Ancient site · Giza
Great Sphinx
A colossal limestone statue with a human head and a lion's body, carved from the rock of the Giza Plateau some 4,500 years ago and one of ancient Egypt's most iconic monuments.
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The story
The Sphinx was carved from the limestone bedrock of the Giza Plateau and faces east. Most scholars link it to the Old Kingdom and to King Khafre, although there is still debate about exactly whom it portrays and precisely when it was made. Desert sand has buried it more than once, and the Dream Stele records that Thutmose IV cleared it in the New Kingdom. Its nose was already missing long before Napoleon's 1798 campaign, so the popular story about cannon fire is a myth. The statue belongs to Memphis and its Necropolis (the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur), inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.
Good to know
- The Sphinx is about 73 m (240 ft) long and about 20 m (66 ft) high.
- Napoleon's soldiers did not shoot off the nose; Frederik Norden's sketches from his 1737 visit already show it missing.
- The Dream Stele between its paws tells how Prince Thutmose dreamed the Sphinx asked him to clear away the sand.
- Traces of red pigment on the face suggest the statue was once painted.
- UNESCO names the Great Sphinx within its Memphis and its Necropolis World Heritage listing, inscribed in 1979.