History A lion with a king's face
A sphinx has the body of a lion and the head of a person, usually a king. Lions stood for strength and guarded sacred places. The Great Sphinx at Giza is one of the largest statues in the world. It was carved straight out of the limestone bedrock, probably for King Khafre, whose pyramid stands behind it. Later Egyptians called it Horemakhet, "Horus in the horizon".
Its nose was broken off long ago. Drawings made in the 1700s already show it missing, so the popular story that Napoleon's soldiers shot it off is not true.
History Buried by sand
Desert sand has buried the Sphinx up to its neck many times. Around 1400 BC, a prince who later became King Thutmose IV had the sand cleared away. He set up a stone slab between its paws telling how the Sphinx spoke to him in a dream and promised him the throne if he freed it. The slab, called the Dream Stela, is still there.
Art In this artwork
This illustration shows the Sphinx on a neat sandstone base, wearing the striped royal headcloth. The real Sphinx lies in a hollow cut into the rock, and its body is much more worn.
Look closer
- Find the striped headcloth.
- Compare the size of the head with the size of the body.
Think about it
- Why might a ruler want to be shown as a lion?
- How would you protect a statue from sand and wind?
- What stories do people tell about statues near you?
Key words
- Sphinx
- A creature with a lion's body and a human head.
- Bedrock
- The solid rock under the soil and sand.
- Stela
- An upright stone slab with writing or pictures.
Use it in class
- How were the pyramids built? (Explainer, grades 3-8)
Sources
The history on this page is a short summary based on these sources:
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Great Sphinx"
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre, "Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur"
- Mark Lehner, The Complete Pyramids (1997)
