Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 1.djvu/283

 The Tomb under the Ancient Empire. 193 and the priests told off for its service performed the prescribed rites, was erected at some distance from the eastern face. The remains of such buildings have been found to the east of both the second and third pyramids. That of Cheops has not been discovered, but we may assert with confidence that it has either been destroyed by the hand of man, or that it still lies under the veil of sand. Were there any serdabs concealed in the thick- ness of the temple walls ? That question cannot be answered. The remains of those buildings are in such a condition that all traces of such an arrangement would have vanished had there been any. The walls have disappeared. The lower courses of masonry are still in place, and allow us to follow the very simple plan upon which these chapels were erected ; and that is all. It is possible, however, that the Egyptians depended solely upon the profound respect which was felt for the royal person, combined with the sacredness of the spot and the vigilance of the established V 34 so mo i:*""*- Fin. 127.— Plans of the temples belonging to the second and third pyramids ; from Perring. priesthood of the necropolis, to preserve fhe august images of the sovereign from insult or destruction. The seven or eight statues of Chephren which were found at the bottom of a pit in what is called the Temple of the Sphinx, were all more or less mutilated, proving that this want of precaution was sometimes disastrous. In the course of so many centuries, during which the Hyksos, the Ethiopians, the Assyrians, and the Persians overran the country by turns, such statues as were not sheltered in some well dissembled retreat must more than once have been struck off their pedestals and broken, or, like those of the unlucky Chephren, thrown head- foremost into the depths of the earth. As such vast importance was attached to the preservation of the portrait statues upon which the prolongation of life after death was made so largely to depend, is it not probable that the idea of hiding some of them in the innermost recesses of the VOL. I. C C