- Sphinx Stands Guard Over Pyramids - David W. Tschanz
The word "sphinx", which means 'strangler', was first given by the Greeks to a creature with the head of a woman, body of a lion and the wings of a bird. In Egypt, “sphinxes”, usually appear with the head of a king wearing his headdress and the body of a lion, though others, with ram heads, are associated with the god Amun.
The lion was a solar symbol in more than one ancient Near Eastern culture. The royal human head on a lion's body symbolized power and might, controlled by the intelligence of the pharaoh.
How was the Sphinx Made?
The Sphinx lies in what was once a quarry for limestone bedrock. A deep, U-shaped ditch was trenched out and the isolated huge rectangular bedrock block was carved into the Sphinx. The enclosure is deepest immediately around the body, with a shelf at the rear of the monument where it was left unfinished. The limestone around the head was probably quarried for blocks to build the pyramids.
The body is 72.55 meters in length and 20.22 meters tall. The face of the sphinx is four meters wide and its eyes are two meters high. The ears are over a meter high. Part of the uraeus (sacred cobra),the nose, the lower ear and the ritual beard are missing, as are the eyes. The beard is on display in the British Museum. A gouge near the nose exists where a religious zealot fired a cannon into the face in the 18th Century.
Egyptologists think that Khafre's workers shaped the stone into the lion and gave it their pharaohs's face a theory supported by the appearance of Khafre's name on the Dream Stele, between the Sphinx’s paws.
Part of an Ancient Egyptian Complex
Despite present day appearances, the Sphinx was not an isolated monument, but part of a complex consisting of the statue, the original temple, a New Kingdom temple and other small structures. It was also associated in an unclear way with Khafre's Valley Temple, which itself had four colossal sphinx statues each more than eight meters long.
The Sphinx faces the rising sun with a temple to the front similar to later 5th Dynasty sun temples.
The Sphinx was buried for most of its history in the sand. Thutmose IV (1425 - 1417 BC) cleared all the sand but it quickly returned and when Napoleon fought the Battle of the Pyramids with the Mamluks in1798, the Sphinx was buried up to its neck.
In 1936 the sand was removed again. Ironically exposure has led to an increased crumbling of the statue due to wind, humidity and smog. Extensive preservation efforts are underway for to assure the continued existence of this eternal symbol of the unfathomable.
References
Hawass, Zahi. (1998). The Secrets of the Sphinx: Restoration Past and Present. American University in Cairo Press
Regier, Willis G. (ed.) (2004). Book of the Sphinx. U of Nebraska Press.
Zivie-Coche, Christiane.(2004) Sphinx: History Of A Monument. Cornell University Press. Trans. by David Lorton.
David Tschanz - I have published approximately 880 articles on a variety of topics including health, travel, destinations, computer technology (such as ...
