The Great Sphinx of Giza (Arabic: أبو الهول, romanized: ʾabū al-Hawl) is a limestone statue of a resting sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion. The monument was sculpted from the limestone bedrock of the Eocene-aged Mokattam Formation and faces east on the Giza Plateau, on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt, the Sphinx is part of the Memphite Necropolis and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Archaeological evidence suggests the Sphinx was created by Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of Khufu (c. 2590–2566 BC) or Khafre (c. 2558–2532 BC). Scholars and Egyptologists believe the face of the Sphinx was carved to represent either the pharaoh Khufu or one of his sons, pharaohs Djedefre and Khafre, but a consensus has not been reached and the person(s) in whose likeness the Sphinx was carved remains in dispute.
The Sphinx has undergone multiple restorations, the most recent of which involved replacing layers of limestone blocks around the base. The monument is 73 m (240 ft) long from paw to tail, 20 m (66 ft) high from the base to the top of the head, and 19 m (62 ft) wide at its rear haunches.
The circumstances of the destruction of the Sphinx's nose are unknown, but examinations of the face have shown evidence of a deliberate act with rods or chisels. Contrary to a popular myth, the nose was not destroyed by cannonfire from Napoleon's troops during his 1798 Egyptian campaign.
Names
The original name the Old Kingdom creators gave the Sphinx is unknown, as the Sphinx temple, enclosure, and possibly the Sphinx itself were not completed at the time, and thus little is known about the statue's cultural context. In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx was revered as the solar deity Hor-em-akhet (English: "Horus of the Horizon"; Hellenized: Harmachis), and the 14th century BC pharaoh Thutmose IV specifically refers to it as such in his Dream Stele.
The commonly used name "Sphinx" was given to it in classical antiquity, around 2,000 years after the commonly accepted date of its construction by reference to a Greek mythological beast with the head of a woman, a falcon, a cat, or a sheep and the body of a lion with the wings of an eagle (although, like most Egyptian sphinxes, the Great Sphinx has a man's head and no wings). The English word sphinx comes from the ancient Greek Σφίγξ (transliterated: sphinx) apparently from the verb σφίγγω (transliterated: sphingo / English: to squeeze), after the Greek sphinx who strangled anyone who failed to answer her riddle.
Medieval Arab writers, including al-Maqrīzī, call the Sphinx by an Arabized Coptic name Belhib (Arabic: بلهيب), Balhubah (Arabic: بلهوبه) Belhawiyya (Arabic: بلهويه), which in turn comes from Pehor (Ancient Egyptian: pꜣ-Ḥwr) or Pehor(o)n (Ancient Egyptian: pꜣ-Ḥwr(w)n), a name of the Canaanite god Hauron with whom the Sphinx was identified. It is also rendered as Ablehon on a depiction of the Sphinx made by François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz. The medieval Egyptian Arabic name is Abū il-Hawl (أبو الهول), meaning "father of terror", which may be a folk etymological reinterpretation of the name of the god Ḥwr. In other source the medieval Egyptian Arabic name is Abul-Hun.
History
Old Kingdom
The archaeological evidence suggests the Great Sphinx was created between 2600 and 2500 BC for the king Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza, or his son Khafre, the builder of the second Pyramid at Giza. The Sphinx is a monolith carved from the bedrock of the plateau, which also served as the quarry for the pyramids and other monuments in the area. Egyptian geologist Farouk El-Baz has suggested the head of the Sphinx may have been carved first, out of a natural yardang: a ridge of bedrock sculpted by the wind. These can sometimes achieve shapes resembling animals. El-Baz suggests the "moat" or "ditch" around the Sphinx may have been quarried out later to allow for the creation of the full body of the sculpture. The stones cut from around the Sphinx's body were used to construct a temple in front of it; however, neither the enclosure nor the temple were completed, and the relative scarcity of Old Kingdom cultural material suggests a Sphinx cult was not established at the time. Selim Hassan, writing in 1949 on recent excavations of the Sphinx enclosure, makes note of this circumstance:
Taking all things into consideration, it seems that we must give the credit of erecting this, the world's most wonderful statue, to Khafre, but always with this reservation: that there is not one single contemporary inscription which connects the Sphinx with Khafre, so sound as it may appear, we must treat the evidence as circumstantial, until such time as a lucky turn of the spade of the excavator will reveal to the world a definite reference to the erection of the Sphinx.
— Hassan, page 164
In order to construct the temple, the northern perimeter wall of the Khafre Valley Temple had to be deconstructed; therefore, the Khafre funerary complex preceded the creation of the Sphinx and its temple. Furthermore, the angle and location of the south wall of the enclosure suggests the causeway connecting Khafre's pyramid and Valley Temple already existed before the Sphinx was planned. The lower base level of the Sphinx temple also indicates it does not pre-date the Valley Temple.
New Kingdom
Some time around the First Intermediate Period, the Giza Necropolis was abandoned, and drifting sand eventually buried the Sphinx up to its shoulders. The first documented attempt at an excavation dates to c. 1400 BC, when the young Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC) gathered a team and, after much effort, managed to dig out the front paws, between which he erected a shrine housing the Dream Stele, an inscribed granite slab (possibly a repurposed door lintel from one of Khafre's temples). When the stele was discovered, its lines of text were already damaged and incomplete. An excerpt reads:
... the royal son, Thothmos, being arrived, while walking at midday and seating himself under the shadow of this mighty god, was overcome by slumber and slept at the very moment when Ra is at the summit [of heaven]. He found that the Majesty of this august god spoke to him with his own mouth, as a father speaks to his son, saying: Look upon me, contemplate me, O my son Thothmos; I am thy father, Harmakhis-Khopri-Ra-Tum; I bestow upon thee the sovereignty over my domain, the supremacy over the living ... Behold my actual condition that thou mayest protect all my perfect limbs. The sand of the desert whereon I am laid has covered me. Save me, causing all that is in my heart to be executed.
— The Stele of Thothmes IV: A Translation
The Dream Stele associates the Sphinx with Khafre. However, this part of the text is not entirely intact:
which we bring for him: oxen ... and all the young vegetables; and we shall give praise to Wenofer ... Khaf ... the statue made for Atum-Hor-em-Akhet.
— Jason Colavito, Who Built the Sphinx?
Egyptologist Thomas Young, finding the Khaf hieroglyphs in a damaged cartouche used to surround a royal name, inserted the glyph ra to complete Khafre's name. When the stele was re-excavated in 1925, the lines of text referring to Khaf had flaked off and were destroyed. Later, Ramesses II the Great (1279–1213 BC) may have undertaken a second excavation.
In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx became more specifically associated with the sun god Hor-em-akhet (Hellenized: Harmachis) or "Horus-at-the-Horizon". The Pharaoh Amenhotep II (1427–1401 or 1397 BC) built a temple to the northeast of the Sphinx nearly 1,000 years after its construction and dedicated it to the cult of Hor-em-akhet.
Graeco-Roman period
In Graeco-Roman times, Giza had become a tourist destination—the monuments were regarded as antiquities—and some Roman emperors visited the Sphinx out of curiosity and for political reasons. The Sphinx was cleared of sand again in the first century AD in honor of Emperor Nero and the Governor of Egypt Tiberius Claudius Balbilus. A monumental stairway—more than 12 metres (39 ft) wide—was erected, leading down to a pavement in front of the paws of the Sphinx. A podium positioned at the top of the stairs allowed a view into the Sphinx sanctuary. Farther back, another podium neighbored several more steps. The stairway was dismantled during the 1931–32 excavations by Émile Baraize. Pliny the Elder describes the face of the Sphinx being colored red and gives measurements for the statue:
In front of these pyramids is the Sphinx, a still more wondrous object of art, but one upon which silence has been observed, as it is looked upon as a divinity by the people of the neighbourhood. It is their belief that King Harmaïs was buried in it, and they will have it that it was brought there from a distance. The truth is, however, that it was hewn from the solid rock; and, from a feeling of veneration, the face of the monster is coloured red. The circumference of the head, measured round the forehead, is one hundred and two feet, the length of the feet being one hundred and forty-three, and the height, from the belly to the summit of the asp on the head, sixty-two.
A stela dated to 166 AD commemorates the restoration of the retaining walls surrounding the Sphinx. The last emperor connected with the monument is Septimius Severus, around 200 AD. With the downfall of Roman power, the Sphinx was once more engulfed by the sands.
Middle Ages
Some ancient non-Egyptians saw the Sphinx as a likeness of the god Hauron. The cult of the Sphinx continued into medieval times. The Harranians saw it as the burial place of Hermes Trismegistus. Arab authors describe the Sphinx as a talisman guarding the area from the desert. Al-Maqrizi describes it as the "talisman of the Nile" upon which locals believed the flood cycle depended. Muhammad al-Idrisi stated those wishing to obtain bureaucratic positions in the Egyptian government gave incense offering to the monument.
Early modern period
Over the centuries, writers and scholars have recorded their impressions and reactions upon seeing the Sphinx. The vast majority were concerned with a general description, often including a mixture of science, romance and mystique. A description was made by John Lawson Stoddard:
It is the antiquity of the Sphinx which thrills us as we look upon it, for in itself it has no charms. The desert's waves have risen to its breast, as if to wrap the monster in a winding-sheet of gold. The face and head have been mutilated by Moslem fanatics. The mouth, the beauty of whose lips was once admired, is now expressionless. Yet grand in its loneliness, – veiled in the mystery of unnamed ages, – the relic of Egyptian antiquity stands solemn and silent in the presence of the awful desert – symbol of eternity. Here it disputes with Time the empire of the past; forever gazing on and on into a future which will still be distant when we, like all who have preceded us and looked upon its face, have lived our little lives and disappeared.
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures
From the 16th to the 19th centuries, European observers described the Sphinx having the face, neck and breast of a woman. Examples included Johannes Helferich (1579), George Sandys (1615), Johann Michael Vansleb (1677), Benoît de Maillet (1735) and Elliot Warburton (1844). Most early Western images were book illustrations in print form, elaborated by a professional engraver from either previous images available or some original drawing or sketch supplied by an author, and usually now lost. Seven years after visiting Giza, André Thévet (Cosmographie de Levant, 1556) described the Sphinx as "the head of a colossus, caused to be made by Isis, daughter of Inachus, then so beloved of Jupiter". He, or his artist and engraver, pictured it as a curly-haired monster with a grassy dog collar. Athanasius Kircher (who never visited Egypt) depicted the Sphinx as a Roman statue (Turris Babel, 1679). Johannes Helferich's (1579) Sphinx is a pinched-face, round-breasted woman with a straight-haired wig. George Sandys stated the Sphinx was a harlot; Balthasar de Monconys interpreted the headdress as a kind of hairnet, and François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz described the Sphinx as having a rounded hairdo with bulky collar. Richard Pococke's Sphinx was an adaptation of Cornelis de Bruijn's drawing of 1698, featuring only minor changes, but is closer to the actual appearance of the Sphinx than anything previous. The print versions of Norden's drawings for his Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie, 1755 clearly show the missing nose.
Modern excavations
In 1817, the first modern archaeological dig, supervised by the Italian Giovanni Battista Caviglia, uncovered the Sphinx's chest completely.
In the beginning of the year 1887, the chest, the paws, the altar, and plateau were all made visible. Flights of steps were unearthed, and finally accurate measurements were taken of the great figures. The height from the lowest of the steps was found to be one hundred feet, and the space between the paws was found to be thirty-five feet long and ten feet wide. Here there was formerly an altar; and a stele of Thûtmosis IV was discovered, recording a dream in which he was ordered to clear away the sand that even then was gathering round the site of the Sphinx.
— S. Rappoport, The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present, Volume 12