Sphinx (translated from ancient Greek - "strangler") - in ancient Egyptian art, this creature with the body of a lion and the head of a man.
The oldest monumental sculpture depicting a sphinx is the Great Sphinx in Giza - its huge noseless face is probably familiar to everyone. Over the centuries, many more or less plausible assumptions have been put forward about why the sphinx does not have a nose, who is to blame for the fact that such a majestic statue has no nose.
Versions - who is to blame?
Napoleon. The Sphinx's nose was hit by a cannonball during Napoleon's battle with the Turks at the Pyramids in 1798. Or, as a variant of the same version: the nose was repulsed and taken to the Louvre by French scientists who arrived in Egypt together with a 55,000-strong French army. It was the first ever expedition to Egypt undertaken by specialists-archaeologists, and it consisted of 155 people. Even after Napoleon, having suffered defeat and leaving the army to General Kléber, returned to France, scientists continued their research, and the result was a scientific work entitled "Description of Egypt" - the first reliable picture of this country that reached Europe.
This version is false, since there are known drawings made by the Danish traveler Norden in 1737 - long before the birth of Napoleon, and in these drawings the nose of the Sphinx is no longer there. However, Egyptian guides continue to tell crowds of tourists that it was under Napoleon that the nose of the Sphinx was stolen and transported to the Louvre.
Muhammad Saim al-Dah, Sufi fanatic. The locals believed that the flood level of the Nile depended on the Sphinx, and as a result - the fertility of the fields, so it was universally respected. Fellahs - plowmen, farmers - brought gifts to the Sphinx in the hope that he would protect them and ensure a good harvest. And so, according to the testimony of the medieval Cairo historian al-Maqrizi, in 1378 the Sufi fanatic Muhammad al-Dah became an eyewitness of such veneration. Filled with anger from the "idolatry" he saw, he knocked off the nose of the Sphinx, for which he was torn to pieces by a crowd of local residents.
This version is implausible, since it remains unclear exactly how one person could cause such tangible damage to the giant statue.
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Time and wind. To date, natural causes are considered the only possible culprits for the destruction of the monumental guardian of the Nile: about 6,000 years, during which the soft limestone from which the Sphinx was carved is exposed to wind and moisture.