One of the earliest Egyptian sculptures now existing, though certainly not earlier than the Fourth Dynasty, is the great Sphinx of Gizeh (Fig. 1).  The creature crouches in the desert, a few miles to the north of the ancient Memphis, just across the Nile from the modern city of Cairo.  With the body of a lion and the head of a man, it represented a solar deity and was an object of worship.  It is hewn from the living rock and is of colossal size, the height from the base to the top of the head being about 70 feet and the length of the body about 150 feet.  The paws and breast were originally covered with a limestone facing.  The present dilapidated condition of the monument is due partly to the tooth of time, but still more to wanton mutilation at the hands of fanatical Mohammedans.  The body is now almost shapeless.  The nose, the beard, and the lower part of the head dress are gone.  The face is seamed with scars.  Yet the strange monster still preserves a mysterious dignity, as though it were guardian of all the secrets of ancient Egypt, but disdained to betray them

“The art which conceived and carved this prodigious statue,” says Professor Maspero [Footnote:  Manual of Egyptian Archaeology second edition 1895 page 208] “was a finished art, an art which had attained self mastery, and was sure of its effects.  How many centuries had it taken to arrive at this degree of maturity and perfection?” It is impossible to guess.  The long process of self-schooling in artistic methods which must have preceded this work is hidden from us.  We cannot trace the progress of Egyptian art from its timid, awkward beginnings to the days of its conscious power, as we shall find ourselves able to do in the case of Greek art.  The evidence is annihilated, or is hidden beneath the sand of the desert, perhaps to be one day revealed.  Should that day come, a new first chapter in the history of Egyptian art will have to be written.

There are several groups of pyramids, large and small at Gizeh and elsewhere, almost all of which belong to the Old Empire.  The three great pyramids of Gizeh are among the earliest.  They were built by three kings of the Fourth Dynisty, Cheops (Chufu), Chephren (Chafre), and Mycerinus (Menkere) They are gigantic sepulchral monuments in which the mummies of the kings who built them were deposited.  The pyramid of Cheops (Fig. 1, at the right), the largest of all, was originally 481 feet 4 inches in height, and was thus doubtless the loftiest structure ever reared in pre-Christian times.  The side of the square base measured 755 feet 8 inches.  The pyramidal mass consists in the main of blocks of limestone, and the exterior was originally cased with fine limestone, so that the surfaces were perfectly smooth.  At present the casing is gone, and instead of a sharp point at the top there is a platform about thirty feet square.  In the heart of the mass was the granite chamber where the king’s mummy was laid.