I sit high, I look far away …
He is called the Great and Timeless. He is also known as the "Father of Horror". It is considered one of the most important artifacts of the "civilization of the gods". For many millennia, he steadfastly keeps his secrets. All this is the Egyptian Sphinx. There are legends about him and there is a lot of popular information. But very few know some facts … Today we will give them the TOP-5:
1. The Egyptian Sphinx cannot be called a traditional image of the Sphinx. In classical Greek mythology, the sphinx was described as having the body of a lion, the head of a woman, and the wings of a bird. In Giza, the sculpture of the Androsphinx actually stands as it has no wings. The classic version of the Egyptian Sphinx is the Androsphinx with the face of a person, usually a high-ranking person. Temples of the god Horus were decorated with falcon-headed sphinxes - hieracosphinxes. Along the roads to the temples of Amun, sphinxes with a ram's face - cryosphinxes - were installed. There are also variants of sphinxes with the head of a snake and Set.
2. In the drawings of the Danish traveler Norden in 1737, the Sphinx was already without a nose, so the stories about Napoleon firing cannons at the statue are not true. What really happened and when? The Egyptian historian and Arab geographer Takiyuddin Al-Maqrizi (1364-1442) writes that in 1378 a Sufi fanatic, finding the fellahs bringing gifts to the Sphinx in the hope of replenishing their harvest, was filled with anger and knocked off the nose of the "idol". But later this fanatic was torn to pieces by the crowd, and, by the way, because of the poor harvest. It also follows from the stories that for the local residents of that time, the Sphinx was a kind of talisman, the ruler of the Nile, on which, as they believed, the flood level of the great river depended and, accordingly, the fertility of their fields.
3. Few people know that there is a hatch in the center of the Sphinx's head at the top. It closes a niche that was originally intended to house the statue's headdress, and was later expanded by treasure seekers and secret rooms. Judging by the numerous ancient Egyptian drawings, the headdress changed. It could be made of stone, or it could be made of wood covered with gold. But installing a stone dress would be dangerous for the head of the Sphinx.
4. Under the right ear of the Sphinx there is a strange trace: a depression of a few centimeters is carved in a rectangle ~ 50x25 cm in size. For what purpose this was done is not clear. It can be seen in the drawing of the Danish traveler F. Norden in 1737, in the photograph of F. Bedford (1815-94) from 1860, etc. Perhaps these are the consequences of restoration, but not a fact.
5. The first known restoration, which mainly covered the legs and chest of the Sphinx, took place under Thutmose IV, more than a thousand years after the reign of the kings of the Old Kingdom. The blocks with the names of Thutmose IV, which surrounded the Sphinx, were partially removed in 1936 during excavations by S. Hassan. Also interesting is the fact that the "Stele of Sleep" was a granite block from another temple in the necropolis of Giza: there are drilled holes behind it, presumably for the jambs of gates or doors. The Sphinx was restored and strengthened with additional blocks by the ancient Greeks and Romans, in particular the legs and walls of the niche. The rock bed in front of the Sphinx itself is covered with cobblestones from the Roman era.
Promotional video:
Additional technical information:
The Sphinx is carved from a monolithic limestone rock, which consists of three layers (Member I or Rosetau Member, Member II or Setepet Member, Member III or Akhet Member) of limestone that stretch across the entire Giza plateau. The layer of light limestone, from which the Sphinx and the walls of the excavation were created, designated in the diagrams as Member II, is the most fragile and is subject to more destructive effects of wind and sand erosion. The Member I layer composes the north wall and the lower part of the west wall of the excavation, which are slightly damaged by erosion. The head is carved from a limestone remnant of the Member III layer, which originally rose above the surrounding terrain. The same limestone outliers survived 300 m southeast on the neighboring limestone hill Gebel el-Qibli. Differences in the degree of destruction of the Sphinx limestone and the walls of its pit are due to the different composition, strength and other characteristics of the limestone that makes up layers Member I, II and III.