Egyptian sphinx what is it

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The sphinx, a lion with a human head, represents the power of the Egyptian king. Carved of a single block of red granite, quarried at Aswan, the five-fold titulary of Ramses II appears along the base of this sphinx. Ramses II's son and successor, Merenptah, added his own cartouches on the shoulders after his father's death. For several years after its arrival in Philadelphia, the sphinx sat in the garden in front of the Museum.

The sphinx was moved inside the building in When the Coxe Wing was nearing completion in , the sphinx was moved to its current location in the Lower Egypt gallery. We have had raised at Memphis a colossal sphinx of Rameses II about 11 feet long, 11 ton weight.

The head has been much weathered, the body and inscribed base are perfect, of red granite Would such a piece as this be acceptable for your Museum? Equally intriguing, Lehner discovered that when one stands near the Sphinx during the summer solstice, the sun appears to set midway between the silhouettes of the pyramids of Khafre and Khufu.

Collectively, Lehner describes the complex as a cosmic engine, intended to harness the power of the sun and other gods to resurrect the soul of the pharaoh. This transformation not only guaranteed eternal life for the dead ruler but also sustained the universal natural order, including the passing of the seasons, the annual flooding of the Nile and the daily lives of the people. In this sacred cycle of death and revival, the Sphinx may have stood for many things: as an image of Khafre the dead king, as the sun god incarnated in the living ruler and as guardian of the underworld and the Giza tombs.

There are signs the Sphinx was unfinished. The north edge of the ditch surrounding the Sphinx contains segments of bedrock that are only partially quarried. Apparently, the workers walked off the job. It would sit ignored for the next seven centuries, when it spoke to a young royal. In a dream, the statue, calling itself Horemakhet—or Horus-in-the-Horizon, the earliest known Egyptian name for the statue—addressed him. It complained about its ruined body and the encroaching sand.

Horemakhet then offered Thutmose the throne in exchange for help. Whether or not the prince actually had this dream is unknown. Across Egypt, sphinxes appeared everywhere in sculptures, reliefs and paintings, often depicted as a potent symbol of royalty and the sacred power of the sun.

In keeping with the legend of Horemakhet, Thutmose may well have led the first attempt to restore the Sphinx. When Lehner is in the United States, typically about six months per year, he works out of an office in Boston, the headquarters of Ancient Egypt Research Associates, a nonprofit organization Lehner directs that excavates the Lost City and trains young Egyptologists.

At a meeting with him at his office this past fall, he unrolled one of his countless maps of the Sphinx on a table. Pointing to a section where an old tunnel had cut into the statue, he said the elements had taken a toll on the Sphinx in the first few centuries after it was built.

The porous rock soaks up moisture, degrading the limestone. The Sahara has not always been a wilderness of sand dunes. The desert sands sprouted rolling grasslands punctuated by verdant valleys, prompting people to begin settling the region in 7, B.

That date range is years later than prevailing theories had suggested. This transitional period was characterized by cycles of ever-decreasing rains and extended dry spells. Support for this theory can be found in recent research conducted by Judith Bunbury, a geologist at the University of Cambridge. After studying sediment samples in the Nile Valley, she concluded that climate change in the Giza region began early in the Old Kingdom, with desert sands arriving in force late in the era.

His investigations at the Lost City revealed that the site had eroded dramatically—with some structures reduced to ankle level over a period of three to four centuries after their construction. The implication is that the Sphinx and the pyramids, epic feats of engineering and architecture, were built at the end of a special time of more dependable rainfall, when pharaohs could marshal labor forces on an epic scale. But then, over the centuries, the landscape dried out and harvests grew more precarious.

Today, the Sphinx is still eroding. Three years ago, Egyptian authorities learned that sewage dumped in a nearby canal was causing a rise in the local water table. Moisture was drawn up into the body of the Sphinx and large flakes of limestone were peeling off the statue.