Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-01-14
EGYPT THE ANCIENT
Cradle Of the Alphabet and Of
Literature.
AGE OF THE PYRAMIDS
OLDEST STRUCTURE BUILT WITH
HANDS.
Hordes Engaged on It for Many Years
The Career of Josephine Rec
ords, to Be Found.
AGE OF THE PYRAMIDS
BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star and
Chicago Record Herald.

BY WILLIAM e. CURTIS.
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star and
Chicago Record Herald.
CAIRO, December 20, 1903.
We know more about the history of Egypt
than that of any other Of the ancient coun-
tries except Palestine, because of the in
scriptions upon the monuments and tombs
and the rolls of papyrus manuscripts which
have been discovered in the collins of mum
mics. The vanity of the Phafaohs has been
very profitable to modern scholars, SO many
of them took the trouble to4engrave upon
imperishable materials in teryptographs
which we are now able to decfpher, accounts
of their careers and achievements, more or
less in detail which necessarily involve the
history of their times. OF course, we have
to make liberal discount from the bonn
bastic eulogies, for we know that human
nature has not changed since the time of
Adam and that all the apples are as big as
pumpkins to the man who owns the orchard
The writer's and artists who were employ
ed by the Pharaohs to perpetuate their
fame never hesitated to give them what
they paid for; but after making reasonab Bile
deductions for egotism and fattery we
have been given an almost continuous his
tory of nearly all the several dynasties
that ruled over Egypt from the time of the
demi-gods and the invention of; Photography.
the oldest form of expression in writing we
know.
The Oldest Book in the World.
1t is pretty well established, too that the
Egyptians invented the art OF writing. and
that our alphabe was adapted from theirs
Egyptian characters are to- be found in
the Prisse Papyrus" of the eleventh dy-
nasty. which is the Oldest book In the
world. written in the reign OF King Seank
hara, who lived about Twenty-Five hundred
years before Christ The characters that
|appear in this book are pronounced by the
highest of philologist authority to be pro-
totypes of the letters afterward. copied by
the Greeks from the PhOenicians and by
them transmitted to the LatinS. Thus
Egypt is not only the cradle of the alphabet,
but may be considered the mother of liter
ature.
The records upon the tombs and monu-
ments, beginning with Mepas the King Ct
Egypt, who founded Memphis and built one
of the great pyramids $500 years ago, show
that the people were seldom governed by
a man of their own race. Egyptian his
tory for nearly 5000 years tells of series
of conquests by aliens who ruled the coun-
try for centuries at time until they In
turn We're overcome and driven out by
other misunderstanding Ethiopian, Assy-
rian. Persian, Greek. Macedonian. Roman.
Saracen and Turkish. There is scarcely a
representative of the Egyptian race in all
of the long list that has been preserved to
OF foreign domination the people have pre-
served their individuality and facial feat
ures their peculiar customs and other ma
tional characteristics-an ethnographical
chronological phenomenon that is equally
marked with the Jews
Archaeologists maintain that certain in
scriptions discovered in Babylonia date
back more than 5000 years. That. however,
is question of opinion. If 1t is true, they
are the Oldest of human record. The story
of Egypt, however, as written In hero
glyphics upon the walls of monuments, pal
aces and tombs is not open to dispute.
The kings who built the pyramids erected
monuments that cannot perish and have
not been removed. There is, however, q
difference Of opinion as to exact dates,
caused by variations of Interpretation.
reigned 5,S67 years before Christ, which
would be nearly 5000 years from now, but
others bring the date down to 400 years
B. C.
The Oldest Structure.
Taking the latter estimate as accurate.
we have at Sahara. twelve miles from
Cairo and nine miles from the great pyra-
mid of Cheops and the Sphinx, in what is
known as the Step Pyramid near the
ruins of the ancient city of Memphis, the
oldest structure of human hands. That we
know because Of inscriptions of which there
is no doubt. 1t was built by King Tchesor
of the third dynasty in the year $500 B. G.
Mena, the first Of the kings of Egypt
whose name we knew. was an invader and
got his throne by conquest. He came from
some indefinite place in the north. Baby
lonia, perhaps. overthrow the local chiefs,
turned the course of the Nile in order to
have a favorable site for a city, and built
Memphis the capital of Kingdom, which
was consolidated from all the countries he
had conquered. His descendants reigned
for about 500 years. and were followed by
generation of pyramid builders. who have
left us not only their monuments, but their
actual bones which you can see scattered
through the museums of Europe. The
bones of Mycerinos, whom Herodotus tells
was "a just and merciful king" and
who built the third pyramid at Gizeh, are
in the British museum at London.
1t was the fashion of the tkings-of Egypt
from 400 to 5000 before Christ to erect their
own monuments and sepulchers in the form
of great masses Of masonry Others erected
obelisks, and their SUCCESSORS excayated
vast caverns In the living rock for burial
places There Is no longer any doubt that
the pyramids were tombs and nothing else.
The ancient theory that they were erected
for astronomical Observatories and that the
great pyramid was intended to serve as a
standard of measurement was exploded
long ago, but the method of their con-
struction has never been satisfactorily set
tied Inscriptions upon the interior walls
show that 1t was the tomb OF Cheops a
king who lived 3, 733 years before Christ,
and inside the chamber has been found an
empty, coverless, broken red granite sar
cophagus, In winch his body lay 900
years, until the pyramid WAS looted by
Persian invaders under Cenbyses between
900 and 600 B. C.
Building the Pyramids.
According to Herodotus, the king kept
100000 of his subjects at work for twenty
years continuously upon this monstrous
sepulcher, some quarrying stone in the
Arabian mountains, others transporting 1t
down the Nile upon RATS and fiatboats.
others drawing the immense blocks along
causeways which had been built for the
purpose. to great rock which forms the
core of the pyramid. The interior cham
bers were chiseled out of that rock and
then 1t was covered with layer after layer
of stone cut to the proper dimensions.
These layers were placed /. one upon an
other. and the pyramid grew larger and
larger until IT was finished The general
belief is that earth was heaped up around