continually turning a wheel with a rope, to which are faftened buckets. The water thus drawn from the first and lowermoft well, is conveyed by a little canal, into a reservoir, which forms the fecond well; from whence it is drawn to the top in the fame manner, and then conveyed by pipes to all parts of the castle. As this well is fuppofed by the inhabitants of the country, to be of great antiquity, and has indeed much of the antique way of the Egyptians, I thought it might deserve a place among the curiofities of ancient Egypt. STRABO fpeaks of fuch an engine, which, by Lib. 17. wheels and pullies, threw up the water of the Nile p. 807. to the top of a vast high hill; with this difference, that, inftead of oxen, an hundred and fifty flaves were employed to turn these wheels. THIS part of Egypt we are treating of, is famous for several rarities, each of which deferves a particular examination. I fhall relate only the principal, fuch as the obelisks, the pyramids, the labyrinth, the lake of Moris and the Nile. SECT. I. The OBELISKS. GYPT feemed to place its chief glory in raifing monuments for pofterity. Its obelisks form at this day, on account of their beauty as well as height, the principal ornament of Rome; and the Roman power, defpairing to equal the Egyptians, thought it honour enough to borrow the monuments of their kings. AN obelisk is a quadrangular, taper, high spire or pyramid, raifed perpendicularly and terminating in a point, to ferve as an ornament to fome open fquare; and is very often filled with infcriptions or hieroglyphicks, that is, with myftical characters or fybols, ufed by the Egyptians to conceal and dif gfe their facred things, and the myfteries of their ology. SESOSTRIS B 3 Diod. 1. 1. SESOSTRIS erected in the city of Heliopolis two obelifks of an extreme hard ftone, brought from the quarries of Syene, at the extremity of Egypt. They were each one hundred and twenty cubits high, that is, thirty fathoms, or one hundred and eighty foot. The emperor Auguftus, having made Egypt a province of the empire, caufed these two obelisks to be tranfported to Rome, one whereof was afterwards Plin. 1.36. broke to pieces. He durft not venture upon a c.8, and 9. third, which was of a monftrous fize. It was made in the reign of Ramifes: 'Tis faid, that twenty thoufand men were employed in the cutting of it. Conftantius, more daring than Auguftus, ordered it to be removed to Rome. Two of these obelisks are ftill feen, as well as another of an hundred cubits or twenty five fathoms high, and eight cubits or two fathoms in diameter. Caius Cæfar had brought it from Egypt in a fhip of foodd a form, that, according to Pliny, the like had never been feen. Ibid. c. 9. EVERY part of Egypt abounded with this kind of obelifks; they were for the moft part cut in the quarries of Upper Egypt, where fome are now to be feen half finished. But the most wonderful circumstance is, that the ancient Egyptians fhould have had the art and contrivance to dig even in the very quarry a canal, through which the water of the Nile an in the time of its inundation; from whence they afterwards raifed up the colums, obelisks and ftatues on rafts t proportioned to their weight, in order to convey them into Lower Egypt. And as the country abounded every where with canals, there were few places to which thofe huge bodies might not be carried with eafe; although their weight would have broke every other kind of engine. It must be observed, once for measure. Rafts are pieces of flat tir ber put together, to carry g on rivers. SEC A SECT. II. The PYRAMIDS. Diod. 1. P.39-41 PYRAMID is a folid or hollow body, having Herod.1.2 a large, and generally a fquare bafe, and ter- c 124, &c minating in a point. THERE were three pyramids in Egypt more fa- Plin. lib. mous than the reft, one whereof * deferv'd to be 36. c. 12 rank'd among the feven wonders of the world; they did not stand very far from the city of Memphis. I fhall take notice here only of the largest of the three. This pyramid, like the reft, was built on a rock, having a fquare bafe, cut on the outfide as fo many steps, and decreafing gradually quite to the fummit. It was built with ftones of a prodigious fize, the least of which were thirty foot, wrought with wonderful art, and covered with hieroglyphicks. According to feveral ancient authors, each fide was eight hundred feet broad, and as many high. The fummit of the pyramid, which to those who viewed it from below, feemed a point, was a fine platform composed of ten or twelve maffy ftones, and each fide of that platform fixteen or eighteen fist long. M. des Chazelles of the academy of Sciences, who went purposely on the fpot in 1693, gives us the following dimenfions: The fide of the square base The perpendicular height Ito fathoms. 12100 square fathoms. 177 fathoms. The folid contents 313590 cubical fathoms. AN hundred thousand men were conftantly employed about this work, and were relieved every three months by the fame number. Ten complete Years were spent in hewing out the ftones, either in Arabia or Ethiopia, and in conveying them to Egypt and twenty years more in building this immenfe edifice, the infide of which contained numberless rooms and apartments. There was expreffed on the pyramid, in Egyptian characters, the fums it coft only in garlick, leeks, onions and the like for the workmen; and the whole amounted to fixteen hundred talents of filver, that is, four millions five hundred thousand French livres; from whence it was eafy to conjecture, what a vaft fum the whole must have amounted to. SUCH were the famous Egyptian pyramids, which by their figure, as well as fize, have triumphed over the injuries of time and the Barbarians. But what efforts foever men may make, their weakness will always be apparent. Thefe pyramids were tombs; and there is feen at this day, in the middle of the largeft, an empty fepulchre, cut out of one entire stone, about three feet deep and broad, and a little above fix feet long. Thus all this buftle, all this expence, and all the labours of fo many thousand men ended in procuring a prince, in this vaft and almost boundlefs pile of building, a little vault fix foot in length. Befides, the kings who built thefe pyramids, had it not in their power to be buried in them; and fo did not enjoy the fepulchre they had built. The publick hatred which they incurred, by reafon of their unheard-of cruelties to their fubjects, in laying fuch heavy tasks upon them, occafioned their being interred in fome obfcure place, to prevent their bodies from being expofed to the fury and vengeance of the populace. THIS laft circumftance which historians have taken particular notice of, teaches us what judgment we ought to pafs on thefe edifices, fo much boafted of by the ancients. It is but just to remark and efteem the noble genius which the Egyptians had for architecture; a genius that prompted them from the * Strabe mentions the fepukbre, Lib. 17, p. 808. |
