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The Piramides in Egipt, were nothing els, but a vaine and foolyshe ostentation of the riches of kinges, as Plinie writeth. The cause of the building of them, of most writers is reported to be, that they might not leaue any money vnto their successors, or to such as should enuy them.
There were many euery wher in Egipt, but ther wer none more no∣ble
and famous, thē those three, of the which Pomponius Mela speaketh, the which filled al the world with their fame, being apparant and con∣spicuous vnto all such as should sayle by them, situated in a part of Af∣fricke, vpon a stony and barren hil, betwixt the towne called Memphis, and the towne Delta. They are towers (as Solinus sayth) of so maruey∣lous a high top, as is almost vncredible to be built by mans hand. Vnder these towers were the kinges of Egipt buried.
Cheopes a king of Egipt, was twenty yeares in building one of these towers, hauing three hundred, threescore thousand woorkemen, daylye laboring about it. It was declared in the Egiptian letters, which were written about it, that there was a thousande, eight hundred talentes, spent in radish rootes, garlike, and onions, which the workemen deuou∣red. VVhich talentes are in our coyne seuen hundred and thirtye thou∣sand crownes, for the talent of Egipt was fifty Minae. Besides, if thou wilt make but a meane estimation of all other kinde of victual or meate, of apparell and wages for their woorke, if thou accompte also the yron wherwith the stones were bound together, and the wood wherof the en∣gines were framed, there wyl arise in the end aboue two thousand, twoo hundred tonels of French crownes.
Some affirme those Pyramides to haue bene made by Ioseph a Iewe, for the safe keeping of corne, wherof they tooke their name. For 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, is called corne or wheate. Other say, they are Sepulchers, builded in the honour of Fire, the which the Egiptians dyd woorwip for a God, and therefore to growe foure square, and sharpe vpwarde, to the lykenesse of Fyre.