Sphinx statue. Mystical secrets of sphinxes. The Story of the Unfortunate Restoration of the Sphinx at Giza

On the west bank of the Nile, on the Giza plateau near Cairo, next to the pyramid of Khafre, there is one of the most famous and, perhaps, the most mysterious historical monument of Ancient Egypt - the Great Sphinx.

What is the Great Sphinx

The Great, or Great, Sphinx is the oldest monumental sculpture of the planet and the largest of the sculptures of Egypt. The statue is carved from a monolithic rock and depicts a lying lion with a human head. The length of the monument is 73 meters, the height is about 20.

The name of the statue is Greek and means “strangler”, reminiscent of the mythical Theban sphinx that killed travelers who did not solve its riddle. The Arabs called the giant lion the "Father of Horror", and the Egyptians themselves - "shepes ankh", "the image of the living."

The Great Sphinx was highly revered in Egypt. A sanctuary was built between its front paws, on the altar of which the pharaohs laid their gifts. Some authors conveyed the legend of an unknown god who fell asleep in the "sands of oblivion" and remained forever in the desert.

The image of the Sphinx is a traditional motif for ancient Egyptian art. The lion was considered a royal animal, dedicated to the sun god Ra, therefore, only the pharaoh was always depicted in the form of a sphinx.

Since ancient times, the Great Sphinx was considered the image of the pharaoh Khafre (Chephren), since it is located next to his pyramid and, as it were, guards it. Perhaps the giant was really called upon to keep the peace of the deceased monarchs, but the identification of the Sphinx with Khafre is erroneous. The main arguments in favor of the parallel with Khafre were the images of the pharaoh found near the statue, but there was a memorial temple of the pharaoh nearby, and the finds could be associated with it.

In addition, studies by anthropologists have revealed the Negroid face type of the stone giant. Numerous inscribed sculptures at the disposal of scientists do not bear any African features.

Mysteries of the Sphinx

By whom and when was the legendary monument created? For the first time, Herodotus introduced doubts about the correctness of the generally accepted point of view. Describing the pyramids in detail, the historian did not mention the Great Sphinx in a word. Clarity was introduced 500 years later by Pliny the Elder, talking about the cleaning of the monument from sand drifts. Probably, in the era of Herodotus, the Sphinx was hidden under the dunes. How many times in the history of its existence this could happen, one can only guess.

In written documents there is not a single mention of the construction of such a grandiose statue, although we know many names of the authors of much less majestic structures. The first mention of the Sphinx refers to the era of the New Kingdom. Thutmose IV (XIV century BC), not being the heir to the throne, allegedly fell asleep next to the stone giant and received in a dream a command from the god Horus to clear and repair the statue. In return, the god promised to make him pharaoh. Thutmose immediately ordered to begin the liberation of the monument from the sand. The work was completed in a year. In honor of this event, a stele with a corresponding inscription was installed near the statue.

This was the first known restoration of the monument. Subsequently, the statue was repeatedly freed from sand drifts - under the Ptolemies, during the time of Roman and Arab rule.

Thus, historians cannot present a reasonable version of the origin of the Sphinx, which gives scope to the creativity of other specialists. So, hydrologists noticed that the lower part of the statue bears traces of erosion from a long stay in the water. The increased humidity, at which the Nile could flood the base of the monument, characterized the climate of Egypt in the 4th millennium BC. e. There is no such destruction on the limestone from which the pyramids are built. This was considered proof that the Sphinx was older than the pyramids.

Romantic researchers considered erosion the result of the biblical Flood - the catastrophic flood of the Nile 12 thousand years ago. Some have even spoken of the Ice Age. The hypothesis, however, has been challenged. The destruction was explained by the action of rains and the low quality of the stone.

Astronomers made their contribution, putting forward the theory of a single ensemble of pyramids and the Sphinx. By building the complex, the Egyptians allegedly immortalized the time of their arrival in the country. The three pyramids reflect the position of the stars in Orion's Belt, representing Osiris, and the Sphinx looks at the point of sunrise on the vernal equinox that year. This combination of astronomical factors dates back to the 11th millennium BC.

There are other theories, including traditional aliens and representatives of pracivilizations. The apologists of these theories, as always, do not provide clear evidence.

The Egyptian colossus holds many other mysteries. For example, there is no suggestion which of the rulers he depicts, why an underground passage was dug from the Sphinx towards the pyramid of Cheops, etc.

Current state

The final clearing of the sands was carried out in 1925. The statue has survived to this day in a good state of preservation. Perhaps the centuries-old sand cover saved the Sphinx from weathering and temperature changes.

Nature spared the monument, but not the people. The giant's face is severely damaged - his nose is beaten off. At one time, damage was attributed to Napoleon's gunners, who shot the statue from cannons. However, the Arab historian al-Makrizi reported back in the 14th century that the Sphinx had no nose. According to his story, the face was damaged by a crowd of fanatics at the instigation of a certain preacher, since Islam forbids portraying a person. This statement raises doubts, since the Sphinx was revered by the local population. It was believed that it causes the life-giving floods of the Nile.

There are other assumptions as well. The damage is explained by natural factors, as well as the revenge of one of the pharaohs, who wished to destroy the memory of the monarch depicted by the Sphinx. According to the third version, the nose was recaptured by the Arabs during the conquest of the country. There was a belief among some Arabian tribes that if you beat off the nose of a hostile god, he would not be able to take revenge.

In ancient times, the Sphinx had a false beard, an attribute of the pharaohs, but now only fragments remain of it.

In 2014, after the restoration of the statue, tourists opened access to it, and now you can come up and look close to the legendary giant, in whose history there are many more questions than answers.

Sphinx is a Greek word of Egyptian origin. The Greeks called this a mythical monster with a female head, a lion's body and bird wings. It was the offspring of the hundred-headed giant Python and his half-snake wife Echidna; other famous mythical monsters also originated from them: Cerberus, Hydra and Chimera. This monster lived on a rock near Thebes and asked people a riddle; who could not solve it, the Sphinx killed him. So the Sphinx destroyed people until Oedipus solved its riddle; then the Sphinx threw himself into the sea, because fate predetermined that he would not survive the right answer. (By the way, the riddle was quite simple: “Who walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?” “A man!” replied Oedipus. “In infancy he crawls on all fours, in adulthood he walks on two feet, and in old age leans on a stick.")

In the Egyptian understanding, the Sphinx was neither a monster nor a woman, as among the Greeks, and did not make riddles; it was a statue of a ruler or god, whose power was symbolized by a lion's body. Such a statue was called shesep-ankh, i.e. "living image" (ruler). From the distortion of these words, the Greek "sphinx" arose.

Although the Egyptian Sphinx did not ask riddles, the huge statue itself under the pyramids in Giza is a riddle incarnate. Many have tried to explain his mysterious and somewhat contemptuous smile. Scientists asked questions: who does the statue depict, when was it created, how was it carved?

After a hundred years of study, during which drilling machines and gunpowder were involved, Egyptologists have revealed the real name of the Sphinx. The surrounding Arabs called the statue Abu "l Hod - "Father of Horror", philologists found out that this is a folk etymology of the ancient "Horun". This name hid several even more ancient ones, and at the end of the chain stood the ancient Egyptian Haremakhet (in Greek Harmahis), which meant "Chorus in the sky". The choir was called the deified ruler, and the sky was the place where, after death, this ruler merges with the god of the Sun. The full name meant: "The living image of Khafre." So, the Sphinx depicted pharaoh Khafra(Khafre) with the body of the king of the desert, a lion, and with symbols of royal power, i.e. Khafre - a god and a lion guarding his pyramid.

Mysteries of the Sphinx. video film

There is no statue in the world that exceeds the size of the Great Sphinx. It is hewn from a single block left in the quarry, where the stone was mined for the construction of the pyramid of Khufu, and then of Khafre. It combines a remarkable creation of technology with wonderful artistic fiction; Khafra's appearance, known to us from other sculptural portraits, despite the stylization of the image, is conveyed correctly, with individual features (wide cheekbones and large lagging ears). As can be judged from the inscription at the feet of the statue, it was created during the life of Khafre; therefore, this Sphinx is not only the largest, but also the oldest monumental statue in the world. From her front paw to the tail - 57.3 meters, the height of the statue - 20 meters, the width of the face - 4.1 meters, the height - 5 meters, from the top to the earlobe - 1.37 meters, the length of the nose - 1.71 meters. The Great Sphinx is over 4500 years old.

Now it is badly damaged. The face is disfigured, as if it had been hit with a chisel or shot with cannonballs. The royal uraeus, a symbol of power in the form of a cobra raised on the forehead, disappeared forever; the royal nemes (a festive scarf descending from the back of the head to the shoulders) is partially broken off; from the "divine" beard, a symbol of royal dignity, there were only fragments found at the feet of the statue. Several times the Sphinx was covered with desert sand, so that one head stuck out, and even that was not always complete. As far as we know, the pharaoh was the first to order it to be excavated at the end of the 15th century BC. e. According to legend, the Sphinx appeared to him in a dream, asked for it and promised the double crown of Egypt as a reward, which, as evidenced by the inscription on the wall between his paws, he subsequently fulfilled. Then he was released from the captivity of the sands by the Saisi rulers in the 7th century BC. e., after them - the Roman emperor Septimius Severus at the beginning of the III century AD. e. In modern times, the Sphinx was first dug up in 1818 by Caviglia, doing this at the expense of the then ruler of Egypt Muhammad Ali, who paid him 450 pounds sterling - a very large amount for those times. In 1886, his work had to be repeated by the famous Egyptologist Maspero. Then the excavations of the Sphinx were carried out by the Egyptian Antiquities Service in 1925-1926; The work was supervised by the French architect E. Barez, who partially restored the statue and erected a fence protecting it from new drifts. The Sphinx generously rewarded him for this: between the front paws were the remains of a temple, which until then none of the researchers in the field of the pyramids in Giza had suspected.

However, time and the desert did not damage the Sphinx as much as human stupidity. The wounds on the face of the Sphinx, resembling chisel marks, were indeed caused by a chisel: in the 14th century, a certain pious Muslim sheikh mutilated it in order to fulfill the covenant of the prophet Muhammad, which forbids depicting a human face. Wounds that look like traces of nuclei are also such. It was the Egyptian soldiers - the Mamelukes - who used the head of the Sphinx as a target for their cannons.

The Great Sphinx of Giza, the Great Sphinx of Egypt (Great Sphinx) is a world-famous monument carved from a monolithic rock with the body of a lion and the head of a man. The Great Sphinx is a unique statue 73 m long and 20 m high, 11.5 meters at the shoulders, face width 4.1 m, face height 5 m, carved from a limestone monolith that forms the rocky base of the Giza plateau. Along the perimeter, the body of the Sphinx is surrounded by a moat 5.5 meters wide and 2.5 meters deep. Nearby are 3 world-famous Egyptian pyramids.

There is some interesting information that you might not know. Here, check yourself...

Disappearing Sphinx

It is generally accepted that the Sphinx was erected during the construction of the Khafre pyramid. However, in the ancient papyri relating to the construction of the Great Pyramids, there is no mention of him. Moreover, we know that the ancient Egyptians meticulously recorded all the costs associated with the construction of religious buildings, but economic documents related to the construction of the Sphinx have not been found. In the 5th century BC e. The pyramids of Giza were visited by Herodotus, who described in detail all the details of their construction. He wrote down "everything he saw and heard in Egypt", but he did not say a word about the Sphinx.

Before Herodotus, Hecateus of Miletus visited Egypt, after him - Strabo. Their records are detailed, but there is no mention of the Sphinx there either. Could the Greeks fail to notice the sculpture 20 meters high and 57 meters wide? The answer to this riddle can be found in the work of the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder "Natural History", which mentions that in his time (1st century AD) the Sphinx was once again cleared of the sands applied from the western part of the desert. Indeed, the Sphinx was regularly "liberated" from sand drifts until the 20th century.

ancient pyramids

Restoration work, which began to be carried out in connection with the emergency state of the Sphinx, began to lead scientists to the idea that the Sphinx may be older than previously thought. To test this, Japanese archaeologists, led by Professor Sakuji Yoshimura, first illuminated the pyramid of Cheops with an echo sounder, and then examined the sculpture in a similar way. Their conclusion struck - the stones of the Sphinx are older than those of the pyramid. It was not about the age of the breed itself, but about the time of its processing. Later, the Japanese were replaced by a team of hydrologists - their findings also became a sensation. On the sculpture, they found traces of erosion caused by large flows of water.

The first assumption that appeared in the press was that in ancient times the bed of the Nile passed in another place and washed the rock from which the Sphinx was carved. The guesses of hydrologists are even bolder: "Erosion is more likely not the traces of the Nile, but the flood - a mighty flood of water." Scientists came to the conclusion that the flow of water went from north to south, and the approximate date of the disaster is 8 thousand years BC. e. British scientists, repeating the hydrological studies of the rock from which the Sphinx is made, pushed back the date of the flood to 12 thousand years BC. e. This is generally consistent with the dating of the Flood, which, according to most scholars, occurred around 8-10 thousand BC. e.

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What is wrong with the Sphinx?

The Arab sages, struck by the majesty of the Sphinx, said that the giant is timeless. But over the past millennia, the monument has suffered a lot, and, first of all, the person is to blame for this. At first, the Mamluks practiced accuracy of shooting at the Sphinx, their initiative was supported by Napoleonic soldiers. One of the rulers of Egypt ordered to beat off the nose of the sculpture, and the British stole a stone beard from the giant and took it to the British Museum. In 1988, a huge stone block broke away from the Sphinx and fell with a roar. She was weighed and horrified - 350 kg. This fact caused the most serious concern of UNESCO. It was decided to convene a council of representatives of various specialties in order to find out the reasons that destroy the ancient structure. As a result of a comprehensive examination, scientists discovered hidden and extremely dangerous cracks in the head of the Sphinx, in addition, they found that external cracks sealed with low-quality cement are also dangerous - this creates a threat of rapid erosion.

The paws of the Sphinx were in no less deplorable condition. According to experts, the Sphinx, first of all, is harmed by human life: the exhaust gases of automobile engines and the acrid smoke of Cairo factories penetrate into the pores of the statue, which gradually destroys it. Scientists say that the Sphinx is seriously ill. Hundreds of millions of dollars are needed to restore the ancient monument. There is no such money. In the meantime, the Egyptian authorities are restoring the sculpture on their own.

Mysterious face

Among the majority of Egyptologists, there is a firm belief that the face of the pharaoh of the IV dynasty Khafre is imprinted in the appearance of the Sphinx. This confidence cannot be shaken by anything - neither by the absence of any evidence of the connection between the sculpture and the pharaoh, nor by the fact that the head of the Sphinx was repeatedly remade. The well-known expert on the monuments of Giza, Dr. I. Edwards, is convinced that Pharaoh Khafre himself peeps through the Sphinx. “Although the face of the Sphinx is somewhat mutilated, it still gives us a portrait of Khafre himself,” the scientist concludes. Interestingly, the body of Khafre himself was never found, and therefore statues are used to compare the Sphinx and the pharaoh.

First of all, we are talking about a sculpture carved from black diorite, which is stored in the Cairo Museum - it is on it that the appearance of the Sphinx is verified. To confirm or deny the identification of the Sphinx with Khafre, a group of independent researchers involved the well-known New York policeman Frank Domingo, who created portraits to identify suspects, in the case. After a few months of work, Domingo concluded: “These two works of art depict two different faces. The frontal proportions - and in particular the angles and facial protrusions when viewed from the side - convince me that the Sphinx is not Khafre.

Mother of Fear

The Egyptian archaeologist Rudwan Ash-Shamaa believes that the Sphinx has a female couple and it is hidden under a layer of sand. The Great Sphinx is often referred to as the "Father of Fear". According to the archaeologist, if there is a "Father of fear", then there must be a "Mother of fear". In his reasoning, Al-Shamaa relies on the way of thinking of the ancient Egyptians, who firmly followed the principle of symmetry. In his opinion, the lonely figure of the Sphinx looks very strange.

The surface of the place where, according to the scientist, the second sculpture should be located, rises several meters above the Sphinx. “It is logical to assume that the statue is simply hidden from our eyes under a layer of sand,” Al-Shamaa is convinced. In support of his theory, the archaeologist gives several arguments. Ash-Shamaa recalls that between the front paws of the Sphinx there is a granite stele, on which two statues are depicted; there is also a limestone tablet that says that one of the statues was struck by lightning and destroyed it.

Chamber of Secrets

In one of the ancient Egyptian treatises, on behalf of the goddess Isis, it is reported that the god Thoth placed in a secret place "holy books" that contain the "secrets of Osiris", and then cast a spell on this place so that knowledge remained "undiscovered until The sky will not give birth to creatures that will be worthy of this gift. Some researchers are still confident in the existence of a "secret room". They remember how Edgar Cayce predicted that one day in Egypt, under the right paw of the Sphinx, a room called the "Hall of Evidence" or "Hall of Chronicles" would be found. The information stored in the "secret room" will tell mankind about a highly developed civilization that existed millions of years ago.

In 1989, a group of Japanese scientists using the radar method discovered a narrow tunnel under the left paw of the Sphinx, leading towards the pyramid of Khafre, and an impressive cavity was found northwest of the Queen's Chamber. However, the Egyptian authorities did not allow the Japanese to conduct a more detailed study of the underground premises. Research by American geophysicist Thomas Dobecki showed that under the paws of the Sphinx is a large rectangular chamber. But in 1993, his work was suddenly suspended by local authorities. Since that time, the Egyptian government officially forbids geological or seismological research around the Sphinx.

Sphinx and executions.

The word "sphinx" in the Egyptian language is etymologically related to the word "seshep-ankh", which in literal translation into Russian means "the image of the Existing". Another well-known translation of this word is “image of the living”. Both of these expressions have a single semantic content - "the image of the living God." In Greek, the word "sphinx" is etymologically associated with the Greek verb "sphinga" - to suffocate.

Since 1952, five hollow sphinxes have been discovered in Egypt, each of which served as a place of executions and at the same time the grave of the executed. Archaeologists who uncovered the secret of the sphinxes were horrified to discover that the bone remains of many hundreds of corpses covered the floors of the sphinxes in a thick layer. Leather straps hung from the ceilings with the remains of human leg bones. It is believed that among these corpses there could be workers who built the pyramids and tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs, and were sacrificed in order to preserve their secrets.

The apparently hollow bodies of sphinxes deliberately scattered throughout the country served as a place of execution and torture for an extended period of time. The death of the executed was long and painful, and the bodies of the victims hung by the feet were deliberately not removed. The screams of the dying were bound to terrify the living.

The fear of winged sphinxes was so great that it has survived for centuries. When in 1845, during excavations in the ruins of Kalah, a winged sphinx with a human head was found, all the workers from the local residents were seized with panic fear. They refused to continue excavations, because the ancient legend was still alive that the winged sphinx would bring misfortune to them and cause the death of all living on earth.

And further...

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This is a familiar look. It seems that the pyramids are lost somewhere far away in the desert, covered with sand, and to get to them, you need to make a long camel journey.

Let's see how things really are.

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Giza is the modern name for the large Cairo necropolis, covering approximately 2,000 sq. m.

The third place in terms of population after Cairo and Alexandria is occupied by this city, which is home to more than 900 thousand inhabitants. In fact, Giza merges with Cairo. Here are the famous Egyptian pyramids: Cheops, Khafre, Mikeren and the Great Sphinx.

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More recently - a little over a century ago - only the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, cultivating irrigation fields, knew the backwater road to the pyramids. Today, the pyramids of Giza are the center of attraction for tourists, the number of which is increasing every year. The fields around the ancient ritual buildings began to be built up with shops, cafes, restaurants and nightclubs, but local authorities do not show much dissatisfaction about this, because tourism is one of the important budget items in Egypt.

And this is what the place looked like in 1904.

Hearing the combination of the words "Ancient Egypt", many will immediately imagine the majestic pyramids and the great Sphinx - it is with them that the mysterious civilization, separated from us by several millennia, is associated. Let's get acquainted with interesting facts about sphinxes, these mysterious creatures.

Definition

What is a sphinx? This word first appeared in the Land of the Pyramids, and later spread throughout the world. So, in ancient Greece you can meet a similar creature - a beautiful woman with wings. In Egypt, these creatures were most often masculine. A sphinx with the face of a female pharaoh Hatshepsut is known. Having received the throne and pushed aside the rightful heir, this imperious woman tried to rule like a man, she even wore a special false beard. Therefore, it is not surprising that many statues of this time have found her face.

What function did they perform? According to mythology, the sphinx acted as the guardian of tombs and temple buildings, which is why most of the statues that have survived to this day were found near such structures. So, in the temple of the supreme deity, solar Amon, about 900 of them were found.

So, answering the question of what a sphinx is, it should be noted that this is a statue characteristic of the culture of Ancient Egypt, which, according to mythology, guarded temple buildings and tombs. Limestone was used as a material for creation, of which there were quite a lot in the Land of the Pyramids.

Description

The ancient Egyptians depicted the sphinx like this:

• The head of a human, most often a pharaoh.
• The body of a lion, one of the sacred animals of the hot country of Kemet.

But such an appearance is not the only option for depicting a mythological creature. Modern finds prove that there were other species, for example with a head:

• a ram (the so-called cryosphinxes were installed at the temple of Amon);
• Falcon (they were called hierakosphinxes and most often placed near the temple of the god Horus);
• hawk.

So, answering the question of what a sphinx is, it should be pointed out that this is a statue with the body of a lion and the head of another creature (more often a man, a ram), which was installed in the immediate vicinity of the temples.

The most famous sphinxes

The tradition of creating very original statues with a human head and a lion's body was inherent in the Egyptians for a long time. So, the first of them appeared during the fourth dynasty of the pharaohs, that is, approximately in 2700-2500. BC e. It is interesting that the first representative was female and depicted Queen Hetepher II. This statue has reached us, everyone can look at it in the Cairo Museum.

Everyone knows the Great Sphinx at Giza, which we will discuss below.

The second largest sculpture depicting an unusual creature is an alabaster creation with the face of Pharaoh Amenhotep II, discovered in Memphis.

No less famous is the famous Alley of Sphinxes near the Temple of Amun in Luxor.

The greatest value

The most famous all over the world, of course, is the Great Sphinx, which not only amazes the imagination with its huge size, but also sets many mysteries for the scientific community.

The giant with a lion's body is located on a plateau in Giza (near the capital of the modern state, Cairo) and is part of a funerary complex, which also includes the three great pyramids. It is carved from a monolithic block and is the largest structure for which a single stone was used.

Even the age of this outstanding monument causes controversy, although analysis of the rock suggests that it is at least 4.5 millennia old. What features of this colossal monument are known?

• The face of the Sphinx, disfigured by time and, as one of the legends says, by the barbaric actions of the soldiers of Napoleon's army, most likely depicts Pharaoh Khafre.
• The face of the giant is turned to the east, and it is there that the pyramids are located - the statue seems to protect the peace of the greatest pharaohs of antiquity.
• The dimensions of the figure, carved from monolithic limestone, amaze the imagination: length - more than 55 meters, width - about 20 meters, shoulder width - more than 11 meters.
• Previously, the ancient sphinx was painted, as evidenced by the preserved remains of paint: red, blue and yellow.
• Also, the statue had a beard, characteristic of the kings of Egypt. It has survived to this day, although separate from the sculpture - it is kept in the British Museum.

The giant was buried under the sands several times, it was dug up. Perhaps it was the protection of the sand that helped the Sphinx survive the destructive influence of natural disasters.

Changes

The Egyptian Sphinx managed to defeat time, but it affected the change in its appearance:

• Initially, the figure had a headdress traditional for pharaohs, decorated with a sacred cobra, but it was completely destroyed.
• Lost the statue and false beard.
• Nose injury has already been mentioned. Someone blames the shelling of Napoleon's army for this, others - the actions of Turkish soldiers. There is also a version that the protruding part suffered from wind and humidity.

Despite this, the monument is one of the greatest creations of the ancients.

Mysteries of history

Let's get acquainted with the secrets of the Egyptian Sphinx, many of which have not been solved so far:

• Legend has it that under the giant monument there are three underground passages. However, only one of them was found - behind the giant's head.
• The age of the largest sphinx is still unknown. Most scholars believe that it was built during the reign of Khafre, but there are those who consider the sculpture to be more ancient. So, her face and head retained traces of the influence of the water element, which is why the hypothesis arose that the giant was erected more than 6 millennia ago, when a terrible flood hit Egypt.
• Perhaps the army of the French emperor is wrongly accused of damaging the great monument of the past, since there are drawings by an unknown traveler, in which the giant is already depicted without a nose. Napoleon had not yet been born at that time.
• As you know, the Egyptians knew writing and documented everything in detail on papyri - from conquests and the construction of temples to tax collection. However, not a single scroll has been found that would contain information about the construction of the monument. Perhaps these documents simply have not survived to this day. Perhaps the reason is that the giant appeared long before the Egyptians themselves.
• The first mention of the Egyptian Sphinx was found in the writings of Pliny the Elder, which refers to the work of digging out sculptures from sand.

The majestic monument of the Ancient World has not yet revealed all its mysteries to us, so its research continues.

Restoration and protection

We learned what the Sphinx is, what role it played in the worldview of the ancient Egyptian. Even under the pharaohs, they tried to dig out a huge figure from the sand and partially restore it. It is known that such work was carried out during the time of Thutmose IV. A granite stele (the so-called “Stele of Sleep”) has been preserved, which tells that one day the pharaoh had a dream in which the god Ra ordered him to clear the statue of sand, in return promising power over the entire state.

Later, the conqueror Ramses II ordered to dig up the Egyptian sphinx. Then attempts were made at the beginning of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Now let's see how our contemporaries are trying to preserve this cultural heritage. The figure was carefully analyzed, all cracks were identified, the monument was closed to the public and restored within 4 months. In 2014, it was reopened to tourists.

The history of the Sphinx in Egypt is amazing and filled with secrets and mysteries. Many of them have not yet been solved by scientists, so the amazing figure with the body of a lion and the face of a man continues to attract attention.

Hello ladies and gentlemen. Today we have Sunday July 15, 2018, on Channel One there is a TV game "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?". The players and host Dmitry Dibrov are in the studio.

In the article we will consider one of the interesting questions of the game, and a little later there will be a general article with all the questions and answers in today's TV game.

What material is the Great Sphinx made of in Egypt?

The Great Sphinx on the west bank of the Nile at Giza is the oldest monumental sculpture on Earth. Carved from a monolithic limestone rock in the form of a colossal sphinx - a lion lying on the sand, whose face, as has long been considered to be, is given a portrait resemblance to Pharaoh Khafre (c. 2575-2465 BC), whose funerary pyramid is located nearby.

The religion of the ancient Egyptian kingdom was based on the worship of the Sun. The locals worshiped the idol as the incarnation of the Sun God, calling it Hor-Em-Akhet. Comparing these facts, Mark determines the original purpose of the Sphinx and its personality: the face of Khafre looks from the figure of a god who protects the pharaoh's journey to the afterlife, making it safe.

The Great Sphinx is the most grandiose surviving sculpture of antiquity. The length of the body is 3 compartment cars (73.5 meters), and the height is a 6-storey building (20 meters). The bus is smaller than one front paw. And the weight of 50 jet airliners is equal to the weight of a giant.

In ancient times, the Sphinx had a false beard, an attribute of the pharaohs, but now only fragments remain of it.

In 2014, after the restoration of the statue, tourists opened access to it, and now you can come up and look close to the legendary giant, in whose history there are many more questions than answers.

• granite
• limestone
• marble
• clay

The correct answer to the question of the game is limestone.