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STUDY OF THE PYEAMIDS. 301
ical science^ . . . and that the entrance-passage had been
pointed at the star d Draconis when crossing the meridian
below the pole, at a distance of 3° 42' ; . . . accordingly
this star's closest approach to the pole, and within only ten
minutes thereof, occurred about the year 2800 B.C." Upon
the hypothesis of the d Draconis observation and epoch,
taken in
connection with the precessioual displacement, the
Great Pj^ramid was built 3400 B.C. ; but Lepsius puts it
3500 B.C. ; the French R^nan 4500 B.C. That learned
man, Baron Bunsen, in his world-famous volumes of
" Egj^t's Place in Universal History," claims a duration of
six thousand seven hundred years of a civilized, well-governed,
and prosperous Egypt, previous to their kings
so-called Manetho's fourth dynasty.
of the
Dr. Rebold, a French archaeologist, treating of the Greek
historians visiting Egypt in the fifth century B.C., makes
the following observation :
—
"From the date 13300 B.C. until the year 4600 B.C., when the zodiac
•was constructed and set up in the temple of Esneh, there occurred
four periods ; to the first is ascribed the reign of the gods, and to the
last the consolidation of the lesser kingdoms into three large kingdoms,
acting in concord with some thirty or forty colleges of the priests. . . .
Hermes observing the star Aldebaran 3360 B.C., and writing upon
astrology, and the certainty of immortality, said in dying, Until now '
I
have been exiled from my true country, to which I am about to return.
Shed no tears for me. I return to that celestial country whither all
must repair in their turn. There is God. This life is but the death."
It can not be supposed that the Egyptians suddenly built
their walled cities, carved and ornamented their monuments,
established picture-writing, — the language of the stars,—
and constructed their pyramids upon the principles of
science, with a standard measure for their cities and all the
adjoining countries. Did it not take a long period to invent
those tools, to construct machinery for raising such immense
weights, to establish laws to govern workmen for
general concert of action ? — and profound learning too, to
f