Vyse II · p. 81

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             OPERATIONS         CARRIED ON AT GIZEH .                       81


concourse         of people .    The large apartment was forty-
six feet three inches in length ; and when the rubbish was
entirely removed , the floor for thirty -one feet from the
eastern end , was found to be rock , and the rest to have
consisted     of a pavement , in which         a place for a sarcopha-
gus had been sunk ( Plate            III Figs
                                        .,       . 1   and 2 ) .
                                                                   8
                                                                        We are
informed by Herodotus , that the body of an inferior person
was sometimes placed in the ostensible sepulchre to pre-
vent any further inquiry after the principal tomb , as is
mentioned respecting that of Amasis — an expedient which
seemed to have been contemplated , but not actually put in
practice in this instance ; for not a vestige of a sarcophagus
was to be discovered , which must have been the case if one
had been introduced , as the communications , particularly
through the anteroom , had not been sufficiently cleared
for its removal , The pavement had been entirely de-
stroyed .
      The circular holes in the sides and floor of the
apartment were probably intended to receive beams for
the support of a scaffolding used in trimming and finishing
the walls , or to assist in the deposition of the sarcophagus
in the sepulchral chamber .
    At the distance of seventeen feet from the eastern end
of this apartment , an inclined              passage , which           had been
no    doubt       originally concealed        by the pavement , de-
scended to the sepulchral            chamber       nearly    in the       same


     8 Mr. Perring mentions indeed that a number        of small pieces of red
granite were found     among the rubbish      in the large   apartment ;    but
granite was used in the portcullis , and in the sepulchral     chamber ; and
some undoubted       fragment of the sarcophagus   must have been found      if
one had really been placed there .
     VOL . II .                                                    G