highly-finished character. This, the
largest and most gigantic of the many pyramids of Egypt, had been
calculated by Major Forlong (Asso. Inst. C. Engrs.), as a structure
which in the East would cost about L1,000,000. Over India, and the East
generally, enormous sums had often been expended on royal sepulchres.
The Taj Mahal of Agra, built by the Emperor Shah Jahan for his favourite
queen, cost perhaps double or triple this sum; and yet it formed only a
portion of an intended larger mausoleum which he expected to rear for
himself. The great Pyramid contains in its interior, and directly over
the King's Chamber, five entresols or "chambers of construction," as
they have been termed, intended apparently to take off the enormous
weight of masonry from the cross stones forming the roof of the King's
Chamber itself. These entresols are chambers, small and unpolished, and
never intended to be opened. But in two or three of them, broken into by
Colonel H. Vyse, a most interesting discovery was made about thirty
years ago. The surfaces of some of the stones were found painted over in
red ochre or paint, with rudish hieroglyphics--being, as first shown by
Mr. Birch, quarry marks, written on the stones 4000 years ago, and
hence, perhaps, forming the oldest preserved writing in the world. These
accidental hieroglyphics usually marked only the number and position of
the individual stones. Among them, however, Mr. Birch discovered two
royal ovals, viz., Shufu (the Cheops of Herodotus) and Nu Shufu--"a
brother" (writes Professor Symth) "of Shufu, also a king and a co-regent
with him." Most, if not all, of the other pyramids are believed to have
been erected by individual kings during their individual or separate
reigns. If these hieroglyphics proved that _two_ kings were connected
with the building of the Great Pyramid, that circumstance would perhaps
account for its size and the duplicity and position of its sepulchral
chambers.[241]

The pyramid standing next the Great Pyramid, and nearly of equal size,
is said by Herodotus to have been raised by the brother of Cheops. The
other pyramids at Gizeh are usually regarded as later in date. But the
exact era of the reign or reigns of their builders has not as yet been
determined, in consequence of the break made in Egyptian chronology by
the invasion of the Shepherd Kings.

In their mode of building, the various pyramids of Gizeh, etc., are all
similar, and the Great Pyramid does not sp