The Sphinx in Egypt represents the same mystery for scientists as the pyramids and the Valley of the Kings. Let's try to understand the purpose of its creation and the methods of its construction. Let's find out what they say in the scientific world about the age of the Sphinx. What does it hide inside and what role does it play in relation to the pyramids? Let's weed out fiction and assumptions, leaving only scientifically proven facts.
Brief description of the Sphinx in Egypt
Sphinx and 50 jets
Great Sphinx.
Egypt Author: Most likely Hamish2k, the first uploader - Most likely Hamish2k, the first uploader, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link The Sphinx in Egypt is the most grandiose surviving sculpture of antiquity. The length of the body is 3 compartment cars (73.5 m), and the height is a 6-story building (20 m). The bus is smaller than one front paw. And the weight of 50 jet airliners is equal to the weight of a giant.
The blocks from which the paws are made were added during the New Kingdom period to restore the original appearance. The sacred Cobra, nose and ritual beard - symbols of the power of the pharaohs - are missing. Fragments of the latter are on display in the British Museum.
Remnants of the original dark red paint can be seen near the ear.
What could the strange proportions mean?
One of the main abnormalities of the figure is the disproportion of the head and torso. It appears that the upper part was rebuilt several times by subsequent rulers. There are opinions that at first the head of the idol was either a ram or a falcon and later turned into a human form. Restorations and renovations over many thousands of years could reduce the head or enlarge the body.
Where is the Sphinx?
The monument is located in the necropolis of Memphis next to the pyramidal structures of Khufu (Cheops), Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaure (Mycerinus) about 10 km from Cairo, on the western bank of the Nile River on the Giza Plateau.
Death of the Sphinx
Ancient Greek legends speak of only one person who managed to solve the riddle of the mysterious and treacherous Sphinx. This was the future King Oedipus. When he approached the Theban gates, he had already heard about the machinations of the monster.
The Sphinx asked him the same question that had killed so many people. It sounded like this: “Who walks in the morning on four legs, in the afternoon on two, and in the evening on three?” And if Oedipus’s predecessors puzzled over what kind of strange creature this was, the prince turned out to be much more resourceful.
Oedipus realized that the answer to the riddle was a man, but the Sphinx, in despair, threw himself down the cliff. It seems to me that for this creature it was a humiliation to recognize a person as wiser, and most importantly, more cunning than himself.
Count Johan Georg Otto von Rosen "Sphinx", 1887 Location: National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden
God in reverse or what the giant symbolizes
In Ancient Egypt, the figure of the Lion personified the power of the pharaohs. In Abydos, the cemetery of the first Egyptian kings, archaeologists discovered about 30 skeletons of adults who were under 20 years old, and... the bones of lions. The gods of the ancient Egyptians were always depicted with the body of a man and the head of an animal, but here it’s the other way around: a man’s head the size of a house on the body of a lion.
Maybe this suggests that the power and strength of the lion combined with human wisdom and the ability to control this power? But to whom did this strength and wisdom belong? Whose facial features are carved in stone?
Recommendations
- Clay, Jenny Strauss, Hesiod's Cosmos
, Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-521-82392-0. - Stewart, Desmond. Pyramids and Sphinx. [Sl]: Newsweek
, USA, 72. Print. - Taheri, Sadreddin (2013). "Gopat (Sphinx) and Shirdal (Griffin) in the Ancient Near East." Tehran: Honarhay-e Ziba Magazine, Vol. 17, No. 4.
- Kallich, Martin. "Oedipus and the Sphinx." Oedipus: Myth and Drama
. N.p.: Western, 1968. N. pag. Print.
Unraveling the secret of construction: interesting facts
The world's leading Egyptologist Mark Lehner spent 5 years next to the mysterious creature, studying him, the materials and rock around him. He compiled a detailed map of the statue and came to a clear conclusion: the statue was carved from limestone, which lies at the base of the Giza plateau.
First, they hollowed out a trench in the shape of a horseshoe, leaving a huge block in the center. And then the sculptors carved a monument out of it. Blocks weighing up to 100 tons for the construction of the walls of the temple in front of the Sphinx were taken from here.
But this is only part of the solution. The other is how exactly did they do it?
Together with Rick Brown, an expert on ancient tools, Mark reproduced the tools depicted in tomb drawings that were over 4,000 years old. These were copper chisels, a two-handed pestle and a hammer. Then, with these tools, they cut out a detail of the monument from the limestone block: the missing nose.
This experiment made it possible to calculate that one hundred sculptors could have worked on the creation of the mysterious figure for three years. At the same time, they were accompanied by a whole army of workers who created tools, hauled away rock and did other necessary work.
Interesting facts about sculpture
Historians write scientific works about the Sphinx statue, archaeologists tirelessly conduct research in the area near it, tour guides tell tourists endless mystical stories. Indeed, the Great Sphinx surprises and keeps many secrets.
Some interesting facts about the most mysterious sculpture in the world:
- The Sphinx was once covered with paint . Pieces of it can still be seen on the neck and face of the statue.
- Some scientists insist that it is incorrect to call the sculpture a sphinx, since it does not have the wings characteristic of this mythical creature. They believe that the Egyptian figure is more correctly called the androsphinx.
- Not far from the statue is the Temple of the Sphinx.
- Japanese scientists were able to find under the left paw of the Sphinx the entrance to a narrow tunnel that leads to the Pyramid of Khafre. The Egyptians prohibited further research due to possible damage to the statue.
- During its existence, the Sphinx statue next to the famous pyramids changed its name more than once.
- The head and torso are not proportional to each other . The reason for this could be frequent alterations to the face of the Great Sphinx or regular restorations.
- The age of the sculpture is equated to the age of the adjacent pyramids. However, most scientists agree that she is much younger.
Who broke the colossus' nose?
When Napoleon arrived in Egypt in 1798, he saw a mysterious monster without a nose, which is proven by drawings of the 18th century: the face was like this long before the arrival of the French. Although one may come across the opinion that the nose was recaptured by the French military.
There are other versions. For example, it is called the shooting of Turkish (according to other sources - English) soldiers, whose target was the face of an idol. Or there is a story about a fanatical Sufi monk in the 8th century AD who mutilated a “blasphemous idol” with a chisel.
Fragments of the ritual beard of the Egyptian Sphinx. British Museum, Photo from EgyptArchive
Indeed, there are traces of wedges driven into the bridge of the nose and near the nostril. It looks like someone hammered them in on purpose to break off the part.
Europe
La Granja, Spain, mid-18th century
The Mannerist revival of the late 15th century sphinx is sometimes called the "French Sphinx". She has the raised, combed head and breasts of a young woman. Often wears ear drops and pearls as jewelry. Her body is naturally depicted as a reclining lioness. Such sphinxes were revived when grottesh
or "grotesque" decoration of the excavated
Domus Aurea
of Nero was discovered in Rome in the late 15th century, and it was included in the classical vocabulary of arabesque designs that spread across Europe in 16th- and 17th-century engravings.
Sphinxes were incorporated into the decoration of the loggia
from the Vatican Palace workshop of Raphael (1515–20), updating the vocabulary of the Roman
grottesche
.
The first appearances of sphinxes in French art date back to the School of Fontainebleau in the 1520s and 1530s, and it continues the Late Baroque style of the French Régence (1715–1723).
From France it spread throughout Europe, becoming a permanent element of the outdoor decorative sculpture of 18th-century palace gardens, as in the Upper Belvedere Palace in Vienna, Sanssouci Park in Potsdam, La Granja in Spain, Branicki Palace in Bialystok, or the late Rococo examples at the foundation of the Portuguese National Palace of Queluz (possibly 1760s), with ruffs and dressed chests ending in a small cape. Laski
(1896) by Fernand Knopf, a Symbolist depiction of Oedipus and the Sphinx[30]
Sphinxes – a feature of neoclassical interior decoration by Robert Adam and his followers, returning closer to the stripped grottesh
. They were equally enjoyed by artists and designers of the Romanticism and subsequent Symbolism movements in the 19th century. Most of these sphinxes referenced the Greek sphinx and the myth of Oedipus rather than the Egyptian, although they may not have wings.
Prophetic dream of the prince at the Sphinx
The monument was saved from complete destruction by the sands that covered it for millennia. Attempts to restore the colossus have been made since Thutmose IV. There is a legend that while hunting, resting in the midday shade of a structure, the king’s son fell asleep and had a dream. The giant deity promised him the crown of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms and in return asked him to free him from the consuming desert. The granite Dream Stele, installed between the paws, preserves this history.
Drawing of the Great Sphinx 1737 Hood. Frederic Norden
The prince not only dug up the deity, but also surrounded it with a high stone wall. At the end of 2010, Egyptian archaeologists excavated sections of the brick wall, which stretched 132 m around the monument. Scientists believe that this is the work of Thutmose IV, who wants to protect the statue from drifts.
Born of Typhon and Echidna
The Greeks adopted the image of an unusual creature from the Egyptians, but gave it a completely different meaning. The Sphinx, one of the monstrous creatures of the world, in ancient Greek myths appears as the child of Typhon and Echidna.
Typhon and Echidna are mythical chthonic (representing wild nature) monsters.
Typhon, a monster with hundreds of dragon heads, is the son of the Earth goddess Gaia and Tartarus, the patron saint of volcanic eruptions and underground elements.
Echidna is a half-woman, half-snake, also the daughter of Gaia and Tartarus and, accordingly, is the sister of her husband Typhon. The monstrous couple gave birth to such terrible demons and monsters as:
— Sphinx and Chimera;
— Lernaean Hydra and Nemean Lion;
- Cerberus and Orff.
The Sphinx is endowed with the features of several living creatures: the body of a lion, the wings of a bird of prey, the tail of a bull and a human head.
The story of the grief-restoration of the Sphinx in Giza
Despite the efforts, the structure was filled up again. In 1858, part of the sand was cleared by Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Antiquities Service. And in the period from 1925 to 1936. French engineer Emile Barais completed the clearing completely. Perhaps for the first time, the divine beast was once again exposed to the elements.
It is also clear that the statue is being destroyed by wind, humidity and exhaust fumes from Cairo. Realizing this, the authorities are trying to preserve the ancient monument. In the last century, in 1950, a huge and expensive restoration and conservation project was started.
But at the initial stage of work, instead of benefit, only additional damage was caused. The cement used for repairs, as it turned out later, was incompatible with limestone. Over 6 years, more than 2000 limestone blocks were added to the structure, chemical treatment was carried out, but... this did not bring a positive result.
Notes
- "Lecture by Dr. J. On Oedipus and the Sphinx." People.hsc.edu. Retrieved May 15, 2014.
- Kallich, Martin. "Oedipus and the Sphinx." Oedipus: myth and drama. N.p.: Western, 1968. N. pag. Print.
- Stewart, Desmond. Pyramids and Sphinx. [Sl]: Newsweek, USA, 72. Print.
- Brian Dunning (2019). [1] Skeptoid Podcast
, episode 693 'Age of the Sphinx' - Regier, Willis Goth. The Book of the Sphinx
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 54, 59, 177. - Entrance σφίγγω to LSJ.
- Note that γ takes the sound "ng" before γ and ξ.
- Bauer, S. Wise (2007). Ancient world history
. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. pp.110–112. ISBN 0-393-05974-X. - ^ a b c
Apollodorus, Apollodorus Library. 3.5.8 - Pliny the Elder, Natural History 8.30
- Articles, Thebaid, 2.496
- Hesiod, Theogony
327 - Who is understood as the mother is unclear, the problem arises from the ambiguous referent of the pronoun “she” in line 326 of the word Theogony
see Clay, p. 159, note 34 - Lasus fr. 3, after Lyra Graeka II
- The name of the Sphinx, noted by Pierre Grimals Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology
. - Sear, David (2010). Coins of the Greek Empire and their values - local coins of the Roman Empire
. Nabu Press. paragraph xiv. - Edmunds, Lowell (1981). The Sphinx in the Legend of Oedipus
. Königstein im Taunus: Hain. ISBN 3-445-02184-8. - Grimal, Pierre (1996). Dictionary of Classical Mythology
. lane A. R. Maxwell-Hislop. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-20102-5. (entry "Oedipus", p. 324) - Julien d'Huy (2012). L'Aquitaine sur la route d'Oedipe? Prehistoric commotive La Sphinge. SERPE Bulletin
, 61: 15-21. - Apollo. 3.5.8
- "The Sphinx" Hornblower, Simon (2012). Oxford Classical Dictionary
. Anthony Spawforth, Esther Aidinow. Oxford University Press. - "An Autobiographical Study", Sigmund Freud, W. W. Norton & Company, 1963, p.39
- Regier, Book of the Sphinx
, Chapter 4. - Mayer, Michael (1617). Atalanta Fugiens
. lane Peter Branwyn. Johann Theodor de Bray. - ^ a b
"Sphinxes of all kinds are found at the gates of Bharhut" Kosambi, Damodar Dharmanand (2002).
Combined Methods in Indology and Other Writings
. Oxford University Press. item 459. ISBN 9780195642391. - Dikshitar, Raja. "The Discovery of the Anthropomorphic Lion in Indian Art". in Marg.
Journal of the Arts . 55/4, 2004, pp. 34-41; Sphinx of India. - Demisch, Heinz (1977). Die Sphinx.
Geschichte ihrer Darstellung von den Anfangen bis zur Gegenwart . Stuttgart. - Demisch, Heinz (1977). Die Sphinx.
Geschichte ihrer Darstellung von den Anfangen bis zur Gegenwart . Stuttgart. - "Tep Norasri." Himmapan.com. Retrieved May 15, 2014.
- Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (2017). "Caresses." Google Arts and Culture.
- Freund, Charles Paul (November 5, 1995). "From Satan to the Sphinx: Masonic Secrets of the District of Columbia Map." Washington Post
. Retrieved November 15, 2022. - Taylor, David A. "The Masonic Temple of a Lost Symbol." Smithsonian Institution
. Retrieved November 16, 2022. - “Dadestan-i Denig, question 90, paragraph 4.”
- "Menog-i Hrad, Chapter 62".
- Taheri, Sadreddin (2017). "Semiotics of archetypes in the art of Ancient Iran and adjacent cultures." Tehran: Shour Afarin Publications.
- Taheri, Sadreddin (2013). "Gopat and Shirdal in the Middle East". Tehran: Honarhay-e Ziba Magazine, Vol. 17, No. 4.
- “The New Life of the Lion Man - Archive of the Archeology Magazine.” archive.archaeology.org
. Retrieved November 16, 2022. - Pausanias, Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9.21.4
How M. Lehner guessed who the Great Sphinx of Egypt depicts
Excavations of the Temple of Khafre (foreground).
The Kheop Pyramid is in the background. Photo by Henri Bechard, 1887 The tombs of the pharaohs change their shape and size over time. Mastabas and pyramids appear. And the Great Sphinx is the only one.
A significant number of Egyptologists believe that he represents Pharaoh Khafre (Hawr) from the fourth dynasty, because. a similar small stone silhouette with his face was found nearby. The sizes of the blocks of Khafre's tomb (circa 2540 BC) and the monster also match. Despite their claims, no one knows for sure when and by whom this statue was installed in Giza.
Mark Lehner found the answer to this question. He studied the structure of the Sphinx Temple, which is located 9 meters away. On the days of the spring and autumn equinox, the sun at sunset connects the two sanctuaries of the temple and the pyramid of Khafre with one line.
The religion of the ancient Egyptian kingdom was based on the worship of the Sun. Local residents worshiped the idol as an incarnation of the Sun God, calling it Khor-Em-Akhet. Comparing these facts, Mark determines the original purpose of the Sphinx and its identity: the face of Khafre, the son of Cheops, looks out from the figure of a god who protects the pharaoh's journey to the afterlife, making it safe.
In 1996, a New York detective and identification expert revealed that the resemblance was more noticeable to Khafre's older brother Djedefre (or son, according to other sources). The debate on this topic is still ongoing.
Greek transformation of the Sphinx
The famous riddles of the Sphinx, which he asked every traveler, appear only in Greek myths. By the way, I noticed that among the Greeks this creature acquired new details of appearance - now the Sphinx had a distinctly feminine appearance (in Ancient Greece women were considered dangerous and treacherous), as well as wings.
But the Sphinx's body changes features from those of a lion to those of a dog. The ancient Greeks believed that the Sphinx was a real monster, born of the terrible Echidna from the dragon Typhon.
Sphinx statue in Santorini, Greece / © Norbert Nagel / ru.wikipedia.org
In Greek myths, the Sphinx is shown as an instrument of the gods, sent to people as punishment. When the Theban ruler Laius commits a daring crime, Hera, the wife of the supreme god and guardian of order, decides to turn his city into an impregnable region for any traveler or merchant.
In revenge on the cruel king, she sends the Sphinx to the gates of Thebes. A monster with a woman's face lured travelers, demanding to solve the riddle. It should be noted that the task was not easy, and therefore no one could unravel the Sphinx’s cunning. The loser (and in this case it was a person) became the victim of a bloodthirsty monster that devoured the travelers one by one.
The Sphinx is a mythical creature not only of Ancient Egypt © Sam Carr / artstation.com
How old is the giant anyway? Writer vs. Scientists
Researcher John Anthony West
There is currently a lively debate over the dating of the monument. Writer John Anthony West was the first to notice signs of water erosion on the lion's body. Other structures on the plateau show wind or sand erosion. He contacted geologist and associate professor at Boston University Robert M. Schoch, who, after studying the materials, agreed with West's conclusions. In 1993, their joint work “The Secret of the Sphinx” was presented, which received an Emmy Award for Best Research and a nomination for Best Documentary.
Although today this area is arid, about 10,000 years ago the climate there was humid and rainy. West and Schoch concluded that the Sphinx would have to be between 7,000 and 10,000 years old to produce the observed effects of water erosion.
Scientists have rejected Schoch's theory as wildly flawed, pointing out that the once common violent rain storms across Egypt had ceased before the sculpture's appearance. But the question remains: why was it only this Giza structure that showed signs of water damage?
Great Sphinx and Pyramid of Cheops
The Great Sphinx on the west bank of the Nile in Giza is the oldest surviving monumental sculpture on Earth. Carved from a monolithic limestone rock in the shape of a colossal sphinx - a lion lying on the sand, whose face, as has long been believed, was given a portrait resemblance to Pharaoh Khafre (c. 2575-2465 BC), whose funeral pyramid is located nearby. The length of the statue is 73 meters, height is 20 meters; Between the front paws there was once a small sanctuary.
Purpose and name
The Sphinx statue faces the Nile and the rising sun. Almost all ancient Eastern civilizations saw the lion as a symbol of the solar deity. Since ancient times, it was customary to depict the pharaoh as a lion destroying his enemies. In the light of these data, it is permissible to consider the Sphinx as the guardian of the eternal peace of the pharaohs buried around him. The surrounding temples were originally dedicated to the solar god Ra, and only during the New Kingdom the sculpture began to be identified with Horus (more precisely, with Horemakhet), as a result of which Amenhotep II dedicated a special temple to him northeast of the Sphinx.
The ancient Egyptian name of the Great Sphinx remains unknown. The word "sphinx" is Greek and literally means "strangler", which is a reference to the famous myth about the riddle of the Sphinx. The opinion that this word came to Greece from ancient Egyptian is unfounded. Medieval Arabs (in the Arabian Nights and other texts) called the Great Sphinx “the father of horror.”
Time of creation
The circumstances and exact time of construction of the Sphinx still remain a mystery. The judgment of ancient authors, accepted in modern literature, that its builder was Khafre (Khafru), is confirmed only by the fact that during the construction of the temple near the statue, stone blocks of the same size were used as in the construction of the neighboring pyramid. In addition, not far from the Sphinx, archaeologists discovered a diorite image of Khafru in the sand.
Sphinx against the background of the Pyramid of Khafre
There are other opinions regarding the customer of the Sphinx. An inventory stele discovered in Giza by Mariet in 1857 and, in all likelihood, created shortly before the Persian conquest, states that the dilapidated statue was dug up and cleaned of sand by Khafre's father, Pharaoh Cheops (Khufu). Most scholars tend to reject this evidence as late and unreliable; Among the researchers of the old school, only Gaston Maspero spoke out for the reliability of the information given in the stele. The prominent modern Egyptologist Rainer Stadelmann is of the opinion that, based on its artistic features, the statue should be attributed to the construction activities of Khufu. In 2004, the French scientist Vasil Dobrev suggested that the statue depicts Khufu, and his son Djedefre erected it.
What further confuses the question of who commissioned the statue is the fact that the face of the statue has Negroid features, which is at odds with other surviving images of Khafru and his relatives. Forensic experts who used a computer to compare the face of the Sphinx with signed statues of Khafru concluded that they could not depict the same person.
Since the 1950s. In popular literature, the dating of the Sphinx to the period of the Old Kingdom began to be questioned. It has been argued that the lower part of the sphinx represents a classic example of erosion caused by prolonged exposure of stone to water. The last time a corresponding level of precipitation was observed in Egypt was at the turn of the 4th and 3rd millennia, which, according to supporters of this theory, indicates the creation of the statue in the Predynastic period or even earlier. In the scientific literature, the features of sculpture erosion are explained by other reasons - secondary fracturing, the action of acid rain, and low quality limestone.
The relatively small size of the head prompted Boston geologist Robert Schoch to suggest that the statue originally had the muzzle of a lion, from which one of the pharaohs ordered to carve a mysteriously smiling human face in his own image and likeness. This hypothesis did not find recognition in the scientific community, as well as Graham Hancock’s assumption about the correlation of the three pyramids with stars in the constellation Orion, which was allegedly observed in the 11th millennium BC. e.
Destruction
Sphinx face in profile
The statue is missing a 1.5 meter wide nose. Most often you can hear that this part of the statue was knocked off by a cannonball during the Napoleonic battle with the Turks at the Pyramids (1798); in other versions of the legend, Napoleon's place is taken by the British or Mamelukes. The falsity of this opinion is indicated by the drawings of the Danish traveler Norden, who saw the noseless Sphinx already in 1737. Although the absence of a nose can be explained by the “natural wear and tear” of the sculpture (centuries of exposure to wind and moisture), there is also an explanation by the medieval Cairo historian al-Makrizi. He writes that in 1378, one 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 “idol’s” nose, for which he was torn to pieces by the crowd (though it is not clear how he succeeded). From the story of al-Makrizi, we can conclude that for local residents the Sphinx was a kind of talisman, the ruler of the Nile, on which, as they believed, the level of the great river’s flood and, accordingly, the fertility of their fields depended.
The Sphinx has survived to this day not only without a nose, but also without a false ceremonial beard in the shape of a cube or curled braids, fragments of which can be seen in the British and Cairo Museums. The timing of the appearance of the Sphinx's beard is controversial. Some authors attribute its installation to the New Kingdom. According to others, the beard was made together with the head, because the technical complexity of high-altitude work on installing a beard exceeded the capabilities of builders of that time.
3.1. Horizontal grooves on the body of the statue
Deep horizontal encircling grooves are visible on the body of the statue, located along its entire height, excluding the head. Some researchers claim that these are traces of water erosion. A corollary of the latter assumption is the conclusion that the statue survived a period of heavy rainfall or a period of flooding.
Dr. Robert Schoch, a professor of geology at Boston University, given the extent of the erosion of the Sphinx, believes that the creation of the Sphinx lies between 7000 and 5000 BC. e., because during this period it actually rained in this area. He writes about the Sphinx:
A classic textbook example of what happens to a limestone surface when rains hammer it for thousands of years... ...in the context of what we know about the climate of Giza in antiquity, this provides strong evidence that the Sphinx is much older than the traditional dating of around 2500 BC e. …I just follow where science leads me; and she leads me to the conclusion that the Sphinx was built much earlier than previously thought.”
The Great Sphinx is partly under the sand. OK. 1880
John West believes that the main erosion occurred during an earlier rainy period before 10,000 BC. e.
Such conclusions date the construction of the statue, and, as a consequence, the entire complex, including the pyramids, to times before the emergence of the Egyptian state, when the climate in this area was different. Although Schoch's opinion has not been officially refuted, it, as well as the opinions of other supporters of the hypothesis of water erosion of the statue, are not considered by scientists adhering to the point of view accepted by modern academic science as the main one, and give rise to ongoing discussions about when the statue was erected, and who is its builder.
Slightly different grooves are also present on the walls of the trench in which the statue is located.
According to another theory, these furrows are caused by the destructive action of sand and wind. The Sphinx is located at the bottom of the former sea and consists of limestone of different degrees of hardness, the softer layers are destroyed faster than the harder ones; The niche in which the Sphinx is located also has similar grooves. Due to the fact that the sea was previously located on the site of the Sphinx (an additional destructive factor is salt), underground waters, rising throughout the Sphinx from bottom to top (due to the capillarity effect), bring salt to all areas of the statue, the salt crystallizes and expands, thereby destroying the Sphinx even faster.
Restoration
Over the years of its existence, the Sphinx found itself buried up to its shoulders in sand. Attempts to dig it up were made already in ancient times by Thutmose IV and Ramses II. The first was able to free only the front paws from the sand, between which he ordered to place a granite stele with the following inscription:
The royal son Thutmose, upon his arrival, during his midday walk, sat down in the shadow of this mighty deity. When Ra reached the top [of heaven], he was overcome by sleep, and he saw how this great god addressed him with a speech, as if a father were saying to his son: “Look at me, look closely, O my son Thutmose, I am your father Harmachis, and I give you dominion over my land and power over all living... Behold my true appearance in order to protect my flawless limbs. I am covered with the sand of the desert on which I lie. Save me and fulfill everything that is in my heart.
In 1817, the Italians managed to clear sand from the entire chest of the Sphinx, and it was completely freed from thousands of years of sand deposits in 1925. The Sphinx was also strengthened with the help of additional blocks by the ancient Greeks and Romans, in particular the paws and walls of the niche.
Sources
- Website "Wikipedia - Free Encyclopedia"
Spiritual and supernatural interpretations about the purpose of the Sphinx
The famous English journalist Paul Brunton spent a lot of time traveling in Eastern countries, lived with monks and mystics, and studied the history and religion of Ancient Egypt. He explored royal tombs and met famous fakirs and hypnotists.
His favorite symbol of the country, a mysterious giant, told him its secrets during a night spent in the Great Pyramid. The book “In Search of Mystical Egypt” tells how one day the secret of all things was revealed to him.
American mystic and prophet Edgar Cayce is confident in the theory that can be read in his book about Atlantis. He pointed out that the secret knowledge of the Atlanteans was kept next to the Sphinx.
Sketch by Vivant Duvon from 1798. Shows a man emerging from a hole in the top.
Writer Robert Bauval published an article in 1989 that the three pyramids at Giza, relative to the Nile, formed a kind of three-dimensional "hologram" on the ground of the three stars of Orion's belt and the Milky Way. He developed a complex theory that all the structures of a given area, together with the ancient Scriptures, constitute an astronomical map.
The most suitable position of the stars in the sky for this interpretation was in 10500 BC. BC. This date is understandably disputed by Egyptologists, since not a single archaeological artifact dating from these years has been excavated here.
Another assumption is based on photographs of the surface of Mars taken in 1976. They show structures “similar” to the Sphinx and the pyramids in Egypt. You can view the photos on the Zen Architecture channel.
Cultural and historical significance of the structure
According to historians, in almost all ancient civilizations the lion was the personification of the sun and solar deity. In the drawings of the ancient Egyptians, the pharaoh was often depicted as a lion, attacking the enemies of the state and exterminating them. It was on the basis of these beliefs that the version was built that the great Sphinx is a kind of mystical guard protecting the peace of the rulers buried in the tombs of the Giza Valley.
It is still not known what the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt called the Sphinx. It is believed that the word “sphinx” itself is of Greek origin and is literally translated as “strangler.” In some Arabic texts, in particular in the famous collection “A Thousand and One Nights,” the Sphinx is called nothing less than “Father of Terror.” There is another opinion, according to which the ancient Egyptians called the statue “the image of being.” This once again confirms that the Sphinx was for them the earthly incarnation of one of the deities.
