Fifteen centuries ago, Ammianus Marcellinus derived the word pyramid
from another Greek word [Greek: pyr], _fire_; because, as he argues, the
Egyptian Pyramid rises to a sharp pointed top, like to the form of a
fire or flame. This derivation, which, of course, excludes the
mathematical idea of the sides of the pyramid being a series of
flattened triangles that meet in a point at the apex, has been adopted
by various authors.

Keats, the poor surgeon, but rich poet, who died at Rome at the early
age of twenty-six, was buried in the beautiful Protestant Cemetery
there, amid the ruins of the Aurelian Walls. His grave is surmounted by
a pyramidal tomb, which Petrarch romantically ascribed to Remus, but
which antiquarians generally accord, in conformity with the inscription
which it bears, to Caius Cestius, a tribune of the people, who is
remembered for nothing else than his sepulchre. In his elegy of Adonais,
Shelley, in alluding to the resting-place of Keats beside this
remarkable monument, brings in, with rare poetical power, the idea of
the word pyramid being derived from [Greek: pyr], and signifying the
shape of flame:--

And one keen _pyramid_ with edge sublime,
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned
This refuge for his memory, doth stand
Life _flame transformed to marble_.[274]

If the word pyramid is of Greek origin, the suggestion of that able
writer and scholar, Mr. Kenrick of York, is probably more true, viz.
that the term [Greek: pyramis] (from [Greek: pyros], wheat, and [Greek:
melitos], honey) was applied by the Greeks to a pointed or cone-shaped
cake, used by them at the feasts of Bacchus (as shown on the table at
the reception of Bacchus by Icarus; see Hope's _Costumes_, vol. ii. p.
224), and when they became acquainted with the Pyramids of Egypt, they,
in this as in other instances, applied a term to a thing till then
unknown, from a thing well known to them; in the very same way as they
applied to the tall pointed monoliths peculiar to Egypt, the word
obelisk--no doubt a direct derivation from the familiar Greek word
[Greek: obelos], a _spit_.

For a learned discussion on various other supposed origins of the word
pyramid, see Jomard, in the _Description de l'Egypte_, vol. ii. p. 213,
etc.

II.--ARCHAIC CIRCLE AND RING SCULPTURES. (_Page_ 222.)

Representations of incised cups, rings, circles, and spirals, are found
on stones connected with other forms of ancient sculpture besides
c