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ON THE RELIGIOUS USE OF VARIOUS STONES 279
idol
or from something that had been offered to an idol, for the same
purpose. It is needless to say that this was severely condemned by the
Rabbis.
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-Eahmân, writing in 829 a.D., states that Al Mamoun( 813-833), son of Haroun-al-Rasehid, entered the great pyramid and found the body of Cheops :
Ια
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 Fôstat.
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
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