomed to raise these structures for their dead
kings or conquerors would carry the usage with them in their
migrations, but arriving in Egypt, and seeing the impossibility of
finding earth sufficiently tenacious for a mound, they would
approximate as nearly as might be to their ancient custom by
raising up a round heap of stones--in short, conical pyramids. Of
these there are several at Sakkara, and the materials of some are
thrown together without any order or regularity. The transition
from this simple form to that of the square angular pyramid was
easy and natural, and it seemed to me that the gradations through
which the style passed from infancy up to its mature enormity could
plainly be traced at Sakkara.
CHAPTER XX--THE SPHINX
And near the Pyramids more wondrous and more awful than all else in
the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphinx.
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