The Egyptians had many gods, but there were two whom they worshiped above all others. The sun, which shines so gloriously in the cloudless Egyptian sky, was their greatest god, and their most splendid temples were erected for his worship. Indeed, the pyramid is a symbol sacred to the Sun-god. They called him Re (pronounced ray). The other great power which they revered was the shining Nile.
The great river and the fertile soil he refreshes, and the green life which he brings forth–all these the Egyptian thought of together as a single god, Osiris, the imperishable life of the earth, which revives and fades every year with the changes of the seasons. It was a beautiful thought to the Egyptian that this same life-giving power which furnished him his food in this world would care for him also in the next, when his body lay out yonder in the great cemetery of Gizeh, which we are approaching.
But this vast cemetery of Gizeh tells us of many other things besides the religion of the Egyptians. As we look up at the colossal pyramids behind the Sphinx we can hardly grasp the fact of the enormous forward stride taken by the Egyptians since the days when they used to be buried with their flint knives in a pit scooped out on the margin of the desert. It was the use of metal which since then had carried them so far. That Egyptian in Sinai who noticed the first bit of metal lived over a thousand years before these pyramids were built. He was buried in a pit like that of the earliest Egyptian peasant.
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