Two sculptured blocks have been displaced from the walls that line the approach leading to the sphinx-gate (EB, GA), but they have been recognised from their dimensions among those lying loose about the entrance.[626] There are only two blocks on either side, whereof the corner-stones remain _in situ_, with their ends to the line of frontage (_a_¹ and _l_ in the plan); so that the loose stones fall into place between the corner-stone and the sphinx on each side (_h_, _k_ in the plan). On the left hand the faces of both stones are sculptured (_a_², _h_). The nearer one is the corner-stone, on the end of which there appears, as we have seen, the image of the bull upon a pedestal. On the short side, however, the subject is quite different; and we see two pairs of male figures, the members of each pair facing towards one another. On the left each member grasps a staff: the one figure is taller than the other, so that his hand is found above the other, the staff resting on the ground and rising vertically between them. Each figure is clad in a short tunic, but little else can be made out except the earring and prominent receding nose of the taller. As in the case of the bull last described (_g_), the carving does not seem to have been executed in anything but outline, though that is fairly deep, and the background has been cut away. The smaller figure, which is to the left, has partly disappeared with the broken corner of the stone, and the upper part has also been considerably damaged.[627] The group on the right of the same stone is not quite the same. The taller figure faces left in this case also, but he is clad in the long toga-like garment, with skull-cap, earring, and tip-tilted shoes, and he alone touches the staff which he holds aloft with both hands, the right above the left. Projecting from the middle of the staff, and at the very place where the left hand grasps it, there is a crescental object, with interior peak, resembling in the drawing a certain kind of axe-head found in Egypt, which was affixed at three points to the staff. It is difficult to form any opinion as to what this really is intended to represent; an axe-head would hardly be fixed to the middle of a staff, even though only for ceremonial purposes; while, on the other hand, by the old conventions of perspective, the curving outer edge may really represent some solid object that was round in the plane perpendicular to the surface of the stone, as seen for example in the trumpet depicted on the outer façade (_d_). The smaller figure in this case is very indistinct, and is represented as standing some distance beyond the greater, though facing it (his feet being shown, that is, on a higher level than the rest).