Penshaw Church, Egyptian tablet

HER Number:
1706

District:
Sunderland

Site Name:
Penshaw Church, Egyptian tablet

Place:
Penshaw

Map Sheet:
NZ35SW

Class:
Religious Ritual and Funerary

Site Type: Broad:

Site Type: Specific:
Inscribed Stone

General Period:
Prehistoric

Specific Period:

Form of Evidence:
Find

Description:
Penshaw Church is a19th century church of fairly plain design. In the nave of the church, on the left hand wall towards the communion rail, there is a stone tablet of pink granite. This is a fragment of the Great Pyramid of Giza near Cairo, the tomb of Cheops who died about 4,500 years ago {1}. The fragment ended up in Penshaw because Sir George Elliot MP, financial advisor to the Egyptian Khedive, was given two fragments in 1876 as a gift (the other, a granite tablet, is in West Rainton church in County Durham). Elliot lived near Penshaw as a boy. Members of his family are buried there.

Easting:
3292

Northing:
5393

Grid Reference:
NZ32925393

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 1706 >> Tyne and Wear County Council, 1985, Penshaw Monument and the River Wear leaflet; http://northeasthistorytour.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/west-raintons-pyramid-fragment-nz323469.html; Paul Perry and Derek Dodds, 2013, West Rainton Souvenir of the Pharoahs in Curiosities of County Durham, https://books.google.co.uk/books;