The Great Pyramid: Why Was It Built- And Who Built It? (Cambridge Library Collection - Egyptology)
Cambridge University Press, 8/21/2014
EAN 9781108075787, ISBN10: 1108075789
Paperback, 340 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
The publisher and author John Taylor (1781–1864), who took an interest in various antiquarian matters, published this work in 1859. Using the measurements taken by the seventeenth-century archaeologist John Greaves and by the French savants who had examined the Great Pyramid at Giza during Napoleon's Egyptian expedition, he deduced the existence of a 'pyramid inch' (fractionally longer than the British inch), which was one twenty-fifth of the so-called 'sacred cubit' and was derived from ancient astronomical and time-measurement observations; and as a convinced Christian, he concluded that the British inch was therefore divinely inspired. His work was very influential and had a considerable following (the astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth's 1864 book on Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid is also reissued in this series), but was later debunked by the more accurate surveys and measurements of Flinders Petrie, whose interest in Egypt was partly aroused by reading this book.
Part I. Exterior of the Great Pyramid
1. The pyramids of Gizeh
2. Earliest measures of the base of the pyramid
3. Various heights ascribed to the great pyramid
4. Various estimates of the Greek foot
5. The measure of the great pyramid according to Herodotus
6. The cubit of Karnak
7. The royal or Philetaerian foot
8. The sacred cubit of the Jews
9. Degrees, minutes, and seconds in the table of constants
10. Diameter of the earth
Part II. Interior of the Great Pyramid
11. General description of the interior of the great pyramid
12. The king's chamber
13. The pyramid coffer the standard of all measures
14. The pyramid coffer the measure of the laver
15. The pyramid coffer the standard of Grecian measures
16. The pyramid coffer the standard of English measures
17. English weights derived from English measures of capacity
18. Grecian weights derived from Grecian measures of capacity
19. English and French systems of metrology compared
20. Etymological illustrations
Part III. The Founders of the Great Pyramid
21. Introductory remarks
22. The founders not the race of Ham
23. These shepherds were an abomination to the Egyptians
24. The founders of the great pyramid were the race of Shem
25. Noah the probable originator of the work
26. The earth divided in the days of Peleg
27. The canal of Joseph
28. The builders of the tower of Babel were of the race of Ham
29. The great pyramid alluded to in the Book of Job
30. The great pyramid alluded to in the Book of Psalms
31. Origin of the Arabian language
32. Arabian numerals preceded alphabetic writing
Appendix.