Kitap 2
148.7
Over all this is a roof, made of stone like the walls, and the walls are covered with cut figures, and every court is set around with pillars of white stone very precisely fitted together. Near the corner where the labyrinth ends stands a pyramid two hundred and forty feet high, on which great figures are cut. A passage to this has been made underground.
149.1
Such is this labyrinth; and still more marvellous is Birkat Qarun [30.666,29.466] (salt lake), Egypt, Africa lake Moeris , on which it stands. This lake has a circumference of four hundred and fifty miles, or sixty schoeni: as much as the whole seaboard of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt . Its length is from north to south; the deepest part has a depth of fifty fathoms.
149.2
That it has been dug out and made by men's hands the lake shows for itself; for almost in the middle of it stand two pyramids, so built that fifty fathoms of each are below and fifty above the water; atop each is a colossal stone figure seated on a throne.
149.3
Thus these pyramids are a hundred fathoms high; and a hundred fathoms equal a furlong of six hundred feet, the fathom measuring six feet or four cubits, the foot four spans and the cubit six spans.
149.4
The water of the lake is not natural (for the country here is exceedingly arid) but brought by a channel from the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), Africa Nile ; six months it flows into the lake, and six back into the river.
