Career
In 1912 he succeeded Alessandro Barsanti 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. 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 lieutenant
According to Robert K. G. Temple, 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.