an indescribable air of resolution and command invests her whole person, and the sculptor has cleverly given expression to it.  She is represented in a robe with a pointed opening in the front:  the shoulders, the bosom, the waist, and hips, are shown under the material of the dress with a purity and delicate grace which one does not always find in more modern works of art.  The wig, secured on the forehead by a richly embroidered band, frames with its somewhat heavy masses the firm and rather plump face:  the eyes are living, the nostrils breathe, the mouth smiles and is about to speak.  The art of Egypt has at times been as fully inspired; it has never been more so than on the day in which it produced the statue of Nofrit.

The worship of Snofrui was perpetuated from century to century.  After the fall of the Memphite empire it passed through periods of intermittence, during which it ceased to be observed, or was observed only in an irregular way; it reappeared under the Ptolemies for the last time before becoming extinct for ever.  Snofrui was probably, therefore, one of the most popular kings of the good old times; but his fame, however great it may have been among the Egyptians, has been eclipsed in our eyes by that of the Pharaohs who immediately followed him—­Kheops, Khephren, and Mykerinos.  Not that we are really better acquainted with their history.  All we know of them is made up of two or three series of facts, always the same, which the contemporaneous monuments teach us concerning these rulers.  Khnumu-Khufui,* abbreviated into Khufui, the Kheops** of the Greeks, was probably the son of Snofrui.***

* The existence of the two cartouches Khufui and Khnumu- Khufui on the same monuments has caused much embarrassment to Egyptologists:  the majority have been inclined to see here two different kings, the second of whom, according to M. Robiou, would have been the person who bore the pre-nomen of Dadufri.  Khnumu-Khufui signifies “the god Khnumu protects me.”

     ** Kheops is the usual form, borrowed from the account of
     Herodotus; Diodorus writes Khembes or Khemmes, Eratosthenes
     Saophis, and Manetho Souphis.

*** The story in the “Westcar” papyrus speaks of Snofrui as father of Khufui; but this is a title of honour, and proves nothing.  The few records which we have of this period give one, however, the impression that Kheops was the son of Snofrui, and, in spite of the hesitation of de Rouge, this affiliation is adopted by the majority of modern historians.

[175.jpg alabaster statue of kheops]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.