Sphinx in Pictures
The Sphinx by Fiorillo, 1882.
The erosion of the southern and western walls of the Sphinx enclosure is clear at bottom left: in the corner between the two walls there is the notch
created where the enclosure cuts into the ditch alongside the Khafre causeway
(which runs up to the Khafre pyramid from bottom left at the top of the enclosure wall); the presence of this notch, filled with pieces of granite,
indicated to Professor Selim that the enclosure had been cut after the ditch of
the causeway and that the notch had had to be plugged to prevent rainwater from running into the enclosure and round the lower body of the Sphinx.
But what did the Sphinx look like when it was first made, and the years had
not yet taken their toll of erosion and damage - with the beard (and its support
plate) in place, with the uraeus cobra intact on its brow, with the head-dress
gathered together in a queue on the hack of the body, with the lappets of the
head-dress descending over the shoulders, but without perhaps any statue yet
before its breast and without the Dream Stela in its little chapel between the
paws? How much was originally built on to the living rock with additional
masonry blocks, or perhaps added in plaster, we cannot say.
The Sphinx seen over the valley temple of Khafre, by
Sebah.
The two foremost scholars of the Sphinx in our day have disagreed about
that: Dr Zahi Hawass has suggested that most if not all of the body was clad
from the first; Dr Mark Lehner thinks it was mostly carved from the living rock
to begin with and only required cladding after hundreds of years of neglect and
erosion. Our reconstruction shows few details of masonry, therefore, without
implying that none at all was present at the start, if not a good deal.
The Sphinx temple in front of (and below the level of) the monument itself
may never have seen much use to judge by its not quite finished state, and so it is possible that the Sphinx, too, was never completed and was neglected within
a short time. Some three hundred years after Khafre's death, during the time of
social collapse that Egyptologists call the First Intermediate Period, the signs
are that his valley temple was ransacked and his statues there deliberately smashed - it is unlikely that the Sphinx would have escaped the attentions of
the wreckers at the same time, when the monuments of Giza were attacked in general. The beard would have been an easy target and the vandals may well
have forced off some of any cladding blocks that were part of the original design.
The Sphinx by Lekegian, showing the scale of the head
against a standing human figure and the characteristic erosion
of the Sphinx body. Note the fissure at the haunches, before
it was part-filled with cement.
Egyptologists believe that it is from this time, in about 2200 BC, that the
decline of the monument dates. The sands would have quickly swamped the neglected Sphinx, and under them the process of erosion would have got to
work on the lion's body, while the desert winds scoured the neck and picked out the weak lines in the human head and face. So that by the time of Tuthmosis
IV, the Sphinx was ripe for restoration, as it has been on at least three occasions since, including our own day.
Such, at least, is the view of the Egyptologists about the creation and decay of
the Great Sphinx, its restoration and subsequent further decline. But there are
other interpretations of the Sphinx's history and vicissitudes and they continue
to be developed and aired by their proponents.
- An Introduction to the Great Sphinx
- The Great Sphinx Temples
- The Meaning of the Great Sphinx
- Conservation of the Great Sphinx
- Age of the Sphinx
- Sphinx in Pictures
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Design, Layout and Graphic Art by Jimmy Dunn, an InterCity Oz, Inc. Employee
All content, Graphic Art, Design, Layout, and Scripting Code Copyright 1996 by InterCity Oz, Inc.