The colossal image of a sphinx, 73.2m long and 19.8m high, stands next to the Valley Temple of Khafre (Figure 5.11). It was carved out of the limestone bedrock during the Fourth Dynasty. In later periods, perhaps in the Eighteenth Dynasty and during the Roman Empire, parts were shored up with masonry. In addition to these restorations, remains of chapels and stelai have emerged during explorations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For example, a small ruined temple of the Fourth Dynasty was discovered in front of the paws of the Sphinx.
The Great Sphinx is unique. Such statues do not normally form part of a pyramid complex. The term “sphinx,” a Greek word, perhaps deriving from the Egyptian for “living image,” shesep ankh, denotes a composite creature with a lion’s body and a human head. Here, the head wears royal accoutrements: the nemes headdress with the uraeus on the forehead and a false beard (now gone). The face has been damaged, notably the nose, but may be a portrait of Khafre. It could also represent a guardian deity of this necropolis, since a lion was believed to stand watch at the gates of the underworld.
Sand accumulating around the Great Sphinx has had to be cleared periodically, in ancient as well as modern times. In his detailed account of Egypt, Herodotus did not mention the Sphinx; perhaps in his day, the fifth century BC, it was completely buried in sand. The most interesting clearing took place in the Eighteenth Dynasty, a story recounted on a gray granite stele discovered in 1816—17 in front of the Sphinx. Thutmose IV, while still a prince, was resting in its shade during a hunting expedition. In a dream, the Sphinx promised him the throne if he would clear the Sphinx of sand. Thutmose IV did so, and after he became king, he built a temple here and set up the commemorative stele mentioned above.
World History
