The Great Sphinx is a colossal stone statue located next to the Pyramids of Giza
in Egypt. Carved out of limestone, the Sphinx has the facial features
of a man and the body of a recumbent lion; it is approximately 240 feet
(73 m) long and 66 feet (20 m) high.
History
The Sphinx was built in about 2530 BC by the pharaoh Khafre (4th king of Fourth dynasty, c. 2575–c. 2465 BC), the builder and occupant of the second Giza pyramid. The sphinx's face is a portrait of the king and the sphinx continued to be a royal portrait type through most of Egyptian history.
The Sphinx is thought to be primarily a guardian figure,
protecting the tomb of the Khafre by warding off evil spirits. Arabs
know the Sphinx of Giza by the name of Abu al-Hawl, or "Father of
Terror."
The Sphinx's face was mainly damaged during French
occupation around 1800, when Mameluke troops used it for target practice
for their field cannons, but its body has been weathered by the
elements for thousands of years (more on this below).
Myth & Mystery
A number of mysteries surround the Great Sphinx,
perhaps even more than the pyramids. First, it is not known why the
builders chose such heavy blocks to chip off the Sphinx for the temple
or how they moved them to build the temple.
Second, the Sphinx was widely believed to have been an oracle.
Between its paws is a 15th-century BC stone tablet recounting a vision
given to a prince who slept in the shadow of the Sphinx (and perhaps
sought its divine aid) and later became a pharaoh through its
intercession.
Weathered by Water?
But the most interesting mysteries of the Sphinx (or at least those
producing the most provocative theories) have to do with how it came to
be weathered. The most obvious answer is that it was by millenia of desert winds.
But when geologist Robert Schoch and Egyptologist John Anthony West
examined it in 1990, Schloch concluded it had been weathered by rainfall, not by wind and sand. If that's true, its date of construction might be closer to 7000 BC.
Similarly, when the maverick Egyptologist R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz
visited Giza in the 1930s, he immediately declared that the Sphinx had
been weathered by water, not by wind. But instead of
suggesting rainfall, Schwaller proposed that the Sphinx had been worn by
seawater and that its origins lay in the ocean.
Connections with Atlantis?
Schwaller also suggested that the Sphinx was far older than its
accepted date of about 2500 BC. The current date for the beginnings of
Egyptian civilization is about 3000 BC, which means that the Egyptians
developed their sophisticated science, mathematics and building skills
in a mere 500 years. He proposed that Egyptian knowledge was not a new
development, but a legacy from a far older civilization, possibly
Plato's Lost City of Atlantis.
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