Evening star., 1926-01-24

that the floor Cf the chamber Of the
new Senefru tomb 200 Yards due
east Of this Slihterrane cha mber,
seems almost exactly ON the same
level There is not the slightest evi-
dence SO far that Herodotus was right
about that channel from the Nile. But
an undiscovered cha amber at greater
depth than Seueflu's tomb, u depth
of another hundred feet. might have
had such d canal leading 10 it, improb-
able as II seems.
The real point about the narrative
Of Herodotus is this: In his day il was
clearly the belief Ct the Egyptians
that Cileops was buried. not inside his
pyramid, but i'll deep chamber in
the rock underneath. That poorly
worked granite sarcophaSus had led
all modern invest Ga tors TO suppose
Herodotus was wrong. that the burial
chamber had been found and rifed
ages ago.
II. however the new tomb IS that
of Senefru, who never used either Of
his pyramids, then the presumption
at once becomes strong that those
chambers il the Great Pyramids are
blinds, and that Cheops is buried else
where, In a tomb probably under or
near his pyramid. and not yet dis
covered. There is yet a large area of
on the sacred east side of the pyramid
near the new tomb. 1t will be brush
ed and scraped With knives, il the
new tomb is SenefruS, i'll the hope
that CheopS may have done for him
self what he did with his predecessor.
The evidence of the alabaSter Sar-
CophaguS in the new tomb is striking
indeed, when its material and work
manship Is compared with that of the
granite Golfer In the Great Pyramid
Granite was the material ordinarily
used by mobiles and princes at the
time, as is known. But if the more
costly alabaSter, out Of which the
great statues of the kings in their
funeral temples was made, was used
for the SarcophaeuS of Senefru, is it
not probable that Cheops, 100, was
buried in ala abaSter? If so, he was
never buried in the kings chamber"
in the pyramid at all. He has fooled
all the centuries, as Senefru did.
Passages Blinds"
passages and chambers in the Pyra-
mid? Partly, perhaps wholly, 10 mock
the efforts q future tomb robbers
The first to penetrate them would
realize the hoax. but ever after the
first entrance the kings may have CON
fidently expected TO rest undiSturbed,
because posterity would assume their
burial places already robbed. and SO
would not look for them.
Another possibility: When a Mos
lem Sultan some 500 years ago pene-
trated into the third pyramid, that of
Mycerirus, an Arab historian of his
time records that he found there only
a blue box" which when the lid was
broken contained some tablets OF gold
covered with writings that nobody
could understand" 1t is just con-
ceivable, from this. that the granite
chests in the pyramids were never in
tended to receive the bodies of the
kings, but were used to contain rec
ords of their reigns.
All these suggestions are in the
highest degree speculative. Has
Cheops been laughing, in the Egyp
tan Elysian fields, at the pompous
lectures addressed TO him by histo-
rians. who have explained how fool
lSh he was to suppose that he could
shut up himself and his treasures in
q great mountain of stone and expect
succeeding generations not to break
in and rob
Future generations broke in. as is
we'll known, but did they find what
they sought? Not. at any rate, in
Senefru's pyramids at DahshIr and
Medium, if that care!esSly concealed
bed of plaster of paris above d stair
way that led nowhere has guided the
Harvard Boston eXCaVatorS to his real
tomb in the bowels of the living rock
at Ciiza.
Copyright. 1925. by North American News
paper Alliance. All rights reserved