Histories

It has no underground chambers, nor is it entered like the other by a canal from the Nahr an- Nil [31.1,30.166] (river), AfricaNile, but the river comes in through a built passage and encircles an island, in which, they say, Kheops himself lies.

This pyramid was built on the same scale as the other, except that it falls forty feet short of it in height; it stands near the great pyramid; the lowest layer of it is of variegated Ethiopian stone. Both of them stand on the same ridge, which is about a hundred feet high. Khephren, they said, reigned for fifty-six years.

Thus, they reckon that for a hundred and six years Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt was in great misery and the temples so long shut were never opened. The people hate the memory of these two kings so much that they do not much wish to name them, and call the pyramids after the shepherd Philitis, who then pastured his flocks in this place[*](This is the form which Hdt. gives to the story of the rule of the “shepherds” (Hyksos) in +Lower Egypt [31,31] (region), Egypt, Africa Lower Egypt, perhaps from 2100 to 1600 B.C. ).