Note 269 — Chapter XXII · ABYDUS AND CAIRO.

It is certainly not a temple. It may be a mastaba, or votive chapel. 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 Stonehenge; and it consists of a forecourt, a hall of pillars, three principal chambers, some smaller chambers, a secret recess, and a well. The chambers contain horizontal niches which 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 three statues of King Khafra (Chephren); one of which is the famous diorite portrait-statue of the Boulak Museum. In an interesting article contributed to the “Révue Arch.” (vol. xxvi. Paris, 1873), 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 Khafra, whose own mummy would of course be buried in his pyramid.