Athena Review Image Archive ™ 

Giza: The Sphinx and the Valley Temple of Cephren (1872 photo)     .


The Sphinx at Giza, with Pyramids of Cephren, Cheops, and Valley Temple of Cephren (photo: Bonfils 1872).


This image shows the Valley Temple of Cephren during excavation, with the Sphinx visible just behind it, and the pyramids of Cephren and Cheops in the background. The photograph was taken in the early 1870s by the commercial photographer, Felix Bonfils, after excavations had exposed both the Valley Temple of Cephren (in the center foreground), and the adjacent Sphinx temple (far right).

The French archaeologist Auguste Mariette, while commissioner of antiquities in Egypt in the 1850s and 1860s, had recently unearthed the temples as part of a wide-ranging excavation program in Egypt. 
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