Page 140 - اثار مصر الفرعونية2

purification rituals were carried out on the roof terrace in a tent
especially constructed for that purpose. Afterwards, he theorized
that the body was embalmed in the temple antechamber. A
French Egyptologist, Etienne Drioton proposed a similar view,
only switching the locations to the antechamber for the
purification and the embalming on the roof terrace However,
Ricke correctly pointed out that these types of rituals required
considerable water that was only available near the canal, so at
best the priests of the valley temple could have only performed
the rituals symbolically.

At the other end of the cross in the T shaped hall (north), an
opening gave way to a passage, also paved with alabaster, that
led to the northwest corner of the temple and there joined the
causeway.

The Causeway

A corridor cut from the rock separated the ruined causeway
from the Great Sphinx temple and the valley temple. The
causeway stretches some forty-six meters connecting these
structures with the mortuary temple just before the main
pyramid. It did not run exactly along the east-west axis of the
pyramid and mortuary temple, but instead somewhat to the
southeast of it due to the fact that the valley temple was erected
slightly out of line with the Great Sphinx and the mortuary
temple. Archaeologists believe that causeway was probably a

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