Selon James Fergusson (XIXe s.), les sables du désert auraient été une meilleure solution que les pyramides pour garder secrète la sépulture des pharaons

James Fergusson (Wikimedia commons)

Seconde partie de la note consacrée à l’Écossais James Fergusson (1808-1886), spécialiste de l’architecture indienne, à partir de son ouvrage An historical inquiry into the true principles of beauty in art, more especially  with reference to architecture, 1849.
Dans le texte qui suit, l’auteur complète ses propos sur le caractère “inartistic” des pyramides en soulignant la qualité “unsurpassed” (inégalée) du travail de maçonnerie qui est à leur origine.
Comme précédemment, pour ponctuer l’articulation de l’argumentation, j’ai inséré des intertitres en français.
J’attire l’attention sur la note 1) dans laquelle James Fergusson compare les monuments funéraires égytiens et indiens. Ces derniers sont dotés de deux chambres mortuaires, donc de deux sarcophages, la chambre supérieure étant vide (une “tombre apparente”), alors que celle de dessous abrite la “vraie tombe”.

 

“The aim of modern constructive art is, that the voids shall exceed the solids in the greatest possible ratio ; and so successful have we been in this, that in some cast-iron erections the ratio is nearly 10,000 to 1 : in the Pyramids we almost see the opposite extreme, as the solid parts exceed the void spaces in as high a ratio, the two forming extremes of a scale whose intermediate gradation comprehends all that is beautiful in architectural art in the world. (...) 

Though I have not, as before hinted, one word to say in favour of these buildings as works of fine art, as specimens of masonry they are unsurpassed by anything that has been done since in any country or in any age. They prove that their builders not only possessed the art of quarrying the largest blocks of granite, for all the roofing blocks in the Great Pyramid measure twenty feet at least in length, and are of considerable width and depth, but also of transporting them from Syene to Memphis ; of squaring and polishing them with the most mathematical precision ; and lastly, of raising and setting them, either to a given incline or horizontally, with a minute exactitude which never, so far as I know, was equalled. There is, besides, infinite contrivance and skill in the way in which the pressure is discharged from any roofs or stones whose stability it might endanger ; and the arrangement and fitting of the portcullises shew not only ingenuity, but great practical dexterity in execution. As the Pyramid was designed, so it was built - as built, so it stands - there is neither settlement, nor crack, nor flaws, discernible in any part of it ; and considering their mass, and the enormity of the weights to be sustained, this is no small triumph ; and displays such skill as could only be the result of long ages of experience, and under the most favourable circumstances ; and which to my mind is far more astonishing than even their mass. 

 Photo Marc Chartier

If we are to apply to them the usual human test of success in attaining the result aimed at, I fear they must be judged as having failed ; for, as far at least as is now apparent, all the efforts of the builders were directed to keeping the body of the founder concealed and intact during the 3000 years that it was requisite it should remain so, before being "raised from the dead". Had this been the only motive, a deep pit in the Lybian desert would have answered better : once the moving sand had passed over it, men might have searched for ever and never found it again. But however much men desire immortality hereafter, like other mortals these primaeval kings seem also to have hankered after a certain mundane durability of fame in the meantime - and besides a tomb, to have desired also a monument. Whether or not they effected both objects, we probably shall never know ; for all the Pyramids have been opened, and most probably by the Egyptians themselves under the Greeks and Romans, when respect for the dead had passed away : but unless it was done even earlier than this they had rested the appointed time, or nearly so.

But is it quite clear even now that the sacred deposits have been disturbed ? We have, it is true, discovered chambers with sarcophagi in them, and they are empty ; and it must be confessed it appears strange that so much trouble should have been taken to admit of the introduction of one after the building had been finished, unless it was intended to contain the body ; and so many contrivances resorted to for shutting up and concealing the passages after it was once safely deposited there. But all tradition points to the burial-place as under the Pyramid, surrounded by the waters of the Nile. And the deep wells and lower galleries would seem to confirm such an idea, for of what use are they if it was not this ? (1) Discoverers on the spot can alone settle these and many other questions, which arise at every step ; for if ever buildings were built to puzzle and perplex mankind, it is these Pyramids ; and it would be easy to write a volume of guesses about them, and it has been often done. But I must be warned.
Though from the testimony of the ancients, and the probabilities of the case, it is almost certain that when first erected the Pyramids were adorned with paintings, or at least hieroglyphics, which would have enabled us, had they been preserved, to judge of the state of the arts at the time ; as it is they enable us to judge of the art of masonry alone : but fortunately there are tombs cut in the rock and structural edifices in the neighbourhood, which we now know to be synchronous, and which are covered with paintings and other ornaments to an extent quite sufficient to shew how far the Egyptians had then advanced towards that point of perfection which they never passed. We have here the same representations of animals, and of men occupied in the same trades and with the same amusements, as are depicted near 2000 years afterwards at Thebes, with very nearly the same degree of skill, and in the same manner, peculiar to this people, of first engraving the subject in the wall in intaglio rilievato, and then heightening its effect in colour, and mixing up the purely representative picture with one half imitative, half phonetic, repeating almost the same thing - a record of the life and wealth of the occupant of the house or tomb. They are stiffer, it is true, and not so well conceived or so freely executed as the more modern paintings ; but there is infinite care bestowed in the details : and the representation of things is quite equal to any executed after the Shepherd invasion.
There are not, that I am aware of, any statues, properly so called, that can claim to belong to this age ; though this may be accounted for by the proximity of Memphis, or at least of Cairo, which has obliterated all the loose fragments of that age, and removed every thing that was removable, so that, even if they had been as numerous as they became during the eighteenth dynasty, we should not be surprised at their disappearance.
Perhaps the same reasoning may account for there being no specimens of architecture, properly so called - no temples, or colonnades, or porticoes, at all commensurate with the Pyramids in size or conception. They may have existed ; it would not be difficult to argue the matter on either side, but my own impression is that the Pyramid was the architectural utterance of that age, the tomb and the temple, the monument the kings were most anxious to erect for their own present glory and future fame ; and that they were also the sacred edifices of a people who looked on their kings as demigods at least, and were content to bow their necks under them in a servitude more complete and abject than ever was known with any other people or in any other age, as these monuments themselves witness with a distinctness that requires no further testimony to corroborate it.”

(1) It is a curious fact, that in most of the great Mohammedan tombs of India there are two sarcophagi. In that of Akbar, for instance, at Secundera, the apparent tomb is on the top of the monument ; but immediately below this, in a vault on a level with the ground, is another somewhat similar, and covering the true grave : the same occurs at the Taje Mehal, and in many others.
1e partie de la note

Selon James Fergusson (XIXe s.), aussi sublimes et mystérieuses qu’elles soient, les pyramides d’Égypte n’ont pas le moindre “atome de beauté”

L’Écossais James Fergusson (1808-1886) était un spécialiste de l’architecture indienne. Ayant résidé en Inde pendant une dizaine d’années, il parcourut le pays entre 1836 et 1841 pour en étudier les monuments majeurs.
De retour à Londres en 1845, il publia plusieurs livres sur l’architecture dans ses manifestations les plus universelles, dont An historical inquiry into the true principles of beauty in art, more especially  with reference to architecture, 1849, ouvrage auquel se réfèrent les deux séries d’extraits qui alimenteront la présente note et celle qui suivra.
Bien que non architecte lui-même, l’auteur a un point de vue très tranché sur les pyramides égyptiennes. Parfois partagés à distance par d’autres auteurs, dont certains figurent déjà dans notre inventaire, ses critères d’observation sur la “beauté” des pyramides ne font même pas débat : la majesté, voire la monstruosité minérale, est inconciliable avec les canons de l’esthétique. Une appréciation évidemment contestable : pourquoi vouloir à tout prix comparer le Parthénon et la Grande Pyramide ?
Concernant la configuration des pyramides (inclinaison des faces, orientation des couloirs...), James Fergusson semble hésiter entre un constat d’empirisme ou l’application, par les bâtisseurs égyptiens, de savants rapports entre la division linéaire (la coudée égyptienne...) et la division circulaire (en 28 mesures lunaires).
Il revient aux spécialistes (que je ne suis pas !) d’apprécier de telles considérations. Je constate simplement que, si les pyramides sont, aux yeux de notre auteur, totalement “inartistic”, elles n’en donnent pas moins... à penser !

James Fergusson

“In architecture, the Pyramids of Egypt are sublime for their size and their situation, and the mystery that attaches to them as the oldest works of man now existing, but they have not one atom of beauty about them. The Parthenon is, perhaps, the most beautiful of buildings, but has neither the size nor expression of power requisite for sublimity ; nor do I think it affects it, nor that its builders wished to create any such impression. (...)

Almost the only buildings deserving the name of monuments that were erected in Egypt during the first ten or twelve centuries of her historical existence were the far-famed Pyramids, which, by the ancients as well as by ourselves, have always been considered as among the most remarkable works ever executed by man, and as technic attempts at fine art they are, and it is to be hoped will ever remain, unrivalled ; for no buildings with which man ever cumbered the face of the globe are so utterly inartistic as these, and notwithstanding the respect we cannot withhold from them as the oldest buildings on the face of the globe, and the awe which we feel for their size, - for they are also the largest that we know of, - neither of these circumstances will entitle them to the rank of productions of fine art. Nor will their purpose, for though with us it is almost an absolute law of architectural criticism, that a building erected for a merely utilitarian purpose cannot be an object of art, and, on the contrary, that the absence of any such motive necessarily raises the building into that category, I could quote many instances to prove the contrary, but none more striking than these, where not one trace of a utilitarian motive either gave rise to the erection or guided their forms ; yet they do not possess one quality to redeem them from being regarded as mere monuments of tyranny, and not as objects of art.(...)
One of the most striking peculiarities of these buildings is their all facing due north (excepting the great one at Saccara...), and that so exactly, notwithstanding the irregularities of the ground or their relative position, as to prove the existence of some strong motive for placing them in that position ; though what that motive was, no one seems to be able to say. It is, however, so universal, not only in the Pyramids, but in all the tombs and buildings of that age that surround them, that the circumstance would appear to require explanation in any country, but much more so in Egypt than elsewhere ; for this orientation was totally disregarded by all the kings, and in all the buildings, subsequent to the age of the Shepherd Kings. There are no two buildings at Thebes that face the same way, so much so, that the Thebans seem almost to have studied that this should not be the case ; and in their tombs, so gratuitously irregular were they in this respect that, in more than one instance in the Biban el Molok, the excavation of a tomb was stopped by running into another, while it might just as easily have been made parallel ; and at a later age, in Nubia, all the pyramids there shew the same utter disregard of this principle, and face in every direction, but scarcely two of them the same way.

This careful orientation has led many to suppose that, besides being tombs, they were also observatories ; and certainly it would appear that they were meant to mark the return of some astronomical phenomenon ; but what it was, neither I nor any one else have yet been able to discover. The most plausible suggestion arose from their entrances being all on the north face, and sloping downwards on an angle varying from twenty-six to twenty-seven degrees, that they were meant to observe the pole-star. All, however, have failed to establish this point ; and as, among the last, Sir John Herschel has wasted his talents and science in the vain attempt, I will not presume to follow where he has failed : but as I think there can be very little doubt but that all these entrances were meant to be closed hermetically and concealed as soon as the king's body was deposited in the pyramid, I do not think it would be of much importance even if he had proved that the altitude of the pole-star was 26° in latitude 30° north.
Even if, however, an astronomical reason was found to fit exactly the passage of the Great Pyramid, we must find another for the second, where the angle of one passage is 25° 55' and of another 22° 15', and a different one for each of the twenty pyramids whose angles have been measured, as they vary from 22° 35' to 34° 5', and comprehend every intermediate angle, but no two alike.

A much more constant measure is the angle which the face forms with the horizon, which, in twelve of the principal and best-preserved Pyramids, varies only from 51° 10' to 52° 32' ; and there may be errors in measurement which may reduce the difference to even something less. With regard to the entrance-passage of the Great Pyramid, it appears to me to be meant as half this. It could not be made horizontal, as that would have led direct to the secret chamber, and frustrated all those ingenious contrivances for concealment which form the principal motive discoverable in the construction of those buildings ; and if at right angles to the face, it would have been so steep that men could not have gone up and down it, and it would have been most inconvenient to have hauled the sarcophagus or other great masses up and down it. This would not, of course, be the case in the smaller ones ; and it appears the more likely that this really was the motive, for the steepness of the passage is almost in the direct ratio to the size of the pyramid.
But even if this could be so explained, what could have induced the adoption of the other angle of 52° for the face ? Why not 45°, or half a right angle ? or, better still, 60°, making the section equilateral ? Had the height measured along the angle been equal to the side of the base, and consequently the angle at the summit a right angle, that might have been a sufficient reason for adopting it. (...)
So I am afraid this explanation will not suffice. At one time I thought I had found the solution in assuming that the Egyptians divided their circle into 28 lunar measures, each consequently occupying 120-857.
Calling this a we have the following approximation for the three Pyramids of Gizeh, according to the angles of the annexed diagram :

Of course, one angle of a regular pyramid being given, all the rest are absolute ; and the only question is, Did the Egyptians adopt the first angle as the seventh part of a circle ? I confess that sometimes I cannot help thinking that they did, though it will be seen, from the varieties in the above table, that even if they adopted this or any other angle, they frequently deviated from it ; and after all, perhaps, it was merely empirical, and adopted because it was thought to make the most pleasing and stateliest outline and form of such a building ; and which may be, after all, the true solution of the riddle.
At all events, if neither of these will suffice, I can suggest no other, for I have tried every measurement they themselves afford, and every celestial phenomenon I could think of, whether relating to the sun, the moon, or the dog-star, and none of them will fit ; and, except the above, none come near it ; but from what we know of the antiquity and importance of the institution of the week, and the month of four weeks, I cannot help thinking that this is the real division of the circle which guided the Egyptian in the outline of these great buildings.
The division of the Egyptian cubit into seven palms, which is one more than any other nation of the world ever adopted, and each palm into four digits, and consequently the cubit into twenty-eight digits, looks as if they adopted the same division for linear as for circular measures ; otherwise why adopt seven ? It was not the measure of a man's fore-arm, or of anything else that I know of, and, except in this mode, I never could account for its adoption.

With regard to the internal arrangement, I have very little doubt but that Mr. Perring is correct in assuming forty cubits to be the leading measure ; it occurs too often and too exactly for the coincidence to have been accidental ; and as if following out the same division of the scale throughout, we find seven times forty, or 280 cubits, to be the exact height of the whole Pyramid ; while, on the other hand, the length of the base, 448 cubits, is commensurate with this in the ratio of 5 to 8, as pointed out by Mr. Perring, and is divisible by 4, 7, or 28, or twice 4 times or 8 times the last number, and, consequently, similar multiples of the smaller ones. These two measures being given, the angles follow absolutely as a matter of course, so that, perhaps, the whole mystery of the Pyramid lies in the relative value of these two numbers, or in the attempt to reconcile a circular division with a linear one.

The annexed plan of the Great Pyramid, and section of that part of it containing chambers, both of which are drawn to the usual scale, will serve not only as a means of comparing its size with other buildings, but will explain all the peculiarities of its internal arrangements better than can be done in words, and contains all the information that has hitherto been obtained on the subject, either from Col. Vyse's or any other exploration ; and unless there be some lower chamber cut in the rock at such a level as to admit the water of the Nile (which even at the height of the inundation never reaches so high as the floor of the present one), I do not believe that much remains to be discovered by any future explorer of its mysteries.”



2ème partie