ds have been discovered, but those of Gizeh, near Cairo, are the
largest and the best known, and also probably the oldest which can be
authenticated.[1] The three largest pyramids are those of Cheops,
Cephren, and Mycerinus at Gizeh (or, as the names are more correctly
written, Suphis, Sensuphis, and Moscheris or Mencheris). These
monarchs all belonged to the fourth dynasty, and the most probable
date to be assigned to them is about 3000 B.C. The pyramid of Suphis
is the largest, and is the one familiarly known as the Great Pyramid;
it has a square base, the side of which is 760 feet long,[2] a height
of 484 feet, and an area of 577,600 square feet. In this pyramid the
angle of inclination of the sloping sides to the base is 51 deg. 51', but
in no two pyramids is this angle the same. There can be no doubt that
these huge monuments were erected each as the tomb of an individual
king, whose efforts were directed towards making it everlasting, and
the greatest pains were taken to render the access to the burial
chamber extremely hard to discover. This accounts for the vast
disproportion between the lavish amount of material used for the
pyramid and the smallness of the cavity enclosed in it (Fig. 8).

The material employed was limestone cased with syenite (granite from
Syene), and the internal passages were lined with granite. The granite
of the casing has entirely disappeared, but that employed as linings
is still in its place, and so skilfully worked that it would not be
possible to introduce even a sheet of paper between the joints.

[Illustration: FIG. 8.--SECTION ACROSS THE GREAT PYRAMID (OF CHEOPS
OR SUPHIS).]

The entrance D to this pyramid of Suphis was at a height of 47 ft.
6 in. above the base, and, as was almost invariably the case, on the
north face; from the entrance a passage slopes downward at an angle of
26 deg. 27' to a chamber cut in the rock at a depth of about 90 feet below
the base of the pyramid. This chamber seems to have been intended as a
blind, as it was not the place for the deposition of the corpse. From
the point in the above described passage--marked A on our illustration
of this pyramid--another gallery starts upwards, till it reaches the
point C, from which a horizontal passage leads to another small
chamber. This is called the Queen's Chamber, but no reason has been
discovered for the name. From this point C the gallery continues
upwards till, in the heart of the pyramid, the Roya