ffer a better resistance to downward thrust and to shocks of
earthquake. When breaches in the masonry are examined, it can be seen
that the external surface of the steps has, as it were, a double stone
facing, each facing being carefully dressed. The body of the pyramid is
solid, the chambers being cut in the rock beneath. These chambers have
often been enlarged, restored, and reworked in the course of centuries,
and the passages which connect them form a perfect labyrinth into which
it is dangerous to venture without a guide. The columned porch, the
galleries and halls, all lead to a sort of enormous shaft, at the bottom
of which the architect had contrived a hiding-place, destined, no doubt,
to contain the more precious objects of the funerary furniture. Until
the beginning of this century the vault had preserved its original
lining of glazed pottery. Three quarters of the wall surface was covered
with green tiles, oblong and lightly convex on the outer side, but flat
on the inner: a square projection pierced with a hole served to fix them
at the back in a horizontal line by means of flexible wooden rods. Three
bands which frame one of the doors are inscribed with the titles of the
Pharaoh. The hieroglyphs are raised in either blue, red, green, or
yellow, on a fawn-colored ground.

The towns, palaces, temples, all the buildings which princes and kings
had constructed to be witnesses of their power or piety to future
generations, have disappeared in the course of ages, under the feet and
before the triumphal blasts of many invading hosts: the pyramid alone
has survived, and the most ancient of the historic monuments of Egypt is
a tomb.

COMPILATION OF THE EARLIEST CODE

B.C. 2250

HAMMURABI

The foundation of all law-making in Babylonia from about the middle
of the twenty-third century B.C. to the fall of the empire was the
code of Hammurabi, the first king of all Babylonia. He expelled
invaders from his dominions, cemented the union of north and south
Babylonia, made Babylon the capital, and thus consolidated an
empire which endured for almost twenty centuries. The code which he
compiled is the oldest known in history, older by nearly a thousand
years than the Mosaic, and of earlier date than the so-called Laws
of Manu. It is one of the most important historical landmarks in
existence, a document which gives us knowledge not otherwise
furnished of