Rameses: An Egyptian Tale ; with Historical Notes of the Era of the Pharaohs, Volume 3

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G. B. Whittaker, 1824 - Egypt
 

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Page 304 - Whether the earth or the sea produced the largest animals?" He answered, "The earth; for the sea is part of it.
Page 306 - In this reign, when commerce was checked and injured from the extreme want of money, an ordinance passed, that any one might borrow money, giving the body of his father as a pledge : by this law, the sepulchre of the debtor became in the power of the creditor; for if the debt was not discharged, he could neither be buried with his family, nor in any other vault, nor was he suffered to inter one of his descendants...
Page 298 - The ascent of the pyramid was regularly graduated by what some call steps, and others altars. Having finished the first flight, they elevated the stones to the second by the aid of machines constructed of short pieces of wood ; from the second, by a similar engine, they were raised to the third, and so on to the summit.
Page 298 - Upon the outside were inscribed, in Egyptian characters, the various sums of money expended, in the progress of the work, for the radishes, onions, and garlic consumed by the artificers. This...
Page 315 - Those Egyptians who live in the cultivated parts of the country, are of all whom I have seen the most ingenious, being attentive to the improvement of the memory beyond the rest of mans, :ml. To give some idea of their mode of life : for three days successively in every month they use purges, vomits, and clysters ; this...
Page 315 - The art of divination in Egypt is confined to certain of their deities. There are, in this country, oracles of Hercules, of Apollo, of Minerva, and Diana, of Mars, and of Jupiter ; but the oracle of Latona at Butos is held in greater estimation than any of the rest : the...
Page 323 - Archimage : and, as those that were without were deemed unholy, so the regenerated were thought to acquire a peculiar degree of sanctity by the austere trials to which they were subjected. (2.) The sacred groves or gardens were often of extraordinary beauty, thus designedly corresponding with that primeval garden which they all equally represented. Such was the grove of Ammon or Osiris in one of the Oases of Africa. The consecrated habitation of the deity, says Quintus Curtius, incredible as it may...
Page 306 - At the entertainments of the rich, just as the company is about to rise, from the repast, a small coffin is carried round, containing a perfect representation of a dead body: it is in size sometimes of one, but never...
Page 327 - The disposition of the figures and the execution of the whole picture are equally admirable, and far surpass all ideas that have ever been formed of the state of the arts in Egypt at the era to which they must be attributed. The moment chosen for the representation of the battle is that when the troops of the enemy are driven back upon their fortress, and the Egyptians, in the full career of victory, are about becoming masters of the citadel.

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