under government direction. Granite, alabaster, and basalt for the
sarcophagus and some details were the only materials of which the use and
the quantity was not regulated in advance, and which had to be brought from
a distance. To obtain them, each king sent one of the great men of his
court on a mission to the quarries of Upper Egypt; and the quickness with
which the blocks were brought back was a strong claim upon the sovereign's
favour. The other material was not so costly. If mainly brick, the bricks
were moulded on the spot with earth taken from the foot of the hill. If of
stone, the nearest parts of the plateau provided the common marly limestone
in abundance (Note 15). The fine limestone of Tûrah was usually reserved
for the chambers and the casing, and this might be had without even sending
specially for it to the opposite side of the Nile; for at Memphis there
were stores always full, upon which they continually drew for public
buildings, and, therefore, also for the royal tombs. The blocks being taken
from these stores, and borne by boats to close below the hill, were raised
to their required places along gently sloping causeways. The internal
arrangement of the pyramids, the lengths of the passages and their heights,
were very variable; the pyramid of Khûfû (Cheops) rose to 475 feet above
the ground, the smallest was not 30 feet high. The difficulty of imagining
now what motives determined the Pharaohs to choose such different
proportions has led some to think that the mass built was in direct
proportion to the time occupied in building; that is to say, to the length
of each reign. Thus it was supposed that the king would begin by hastily
erecting a pyramid large enough to contain the essential parts of a tomb;
and then, year by year, would add fresh layers around the first core, until
the time when his death for ever arrested the growth of the monument. But
the facts do not justify this hypothesis. The smallest of the pyramids of
Sakkarah is that of Ûnas, who reigned thirty years; while the two imposing
pyramids of Gizeh were raised by Khûfû and Khafra (Chephren), who governed
Egypt, the one for twenty-four, and the other for twenty-three years.