DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4794#0214
and the sepulchral chambers of each of these
repositories for the dead, are generally raised
much upwards of 100 feet from the ground.
None but the great pyramid is said to have had
inner galleries ; and that 100,000 men were
employed 20 years to build it. The expense
also, is said to have been so enormous, and to
have occasioned such an immense load of taxes
that to relieve the murmurs of the people,
Cheops was, in a manner, compelled to prosti-
tute his daughter by marrying her to a prince
who had the means of enabling him to complete
his undertaking.
OF THE SPHYNX.
This celebrated monument of Egyptian
antiquity is still to be seen about 60 yards to
, from the Eastern
This enormous
figure, carved out of one stone, was consider-
ably diminished in its bulk by the accumula-
tion of sand, till the industry of the French
had lately uncovered more of this figure than
had been seen for centuries past. The most of
its features have been mutilated by different
barbarians from time to time ; its face perfectly
Nubian, still preserves a considerable degree of
feminine beauty ; it has no breasts, neither are
the feet visible ; and at the rock seems to have
been cut for the particular purpose of exhibiting
the back of a lion, this representation is said
to intimate that when the sun passes from Leo
into Virgo, the increase of the Nile is sure to
the right of the great pyramid
point, and opposite Cairo.
repositories for the dead, are generally raised
much upwards of 100 feet from the ground.
None but the great pyramid is said to have had
inner galleries ; and that 100,000 men were
employed 20 years to build it. The expense
also, is said to have been so enormous, and to
have occasioned such an immense load of taxes
that to relieve the murmurs of the people,
Cheops was, in a manner, compelled to prosti-
tute his daughter by marrying her to a prince
who had the means of enabling him to complete
his undertaking.
OF THE SPHYNX.
This celebrated monument of Egyptian
antiquity is still to be seen about 60 yards to
, from the Eastern
This enormous
figure, carved out of one stone, was consider-
ably diminished in its bulk by the accumula-
tion of sand, till the industry of the French
had lately uncovered more of this figure than
had been seen for centuries past. The most of
its features have been mutilated by different
barbarians from time to time ; its face perfectly
Nubian, still preserves a considerable degree of
feminine beauty ; it has no breasts, neither are
the feet visible ; and at the rock seems to have
been cut for the particular purpose of exhibiting
the back of a lion, this representation is said
to intimate that when the sun passes from Leo
into Virgo, the increase of the Nile is sure to
the right of the great pyramid
point, and opposite Cairo.