Volume I Part 28 (1/2)
[292] MARIETTE, _Questions relatives aux nouvelles Fouilles a faire en egypte_ (_Academie des Inscriptions_, _Comptes Rendus des Seances de l'Annee_, 1877, pp 427-473)
For the last thirty years there has been much controversy as to the true character of this curious monument Mariette himself allows us to see that he could not convince hi: ”It cannot be doubted that this building dates from the time of the pyramids; but is it a temple or a tomb? Its external appearance is, it must be confessed, more that of a tomb than of a temple From a distance it must have looked not unlike a htly excelled in size The six deep niches which exist in the interior recall the internal arrangements of the pyraeneral plan resehbourhood It appears, therefore, that the hypothesis which wouldthe rules which should guide the archaeologist On the other hand it may, very naturally, be asserted that, as the Sphinx is a God, it must be the Temple of the Sphinx”[293]
[293] _Itineraire des Invites du Vice-roi_, p 99
This latter hypothesis seeular niches, which at first seemed to him to be intended for funerary purposes, were accounted for in another way ”May they not be here,” he asks, ”what the crypt is at the temple of Denderah?”
And he does not hesitate to employ the terms _Teive his reasons, but to some extent we can supply them Every mastaba of any importance has funerary representations upon it, and inscriptions containing both the naical formulae which we have already explained; the walls display his portrait and the whole course of his posthumous life The humblest of these tombs shows at least a stele upon which the naether with the prayer which is to insure his mentioned upon it The tomb is thus consecrated to the use of some particular person, of an individual whose name is placed upon it, and who is exclusive owner of it and its contents to all eternity In this ten of such individual appropriation Its total size is rather in excess of that of the largest mastaba yet discovered; its materials are finer and its construction more careful
The bareness of the walls, therefore, can hardly be attributed to want of means on the part of the proprietor
It is true that in many tombs the decorative works have never advanced beyond the sketch stage; but here, although the building is in a good state of preservation, not the slightest sign is to be discovered that any funerary ornamentation had ever been attempted It is difficult to see how such an anomaly is to be accounted for except by the supposition that this is not a tomb, and was never intended to be one
An examination of the well leads to the same conclusion In the mastaba the well is simply a vertical corridor of approach to the us nor any place to put one; no enlargement of the well of any kind But of the three parts into which the typical Egyptian tomb may be divided, the most important is the mummy chamber It is the only one of three which is absolutely indispensable It could, in itself, furnish all the necessary elements of a place of sepulture, because it could ensure the safety and repose of the corpse entrusted to it Where there is no
The ano to be a tomb, disappears when it is looked upon as a teree entirely with the descriptions given by Plutarch and the pseudo-Lucian of those early Egyptian temples which the one saith his own eyes and the other knew by tradition A well for providing the water required by the Egyptian ritual and by the ablutions of the priests would be in its proper place in such an edifice, while the siements and those of the mastabas may easily be accounted for by the inexperience of the early architect The forid to enable him to mark, with any certainty, the different purposes of the buildings which he erected The architect of this temple seems, however, to have done his best to express the distinction In none of the Memphite e and rought monolithic columns
Many hypotheses have been put forward in the attempt to reconcile these two explanations of the ”Temple of the Sphinx,” but we cannot discuss them here ”Why,” asks Mariette, in his recently published memoir, ”should not the te who made the Sphinx itself?” This question wedecorate the walls of his tous chamber? Others have seen in it the chapel in which the funerary rites of Chephren were perforested by the discovery of that king's statues in the well These statues, we are told, ed in one of the chambers, and, in some moment of political tun enemies or by the irritated populace
[294] BaeDEKER, _Guide to Lower Egypt_, p 350
In all probability we shall never learn the true cause of this insult to thetoowere found in it, the building we are discussing must have been his funerary chapel It is very near the Sphinx, and it is a considerable distance from the second pyramid,[295] which,to all analogy, the funerary chapel would be in the ihbourhood of the mummy for whose benefit it was erected
[295] The actual distance is about 670 yards
In the absence of any decisive evidence either one way or the other, theas the te Colossus was carried on: as the temple of Harmachis, in a word This solution derives confirranite stele, erected by Thothmes IV to commemorate the works of restoration undertaken by hiht shoulder of the Sphinx, that is to say, at the point nearest to the building which we are discussing In later years this stele and so scenes of adoration which were added by Ra, which al out of the temple”[296] One of Mariette's favourite projects was to clear the sphinx down to its base, to clear all the space between it and the te 204), and finally to build a wall round the whole group of sufficient height to keep it free from sand in the future In Mariette's opinion such an operation could hardly fail to bring to light reater, perhaps, than that of the pyramids In any case it would lay open the reat idol and its teroup of religious buildings in existence
[296] MARIETTE, _Questions relatives aux nouvelles Fouilles_, etc
Those structures which are generally called the _te to the sa 127) We have already mentioned them, and explained how they are to the pyramids what the funerary chamber is to the mastaba We must return to thes in whose honour they were erected orshi+pped within their walls even down to the time of the Ptolemies They are in a much worse state of preservation than the Temple of the Sphinx Unlike the latter they were not protected by the sand, and their materials could readily be carried away for the construction of other buildings Nothing res, so that no exact agreeround plan We shall quote, however, the description given by Jo to the third pyraypt took place nearly a century ago, saw s which have disappeared since their ti situated to the east of the third pyraement, its extent, and the enormous size of the blocks of which it is co 177 feet by 186 On its eastern side there is, however, a vestibule or annexe 103 feet long and 46 wide Outside the vestibule there is a vast courtyard with two lateral openings or posterns; beyond this there are several spacious saloons, five of which are still in existence; the farthest of these is the same size as the vestibule, and is exactly opposite to the centre of the pyramid, fro in that part of the hich faced the pyraement, however, suffices to prove the connection between the two buildings
”After having studied the construction and the materials of the Theban edifices, I was astonished by the size of the stones here made use of, and the care hich they were fixed The walls are 6 feet 9 inches thick; a thickness which is deterth varies from 12 to 23 feet At first I took these blocks for the face of the rock itself, elaborately worked and dressed, and I ht not have discovered my mistake but for the ceation or annexe is fore walls, which are not less than 13 feet 4 inches thick It may well be asked why such walls should have been constructed, seeing that had they been of only half the thickness they would have been quite as durable and solid
”This building forms, as it were, the continuation of an enclined plane or causeway laid out at right angles to the base line of the third pyra up to it”[297]
[297] _Description de l'egypte, Ant_, vol v p 654
Jomard appears to have found no traces of pillars in any part of the edifice; but Belzoni, whose description is, however, both short and confused, seems to have found them in the temple of the second pyramid He speaks of a _portico_, and he adds that soh,[298] or about the saht as the monoliths in the Temple of the Sphinx Such blocks would, of course, be the first to be carried off and used elsewhere
[298] BELZONI, _Narrative of the Operations_, etc pp 261-2
In spite of this difference es There is the same squareness of plan, the same eand fixing thes, when complete, were decorated or not; it is certain that at the present day no sign of any ornamentation, either carved or painted, is to be found upon theious architecture of the early empire is represented by a very sood state of preservation When we recall the texts which we have quoted, e compare the temple of the Sphinx with tombs like the pyrae that the energies of the Egyptians during the early dynasties were -places after death, that the worshi+p of the dead held the largest place in their religious life Their teht, and severe in their absence of ornanificent edifices which the country was to rear soreat Theban pharaohs The ive soht foretaste of a feature which was to reach unrivalled majesty in the hypostyle halls of Karnak and Luxor