being—a lion with the head of a man wearing the crown and insignia of an Egyptian monarch—symbol of strength, intellect, and royal dignity. He lay in solemn repose, gazing ever towards the east, where arose each morning Horus of the horizon (Hor-em-khu), the bright deity he represented. To the south of the Sphinx (as the Greeks afterwards called the mystic creature), Khufu, successor of Senefru, erected a temple to Isis, 'Queen of the Pyramids,' and to the north a temple to Osiris, 'Lord of the unseen world,'—thus consecrating the whole of that vast city of the dead to the threefold guardianship of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, names so nearly associated in the Egyptian mind with death, the unseen world, and life triumphant and immortal.
Whilst the great image of Horus was being shaped, and the temples of Osiris and Isis were building, Khufu was by no means unmindful of his own sepulchral monument. The colossal pile,—which he named 'Khut' (Splendour of Light),—is known to us by the name of the 'Great Pyramid.'
The building of these royal tombs, the
