The Great Sphinx

Timeline

1. c. 2500 BC

   Construction

   Conventionally dated to the reign of Pharaoh Khafre of the Fourth Dynasty, who has the colossus carved beside his pyramid causeway as the Guardian of the West.

2. 1401 BC

   Restoration by Thutmose IV

   New Kingdom pharaoh Thutmose IV clears the sand, restores the figure, and erects the Dream Stele between the paws recording his prophetic dream.

3. 7th-6th c. BC

   Twenty-Sixth Dynasty Repairs

   The Sphinx is excavated again from drifting sand and undergoes documented restoration work during the Saite Renaissance of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty.

4. 30 BC - 395 AD

   Roman Intervention

   Under Roman rule the Sphinx is restored once more; the brickwork buttressing the paws today dates from this period.

5. 1737

   Norden's Sketch

   Danish naval officer Frederic Louis Norden documents the Sphinx with detailed sketches showing the nose already destroyed, ruling out later Napoleonic blame.

6. 1798

   Napoleon's Expedition

   Napoleon's Egyptian campaign records the Sphinx still buried up to the neck in sand, as published in the monumental Description de l'Egypte.

7. 1864

   Japanese Embassy Visit

   Members of the Tokugawa-era Second European Embassy led by Ikeda Nagaoki pose for a famed group photograph in front of the Sphinx during a stopover in Egypt.

8. 1925-1926

   Full Excavation

   An excavation campaign funded through Gaston Maspero's public appeal finally exposes the entire body of the Sphinx for the first time in millennia.

9. 1979

   World Heritage Inscription

   The Sphinx is inscribed as part of 'Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur' on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

10. 1988

    Modern Restoration Ends

    The phased restoration of the paws and rear quarters that began in 1926 concludes, transitioning the monument into a modern conservation regime.

Detailed History

The Great Sphinx is conventionally dated to around 2500 BC, carved in the reign of Pharaoh Khafre (c. 2558-2532 BC) of the Fourth Dynasty. The case rests on the 'Khaf' glyphs in the inscription excavated from between the paws, an alleged facial resemblance to Khafre, the integrated causeway design linking the Sphinx to Khafre's pyramid mortuary temple, and Fourth Dynasty material recovered from the surrounding enclosure. Counter-arguments note that the glyphs lack a cartouche, the resemblance to known statues of Khafre is debatable, and some researchers have proposed earlier dates — including Khufu (c. 2589-2566 BC) as builder, or fringe hypotheses placing construction as far back as 7000 BC or even 10500 BC based on weathering patterns. Roughly a thousand years after construction, Prince Thutmose IV of the Eighteenth Dynasty (reigned c. 1401-1391 BC) slept in the Sphinx's shadow and, by his own account on the Dream Stele he later erected between its paws, dreamed that the Sphinx promised him the throne if he cleared the sand. He completed the excavation, became pharaoh in 1401 BC, and undertook a large restoration that included vivid pigment and a surrounding windbreak wall. Further restorations followed under the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty (664-525 BC) and during Roman rule (30 BC - 395 AD), the latter accounting for the brickwork visible around the paws today. The destruction of the nose has been variously attributed to Mamluk-era iconoclasm and, in popular myth, to Napoleon's troops in 1798, but Frederic Louis Norden's 1737 sketches already show the nose missing, ruling out the French. When Napoleon arrived in 1798 the body was still buried to the neck, as documented in the Description de l'Egypte. The complete figure was finally exposed during the 1925-1926 excavation campaign funded through Gaston Maspero's appeals. Restoration continued from 1926 to 1988 around the paws and rear quarters. In 1979 the Sphinx was inscribed as a component of the UNESCO World Heritage Site 'Memphis and its Necropolis - the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur'. In 1864, members of the Tokugawa shogunate's Second European Embassy were photographed in front of the Sphinx during a stopover in Egypt — the earliest known direct contact between Japan and the monument.

Cultural Significance

The Great Sphinx is the oldest monumental sculpture in Egypt and a primary source for the religious cosmology and kingship ideology of the Old Kingdom Fourth Dynasty. The name 'Sphinx' is a Hellenistic exonym derived from Greek mythology two thousand years after the monument was carved; the original Old Kingdom name remains unknown. By the New Kingdom Eighteenth Dynasty the figure was venerated as Hor-em-akhet ('Horus on the Horizon', Hellenized as Harmachis) — an embodiment of the sun god Horus, a symbol of resurrection, and a guardian of royal legitimacy. The Arabic name 'Abu al-Hawl' ('Father of Dread') likely preserves traces of the medieval Egyptian identification of the Sphinx with the Canaanite god Hauron. The 1979 UNESCO inscription, as part of 'Memphis and its Necropolis' covering Giza, Saqqara, and Dahshur, established the Sphinx complex as a critical site for understanding Old Kingdom funerary architecture and divinized kingship. The 1864 photograph of Japanese envoys at the Sphinx — the Tokugawa-era embassy led by Ikeda Nagaoki — became a globally iconic image of Asia's first direct encounter with the African ancient world. David Roberts' lithograph 'Approach of the Simoom' (1839), the 1980 film 'Sphinx', and countless 'Curse of the Pharaohs' narratives keep the monument at the center of global cultural production 4,500 years on.

Architectural Details

The Great Sphinx is a monolithic sculpture carved directly from the limestone bedrock of the Giza Plateau, measuring 73.5 m long, 20 m high, and 19 m wide at the rear haunches — the largest single-stone statue in the world. The Mokattam Formation limestone consists of alternating hard and soft layers laid down on an ancient sea bed; the irregular surface of the flanks is the product of differential weathering between these layers. The plateau is also rich in salts that wick to the surface through capillary action, where their expansion has flaked the surface continuously since the monument was carved. Repeated restorations from the New Kingdom through the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, Roman antiquity, and the modern era have therefore been a structural necessity — the brickwork around the paws dates to the Roman intervention. The Sphinx sits in a rectangular moat-like enclosure that supplied the limestone for the adjacent Sphinx Temple and Valley Temple, both designed as a single complex with the statue. Sculptors are presumed to have worked with pure-copper chisels and stone hammers, since construction predates the Bronze Age in Egypt. The face originally carried a braided ceremonial beard typical of Old Kingdom royal iconography; fragments are now divided between the Cairo Museum (three) and the British Museum (one). The nose was lost by the late medieval period.