believing that in Egypt, even in
the days of Cheops and Chephren, extreme importance was attached to the
character of the place of burial for distinguished persons, there is
nothing in what is known respecting earlier Egyptian ideas to suggest
the probability that any monarch would have devoted many years of his
subjects' labour, and vast stores of material, to erect a mass of
masonry like the Great Pyramid, solely to receive his own body after
death. Far less have we any reason for supposing that many monarchs in
succession would do this, each having a separate tomb built for him. It
might have been conceivable, had only the Great Pyramid been erected,
that the structure had been raised as a mausoleum for all the kings and
princes of the dynasty. But it seems utterly incredible that such a
building as the Great Pyramid should have been erected for one king's
body only--and that, not in the way described by Humboldt, when he
speaks of men commemorating the spot where rest the remains of those
whose memory they cherish, but at the expense of the king himself whose
body was to be there deposited. Besides, the first pyramid, the one
whose history must be regarded as most significant of the true purpose
of these buildings, was not built by an Egyptian holding in great favour
the special religious ideas of his people, but by one who had adopted
other views and those not belonging, so far as can be seen, to a people
among whom sepulchral rites were held in exceptional regard.

A still stronger objection against the exclusively tombic theory
resides in the fact that this theory gives no account whatever of the
characteristic features of the pyramids themselves. These buildings are
all, without exception, built on special astronomical principles. Their
square bases are so placed as to have two sides lying east and west, and
two lying north and south, or, in other words, so that their four faces
front the four cardinal points. One can imagine no reason why a tomb
should have such a position. It is not, indeed, easy to understand why
any building at all, except an astronomical observatory, should have
such a position. A temple perhaps devoted to sun-worship, and generally
to the worship of the heavenly bodies, might be built in that way. For
it is to be noticed that the peculiar figure and position of the
pyramids would bring about the following relations:--When the sun rose
and set south of the east and west points, or (speaking