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It is interesting to note the statements of Arab historians that the mummy of Cheops, the Pharaoh of the Great Pyramid, was decorated with a pectoral of precious stones. As the regal and priestly functions were united in the monarch, we may have here the first form of the high-priest's breastplate.
The Arab historian Abd er-Rahman, writing in 829 A.D., states that Al Mamoun (813-833), son of Haroun-al-Raschid, entered the great pyramid and found the body of Cheops:
In a stone sarcophagus was a green stone statue of a man, like an emerald, containing a human body, covered with a sheet of fine gold ornamented with a great quantity of precious stones; on the breast was a priceless sword, on the head a ruby as large as a hen's egg, brilliant as a flame. I have seen the statue which contained the body; it was near the palace of Fostat.
Essentially the same account is given by Ebub Abd el-Holem, another Arab, who says:
One saw beneath the summit of the pyramid a chamber with a hollow prison, in which was a statue of stone enclosing the body of a man, who had on the breast a pectoral of gold enriched by fine stones, and a sword of inestimable price, on the head a carbuncle the size of an egg, brilliant as the sun, on which were characters no man could read.
In the opinion of Mariette Bey these details are so circumstantial as to leave little doubt that the mummy of Cheops was found by Mamoun, but he believes that the body was covered with a gilt wrapper and that the stones were paste imitations. The ruby was probably the "uraeus," the sacred asp, emblem of royalty, and the wonderful sword may have been a sceptre or a poniard similar to those found in tombs of the eleventh dynasty and in that of Queen Aah-Hotep; the statue of green serpentine often occurs in later tombs. Should this view be correct, precious stones were imitated in glass at a very remote period. |
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Precious Stones Guide Vol 8
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