183 .-- The Great Sphinx of Gizeh.] To this day, the most ancient statue known is a colossus--namely, the Great Sphinx of Gizeh.

It was already in existence in the time of Khufu (Cheops), and perhaps we should not be far wrong if we ventured to ascribe it to the generations before Mena, called in the priestly chronicles "the Servants of Horus." Hewn in the living rock at the extreme verge of the Libyan plateau, it seems, as the representative of Horus, to uprear its head in order to be the first to catch sight of his father, Ra, the rising sun, across the valley (fig.

183).

For centuries the sands have buried it to the chin, yet without protecting it from ruin.

Its battered body preserves but the general form of a lion's body.