This cross-section clearly exhibits the known passages within the seven million ton monument, which for six thousand years has stood to commemorate Cheops (See [page 350]).

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The Second Pyramid, or pyramid of Chephren (Khafra), was originally four hundred and seventy-two feet high and seven hundred and six feet in base-measurement. It has two entrances, and interior passages and chambers similar to those of the Great Pyramid. It retains at the top, part of its smooth exterior casing.

The Third Pyramid, that of Menkaura, was two hundred and fifteen feet high, and three hundred and forty-six feet to a side at the base. The entrance-passages and sepulchral chambers are similar to those of the other pyramids. All three were built by the fourth dynasty. Temples, now ruined, stand before the eastern faces of the second and third pyramids.

Sphinx (sfingks).—This celebrated figure is a quarter of a mile southeast of the Great Pyramid. According to present opinion, it is older than any of the pyramids. It consists of an enormous figure of a crouching sphinx of the usual Egyptian type, hewn from the natural rock, with the flaws and cavities filled in with masonry. The body is one hundred and forty feet long; the head measures about thirty feet from the top of the forehead to the chin, and is fourteen feet wide. Except the head and shoulders, the figure has for ages generally been buried in the desert sand.

Between the paws were found an altar, a crouching lion with fragments of others, and three large inscribed tablets, one, fourteen feet high, against the Sphinx’s breast, and the two others extending from it on each side, thus forming a sort of shrine. The Sphinx was a local personification of the sun-god.

Heliopolis (hē-li-op´ō-lis) the City of the Sun, or On—the oldest, perhaps, in this land of antiquities—was a sort of sacerdotal and university town, where Herodotus sought the wisest men in Egypt. Here Plato is said to have graduated. [352] Here also lived Potiphar, who bought Joseph the patriarch. It consisted for the most part of temples and colleges; of which nothing now remains but a few isolated mounds, and one extremely ancient Obelisk. At the village of Metariyeh is reputed to be the place where the Virgin, St. Joseph and the infant Jesus stopped, under a sycamore.

Memphis (mĕm´fis) after the fall of Thebes, became the capital of Egypt, and kept its importance till the conquest by Cambyses. It was built by Menes on the western bank of the Nile, south of Cairo. It suffered from the Hyksos, and was captured by the Assyrians and stormed by Cambyses. It continued to exist under the Roman Empire, but was gradually abandoned and ruined after the Mohammedan conquest in the seventh century A. D. The ruins of Sakkara are near it. The desert sands have overwhelmed its famous avenue of sphinxes; and the great Pyramids of Gizeh, and the colossal Sphinx, are the chief memorials of the past in its vicinity.

Although various opinions have prevailed as to their use, the Pyramids were really nothing more than the tombs of monarchs of Egypt who flourished from the first to the twelfth dynasty. With the exception of some very late pyramids in Nubia, none were constructed after the twelfth dynasty; the later kings were buried at Abydos, Thebes, and other places, in tombs of a totally different construction.

Thebes (thēbz) is the No or No Ammon of Scripture, and is situated on the Nile opposite Karnak and Luxor. It was at the height of its splendor, as capital of Egypt from about 1600 to 1100 B. C. Its vastness is shown by the existing remains, known (from the names of modern villages) as the ruins of Karnak, Luxor, etc. They consist of obelisks, sphinxes, colossal statues, temples, and tombs cut in the rock,—mighty monuments, with their countless sculptured details and inscriptions, themselves the historians of the Egyptian Empire of three thousand years ago. It was enriched by the spoils of Asia and the tributes of Ethiopia, and its fame and reputation had reached the early Greeks. At the Persian conquest in the sixth century B. C. Cambyses destroyed many of its noblest monuments.