Great Sphinx of Giza

The Great Sphinx lies on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile, below the pyramids of Khafre and Khufu, on the edge of greater Cairo. It is part of the Memphis and its Necropolis World Heritage Site, inscribed by UNESCO in 1979, and is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt.

The statue was carved directly from the limestone bedrock. Most Egyptologists date it to the reign of Khafre in the Fourth Dynasty, around 2500 BC, and believe the face represents him. It faces due east, towards the rising sun.

The Sphinx is about 73 metres long and 20 metres high. Its nose, about a metre wide, is missing, and traces of red paint survive on the face. Between its paws stands the Dream Stele of Thutmose IV, which tells how the prince cleared sand from the Sphinx after a dream. Sand covered the body for long periods, and modern excavations and repairs have continued since the nineteenth century.

The Sphinx is seen from a viewing area beside the Valley Temple of Khafre, included in the general Giza Plateau ticket, which costs EGP 700 for foreign adults and EGP 350 for foreign students. Entry inside the pyramids is charged separately. The evening sound and light show uses the Sphinx as narrator and is ticketed separately. Mornings are the least crowded.

In the New Kingdom the statue was worshipped as Hor-em-akhet, Horus of the Horizon, a name the Greeks turned into Harmachis. Stone cut away while shaping the body went into a temple in front of it, but that Sphinx Temple was never finished. Pieces of a ceremonial beard were found between the forepaws, and limestone fragments of it are now in the British Museum.

The missing nose has a recorded story. The 15th-century historian al-Maqrizi blamed a Sufi named Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, who in 1378 defaced the statue after seeing farmers make offerings to it for a good harvest. Modern work started in 1817, when Giovanni Battista Caviglia cleared the chest, and in 1926 Émile Baraize removed much of the sand and sealed a large fissure in the body. Across the rear haunches the Sphinx is about 19 metres wide.