Their names, Khufu, Khâfra, and Menkaura are correctly given, but their chronological position (2840-2680 B. C.) is entirely wrong; they belong to Manetho's fourth dynasty, while H. puts them after a king of the twentieth dynasty, and only three generations before Psammetichus (666 B. C.). For explanations of H.'s mistake cf. App. X. 10, or (better) Petrie's ingenious theory (J. H. S. 28. 275) that H. composed Bk. II in twelve divisions of about equal length, and that cc. 100-23 (two sections) have been wrongly placed before cc. 124-36, which should really precede them; the order should be roll 7 (207 lines), cc. 124-36; roll 8 (222 lines), cc. 100-15; roll 9 (224 lines), cc. 116-23: the coincidence in number of lines is at any rate very curious. For casts of the statues of the pyramid-builders in the B. M. see G. pp. 196, 199, 200; that of Chephrên is ‘one of the leading examples of ancient art’ (Petrie, i. 54). κατακληίσαντα. This impiety is contrary to the monuments, on which ‘Cheops’ figures as a temple-builder. ‘What H. relates is only the copy of a popular story’ (Maspero, p. 77). The sufferings of the Egyptian people under the pyramid-builders had coloured tradition as to them. H. as a Greek would be the more ready to accept the accusation of impiety, because the mere building of such gigantic masses offended the Greek sense of moderation. Similarly, in the story in the Papyrus Westcar (now in Berlin), Chufu impiously appeals to the magicians to defeat the will of the god Ra. Cf. cc. 126, 128 nn.
ἕλκειν. For the transport of great masses by human labour cf. Breasted, i. 694 n., the colossal statue of Thuthotep (under the twelfth dynasty) drawn by 172 men in four double rows (picture, ib. 159).
κατὰ δέκα. This must mean that a gang of 100,000 worked for three months, and were then relieved by another gang. For relays of workers cf. 1 Kings v. 13-15, and for forced labour ib. ix. 21 (both of Solomon). Meyer (i. 233; so too Petrie, Pyramids, p. 210), however, thinks the three months are those of the rising of the Nile; the blocks were cut all the year round, but transported during the period when field-work was impossible. Petrie says: ‘Such a scale of work would suffice for the complete building in twenty years as stated by H.’ H.'s informant may have meant this, but if so H. certainly misunderstood him. δέκα ἔτεα. The μέν corresponds to the δέ of § 5; the road and the ‘chambers’ (§ 4 οἰκημάτων) took ten years, the pyramid itself twenty. τῆς ὁδοῦ. Two roads can still be traced, one to the first, the other to the third pyramid; their object was to serve as an inclined plane, up which the stones could be dragged from the Nile level to the edge of the plateau, which is a hundred feet above the plain (cf. ἐπὶ τοῦ λόφοι). πυραμίς: an Egyptian word = ‘a building with a sloping side’; B. M. G. p. 170.
διώρυχα. H. had never been inside the pyramid; a connexion with the Nile is impossible, as the underground chamber in the centre of the pyramid, though a hundred feet at least below its ground level, is yet thirty-six feet above the river level. H. gives further particulars as to the ‘channel of masonry’ in c. 127. 2. Sourdille (H. E. p. 12) thinks that H. has, by a confusion of memory, attributed to the pyramids of Gizeh the subterranean water which is really found under other pyramids, e. g. at Hawara, near the Labyrinth.
H.'s measurements of the pyramids can best be estimated from the following table (fractions are neglected):
| Petrie | Herodotus | Diodorus i.63 | Pliny | |
| Great Pyramid. | ||||
| Length of side (average) | 756 | 800 | 700 | 883 |
| Height (original) (present 451) | 481 | — | more than 600 | — |
| Height (along sloping side1 | 720 (circ.) | 800 | — | — |
| Second Pyramid. | ||||
| Length of side | 706 | 600 | — | |
| Height (present 469) | 472 | ‘40 feet in size inferior to the other’ (127.3), i.e. along sloping side | — | — |
| Height (along sloping side) | 670 (circ.) | — | — | |
| Pyramid of Mycerinus. | ||||
| Length of side | 346 | 280 | 300 | — |
| Height | 215 | — | — | — |
| Height (along sloping side) | 330 (circ.) | 280 (but see 134.1 n.) | — | — |
