Or A Statue in Egypt
Pards, Paranders, Monoceros & Manticores. Charadrius, Cinnomolgus, Amphisbaena, Leucrota & Tragelaphus, and Bonnacons to boot. Medieval bestiaries are rampant with the most extraordinary creatures, but where is the Sphinx? That was the question I imprudently asked myself the other day, resolving (equally imprudently) that I would look up a few things on the subject. I had no idea.
When one is in an unfamiliar landscape, it’s worthwhile finding an easily recognizable landmark, and the Sphinx at Giza is nothing if not exactly that. (Especially in such dangerous territory, probably the most densely strewn with connoisseurs, pundits and –ologists in the entire world.) At least with that firmly in view, I thought, I’ll be able to find my way.
Turns out it is rather less simple.
It is certainly easy enough to see. Two hundred and forty feet long from the rump to the tips of the extended paws, and 66 feet to the top of the head; though dwarfed by the nearby pyramids, it is a substantial piece of stone. At some point, the limestone bedrock of the eastern edge of the Giza plateau was carved into the Sphinx, partly by shaping what may have been visible as a rocky outcropping, partly by hollowing out the rock around it. The rock itself is not homogenous, composed as it is of layers of varying colour and density, from a soft yellowish to a hard grayish sandstone. The head is apparently made of much sterner stuff than the body, hence less weathered, despite being more exposed. The paws are much damaged, and have been consolidated and restored, indeed much of the Sphinx’s lower body is a patchwork of successive repairs.
It’s tempting to imagine the Sphinx when it was new; face perhaps stuccoed and painted a brilliant white, the body painted dark red. Framed by three brilliant white pyramids under a cobalt desert sky… we often imagine the past based on the dusty crumbling ruins of the present, but gaudiness is not a modern invention.
The juxtaposing of human and animal elements is as old as art. Early pharaohs may have been buried with lions. (As attested by the presence of the remains of lions as well as human servants in the tomb of Hor-Aha, second pharaoh of the First Dynasty, who reigned in the 31st century BC.) The lion is a powerful solar symbol, and would typify the strength and leadership of a pharaoh. Lion’s body: strength, bearing and ferocity; human head: wisdom and leadership. The sphinx faces the east and the rising sun.
But who built it, and when? Neither question has an answer. Or rather many answers. Orthodox Egyptology long attributed the Giza Sphinx to Pharaoh Khafre (Khafra, Chefren, Kefren), who reputedly had it built during the 4th Dynasty, between 2575 and 2467 BC. However, since Khafre’s predecessor Khufu (or Kheops, he of the pyramid) ordered a temple built alongside the statue (according to the so-called “Inventory Stela”, which came to light in the 19th century and has subsequently been dismissed as a fabrication), it would seem the Sphinx was already there. The most commonly shared opinion now is that Khafre had a little work done on it during his reign. A fragmentary papyrus from the Middle Kingdom states he had the face altered, though there is no archaeological evidence to support this. (Other sources from the same period name him as the builder of the Sphinx.)
That was not the only refurbishing of the Sphinx that took place. Repairs were made in the Roman era. Fragments of a beard were dug up in 1817, when Giovanni Battista Caviglia, a ship captain bitten by the Egypt bug and financed by British Consul Henry Salt, began to clear away the sand that covered the statue up to its neck. Caviglia also found the tip of an uraeus, or serpent headdress. (“Ureaus” is a term coined in the mid-19th century from Greek ouraios, representing the Egyptian word for “rearing cobra”.) Both beard and ornament are thought to have been added by Thutmose IV during the 18th Dynasty (between 1550 and 1295 BCE) and to have fallen off in Antiquity. The beard fragment shows a plaited “divine” beard, a style reserved for gods and the dead, not living kings, but once more, there is no real clue as to whose beard it might have represented. At very least, Thutmose excavated the paws, following a portentous dream during which the Sphinx spoke to him, and placed a granite slab, known as the Dream Stela, between them.
This is when the name of the statue becomes known as either Horemakhet (also Harmakhet, Harmachis) meaning “Horus on the Horizon”, or as Ra-horakhty, translated as “Ra of the Two Horizons”, assuming the role of guardian of the dead – gatekeeper and ward of the afterlife – rather than or perhaps in addition to leader of the living and guardian of life and renewal. Pharaoh Amenhotep II (1427-1401 or 1397 BC) built a temple to the north-east of the Sphinx dedicated it to the cult of Hor-em-akhet. What the Sphinx was originally called, we do no know. The very term “sphinx” emerges from etymological waters that are hopelessly muddied. The commonly used name Sphinx was given to it in Classical antiquity, by association with the Sphinx that Oedipus met. The English word sphinx comes from the ancient Greek Σφιγξ (sphinx), apparently from the verb σφιγγω (sphingo, I strangle). Perhaps. (That source too is still energetically debated. Even the word “pyramid” is of uncertain origin.) The name may equally be a corruption of the ancient Egyptian Ssp-anx or Shesep-ankh, sometimes translated as “living statue” or “living image”, a name given to royal statues of the Fourth Dynasty (2575–2467 BC) during the New Kingdom one thousand years later, and to the Great Sphinx more specifically. The medieval Arab name is Abū al-Hūl; “Father of Terror(s).”
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LEFT: Early engravings of the Sphinx, from 1556 to 1698
A. The earliest I managed to find, this woodcut is dated 1556, in the “Cosmographie de Levant” by André Thévet. It shows a head resting on the ground, but otherwise has little in common with the monument.
B. Dated 1572, Great Sphinx of Giza from Hogenberg & Braun’s map, “Cairus, quae olim Babylon”. The distinctly feminine bust is accompanied by a citation from Strabo, and perched on a little promontory, with two visitors, their arms raised in admiration
C. 1579 The Sphinx, 1579. Woodcut in J. Helffrich´s travel book, “Kurtzer und warhafftiger…”. Another most definitely feminine Sphinx, but this time sporting a most unusual hairdo, clearly intended to represent the nemes of the sphinx.
D. The Great Sphinx of Giza from Jan Sommer, (unpublished) “Voyages en Egypte des années 1589, 1590 & 1591”. Admiring tourists in front of the great Pyramid (which sports a jaunty gable well up near the summit), with a background of tiny pyramids dotting the landscape before the walls of a fantastical city. Winged female figures support a curious obelisk on the left, framing what may well be the Sphinx, looking more like the bust of a Roman emperor than anything else.
E. The Great Sphinx of Giza in George Sandys, “A relation of a journey begun an dom. 1610”, published in 1615. One of the earliest naturalistic representations of the Sphinx, certainly based on an eye-witness account.
F. François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz, “Les Voyages et Observations”, 1653. Another unusual depiction.
G. 1665, The Great Sphinx of Giza in Balthasar de Monconys’, “Journal des voyages”. Essentially a catalogue of marvels and important sites.
H. 1665, The Great Sphinx of Giza in Olfert Dapper’s, “Déscription de l’Afrique”. Two sphinxes in this image: the bust that can be seen between the two pyramids, and a more naturalistic sphinx to the right. The Pyramids may well be modeled after Cestius’ tomb in Rome, but they are also reminiscent of the pyramids of Meroe in Nubia, as yet unknown to Europeans.
I. ”Sphinx des Pyramides, Vu de profil et de front” by Gravier d’Ortières, 1685-87. A meticulous image based on erroneous knowledge and wishful thinking.
J. The Sphinx by Cornelis de Bruijn, 1698. A very lively and lifelike scene, though de Bruijn obviously saw fit to restore the missing face (a gesture that has given rise to much speculation about the actual state of the statue at the end of the 17th century).
CENTER: Early engravings of the Sphinx, from 1742 to 1796
A. Not just one, but a trio of sphinxes recline in the shadow of the Pyramids in this 1721 engraving by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. At the time, the Sphinx had still not been excavated.
B. The Great Sphinx of Giza from Johanne Baptista Homann’s map “Aegyptus hodierna”, 1724.
C. “A Profile of the Colossal Head of the Sphinx” by Frederik Ludwig Norden, 1737.
D. “Egypt”, a copperplate engraving by J. Punt, 1742.
E. “Voyage d’Egypte et de Nubie” by Frederick Ludwig Norden, 1755. The caption reads: “Front view of the colossal head of the Sphynx. It is in front of the second Pyramid of Memphis.” The naturalistic rendering belies the “improvements” made to the defaced statue.
F. “A View of the Sphinx at the Pyramids at Gizeh….” Hand-colored print by John Chapman, 1796, heralding the trend towards realistic eyewitness depictions of the Sphinx.
RIGHT: Early engravings of the Sphinx, from 1809 to 1824
A. “A View of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid, seen from the North-East”, 1809.
B. From the Description of Egypt, 1809.
C. An engraving published by W. J. Bankes between 1815-1819, clearly copied from an engraving by Olfert Dapper, done in 1665.
D. A drawing by Giovanni Caviglia, 1817, showing the caves beneath the Sphinx. Giza was also known as “Rostan”, meaning “The Mouth of the Passages”, hinting at access to Duat, the Egyptian underworld.
E. Pyramids and sphinx at Giza, from the “Description de l’Égypte”, 1822
F. The Pyramids of Egypt from the “Universal Geography” by Christopher Kelly, 1824.
G. Hand-coloured lithograph of the Giza Plateau done by David Roberts R.A. in the early 1800’s.
What is certain is that it was a tourist attraction from very early on. Early written accounts abound, but the first known representation of the Sphinx is a disconcerting one. André Thevet’s “Cosmographie de Levant” shows a head with a classical Greek face, male, sporting a head of tousled hair, sitting on a patch of turf. Described as “the head of a colossus, caused to be made by Isis, daughter of Inachus, then so beloved of Jupiter.” The engraver was evidently at a loss to make sense of it. A map from 1572, “Cairus, quae olim Babylon”, by Hogenberg & Braun, shows a feminine bust that owes more to Greece than Egypt emerging from a butte, with two admiring visitors raising their arms in admiration.
A later image, which accompanies German traveler Johannes Helferich’s account of his travels in 1579, is almost more disconcerting, showing a female bust with a stern expression and a curious cropped hairdo, evidently echoing the flaring lappets of a nemes, buried in the ground up to just below her breasts. Helferich claimed that local priests (which religion, one wonders) showed him a tunnel, in which they could hide and make the statue appear to speak.
Even more confusing is an image from “Voyages en Egypte des années 1589, 1590 & 1591”, by Jan Sommer, which, if it is indeed the Sphinx, shows a bust distinctively Roman. Subsequent depictions show a variety of interpretations and even, in many cases, several colossal sphinxes. The Sphinx’s famous nose appears and disappears regularly, engravers “improving” or restoring the missing features in order to provide a more satisfying picture. (These “improvements” have given rise to much controversy, being brandished as examples to prove that the features were destroyed willfully much later than is commonly accepted. Napoleon is the most persistently cited suspect, of which, more later.)
Other travelers followed. English poet George Sandys visited the site in 1610, declaring: “… aloft on a rocky level adjoining to the valley, stands those three Pyramids (the barbarous monuments of prodigality and vain-glory) so universally celebrated. The name is derived from a flame of fire, in regard of their shape: broad below, and sharpe above, like a pointed Diamond. By such the ancient did express the originall of things… uniting all in the supreme head, from whence all excellencies issue.”
Concerning the Great Sphinx, he adds: “Not far off from these the colossus doth stand… wrought altogether into the forme of an Aethiopian woman: and adored heretofore by the countrey people as a rurall Deity.”
An engraving from 1615 based on his description, provides a truthful interpretation of the statue. Sandys correctly estimated the pyramids to be tombs, though he deplored the arrogance of the builders.
English mathematician, astronomer and Orientalist John Greaves went to Giza in 1638 to measure the Pyramids. He speculated on a possible connection between the Sphinx and the neighbouring tombs: “On the East side of this room …there seems to have been a passage leading to some other place. Whither this way the Priests went into the hollow of that huge Sphinx …or into any other private retirement, I cannot determine….”
An intriguing drawing from the late 1680’s by Gravier d’Ortières, ”Sphinx des Pyramides, Vu de profil et de front” shows a very feminine silhouette (and a face with only the very tip of the nose missing) that owes more to the imagination than to observation.
Thomas Shaw, a professor of religion at Oxford, who visited the Sphinx in 1721, remarked: “… the sands were so far raised and accumulated about it, that we could only discover the back of it; upon which, over the rump, there was a square hole, about four feet long, and two broad, so closely filled with sand, that we could not lay it open enough to observe, whether it had been originally contrived for the admission of fresh air; or, like the well in the great pyramid, was intended for a stair-case.”
British explorer Charles Thompson travelled through Egypt in 1734-35. The Sphinx obviously inflamed his imagination: “Before I leave this place, I must take some Notice of a Colossus, at least the Head of one… It is usually called a Sphinx, which is a fabulous Monster, having the Head and Breasts of a Woman, the Wings of a Bird, the Claws of a Lion, and the Body like a Dog…. They likewise made use of it in their Hieroglyphicks to represent a Harlot; intimating the Danger of being captivated by the Charms of a faithless Woman, whom the fond Lover in the End finds as cruel and rapacious as a Lion…”
Close on his heels followed Danish naval captain Frederic Lewis Norden in 1738, sent to Egypt by King Christian VI to document the country, Norden stayed for a year. Norden published a lavishly illustrated account of his travels, featuring a convincing engraving of the Sphinx, though his engraver, M. Tuscher, saw fit to restore the Sphinx’s face.
The next notable visitor was not there to only see the pyramids, but to claim them for France. Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt in 1798. Napoleon brought not only troops and cannons, but a company of 160 archaeologists, historians and artists, led by Dominique Vivant Denon, himself antiquarian and artist, who set about ignoring as best they could the invasion that permitted their expedition and gathered a vast amount of information wherever they went. Denon described the Sphinx as a: “…colossal lion with a human head, cut-out of the Rock, guarding the necropolis, which represented the pharaoh Chephren … The expression of the head is sweet, pleasing, and tranquil; the character is African; …a fineness of execution truly admirable; it is flesh and life…the art has without a doubt a high degree of perfection.”
While Napoleon’s Egyptian jaunt eventually turned into a debacle, the prodigious quantity of research accomplished by the French savants resulted in the “Description de l’Égypte, ou Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l’expédition de l’armée française” (Description of Egypt, or the collection of observations and research which was made in Egypt during the expedition of the French Army). The first edition of 23 volumes was published between 1809 and 1818, and was completed by a second edition of an additional 37 volumes between 1821 and 1826. The Description of Egypt did much to bring the “antiquities” before the public eye, and inspire the Egyptomania that would grip artistic circles in Europe. Rarely has such a fever seized the West; burly sphinxes thrust their busts at passers-by from cornices, park benches, furniture, balustrades and other pediments everywhere. (Napoleon also had quite a personal obsession with the Sphinx, of which, more later. One wonders if he did indeed find himself contemplating it – and his hazardous destiny – as in Jean-Léon Gérôme’s painting.)
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LEFT: Early engravings of the Sphinx, from 1839 to 1880
A. The Sphinx, engraving by David Roberts R.A., 1839.
B. The Great Sphinx and the Pyramids of Gizeh by David Roberts R.A., 1839.
C. The Sphinx, from Luigi Meyer’s “The Holy Land”, 1842. Meyer was a watercolourist and draughtsman who produced two monumental volumes on the Middle East: “The Holy Land” (1842) and “Views in ancient Egypt and Nubia” (1846).
D. The Sphinx, from “History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery”, by L. W. King and H. R. Hall, published in 1906. The sphinx is still pictured buried in the sand.
E. Lithograph by Sarony & Major Lithographers, New York, after a drawing by Henry Salt. From Francis L. Hawks’ “The Monuments of Egypt”, 1850.
F. The Sphinx, an engraving from1880.
CENTER: The painted Sphinx, in the 19th and early 20th centuries
A. “Approach of the Simoun”, engraving by David Roberts, published between 1846 and 18489. To make a more pleasing composition, Roberts turned the Sphinx around.
B. The Sphinx, Gizeh, by William Holman Hunt, 1854.
C. “Napoleon and the Sphinx” by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1867-68
D. “The Sphinx at Midday in Summer” by Sir William Blake Richmond, 1885
E. The Sphinx, by George Frederic Watts, 1887.
F. The Sphinx, a study by John Singer Sargent, 1914.
G. “A Night Encampment before the Sphinx” by Carl Haag (b. 1820 – d. 1915).
H. “The Sphinx at Giza”, a study by Carl Haag.
RIGHT: Photographs of the Sphinx from 1858 to 1942
A. The Sphinx in 1858.
B. Front view of the Sphinx
C. The Sphinx in 1867.
D. Late 19th-century photograph of the Sphinx.
E. A partially excavated Sphinx. Photo taken between 1867 and 1899.
F. A similar view of the Sphinx
G. Hand-coloured postcard from the early 20th century.
H. The Sphinx is restored in 1925
I. “Sand-bagged Sphinx”, with the chin supported on stone blocks, appears on the cover of Life Magazine, October 19, 1942.
Napoleon was also accused of having destroyed the Sphinx’s face with his cannons, either for fun or for target practice, equally laying the cornerstones of the flimsy but unshakeable edifice of the modern conspiracy theories that surround most remarkable monuments, especially those who are stingy with their secrets. But what did happen to the Sphinx’s nose? In all fairness, Napoleon shares the box with several other suspects: British and German troops, the Mamelukes, the 14th-century Sufi fanatic Sa’im al-Dahr and the 7th-century Arab conquerors of Egypt, without forgetting at least four and a half millennia of sand, wind, sun and frigid desert nights.
The Egyptian historian Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Abd al-Qadir ibn Muhammad al-Maqrizi (1364 -1442), writing in the fifteenth century, attributes the vandalism to A Sufi cleric named Sa’im al-Dahr, in 1378. According to Al-Maqziri, upon finding the Egyptian peasants making propitiatory offerings to the Sphinx, Sa’im al-Dahr was so outraged that he ordered the statue disfigured. Al Maqziri’s book, “Mawa`iz wa al-i`tibar fi dhikr al-khitat wa al-athar”, a historical and topographical description of Egypt, recounts that the face, especially the nose and ears (sight and hearing) were attacked to discourage local farmers burning milk-thistle (shuka`a) and safflower (badhaward) at the foot of the Sphinx while murmuring a verse 63 times in hope that their wishes would be fulfilled. “From the time of this disfigurement also,” al-Maqrizi wrote, “the sand has invaded the cultivated land of Giza, and the people attribute this to the disfigurement of Abul-Hol.”
Speculation that the Islamic conquerors of Egypt would have defaced the statue is speculation at best, as is the rumour of Mameluke vandalism. It’s unlikely we will ever know. (My favorite pick for the culprit is Obélix, from the album Astérix & Cleopatra, though apparently the Sphinx’s nose was not nearly so nice as the Queen’s.)
But in the meantime, there was still the enigmatic Sphinx itself, buried up to its shoulders in the sand, and someone else decided to get to the bottom of it. By digging.
Giovanni Battista Caviglia was born in Genoa in 1770, and pursued the career in the merchant marine before falling in with British Egyptologist Richard Vyse. He arrived in Egypt in 1816, where he and Vyse joined with Henry Salt, the British Consul, who, like other foreign ambassadors in the region, was busily seeking “antiquities”. This was the period just preceding organized, government-funded archaeological expeditions; Salt and his contemporaries obtained official permissions to dig them up in exchange for paltry commissions, bribes and promises to turn over any gold artifacts that might be discovered. (Heinrich Schliemann promised as much when he was burrowing into Troy, then precipitously fleeing one dark night with Priam’s Treasure.) As Egyptomania spread across Europe, enterprising souls took the Valley of the Nile for a vast boutique of antiquities. Thousands of statues, columns, obelisks and objects were dug up, bartered or stolen, floated down the Nile on barges and shipped to ports of call the world over. Thieves with diplomatic immunity for some, ardent preservers of a precious heritage for others, they were somewhere between the two, often financing digs out of pocket in the hopes of fame back home, and certainly from a genuine fascination with the past. All bitten by the Egypt bug.
At any rate, Salt bankrolled the enthusiastic Caviglia’s enterprise. He wrote of it to a friend:
“I have myself been engaged…in making researches at the Pyramids, in conjunction with a Captain Caviglia, who discovered a new chamber and long passage in the great pyramid, and who laid bare the fore-paws of the Sphinx, in which he found a small temple…. Of these I have made sketches, which …will be soon forwarded to England.”
Salt was spurred on by the growing rivalry between French and English seekers of antiquities, who hoped to establish “firsts” for their respective countries. Following is an account of Captain Caviglia’s near-Sisyphean effort, from “Egypt and Nubia”, by J. A. St. John, 1845.
”… From various reports I learned that the French had made a considerable excavation in front of the Sphinx, and that they had just discovered a door when compelled to suspend operations. This account was repeatedly confirmed by the Arabs, several of whom declared that they had been present at the discovery; and said, that the door led into the body of the Sphinx; while others affirmed that it conducted up to the second pyramid. Though little stress could be laid on such statements, they still rendered Captain Caviglia very unwilling to give up his researches, without at least doing all in his power to ascertain the fact.
To this end he first began to open a deep trench on the left, or northern side, opposite the shoulder of the statue; and, though the sand was so loose, that the wind drove back frequently during the night more than half of what had been removed in the day, yet be managed by the aid of planks, arranged so as to support the sides, to dig down in a few days to the base. The trench, however, being no more than twenty feet across at the top, and not above three feet wide at the bottom, the workmen were evidently placed in a dangerous situation; for if any large body of sand had fallen in, it must have smothered those who were employed below. It was, therefore, found necessary to abandon this part of the attempt. By what had been done, however, the height of the statue from the top of the head to the base was ascertained, and it was also found that the external surface of the body was composed of stones of various sizes, put together with much care. The form of the masonry was not very regular, but it consisted of three successive ledges, sufficiently broad for a man to stand upon, and intended, probably, to represent the folds of a mantle or dress. It seemed to have been added by the Romans.
The result of the first operation not proving satisfactory, Captain Caviglia began a large excavation towards the front, in which he employed, from the beginning of March to the end of June, from sixty to a hundred labourers. Many interesting discoveries were now made. Among other fragments that were found, were portions of the beard of the Sphinx, and the head of a serpent. Most of these lay in a small temple, ten feet long and five feet broad, which was immediately below the chin of the statue, and which contained, according to Pliny, the body of Amasis, the first king of the eighteenth dynasty. Between the front walls of this temple, a small lion of good workmanship was found, with the head towards the image; and, as small statues of the bull Mahdes are similarly placed in Indian temples, I conceive that this statue was in its original position. Fragments of other lions, rudely carved, and the head and shoulders of a Sphinx, were likewise discovered. All these remains, together with certain tablets found in the small temple, the walls, and the platform, had been ornamented with red paint; which colour, according to Pausanias, was appropriated in Egypt, as in India, to sacred purposes.
A large part of the left paw was uncovered, and the platform of masonry was found to extend beyond it. In the course of a fortnight Captain Caviglia had removed the sand from the paw, and from the outer walls of the temple, in front of which was an altar formed of granite. It is now in the British Museum, and has had at the angles projecting stones, which may be supposed to have been called the horns of the altar. This fragment still retains the marks of fire – the effects, probably, of burnt offerings.
Captain Caviglia succeeded in laying open the base of the Sphinx, and in clearing away the sand in front of it, to the extent of more than a hundred feet. Many short Greek inscriptions were indistinctly cut on the paws of the statue. They prove that the image was held in high veneration; confirm the expression of Pliny, “quasi silvestre nemus accolentium;” and contain various phrases, which elucidate many doubtful points in the sculptures of the adjacent tombs.
It is scarcely possible for any person, unused to occupations of this kind, to form an idea of the difficulties which Captain Caviglia had to surmount when working at the depth of the base; for, in spite of all his precautions, the slightest breath of wind or concussion set the surrounding particles of sand in motion, so that the sloping sides crumbled away, and mass after mass tumbled in, till the whole moving surface bore no unapt resemblance to a cascade of water. Even when the sides appeared most firm, if the labourers suspended their work only for an hour, they found that the greater part of their labour had to be renewed. This was particularly the case on the southern side of the right paw, where the people were employed for seven days without making any sensible advance, because the sand rolled down in one continued and regular torrent as fast as it was removed. He therefore only examined the end of the paw, when an imperfect description was discovered on the second digit, and a few dedicatory phrases, addressed to Harpocrates, Ares, and Hermes. At the distance of about two feet to the southward of the right paw, the platform abruptly terminated. It was therefore supposed that the Sphinx was placed upon a pedestal; but, by extending the operations in front of the statue, the platform was found to be continued, and the steps were discovered. They were bounded on each side by walls formed of unburnt brick, like those which enclosed the ancient cities and temples of Egypt. The inner sides of the walls, nearest the steps, were lined with stone, and coated with plaster; the stonework, however, appeared comparatively modern, for upon several of the blocks were the remains of Greek inscriptions, which alluded to other buildings. Another of the inscriptions recorded repairs, which were performed by the orders of Antoninus, and of Verus. The walls appeared to branch off towards the north, and also towards the south, and to form a large enclosure around the Sphinx; but their direction was not ascertained. The steps, about a foot in breadth and eight inches in height, were thirty in number. They ended abruptly on the northern side, so as to leave a passage between them and the wall. This passage was not examined. On a stone platform, at the top of the steps, was a small building, which, from its construction, and from various inscriptions found near it, seemed to have been a station whence the emperors, and other persons of distinction who visited the Pyramids, could witness the religious ceremonies performed at the altar below. An inscription on the front of it was much worn.
The platform above the steps was of narrower dimensions, and the abutments had a theatrical appearance. In a few days another flight of thirteen steps was discovered, and another small building, which appeared by the inscription to have been erected under the Emperor Septimius Severus; and the name of Geta is erased from the inscription, in the same manner as it has been taken from the inscription upon the triumphal arch at Rome. At this place, another inscription on a stele, erected in the reigns of Marcus Antoninus and of Lucius Verus, was found; it was sent to the British Museum, and recorded that the walls were restored on the 15th of Pachon, (10th of May,) in the sixth year of the reign of the Emperor Antoninus and Verus. From these facts, and many others to which we might refer, it appears that the Romans were at considerable pains to preserve the sacred monuments of the countries they conquered. In this they set us an example which we should do well to follow. The Taj Mahal, indeed, and one or two other great monuments, are preserved at the public expense in India; but others, equally interesting, are suffered to go to decay, and to have the operations of time accelerated by ignorance and barbarism.
At the top of the second flight of steps a platform is carried on with a gradual ascent, to the length of 135 feet, bounded by a wall on the southern side till it arrives nearly at the level of the ground, when the rock rapidly descends towards the Nile, whether or not in the form of steps was not discovered. It is difficult to convey, even by drawings a distinct idea of this approach to the Sphinx. It was impossible, however to conceive anything more imposing than the general effect or better calculated to set off to advantage the grandeur of the enormous monument, particularly in the evening, when the sun was setting behind it. The spectator advanced on a level with the breast, and thereby witnessed the full effect of that admirable expression of countenance, which characterises the features, whilst, as he descended the successive flights of stairs, the stupendous image rose before him, whilst his view was confined, by the walls on either side, to the interesting object, for the contemplation of which, even when he had reached the bottom of the steps, a sufficient space was allowed for him to comprehend the whole at a single glance.
Such was the result of Captain Caviglia’s exertions in June, when, in consequence of exposing himself too much to the sun, he was unfortunately seized by an attack of ophthalmia, that compelled him to suspend his operations, and shortly afterwards to return to take charge of his ship at Alexandria… The whole expense of these operations amounted to about 18,000 piastres (£450); “and I have to add,” says Col. Vyse, “that Captain Caviglia, to whom by our engagement was left the disposal of everything that might be discovered, very handsomely requested me to forward the whole, of what I might think interesting, to the British Museum, as a testimony of his attachment to our country, under the flag of which he had for some years sailed”.”
French novelist Gustave Flaubert had this to say about the Sphinx when he visited Egypt in 1849: “We stop before a Sphinx; it fixes us with a terrifying stare. Its eyes still seem full of life; the left side is stained white by bird-droppings (the tip of the Pyramid of Khephren has the same long white stains); it exactly faces the rising sun, its head is grey, ears very large and protruding like a negro’s, its neck is eroded; from the front it is seen in its entirety thanks to great hollow dug in the sand; the fact that the nose is missing increases the flat, negroid effect. Besides, it was certainly Ethiopian; the lips are thick.”
American author John L. Stoddard has this to say, a revealing reflection of his Victorian fin de siècle preoccupations: “It is the antiquity of the Sphinx which thrills us as we look upon it, for in itself it has no charms. The desert’s waves have risen to its breast, as if wrap the monster in a winding-sheet of gold. The face and head have been mutilated by Moslem fanatics. The mouth, the beauty of whose lips was once admired, is now expressionless. Yet grand in its loneliness, – veiled in the mystery of unnamed ages, – the relic of Egyptian antiquity stands solemn and silent in the presence of the awful desert – symbol of eternity. Here it disputes with Time the empire of the past; forever gazing on and on into a future which will still be distant when we, like all who have preceded us and looked upon its face, have lived our little lives and disappeared.” (John L. Stoddard’s Lectures, 1898)
The Sphinx was finally fully dug out by Egyptologist Émile Baraize between 1925 and 1936. Baraize dug, consolidated (cement was added around the nape of the neck to support the headdress and keep the head from toppling), patched up, poked and prodded the statue in the hopes of discovering the underground rooms that Pliny the Elder had first mentioned. Pliny, in his Natural History, stated “In front of them (the pyramids at Giza) is the Sphinx, which deserves to be described even more than they, and yet the Egyptians have passed it over in silence. The inhabitants of the region regard it as a deity. They are of the opinion that a King Harmais is buried inside it…” Baraize explored a tunnel starting at the rump, which was later blocked up.
Of course, the Sphinx, like the neighbouring pyramids, attracts the eccentric and the crackpot like moths to a flame.
Self-proclaimed psychic and prophet Edgar Cayce declared in 1933 that the “Hall of Records” of the lost Atlanteans was to be found under the Sphinx. (According to Cayce, Atlantis foundered around 10,500 BC, the inhabitants dispersing on both sides of the Atlantic to found the pyramid-building cultures from Teotihuacan to Babylon.) He added, in 1939, that there were three chambers: “…one in the Atlantean land, that sank, which will rise and is rising again; another in the place of the records that leadeth from the Sphinx to the hall of records, in the Egyptian land; and another in the Aryan or Yucatan land, where the temple there is overshadowing same.” The entrance, secured by bronze doors, was between the Sphinx’s paws. Understandably, Egyptian authorities are leery of allowing proponents of underground halls and tunnels to excavate and otherwise poke about under the monument, which in turn feeds conspiracy theories as to what they are trying to conceal… (Personally, anyone who uses the word “leadeth”, even in the ‘30’s, is to be taken with a generous pinch of salt.)
A less extravagant theory points to the possible existence of a second sphinx at Giza, facing the first. The Arab historian and geographer Al-I’Drisi (AD 1099-1166) describes a second sphinx across the Nile from the first, in very bad state of repair, made of mud faced with stone, According to Al-I’Drisi, most of the stone had been hauled away by local inhabitants and the Nile “lapping at its feet.” Repeated flooding would have erased all trace of it. Old engravings showing several sphinxes at Giza (though none on the opposing bank of the Nile) are brandished as evidence of the second sphinx, despite other distracting anomalies in the representations.)
Here is a delightful quote mixing myth, misinformation, conspiracy and cover-ups, both figurative and with a few diligently applied coats of whitewash:
“One must take note that the pure motive of Napoleon, has nothing to do with his catholic faith, yet that of his purpose for his people existing in all faucets (sic) of men and so called supreme cultures… Lets not forget Napoleon’s role in shooting off the nose and lips (a common African identification) of the sphinx monument alongside countless artifacts plundered in Kemet (Egypt) which many walls had bleaching agents poured upon them and Ankhs (the symbol of life cross) was chiseled to form T shaped crucifixes. At the end of his endeavors he often presented gifts to Europe, specifically obelisk monuments, in which one was even later given from Europe to the United States as a gift (sitting as the so called Washington monument. ‘Beneath it‘s modernized coating is hieroglyphs’).”
Other “archaeologists” attribute an age of 10,000 years to the statue, based on the conviction that water, not wind and sand explain the erosion of the body. Some have decided the traces are those of the Noachian Flood, others that they indicate generous rainfall, which curiously seems not to be found elsewhere in the natural rock of the region. (A far older date would indicate that some mysterious civilization built the Sphinx and carefully erased all other traces of its existence before vanishing, or that refugees from Atlantis or visitors from outer space were somehow involved.) Still others claim the original head was that of a lion or a jackal, because the human head is disproportionately small for the body. Tunnels are believed to lead from the sphinx to the pyramids, though no serious indication or measurable trace of them has ever been found. Pseudoarchaeology and just plain wishful thinking have a lot in common.
Perhaps the hottest debates, and situated at the heart of our very notions of what constitutes history (“a faithful record of what actually happened” or “sexist propaganda written by white European males”) concern the sex and ethnicity of the Sphinx; there is no way of telling what the original sculptors intended, and while the features have been rendered androgynous by time and willful damage, it is telling that a majority of eye-witnesses believed the features to Nubian and female, despite the traditionalist view that it should represent an Egyptian king. That the idea should have provoked such stern reproof and heated debate in orthodox archaeological circles is surprising, but there is little likelihood of it abating until some new evidence comes to light. But then unanswerable questions are most apt, posed in the shadow of a sphinx.
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The Giza Sphinx
The Sphinx as it is today. The missing face has long been a mystery (and is likely to remain so, although theories abound. The fragments of beard, excavated near the monument, are today in the British Museum. The portrait at far right well illustrates the desire to see the sphinx still living in the modern inhabitants of Egypt. (From “History Of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery” by L. W. King and H. R. Hall, 1905)
Perhaps an apposite coda to the debate is to be found in the slightly florid but nevertheless aptly lyrical prose of G. E. Mitton, from her book “Round the Wonderful World”, published in the 1920’s:
“Then, quite unexpectedly, we come upon the Sphinx. It is in a hollow in the sand like the nest children scoop out for shelter on the seashore, only vastly greater. As we struggle round the yielding rim, with the powdery sand silting over our boot-tops, we feel something of the wonder of it thrilling through us. Let us sit down here facing it by these broken stones, where we can be a little sheltered from the chilly wind and gritty sand. We are looking at the oldest thing in Egypt. You will see farther south many splendid examples of amazing age but nothing to equal the Sphinx. When Abraham came down into Egypt the Sphinx was old beyond the memory of man! When King Cheops built his Pyramid the Sphinx sat with his back turned to it wearing the same inscrutable smile that it has to-day. It has watched kings succeed and die, it has watched empires spread and collapse, it has watched civilisations ripen and wither away. All the known history of mankind has unrolled before it, not the short history of a few trifling centuries which we call ours, but the history of the world.
The crouching figure is lion-like in attitude, but how human of face in spite of its broken nose. It was carven of the solid rock and fashioned with its face to the sunrise and its back to the desert. No one knows the thought in the mind of the puny artist who brought it into being and then shrivelled beside it like a blade of grass. Was it intended to be a god? It has been silted up by sand and unburied again; it has been worshipped and hated. It has been reverenced and shot at, so that its face is chipped and its nose broken away, and still it smiles with fierce serenity.”
Whatever the case, the sphinx at Giza is the point of the iceberg (to employ a metaphor particularly at odds with the local climate). The Land of the Nile is the land of sphinxes: androsphinxes, criosphinxes and hieracosphinxes of every shape and description, in granite, basalt, blue-glazed ceramic, ivory and gold; with wings or without, with hands or forepaws; recumbent, sitting, striding, making offerings, supporting thrones or trampling Egypt’s enemies, from Alexandria to Meroe.
Next month. A plethora of sphinxes, and it’s really only the beginning.
Very special thanks to Ann Carling for her indefatigable ferreting out of imagery and information.
All the images that accompany these newsletters are the property of their respective owners. (Apologies for not systematically crediting each image; I am happy to amend and add credits on request.)
