Great Sphinx Of Giza Essay

The Great Sphinx of Giza is one of the world’s most iconic monuments. It was carved from a massive block of limestone, making it the biggest single stone statue in existence. The measurements of the sculpture are 60 feet in height, or as tall as a six-story building, and 240 feet in length. It is often described to have the body of a lion, and a head of a Pharaoh, which can be seen through the iconographic elements like the headdress and a seemingly symmetric face. With such a large and iconic figure, it is ironic that there is so little known about it. There are no texts, hieroglyphics, or maker’s mark that can be used to date the Sphinx, and because of this, it is regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Many archeologists have set out to find out more about the Sphinx and its origin, but most of the theories they come up with end up getting debunked or go unproven, because of the lack of evidence to support them. So by comparing the Sphinx to the monuments that surrounded it, these archeologists hope to find confounding evidence of who the Sphinx’s artist and creator may have

When looked at from the side, the Sphinx has seemingly awkward proportions, with a very large body, but a small head. This was a basic for research, since it was known that the Egyptians were masterminds when it came to working with stone, so it was definitely odd that they got the proportions so wrong. It was also concerning that the face was not quite as eroded, degraded, and ruined as the rest of the body. It should’ve been, it not more so, since it was exposed when the body was covered in sand, which would have preserved the body. Based on these odd findings, many archeologists agreed that it was most likely that the head was recut, reshaped, reprofiled into a Pharaoh’s head, most likely as an order given by the Pharaoh or King