Originally, it had a cap, wig, and beard; the cap is gone, but the wig is still there, and the beard, which has fallen, lies on the ground below. As it now stands, only the head, shoulders, and back of the Sphinx are visible, the sand being everywhere drifted and piled around the rest. There was, originally, a temple and altar between its paws, and there was a flight of steps that descended from a platform in front of the temple to the plain below.
The nose and most of the lips are gone, as though the Sphinx has been the party of the second part, in a prize-fight for the championship, but, with all its disfiguration, the statue retains much of the comeliness and grandeur for which it has long been famous.
What must have been its beauty before time and man placed their spoiling hands upon it, and before the encroaching desert heaped the sand around it, burying the platform, the steps, and the temples, and converting the whole scene into one of desolation! Could any pageant of modern times surpass the spectacle of the processions of Memphis, arranged after the manner of the most brilliant period of Egyptian history, and coming to offer adoration at the temple guarded between the paws of that figure hewn from the living rock and overshadowed by that mysterious and immobile face? Shall we ever know who was its architect, and what was the purport of this remarkable statue? Who will explain the riddle of the Sphinx? Proceeding southerly from the Sphinx, we reach a temple which was discovered and excavated a few years ago. It is lined with red granite, porphyry, and alabaster, and the stones of which it is composed are very nicely joined together.
Its history is unknown, but, from certain inscriptions and statues found there, it is supposed to owe its erection to Cephrenes, or Shafra, the builder of the second pyramid.
The Arabs broke off pieces of the stone to sell to us, but we declined to buy. Part of a statue lies buried in the sand; a statue of Cephrenes was discovered here, and is now in the museum at Cairo. There are many tombs and small temples all around the pyramids, but they have no great, interest after one has seen the great pyramid and the Sphinx. All the tombs, as far as known, have been opened and examined, and their contents, if of any value, carried away. Doubtless there are some yet undiscovered, but at present there are no explorations in progress.
