Brugsch, Heinrich: Egypt under the pharaohs: a history derived entirely from the monuments (London, 1891)

38 PYRAMID AND COFFIN OF MEN-KAU-RA oh. li-

the sacred language the Sphinx is called ' Hu,' a word
that only denotes the man-headed lion, while as god;
the man-lion was called Horemkhu, a word meaning
' Horus on the horizon,' and which the Greek language
translated by ' Harmachis.'

Many fragments of antiquity, preserved in the
cemetery of Memphis, inform us that Khaf-Ea's wife-
was named Meri-s-ankh. She appears to have been a
devout worshipper of the gods, and in adoring them
she obtained honour for herself.

After Khaf-Ka had gone to the land where Osiris

Sheld the sceptre, King Men-kau-Ea, the Mycerinus
of the Greeks, ascended the throne. His pyramid
occupies the south-west corner of the plain of
kfu-Ba.Grizeh> and is called £, a, Her ('the high one').
When Colonel Howard Vyse found the well-guarded
entrance to the chamber of the dead, and entered the
room ' of eternity,' he saw, as the last trace of Men-
kau-Ea's burial, the wooden cover of the coffin, and the
stone sarcophagus, hewn out of a single block of hard
stone, and beautifully ornamented outside in the style
of a temple. Sent to London as a valuable memorial
of antiquity, ship and cargo sank to the bottom of the
sea off Gibraltar. The coffin containing' the mummy
was saved, and is now in the British Museum. The
inscription on the cover runs thus: ' 0 Osiris, king
of the north and the south, Men-kau-Ea, living for every
the heavens have produced thee. Thou wast engen-
dered by Nut;x thou art the offspring of Seb.2 Thy
mother Nut spreads herself over thee in her form as a
divine mystery. She has granted thee to be a god;
thou shalt never more have enemies, 0 king of the
north and south, Men-kau-Ea, living for ever.'

According to Greek testimony, Men-kau-Ea enjoyed

1 The sky. = The earth