Мысыр Сфинксінің тас мүсіні

Limestone statue of a reclining sphinx

The Great Sphinx of Giza is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion. Facing directly from west to east, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The face of the Sphinx appears to represent the pharaoh Khafre. The original shape of the Sphinx was cut from the bedrock, and has since been restored with layers of limestone blocks. It measures long from paw to tail, high from the base to the top of the head and wide at its rear haunches. The Sphinx is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt and one of the most recognizable statues in the world. The archaeological evidence suggests that it was created by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of Khafre (c. 2558–2532 BC). The circumstances surrounding the Sphinx's nose being broken off are uncertain, but close inspection suggests a deliberate act using rods or chisels. Contrary to a popular myth, it was not broken off by cannonfire from Napoleon's troops during his 1798 Egyptian campaign. Its absence is in fact depicted in artwork predating Napoleon and referred to in descriptions by the 15th century historian al Maqrīzī.

The original name the Old Kingdom creators gave the Sphinx is unknown, as the Sphinx temple, enclosure, and possibly the Sphinx itself was not completed at the time, and thus cultural material was limited. In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx was revered as the solar deity Hor em akhet (; Hellenized: Harmachis), and the pharaoh Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC) specifically referred to it as such in his Dream Stele. The commonly used name "Sphinx" was given to it in classical antiquity, about 2,000 years after the commonly accepted date of its construction by reference to a Greek mythological beast with the head of a woman, a falcon, a cat, or a sheep and the body of a lion with the wings of an eagle (although, like most Egyptian sphinxes, the Great Sphinx has a man's head and no wings). The English word sphinx comes from the ancient Greek Σφίγξ (transliterated: sphinx) apparently from the verb σφίγγω (transliterated: sphingo / ), after the Greek sphinx who strangled anyone who failed to answer her riddle. Medieval Arab writers, including al Maqrīzī, call the Sphinx by an Arabized Coptic name Belhib (بلهيب), Balhubah (بلهوبه) Belhawiyya (بلهويه), which in turn comes from Pehor or Pehor(o)n , a name of the Canaanite god Hauron with whom the Sphinx was identified. It is also rendered as Ablehon on a depiction of the Sphinx made by François de La Boullaye Le Gouz. The modern Egyptian Arabic name is أبو الهول (ʼabu alhōl / ʼabu alhawl , "The Terrifying One"; literally "Father of Dread") which is a phono semantic matching of the Coptic name.

Some ancient non Egyptians saw the Sphinx as a likeness of the god Hauron. The cult of the Sphinx continued into medieval times. The Sabians of Harran saw it as the burial place of Hermes Trismegistus. Arab authors described the Sphinx as a talisman that guarded the area from the desert. Al Maqrizi describes it as the "talisman of the Nile" that the locals believed the flood cycle depended upon. Muhammad al Idrisi stated that those wishing to obtain bureaucratic positions in the Egyptian government gave incense offering to the monument.

Over the centuries, writers and scholars have recorded their impressions and reactions upon seeing the Sphinx. The vast majority were concerned with a general description, often including a mixture of science, romance and mystique. A typical description of the Sphinx by tourists and leisure travelers throughout the 19th and 20th century was made by John Lawson Stoddard:

It is the antiquity of the Sphinx which thrills us as we look upon it, for in itself it has no charms. The desert's waves have risen to its breast, as if to wrap the monster in a winding sheet of gold. The face and head have been mutilated by Moslem fanatics. The mouth, the beauty of whose lips was once admired, is now expressionless. Yet grand in its loneliness, – veiled in the mystery of unnamed ages, – the relic of Egyptian antiquity stands solemn and silent in the presence of the awful desert – symbol of eternity. Here it disputes with Time the empire of the past; forever gazing on and on into a future which will still be distant when we, like all who have preceded us and looked upon its face, have lived our little lives and disappeared.|title=John L. Stoddard's Lectures

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, European observers described the Sphinx having the face, neck and breast of a woman. Examples included Johannes Helferich (1579), George Sandys (1615), Johann Michael Vansleb (1677), Benoît de Maillet (1735) and Elliot Warburton (1844). Most early Western images were book illustrations in print form, elaborated by a professional engraver from either previous images available or some original drawing or sketch supplied by an author, and usually now lost. Seven years after visiting Giza, André Thévet (Cosmographie de Levant, 1556) described the Sphinx as "the head of a colossus, caused to be made by Isis, daughter of Inachus, then so beloved of Jupiter". He, or his artist and engraver, pictured it as a curly haired monster with a grassy dog collar. Athanasius Kircher (who never visited Egypt) depicted the Sphinx as a Roman statue (Turris Babel, 1679). Johannes Helferich's (1579) Sphinx is a pinched face, round breasted woman with a straight haired wig. George Sandys stated that the Sphinx was a harlot; Balthasar de Monconys interpreted the headdress as a kind of hairnet, while François de La Boullaye Le Gouz's Sphinx had a rounded hairdo with bulky collar. Richard Pococke's Sphinx was an adoption of Cornelis de Bruijn's drawing of 1698, featuring only minor changes, but is closer to the actual appearance of the Sphinx than anything previous. The print versions of Norden's drawings for his Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie, 1755 clearly show that the nose was missing.

In 1817, the first modern archaeological dig, supervised by the Italian Giovanni Battista Caviglia, uncovered the Sphinx's chest completely. In the beginning of the year 1887, the chest, the paws, the altar, and plateau were all made visible. Flights of steps were unearthed, and finally accurate measurements were taken of the great figures. The height from the lowest of the steps was found to be one hundred feet, and the space between the paws was found to be thirty five feet long and ten feet wide. Here there was formerly an altar; and a stele of Thûtmosis IV was discovered, recording a dream in which he was ordered to clear away the sand that even then was gathering round the site of the Sphinx.|author=S. Rappoport|title=The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of Egypt From 330 B. C. To The Present|source=Volume 12

One of the people working on clearing the sands from around the Great Sphinx was Eugène Grébaut, a French Director of the Antiquities Service.

Early Egyptologists and excavators were of divided opinion regarding the age of the Sphinx and the associated temples. In 1857, Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, unearthed the much later Inventory Stela (estimated to be from the Twenty sixth Dynasty, c. 664–525 BC), which tells how Khufu came upon the Sphinx, already buried in sand. Although certain tracts on the Stela are likely accurate, this passage is contradicted by archaeological evidence, thus considered to be Late Period historical revisionism, a purposeful fake, created by the local priests as an attempt to imbue the contemporary Isis temple with an ancient history it never had. Such acts became common when religious institutions such as temples, shrines and priests' domains were fighting for political attention and for financial and economic donations. Flinders Petrie wrote in 1883 regarding the state of opinion of the age of the Khafre Valley Temple, and by extension the Sphinx: "The date of the Granite Temple has been so positively asserted to be earlier than the fourth dynasty, that it may seem rash to dispute the point. Recent discoveries, however, strongly show that it was really not built before the reign of Khafre, in the fourth dynasty." Gaston Maspero, the French Egyptologist and second director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, conducted a survey of the Sphinx in 1886. He concluded that because the Dream Stela showed the cartouche of Khafre in line 13, it was he who was responsible for the excavation and therefore the Sphinx must predate Khafre and his predecessors—possibly Fourth Dynasty, c. 2575–2467 BC. Maspero believed the Sphinx to be "the most ancient monument in Egypt". Ludwig Borchardt attributed the Sphinx to the Middle Kingdom, arguing that the particular features seen on the Sphinx are unique to the 12th dynasty and that the Sphinx resembles Amenemhat III. E. A. Wallis Budge agreed that the Sphinx predated Khafre's reign, writing in The Gods of the Egyptians (1904): "This marvelous object [the Great Sphinx] was in existence in the days of Khafre, or Khephren, and it is probable that it is a very great deal older than his reign and that it dates from the end of the archaic period [c. 2686 BC]." Selim Hassan reasoned that the Sphinx was erected after the completion of the Khafre pyramid complex.

Rainer Stadelmann, former director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, examined the distinct iconography of the nemes (headdress) and the now detached beard of the Sphinx and concluded the style is more indicative of the pharaoh Khufu (2589–2566 BC), known to the Greeks as Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza and Khafre's father. He supports this by suggesting Khafre's Causeway was built to conform to a pre existing structure, which, he concludes, given its location, could only have been the Sphinx. In 2004, Vassil Dobrev of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo announced he had uncovered new evidence that the Great Sphinx may have been the work of the little known pharaoh Djedefre (2528–2520 BC), Khafre's half brother and a son of Khufu. Dobrev suggests Djedefre built the Sphinx in the image of his father Khufu, identifying him with the sun god Ra in order to restore respect for their dynasty. Dobrev also says that the causeway connecting Khafre's pyramid to the temples was built around the Sphinx, suggesting it was already in existence at the time. Egyptologist Nigel Strudwick responded to Dobrev saying that: "It is not implausible. But I would need more explanation, such as why he thinks the pyramid at Abu Roash is a sun temple, something I'm sceptical about. I have never heard anyone suggest that the name in the graffiti at Zawiyet el Aryan mentions Djedefre. I remain more convinced by the traditional argument of it being Khafre or the more recent theory of it being Khufu." This questionable repair was by the addition of a concrete collar between the headdress and the neck, creating an altered profile. Many renovations to the stone base and raw rock body were done in the 1980s, and then redone in the 1990s.

The nummulitic limestone of the area consists of layers which offer differing resistance to erosion (mostly caused by wind and windblown sand), leading to the uneven degradation apparent in the Sphinx's body. The lowest part of the body, including the legs, is solid rock. The layer in which the head was sculpted is much harder. A number of "dead end" shafts are known to exist within and below the body of the Great Sphinx, most likely dug by treasure hunters and tomb robbers.

Examination of the Sphinx's face shows that long rods or chisels were hammered into the nose area, one down from the bridge and another beneath the nostril, then used to pry the nose off towards the south, resulting in the one metre wide nose still being lost to date. Many folk tales exist regarding the destruction of its nose, aiming to provide an answer as to where it went or what happened to it. One tale erroneously attributes it to cannonballs fired by the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. This is considered false since drawings of the Sphinx by Frederic Louis Norden in 1737 already show the nose missing, predating Napoleon's arrival by sixty years. The damaged nose has also been attributed by some 10th century Arab authors stating that it was a result of iconoclastic attacks. Besides this, there was also mention of the damage being the work of the Mamluks in the 14th century. According to Ibn Qadi Shuhba, Muhammad ibn Sadiq ibn al Muhammad al Tibrizi al Masri (d. 1384), desecrated the sphinxes of "Qanatir al Siba", built by Sultan Baybars. Al Minufi (1443–1527) meanwhile mentioned that the Alexandrian Crusade in 1365 was divine retribution for Muhammad Sa'im al Dahr's breaking off the nose of a sphinx.]]

In addition to the lost nose, a ceremonial pharaonic beard is thought to have been attached, although this may have been added in later periods after the original construction. Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev has suggested that had the beard been an original part of the Sphinx, it would have damaged the chin of the statue upon falling. Residues of red pigment are visible on areas of the Sphinx's face and traces of yellow and blue pigment have also been found elsewhere on the Sphinx, leading Mark Lehner to suggest that the monument "was once decked out in gaudy comic book colours".

Johann Helffrich visited the Sphinx during his travels in 1565–1566. He describes that a priest went into the head of the Sphinx, and when he spoke it was as if the Sphinx itself was speaking. Many New Kingdom stelae depict the Sphinx wearing a crown. If it in fact existed, the hole could have been the anchoring point for it. Émile Baraize closed the hole with a metal hatch in 1926.

Howard Vyse directed Perring in 1837 to drill a tunnel in the back of the Sphinx, just behind the head. The boring rods became stuck at a depth of 27 feet (8 m), Attempts to blast the rods free caused further damage. The hole was cleared in 1978. Among the rubble was a fragment of the Sphinx's nemes headdress.

A major natural fissure in the bedrock cuts through the waist of the Sphinx, first excavated by Auguste Mariette in 1853. At the top of the back it measures up to in width. Baraize, in 1926, sealed the sides and roofed it with iron bars, limestone and cement, and installed an iron trap door at the top. The sides of the fissure might have been artificially squared; however, the bottom is irregular bedrock, about above the outside floor. A very narrow crack continues deeper.

A 1925 photograph shows a man standing below floor level in a niche in the Sphinx's core body. It was closed during the 1925–1926 restorations.

Another hole might have been at floor level in the large masonry box on the south side of the Sphinx.

The space behind the Dream Stele, between the paws of the Sphinx, was covered by an iron beam and cement roof, which was fitted with an iron trap door.

At the ledge of the Sphinx enclosure, a square shaft is located opposite the northern hind paw. It was cleared during excavation in 1978 by Hawass and measures and about deep. Lehner interprets the shaft to be an unfinished tomb and named it "Keyhole Shaft", because of cuttings in the ledge above the shaft that are shaped like the lower part of a traditional (Victorian era) keyhole, upside down.

Numerous ideas have been suggested to explain or reinterpret the origin and identity of the Sphinx, that lack sufficient evidential support and/or are contradicted by such, and are therefore considered part of pseudohistory and pseudoarchaeology.

The Sphinx is oriented from west to east, towards the rising sun, in accordance with the ancient Egyptian solar cult. The Orion correlation theory posits that it was instead aligned to face the constellation of Leo during the vernal equinox around 10,500 BC. The idea is considered pseudoarchaeology by academia, because no textual or archaeological evidence supports this to be the reason for the orientation of the Sphinx
The Sphinx water erosion hypothesis contends that the main type of weathering evident on the enclosure walls of the Great Sphinx could only have been caused by prolonged and extensive rainfall, and must therefore predate the time of the pharaoh Khafre. The hypothesis was championed by René Schwaller de Lubicz, John Anthony West, and geologist Robert M. Schoch. The theory is considered pseudoarchaeology by mainstream scholarship due to archaeological, climatological and geological evidence to the contrary. There is a long history of speculation about hidden chambers beneath the Sphinx, by esoteric figures such as H. Spencer Lewis. Edgar Cayce specifically predicted in the 1930s that a "Hall of Records", containing knowledge from Atlantis, would be discovered under the Sphinx in 1998. His prediction fueled much of the fringe speculation that surrounded the Sphinx in the 1990s, which lost momentum when the hall was not found when predicted
Author Robert K. G. Temple proposes that the Sphinx was originally a statue of the jackal god Anubis, the god of funerals, and that its face was recarved in the likeness of a Middle Kingdom pharaoh, Amenemhet II. Temple bases his identification on the style of the eye make up and style of the pleats on the headdress

Until the early 20th century, it was suggested that the face of the Sphinx had "Negroid" characteristics, as part of the now outdated historical race concepts.