It is unlikely that there is at least one person in the entire civilized world who would not have known the Egyptian Sphinx guarding the eastern road to the pyramids of Giza.
The Sphinx is synonymous with mystery. Until 1926, the Sphinx was buried in the ground up to its throat, and visitors speculated about what might be below. Today, archaeologists can assure us that the sphinx, freed from the sand and surrounded by ruins, dates from the reign of Khafre, the builder of the Second Pyramid.
But they also admit that more excavations are needed before they can be sure that nothing else is hidden under the sand.
Quite curious is the history of the Sphinx, which we learn about from the excavations, especially those that were made between 1926 and 1936. There is no doubt that this lion with a human head was part of the Khafra pyramid complex, but this is a unique piece, and no other pharaoh can boast of such a grandiose structure. We may wonder where it came from and why Khafra allowed himself such a giant "novelty." The answer is in the position of the sculpture.
The Egyptian Sphinx occupies a vast rocky amphitheater on the eastern edge of the plateau: it is nothing more than an enormous quarry from which workers cut stone to build the pyramids and the scale of private individuals. They took the best hard rock, so that as a result, a mass of softer rock began to protrude from the bottom of the quarry. This huge mass, located near the lower temple, blocked the view of the Second Pyramid and the road to it, and probably did not look very beautiful.
The builders faced a task: either to completely remove it, or to remake it into something. Perhaps its natural outlines could somehow resemble a seated lion. Be that as it may, Khafra's architects presented it in the form of a magnificent sphinx, and skilled masons transferred the vision to reality, creating an amazing monument to their royal ruler out of an ugly obstacle.
The Sphinx, 20 m high and 57 m long, was originally cut out of the rock without any additional masonry. Due to the softness of the stone, time and constant sandstorms eaten away the body and legs, and at times subsequent pharaohs repaired them with stone blocks. The Egyptian Sphinx is facing the rising sun. Its outline is simple, its posture is majestic; the face, framed by the royal headdress of nemes, is an idealized portrait of Khafra himself.
Here we have to refute the often repeated story that Napoleonic soldiers broke the nose of the Sphinx, using it as a target for shooting exercises. This story is refuted by the testimony of the Arab historian Makrizi (d. 1436): “In our time there was one person. His name was Saim el-Dahr, and he was a Sufi. This man wanted to restore the faith, and he went to the pyramids and disfigured the face of Abu'l Khol (one of the Arabic names for the Sphinx), and he remains so to this day. Since the time it was mutilated, sand has come to the cultivated lands of Giza, and people think that this is because Abu'l Khol was mutilated."
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When the sphinx was erected, it symbolized the king, and his face was given a resemblance to Khafra. Although no other pharaoh has tried to imitate Khafra's monument, at the end of many roads to the pyramids of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, there are reliefs depicting the king as a sphinx trampling on the prostrate enemies of Egypt. It may be that the creators of these reliefs were inspired by the Sphinx at Giza, because it occupies a similar position (at the beginning of the road) in relation to the Khafra pyramid complex.
By the era of the New Kingdom, Egyptian concepts of the sphinxes had undergone changes. Although the Sphinx still symbolized the king (and the Sphinx woman - the queen), the Egyptian Sphinx began to represent the sun god. As such, it has become a center of particular worship and a place of pilgrimage. Despite all this, the sand coming from the desert at times buried it by half, and even in our time, constant excavations are needed to keep it free of sand.
By the middle of the 18th Dynasty, the Sphinx was probably buried up to its neck. The desert around the pyramids was full of game; princes and noble people hunted there with pleasure. According to one ancient document, one day it happened that a young prince named Thutmose, the youngest son of Amenhotep II, was hunting in those places. At noon, he stopped to rest and lunch, and fell asleep in the shade of the sphinx's head - the only part of the statue that by then was protruding from the sand. And the prince had a dream: God began to talk to him and complained about the sand falling asleep, which prevented him from breathing. He promised Thutmose the throne of Egypt if the prince cleansed the sand.
Thutmose promised him this and, awakening, fulfilled his vow. But he did not tell anyone about his dream. Although Thutmose had older brothers, the Sphinx also fulfilled its end of the bargain and the prince came to the throne as Thutmose IV. He removed the sand, and again the sphinx was free. To prevent the further advance of sand, Thutmose built several adobe walls around the sphinx from the north, west and south; the bricks are stamped with his name. The story of Thutmose's dream and his agreement with God was carved on a granite slab placed at the chest of the Sphinx, where it stands to this day.
Maybe this story is a kind of propaganda, and it was invented by Thutmose, to prove that his accession to the throne is a consequence of the fact that he was chosen by God. He did not have a direct right to the throne, he proclaimed himself pharaoh, either because of his influence, or because of conflicts in the royal family.
Probably, he could be supported by the priests of Heliopolis and Memphis, who greatly revered the god Hor-Em-Akhet, who was symbolized by the sphinx. Accordingly, Thutmose wanted to show the people that he was chosen by the sun god to rule Egypt. (In this he followed the example of some of his ancestors, the most famous of whom was the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. She claimed to be the daughter of the god Amun-Ra, who was visited by her mother, taking the form of her husband, Pharaoh Thutmose I. Hatshepsut's goal was to convince the people that her claim to the throne outweighs that of her nephew.)
Recent excavations around the Sphinx, undertaken by the Department of Antiquities under the leadership of Selim Ghassan, have revealed many interesting stelae and monuments. They say that the Egyptian Sphinx was the target of pilgrimage for kings and individuals throughout the New Kingdom. The most important was the discovery of a small temple of the Sphinx, located immediately northeast of itself. This temple, built of adobe bricks, in which the doors with inscriptions were made of high quality white limestone, was erected by Amenhotep II, the son of the great old warrior - Thutmose III.
Pharaoh told the story of the foundation of the temple on a large white limestone stele located at the back wall of the temple. Even as a child, Amenhotep loved hunting and sports. He was only happy when he could sneak into his father's stables in Memphis to ride a chariot and learn how to train and care for horses. One courtier reported this to Pharaoh, but Thutmose expressed joy when he learned that his little son was already behaving like a real man.
He called his son to him and asked what he could do. The prince proudly demonstrated his skill as a charioteer, and Thutmose, delighted with the talent and skill of his son, ordered all the Memphis stables to be donated to him. Then, says Amenhotep, one day he harnessed his chariot in Memphis and went to the necropolis in Giza, where he stayed all day, examining the monuments and marveling at the wonders of the pyramids and the Sphinx. Then he vowed that, having ascended the throne, he would erect a temple in honor of the Sphinx, and put up a stele with a note about his visit and about the pleasant day he spent at the pyramids.
The following rulers made their additions to the temple of Amenhotep II. Pharaoh of the XIX dynasty of Seti I erected a limestone stele in a side chapel near the main hall. The stele shows Seti hunting wild animals, and the inscription says that he came to where people come to pray. Seti also added jambs to the main entrance, one of which bears the inscription of his son Merneptah.
In addition to the steles of the pharaohs and princes, there are many that were erected by their subjects. Some were simply tables with one or more human ears, sometimes with a prayer or the name of the donor written on them.
There is an assumption that these ears are the ears of God: the worshiper put this tablet as close as possible to the image of the deity, where his prayer was believed to await the attention of God. In many of these inscriptions, people ask for spiritual gifts, such as intelligence, understanding, and heart content.
Steles with images of the sphinx itself are also very curious. They usually show him in a crown, with a body covered with falcon feathers and in a large necklace: he lies on a high pedestal, which is often surrounded by a cornice and provided with doors. These features require explanation: after all, the images were made by artists of those times who knew exactly how the sphinx looked. The crown and feathers are easy to explain. At the top of the sphinx there is a deep square hole (now filled), which undoubtedly contained a "thorn" attached to the top of the crown. Feathers and necklaces were probably added ornaments to the Sphinx.
But the pedestal forced Maspero and other researchers to embark on an unsuccessful search. Since ancient times, perhaps from the Ptolemaic era, tradition has argued that under the sphinx there is a secret room or even a tomb, and that, probably, even an underground passage connects the statue with the Second Pyramid. Maspero spent a lot of effort and money to find this pedestal, from which, he believed, the tradition originates. He cleaned the front of the monument down to the rock, but found no trace.
The entire monument was cleared in 1926, and it became obvious that the Egyptian Sphinx lies on the flat surface of the old quarry and forms one whole with it. The riddle of the pedestal remained unsolved. But a few years later, she got her explanation from an accidental photograph taken during the last excavation. If you look at the sphinx from the east, it seems that it is lying on the roof of its temple, and when the temple with its cornice and doors was finished, it should have exactly resembled a high pedestal in the images.
We know that in the era of the New Kingdom, the temple of the Sphinx was completely buried, because the foundation of the temple of Amenhotep was built by a bridge across one of its corners. Despite all this, the artists knew that such a building existed and were familiar with its appearance. (This shows how confidently we can rely on ancient documents, and also suggests that the Egyptians knew much more about the history of their ancient sites than we can imagine.)
The images of the New Kingdom also show a colossal statue of the pharaoh standing in front of the chest of a sphinx. All that now remains of her is a large, uneven vertical protrusion from the chest of the sphinx, all the details of the form and features of which have already been erased.
The steles and votive figurines of the sphinx, lions and falcons discovered around him contain the names by which he was known and revered. More often he was called Khor-Em-Akhet - "Mountains on the Horizon" or Khorakhti - "Mountains of the Horizon". Both names are quite appropriate, since the ancient necropolis was called Akhet Khufu - "Horizon Khufu".
Sometimes the sphinx was called Hu and Hol; he was also identified with the Canaanite falcon god Horun, whose cult was popular in Egypt during the 19th dynasty. The New Kingdom Egyptians again began to use the Old Kingdom rock tombs in the rock north of the Sphinx. Some of them again became burials, while others - containers of steles and votive figurines given by the followers of the Sphinx cult. In some cases, new tombs were cut down at a higher level.
The Sphinx cult continued to flourish even after the decline of the Ramessids, and graffiti in the nearby Temple of Isis mentions its priesthood and temple. The great interest in the monuments of the Old Kingdom during the Saissa period, of course, increased the popularity of the Sphinx. Some pharaohs left votive figurines, and important figures cut their tombs in those places. It is strange that Herodotus, in his story about the pyramids of Giza, did not mention the sphinx.
Under the Ptolemies, the sphinx was apparently free of sand, because the statue began to lose shape due to erosion. The builders have restored its original shape with small blocks of limestone that can still be seen on its legs, sides and tail. In addition, a red granite altar appeared between the paws.
During the Roman period, the Sphinx never ceased to be popular, attracting pilgrims and tourists. A large staircase was built, leading down from the valley to the amphitheater, and nearby were monuments in the classical style, reminiscent of the visits of important foreign guests. In addition, travelers wrote their names and reviews on the paws of the Sphinx and on the limestone slabs that they placed next to it. No matter how we mourn such vandalism, we still need to forgive the person who wrote such a Greek poem on one of the sphinx's fingers:
… and they died, Those walls of Thebes that the Muses built, My wall fears no war
She knows neither devastation nor sobbing, She always rejoices at holidays and feasts, And the choirs of the young, coming from all sides, We hear flutes, not chiming pipes, And the blood that wets the ground, the sacrificial bulls,
Not people getting throats cut.
We are adorned with holiday dresses, not armor, We have not a long sword in our hands, And a festive bowl for feasts.
All night while we burn our victims
We sing hymns to Harmakhis (Khor-Em-Akhet), And our heads are crowned with wreaths.
The enchanting beauty of these lines recreates the living reality of the past. Holidays in front of the Sphinx, young people singing and playing musical instruments - they could be seen here every summer night on a full moon. In the peaceful desert, when soft moonlight illuminated the majestic outlines of the Sphinx, thoughts were carried away to peace and quiet, and "war and rumors of war" seemed distant and unreal.
Millennia have passed, but the Egyptian Sphinx is still looking to the east, smiling weakly, mysteriously and arrogantly. He saw the days of the heyday of Egypt, and saw foreign troops on the sacred land that stretches under his paws. Times are changing, Egyptian history has had its ups and downs, but the Egyptians continually looked to their ancient history for inspiration. They looked at the Egyptian pyramids as a symbol of stability and pride, but they consider the Sphinx a source of eternal wisdom and hope for the future …
A. Fakhri