* 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 discovered 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.**