“Great Sphinx”

One of the oldest and most mysterious statues in our history is the SPHINX, a lion with a human face. This is a grandiose sculpture with a height of more than 20 meters, a length of 57 meters, it is located in Egypt in the Giza Pyramids complex.

Statue of the Sphinx

A giant statue with the body of a lion and the head of a man looks from Egypt to the East along the thirtieth parallel. It is cut out of a limestone monolith forming the rocky base of the Giza plateau, and measures 72 meters in length and 20 meters in height. It is weathered and worn, beaten, cracked and crumbling. This is the Great Sphinx. He was once considered an eternal god.

Statue of the Sphinx

"Sphinx" in Arabic sounds like "Abu el-Khol", which means "father of horror". The Sphinx is a symbol of wisdom, power, strength, dignity and royalty.

Statue of the Sphinx

The Sphinx of Giza is the oldest and largest sphinx in the world, it guards the approaches to the pyramids of Cheops (Khufu), Khafren (Khafra), and Mekerin (Menkaur). According to one legend, the face of the sphinx is the face of Pharaoh Khafra (Khafren), according to another legend, the sphinx represents the god Horus, watching the sun rise above the horizon - his father is the God Ra.

Statue of the Sphinx

As for the traces of destruction on the face of the legendary man-beast, they are partly the result of wind erosion, partly due to the guns of the Mamelukes, who practiced aimed shooting on it