The Stele of Thothmes IV

Ebook

Dream Stele (of the Eighteenth Dynasty)

This stele had been buried for ages, under the sand which again and again has covered the body of the Sphinx, when it was disinterred in 1818 by an Englishman, Captain Caviglia. Salt, who had taken part in his friend's excavations, gave a detailed account of the disinterment, and his narrative, preserved in MS. at the British Museum, has been published by Col. Vyse in the appendix to his work on the Operations carried on at the Pyramids of Gizeh (8vo, London 1842, vol. iii. pp. 107 sqq.) After uncovering all the hinder portion of the Sphinx, Caviglia found at the end of the long passage which lay between the paws, a small temple, ten feet in length by five in breadth, immediately below the chin of the figure. The extremity of it was occupied by a block of granite, fourteen feet in height, covered with sculptures and hieroglyphics recording the name of Thothmes IV; this block is the stele of which we are about to give a translation.