A collection of curious travels & voyages in two tomes ... / by John Ray ...

The Conclusion.

AND thus much of the Sciography, or of the artificial and architectonical part; I shall shut up all with one observation in Nature for the recreation of the Reader, recited by Strabo in these words.

We ought not to omit one of the strange things seen by us at the Pyramids: Some heaps of Stone, being Fragments hewn off lye before the Pyramids, amongst these are found little Stones, some in the similitude and bigness of lentils, some as grains of Barly, which appear half unscaled: They report these are some Relicks of the Provisions, which were gi∣ven to the Workmen, and have been petrified; which seems probable enough.

These, if there were ever any such, are either consumed by time, or scattered by the Winds, or buried with those Tempests of Sand, to which the Desarts are perpetually exposed: But Diodo∣rus, who not long preceded him, was not so

curious as to deliver this Relation. And were not Strabo a Writer of much gravity and judg∣ment, I should suspect that these petrified grains (though I know such petrefactions to be no im∣possibility in Nature; for I have seen at Venice the Bones and Flesh of a man, and the whole Head entirely transmuted into Stone; and at Rome clear Conduit-water, by long standing in Aquaeducts, hath been turned into perfect Ala∣baster) are like those Loafs of Bread, which are reported to be found by the Red Sea converted into Stone, and by the Inhabitants supposed to be some of the Bread the Israelites left behind them, when they passed over for fear of Pharaoh. They are sold at Grand Cairo handsomly made up in the manner of the Bread of these times, which is enough to discover the imposture; for the Scripture makes them to have been unleave∣ned Cakes: And they baked unleavened Cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Aegypt. Or else Strabo's relation may be like the Tradi∣tion of the rising of dead mens Bones every (a) 1.1 year in Aegypt; a thing superstitiously believed by the Christians, and by the Priests either out of ignorance or policy, maintained, as an Argu∣ment of the Resurrection. The possibility and truth of it, Metrophanes the Patriarch of Alexan∣dria thought (but very illogically) might be pro∣ved out of the Prophet Esay; And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me, for their worm shall not dye, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.

But I have digressed too far; the confutation of these, and the description of the Mummies, or of the rest of the Aegyptian Sepulchres (for from thence comes the matter of this their supposed Resurrection) and that infinite mass and variety of Hieroglyphicks, which I have either seen there, or bought or transcribed elsewhere, may be the * 1.2 Argument of another Discourse.

Notes

• (a) 1.1

  Sands in his Tra∣vels writes That they are seen to rise o•• Good Friday. A French∣man at Grand Cai∣ro, who had been pre∣sent at the resurrecti∣on, shewed me an arm which he brought from thence: the flesh shri∣veled, and dryed like that of the Mummies. He observed the Miracle to have been always behind him: once casually looking back, he discovered some Bones, carried privately by an Egyptian under his Vest, whereby he understood the Mystery.
• * 1.2

  An Ar∣gument in∣tended by me, and for which I made a collection of several Antiquities, in my Travels abroad, but these (and would only these) have unfortunately perished at home amidst the sad distractions of the time.