Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Sphinx is as old as the pyramids (c. 2500
B.C.
), built during the time known to
historians as the Old Kingdom (2686-2181
B.C.
), but this beard may have been added later,
during a restoration (c. 1420
B.C.
, or perhaps even later under Ramesses II).
•
Ten steps past the Sphinx's soul patch is a 10-foot-tall, red-tinted “building” covered in
hieroglyphics.
False Door of Ptahshepses
This limestone “false door” (c. 2400
B.C.
) was a ceremonial entrance (never meant to open)
for a sealed building, called a
mastaba,
that marked the grave of a man named Ptahshepses.
The hieroglyphs of eyes, birds, and rabbits serve as his epitaph, telling his life story, how
he went to school with the pharaoh's kids, became an honored vizier, and married the
pharaoh's daughter.
The deceased was mummified, placed in a wooden coffin that was encased in a stone
coffin, then in a stone sarcophagus (like the
red-granite sarcophagus
in front of Ptah-
shepses' door), and buried 50 feet beneath the
mastaba
in an underground chamber (see
the diagram of “Old Kingdom Tombs,” on a nearby wall).
