n into decay.

[Illustration: 176.jpg THE TRIUMPHAL BAS-RELIEFS OF KHEOPS ON THE ROCKS
OF WADY MAGHARA]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph published in the
_Ordnance Survey, Photographs_, vol. iii. pl. 5. On the left
stands the Pharaoh, and knocks down a Moniti before the
Ibis-headed Thot; upon the right the picture is destroyed,
and we see the royal titles only, without figures. The
statue bears no cartouche, and considerations purely
artistic cause me to attribute it to Kheops: it may equally
well represent Dadufri, the successor of Kheops, or
Shopsiskaf, who followed Mykerinos.

[Illustration: 176b.jpg PROFILE OF HEAD OF A MUMMY, (A MAN) THEBES]

[Illustration: 177.jpg PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH]

The Egyptians of the Theban period were compelled to form their opinions
of the Pharaohs of the Memphite dynasties in the same way as we do, less
by the positive evidence of their acts than by the size and number
of their monuments: they measured the magnificence of Kheops by the
dimensions of his pyramid, and all nations having followed this example,
Kheops has continued to be one of the three or four names of former
times which sound familiar to our ears. The hills of Gizeh in his time
terminated in a bare wind-swept table-land. A few solitary mastabas were
scattered here and there on its surface, similar to those whose ruins
still crown the hill of Dahshur.* The Sphinx, buried even in ancient
times to its shoulders, raised its head half-way down the eastern slope,
at its southern angle;** beside him*** the temple of Osiris, lord of the
Necropolis, was fast disappearing under the sand; and still further back
old abandoned tombs honey-combed the rock.****

* No one has noticed, I believe, that several of the
mastabas constructed under Kheops, around the pyramid,
contain in the masonry fragments of stone belonging to some
more ancient structures. Those which I saw bore carvings of
the same style as those on the beautiful mastabas of
Dahshur.

** The stele of the Sphinx bears, on line 13, the cartouche
of Khephren in the middle of a blank. We have here, I
believe, an indication of the clearing of the Sphinx
effected under this prince, consequently an almost certain
proof that the Sphinx was already buried in sand in the time
of Kheops and his predecessors.

*** Mariette identifies the temple which he discov