Page 143 - اثار مصر الفرعونية2

fragments remain. Ricke thought that the ambulatory was fronted
by 3.75 meter high statues of Khafre sitting on his throne
overlooking the courtyard, but Lehner thinks these were standing
statues of the ruler. Lehner bases his belief on the discovery of a
small statuette in the workshops west of the pyramid. This
artifact shows the ruler, wearing the crown of Upper Egypt,
standing in front of a kind of pillar. The remains of a small canal
suggest that it was drainage for an altar that stood in the middle
of the courtyard.

A door in the west side of the ambulatory communicated
with five, long chapels (actually niches) that also originally
housed statues of the king. Another narrow corridor opens from
the southwest corner of the courtyard and led to an offering hall
located in the west part of the temple. The hall was a narrow,
long room oriented north-south (in contrast to later mortuary
temples) with a false door positioned on the west wall, precisely
on the pyramid's long axis. Between the five cult chapels and the
offering hall, a group of five storage rooms were provided for
cult vessels and offerings used during various ceremonies.

A stairway in the northeast corner of the temple led up to the
roof terrace, while in the northwest corner of the courtyard,
another corridor led to the paved pyramid enclosure.

Though all of them had been plundered apparently in
antiquity, there were five boat bits discovered outside of the

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