The Valley Temple of Khafra (Khephren)

The valley temple, or even lower temple of the mortuary complex of Khafre, located just south of the temple of the sphinx, is the only temple of the Ancient Empire that has survived in such a state of preservation. Its plan is square and its sides measure 44,10 meters. The exterior walls are thirteen feet high, have a fruit accentuated, The massive, built of limestone, was completely covered in pink granite from Aswan. The fitting of stones, was executed here, more than in any other temple, in an irregular manner and with masonry like a gigantic puzzle. The facade had two doors, one to the south, the other north. Each door was flanked by two sphinx, long eight meters and large two meters. These entries gave on a hall high-9,40 meters, leading to an antechamber, oriented north-south and long twenty meters. It was covered with granite slabs with a width of five meters and its floor paved with blocks of alabaster. Auguste Mariette discovered in 1860, in a well dug in the floor of the hallway north, the famous statue of Khafre in Diorite representing the pharaoh protected by the falcon Horus. This masterpiece of Egyptian statuary is now on display at the Cairo Museum. Behind the central door in the west wall of the antechamber is a hypostyle hall commonly referred to as “T room”, in which the ceiling is supported by sixteen pillars, monoliths of granite. Originally, twenty-three statues of alabaster, schist and diorite, representing the king seated, were backed against the walls of this room. Each end of the western wall of the “T room” has a door. That of the south gives access to three rooms, high two-stories and arranged in the teeth of combs. The north gives access to the rising causeway long 494,60 meters that connects the Valley temple with the funerary temple.

The role assigned to the Valley temple is not certain, but the general opinion assigns to the ceremonies related to purification and mummification and the rite of the opening of the mouth.

Atef Gomaa

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