Life

In 1912 he succeeded Alessandro Barsanti

Alessandro Barsanti

Alessandro Barsanti was an Italian architect and Egyptologist who worked for the Egyptian Antiquities Service. He excavated throughout Egypt . He was also in charge of the transfer of collection of the Cairo Museum from its site at Giza to the current location in Cairo itself.-References:...

 as director of the director of works within the Egyptian Antiquities Service. Throughout his life, he worked to restore and rebuild several ancient buildings, especially the Great Sphinx of Giza

Great Sphinx of Giza

The Great Sphinx of Giza , commonly referred to as the Sphinx, is a limestone statue of a reclining or couchant sphinx that stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt....

. From 1925 to 1936 he was involved in its restoration, which involved completely clearing away the sand from it, and directed excavations around it and inside it, in search of the rooms which many 19th century Egyptologists believed lay within it. These excavations were hurried and had to be carried out with minimal equipment, but they did partially succeed in their objectives, for Baraize discovered a tunnel starting at the rump

Rump (animal)

The rump or croup, in the external morphology of an animal, is the portion of the posterior dorsum that is posterior to the loins and anterior to the tail. Anatomically, the rump corresponds to the sacrum....

, which he explored before the entry was condemned. He ended up filling the massive fissure separating the rump from the rest of the body with cement, blocking the interior passage within and effectively preventing exploration of the upper rump tunnel and connecting passage that is believed to lead down to a burial chamber.