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Who were the Titans who, century after century, were able to hew these coffins (they are at least twelve feet long by ten feet high), and, having hewn them, to carry them underground (they weigh on an average between sixty and seventy tons), and finally to range them in rows here in these strange chambers, where they stand as if in ambuscade on either side of us as we pass?
Each in its turn has contained quite comfortably the mummy of a bull Apis, armoured in plates of gold.

But in spite of their weight, in spite of their solidity which effectively defies destruction, they have been despoiled[*]--when is not precisely known, probably by the soldiers of the King of Persia.
And this notwithstanding that merely to open them represents a labour of astonishing strength and patience.