DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0462
444 A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE.
sand close by marks the site of that strange monument
miscalled the Temple of the Sphinx.* Farther away to
the west on the highest slope of this part of the desert
platform, stands the Pyramid of Menkara (Mycerinus).
It has lost but five feet of its original height, and from
this distance it looks quite perfect.
Such — set in a waste of desert — are the main objects,
and the nearest objects, on which our eyes first rest. As
a whole, the view is more long than wide, being bounded
to the westward by the Libyan range, and to the eastward
by the Mokattam hills. At the foot of those yellow hills,
divided from us by the cultivated plain across which wo
have just driven, lies Cairo, all glittering domes half seen
through a sunlit haze. Overlooking the fairy city stands
the mosque of the citadel, its mast-like minarets piercing
the clearer atmosphere. Far to the northward, traversing
reach after reach of shadowy palm-groves, the eye loses
itself in the dim and fertile distances of the delta. To
the west and south all is desert. It begins here at our
feet—a rolling wilderness of valleys and slopes and rivers
and seas of sand, broken here and there by abrupt ridges of
rock and mounds of ruined masonry and open graves. A
silver line skirts the edge of this dead world, and vanishes
southward in the sun-mist that shimmers on the farthest
horizon. To the left of that silver line Ave see the quarried
cliffs of Turra, marble-white ; opposite Turra, the plumy
palms of Memphis. On the desert platform above, clear,
though faint, the pyramids of Abusir and Sakkarah, and
Dahshur. Every stage of the Pyramid of Ouenephes,
* It is certainly not a temple. It may be a mastaba, or votive
cliapel. It looks most like a tomb. It is entirely built of plain and
highly polished monoliths of alabaster and red granite, laid square
and simply, like a sort of costly and magnificent Stonebenge; and it
consists of a forecourt, a ball of pillars, tbree principal chambers,
some smaller chambers, a secret recess, and a well. The chambers
contain horizontal niches wliicb it is difficult to suppose could have
been intended for anything but the reception of mummies; and at
the bottom of the well were found tbree statues of King Kliafra
(Chephren); one of which is the famous diorite portrait-statue of the
Boulak Museum. In an interesting article contributed to the "Revue
Arch." (vol. xxvi. Paris, 187!i), M. du Barry-Merval has shown, as
it seems, quite clearly, that the Temple of the Sphinx is in fact a
dependency of the second pyramid. It is possible that the niches
may have been designed for the queen and family of Kliafra, whose
own mummy would of course be buried in his pyramid.
sand close by marks the site of that strange monument
miscalled the Temple of the Sphinx.* Farther away to
the west on the highest slope of this part of the desert
platform, stands the Pyramid of Menkara (Mycerinus).
It has lost but five feet of its original height, and from
this distance it looks quite perfect.
Such — set in a waste of desert — are the main objects,
and the nearest objects, on which our eyes first rest. As
a whole, the view is more long than wide, being bounded
to the westward by the Libyan range, and to the eastward
by the Mokattam hills. At the foot of those yellow hills,
divided from us by the cultivated plain across which wo
have just driven, lies Cairo, all glittering domes half seen
through a sunlit haze. Overlooking the fairy city stands
the mosque of the citadel, its mast-like minarets piercing
the clearer atmosphere. Far to the northward, traversing
reach after reach of shadowy palm-groves, the eye loses
itself in the dim and fertile distances of the delta. To
the west and south all is desert. It begins here at our
feet—a rolling wilderness of valleys and slopes and rivers
and seas of sand, broken here and there by abrupt ridges of
rock and mounds of ruined masonry and open graves. A
silver line skirts the edge of this dead world, and vanishes
southward in the sun-mist that shimmers on the farthest
horizon. To the left of that silver line Ave see the quarried
cliffs of Turra, marble-white ; opposite Turra, the plumy
palms of Memphis. On the desert platform above, clear,
though faint, the pyramids of Abusir and Sakkarah, and
Dahshur. Every stage of the Pyramid of Ouenephes,
* It is certainly not a temple. It may be a mastaba, or votive
cliapel. It looks most like a tomb. It is entirely built of plain and
highly polished monoliths of alabaster and red granite, laid square
and simply, like a sort of costly and magnificent Stonebenge; and it
consists of a forecourt, a ball of pillars, tbree principal chambers,
some smaller chambers, a secret recess, and a well. The chambers
contain horizontal niches wliicb it is difficult to suppose could have
been intended for anything but the reception of mummies; and at
the bottom of the well were found tbree statues of King Kliafra
(Chephren); one of which is the famous diorite portrait-statue of the
Boulak Museum. In an interesting article contributed to the "Revue
Arch." (vol. xxvi. Paris, 187!i), M. du Barry-Merval has shown, as
it seems, quite clearly, that the Temple of the Sphinx is in fact a
dependency of the second pyramid. It is possible that the niches
may have been designed for the queen and family of Kliafra, whose
own mummy would of course be buried in his pyramid.