ered to
the south of the Sphinx with that of Osiris, lord of the
Necropolis, which is mentioned in the inscription of the
daughter of Kheops. This temple is so placed that it must
have been sanded up at the same time as the Sphinx; I
believe, therefore, that the restoration effected by Kheops,
according to the inscription, was merely a clearing away of
the sand from the Sphinx analogous to that accomplished by
Khephren.

**** These sepulchral chambers are not decorated in the
majority of instances. The careful scrutiny to which I
subjected them in 1885-86 causes me to believe that many of
them must be almost contemporaneous with the Sphinx; that is
to say, that they had been hollowed out and occupied a
considerable time before the period of the IVth dynasty.

Kheops chose a site for his Pyramid on the northern edge of the plateau,
whence a view of the city of the White Wall, and at the same time of the
holy city of Heliopolis, could be obtained.

[Illustration: 179.jpg KHUIT, THE GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZEH, THE SPHINX,
AND THE TEMPLE OF THE SPHINX]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. The
temple of the Sphinx is in the foreground, covered with sand
up to the top of the walls. The second of the little
pyramids below the large one is that whose construction is
attributed to Honitsonu, the daughter of Kheops, and with
regard to which the dragomans of the Saite period told such
strange stories to Herodotus.

A small mound which commanded this prospect was roughly squared, and
incorporated into the masonry; the rest of the site was levelled to
receive the first course of stones. The pyramid when completed had a
height of 476 feet on a base 764 feet square; but the decaying influence
of time has reduced these dimensions to 450 and 730 feet respectively.
It possessed, up to the Arab conquest, its polished facing, coloured
by age, and so subtily jointed that one would have said that it was a
single slab from top to bottom.* The work of facing the pyramid began
at the top; that of the point was first placed in position, then the
courses were successively covered until the bottom was reached.**

* The blocks which still exist are of white limestone.
Letronne, after having asserted in his youth (Recherches sur
Dicuil, p. 107), on the authority of a fragment attributed
to Philo of By