ANCIENT EGYPT. 1 29 



now in the British Museum. The face, which was originally 

 coloured red, and covered with polished stone, bears an 

 Ethiopian aspect, and is, even in its present condition, 

 characterized by great power and subtility, and a remarkable 

 serenity of expression — it is much mutilated, and the fanatical 

 followers of Mahomet have battered off the nose. It stands 

 to-day a monument of change and decay. The form of the 

 body is that of a lion 140 feet long; the human head measures 

 30 feet from the forehead to the chin, and the face is 14 feet 

 across; the front paws are 50 feet in length, and between 

 them is a narrow way to an altar, built in front of the figure. 



The Statue of Khafra. I would like to mention this statue 

 here, but not being colossal, though large, it hardly 

 belongs under this heading. It stands now in the museum 

 at Geezeh, and is sculptured in hard green diorite, a stone 

 most difficult to work. This statue bears an expression of 

 serene majesty and power, and in this respect may be said to 

 rival even the Jupiter of Phidias. Khafra sits a king of men, 

 almost a god. He was the builder of the second largest 

 pyramid of Geezeh, and reigned at Memphis some 6,000 

 years ago, and his epoch was characterized by great ex- 

 cellence in sculpture, with a freedom from the conventionality 

 that somewhat mars so many of the later examples of 

 Egyptian works of art. 



The Colossi of Thebes, two gigantic statues seated on cubical 

 thrones, are before you — monoliths of a yellowish-brown con- 

 glomerate or pudding-stone, a material very difficult to work, 

 52 feet high without their pedestals, which rise 13 feet. They 

 were erected by Amenhotep III., of the XVIIIth dynasty, and 

 both represent himself. They stood sentinel before his temple, 

 the Amenophium, which, like the city of Heliopolis, has 

 entirely disappeared. Originally the figures wore the pshent 

 or double crown of United Egypt. The dimensions are 

 approximately as follows, viz., shins 19^ feet long, each foot 

 16^ feet, breadth of shoulders 19I feet, length of index finger 

 4^ feet, arm from tip of the fingers to elbow 15!- feet. The 

 weight of each, including pedestal, has been estimated at about 



