The Sphinx
The Great Sphinx of Giza (Arabic: أبو الهول ) Abū
al-Haul, English: The Terrifying One; literally: Father of Dread, commonly
referred to as the Sphinx of Giza or just the Sphinx, is a limestone statue of
a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of
a human. Facing directly from West to East, it stands on the Giza Plateau on
the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The face of the Sphinx is generally
believed to represent the Pharaoh Khafre.
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| GENERAL VIEW OF THE SPHINX (Giza) |
Cut from the bedrock, the original
shape of the Sphinx has been restored with layers of blocks. It measures 238
feet (73 m) long from paw to tail, 66.3 ft (20.21 m) high from the base to the
top of the head and 62.6 feet (19 m) wide at its rear haunches. It is the
oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt and is commonly believed to have
been built by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of the
Pharaoh Khafre (c. 2558–2532 BC).
Construction
The Sphinx is a monolith carved
into the bedrock of the plateau, which also served as the quarry for the
pyramids and other monuments in the area. The nummulitic limestone of the area
consists of layers, which offer differing resistance to erosion (mostly caused
by wind and windblown sand), leading to the uneven degradation apparent in the
Sphinx's body. The lowest part of the body, including the legs, is solid rock.
The body of the lion up to its neck is fashioned from softer layers that have
suffered considerable disintegration. The layer in which the head was sculpted
is much harder.
Origin and identity
The Great Sphinx is one of the
world's largest and oldest statues, but basic facts about it are still subject
to debate, such as when it was built, by whom and for what purpose. These
questions have resulted in the popular idea of the "Riddle of the Sphinx.”
alluding to the original Greek legend of the "Riddle of the Sphinx."
First century writer Pliny the
Elder mentioned the Great Sphinx in his Natural History, commenting that the
Egyptians looked upon the statue as a "divinity" that has been passed
over in silence and "that King Harmais was buried in it."
Names of the Sphinx
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| 1800's picture of the Sphinx |
The commonly used name
"Sphinx" was given to it in classical antiquity, about 2000 years
after the commonly accepted date of its construction by reference to a Greek
mythological beast with a lion's body, a woman's head and 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.
The name may alternatively be a
linguistic corruption of the phonetically different ancient Egyptian word Ssp-anx
(in Manuel de Codage). This name is given to royal statues of the Fourth
dynasty of ancient Egypt (2575–2467 BC) and later in the New Kingdom (c. 1570–1070
BC) to the Great Sphinx more specifically.
Medieval Arab writers, including
al-Maqrīzī, call the Sphinx balhib and bilhaw, which suggest a Coptic
influence. The modern Egyptian Arabic name is أبو الهول (Abū al Hūl, English: The Terrifying One).
Builder and timeframe
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| Profile of the Sphinx |
Selim Hassan, writing
in 1949 on recent excavations of the Sphinx enclosure, summed up the problem:
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.
The "circumstantial"
evidence mentioned by Hassan includes the Sphinx's location in the context of
the funerary complex surrounding the Second Pyramid, which is traditionally
connected with Khafra. Apart from the Causeway, the Pyramid and the Sphinx, the
complex also includes the Sphinx Temple and the Valley Temple, both of which
display the same architectural style, with 200-tonne stone blocks quarried out
of the Sphinx enclosure.
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| Napoleon in front of the Sphinx |
The Dream Stele, erected much
later by the pharaoh Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC), associates the
Sphinx with Khafra. When the stele was discovered, its lines of text were
already damaged and incomplete, and only referred to Khaf, not Khafra. An
extract was translated: 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.
The Egyptologist Thomas Young,
finding the Khaf hieroglyphs in a damaged cartouche used to surround a royal
name, inserted the glyph ra to complete Khafra's name. When the Stele was
re-excavated in 1925, the lines of text referring to Khaf flaked off and were
destroyed.
Early Egyptologists
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| Sphinx & Pyramids |
In 1857, Auguste Mariette,
founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, unearthed the much later Inventory
Stela (estimated Dynasty XXVI, c. 678–525 BC), which tells how Khufu came upon
the Sphinx, already buried in sand. Although certain tracts on the Stela are
considered good evidence, this passage is widely dismissed as Late Period
historical revisionism, a purposeful fake, created by the local priests with
the attempt to certify the contemporary Isis temple an ancient history it never
had. Such an act became common when religious institutions such as temples,
shrines and priest's domains were fighting for political attention and for
financial and economic donations.
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| George Sandys drawing of Sphinx (1615) |
Gaston Maspero, the
French Egyptologist and second director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo,
conducted a survey of the Sphinx in 1886. He concluded that because the Dream
stela showed the cartouche of Khafre in line thirteen, that it was he who was
responsible for the excavation and that the Sphinx must therefore predate Khafre
and his predecessors (i.e. Dynasty IV, c. 2575–2467 BC) English Egyptologist E.
A. Wallis Budge agreed that the Sphinx predated Khafre's reign, writing in
The Gods of the Egyptians (1914): "This marvelous object [the Great
Sphinx] was in existence in the days of Khafre, or Khephren, and it is probable
that it is a very great deal older than his reign and that it dates from the
end of the archaic period [c. 2686 BC]."
Modern dissenting hypotheses
Rainer Stadelmann, former
director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, examined the distinct
iconography of the nemes (headdress) and the now-detached beard of the Sphinx
and concluded that the style is more indicative of the Pharaoh Khufu (2589–2566
BC), builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza and Khafra's father. He supports this
by suggesting that Khafra's Causeway was built to conform to a pre-existing
structure, which, he concludes, given its location, could only have been the
Sphinx.
Colin Reader, an
English geologist who independently conducted a more recent survey of the
enclosure, agrees that the various quarries on the site have been excavated
around the Causeway. Because these quarries are known to have been used by
Khufu, Reader concludes that the Causeway (and the temples on either end
thereof) must predate Khufu, thereby casting doubt on the conventional Egyptian
chronology.
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| Sphinx erosion |
In 2004, Vassil Dobrev of
the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo announced that he had
uncovered new evidence that the Great Sphinx may have been the work of the
little-known Pharaoh Djedefre (2528–2520 BC), Khafra's half brother and a son of
Khufu. Dobrev suggests that Djedefre built the Sphinx in the image of his
father Khufu, identifying him with the sun god Ra in order to restore respect
for their dynasty. Dobrev also notes, like Stadelmann and others, that the
causeway connecting Khafre's pyramid to the temples was built around the Sphinx
suggesting it was already in existence at the time.
The Great Sphinx as Anubis
Author Robert K. G. Temple
proposes that the Sphinx was originally a statue of the Jackal-Dog Anubis, the
God of the Necropolis, and that its face was recarved in the likeness of a
Middle Kingdom pharaoh, Amenemhet II. Temple bases his identification on the
style of the eye make-up and the style of the pleats on the head-dress.
Racial characteristics
Over the years several authors
have commented on what they perceive as "Negroid" characteristics in
the face of the Sphinx. This issue has become part of the Ancient Egyptian race
controversy, with respect to the ancient population as a whole.
The face of the Sphinx has been
damaged over the millennia.
Restoration
At some unknown time the Giza
Necropolis was abandoned, and the Sphinx was eventually buried up to its
shoulders in sand. 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
placed a granite slab, known as the Dream Stele, inscribed with the following
(an extract): ... 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..
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| Sphinx Restoration efforts |
Mark Lehner, an
Egyptologist who has excavated and mapped the Giza plateau, originally asserted
that there had been a far earlier renovation during the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2184
BC),[39] although he has subsequently recanted this "heretical"
viewpoint.
In AD 1817 the first modern
archaeological dig, supervised by the Italian Giovanni Battista Caviglia,
uncovered the Sphinx's chest completely. The entire Sphinx was finally
excavated in 1925 to 1936, in digs led by Émile Baraize. In 1931
engineers of the Egyptian government repaired the head of the Sphinx. Part of
its headdress had fallen off in 1926 due to erosion, which had also cut deeply
into its neck.
The Sphinx profile in 2010
Limestone fragments of the
Sphinx's beard in the British Museum, 14th Century BC
The one-metre-wide nose on the
face is missing. Examination of the Sphinx's face shows that long rods or
chisels were hammered into the nose, one down from the bridge and one beneath
the nostril, then used to pry the nose off towards the south.
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| The Sphinx beard in London Museum |
There is also a story that the
nose was broken off by a cannonball fired by Napoleon's soldiers. Other
variants indict British troops, the Mamluks, and others. Sketches of the Sphinx
by the Dane Frederic Louis Norden, made in 1738 and published in 1757,
show the Sphinx missing its nose. This predates Napoleon's birth in 1769.
In addition to the lost nose, a
ceremonial pharaonic beard is thought to have been attached, although this may
have been added in later periods after the original construction. Egyptologist Vassil
Dobrev has suggested that had the beard been an original part of the
Sphinx, it would have damaged the chin of the statue upon falling. The lack of
visible damage supports his theory that the beard was a later addition.
Residues of red pigment are
visible on areas of the Sphinx's face. Traces of yellow and blue pigment have
been found elsewhere on the Sphinx, leading Mark Lehner to suggest that
the monument "was once decked out in gaudy comic book colors”.
Mythology
Colin Reader has
proposed that the Sphinx was probably the focus of solar worship in the Early
Dynastic Period, before the Giza Plateau became a necropolis in the Old Kingdom
(c. 2686–2134 BC). He ties this in with his conclusions that the Sphinx, the
Sphinx temple, the Causeway and the Khafra mortuary temple are all part of a
complex predating Dynasty IV (c. 2613–2494 BC). The lion has long been a symbol
associated with the sun in ancient Near Eastern civilizations. Images depicting
the Egyptian king in the form of a lion smiting his enemies date as far back as
the Early Dynastic Period.
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| Sphinx in sands |
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. John Lawson Stoddard made a typical
description of the Sphinx by tourists and leisure travelers throughout the 19th
and 20th century: 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. Moslem
fanatics have mutilated the face and head. 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.
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| Greek Mythology Sphinx |
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, reflecting his ability to conceptualize
(Turris Babel, 1679). Johannes Helferich's (1579) Sphinx is a pinched-face,
round-breasted woman with a straight haired wig; the only edge over Thevet is
that the hair suggests the flaring lappets of the headdress. George Sandys
stated that the Sphinx was a harlot; Balthasar de Monconys interpreted the
headdress as a kind of hairnet, while François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz's Sphinx
had a rounded hairdo with bulky collar.
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| The Sphinx before Photography |
⏳ CLICK BELLOW TO WATCH THE SPHINX
NOTE: In my previous post the reference to the documentary was somehow
difficult to notice and therefore was missed by most readers
Collected from various Internet Sources.
