Histories

Near this cow in another chamber statues of Mycerinus' concubines stand, so the priests of Saïs said; and in fact there are about twenty colossal wooden figures there, made like naked women; but except what I was told, I cannot tell who these are.

But some tell the following story about the cow and the statues: that Mycerinus conceived a passion for his own daughter and then had intercourse with her against her will;

and they say that afterwards the girl strangled herself for grief, and that he buried her in this cow, but that her mother cut off the hands of the attendants who had betrayed the daughter to her father, and that now their statues are in the same condition as the living women were.

But this I believe to be a silly story, especially about the hands of the figures. For in fact we ourselves saw that the hands have fallen off through age, and were lying at their feet even in my day.

As for the cow, it is covered with a purple robe, only the head and neck exposed, encrusted with a very thick layer of gold. Between the horns is the golden figure of the sun's orb.