The archaeological evidence suggests that the Great Sphinx was created around 2500 BC for the pharaoh Khafre, the builder of the Second Pyramid at Giza. The modern Egyptian Arabic name is أبو الهول ( ʼabu alhōl / ʼabu alhawl IPA:, "The Terrifying One" literally "Father of Dread") which is a phono-semantic matching of the Coptic name. Medieval Arab writers, including al-Maqrīzī, call the Sphinx by an Arabized Coptic name Belhib ( Arabic: بلهيب) and Belhawiyya ( Arabic: بلهويه), which in turn comes from Ancient Egyptian: pꜣ-Ḥwr, a name of the Canaanite god Hauron with whom the Sphinx was identified. The English word sphinx comes from the ancient Greek Σφίγξ ( transliterated: sphinx) apparently from the verb σφίγγω ( transliterated: sphingo / English: to squeeze), after the Greek sphinx who strangled anyone who failed to answer her riddle. (although, like most Egyptian sphinxes, the Great Sphinx has a man's head and no wings). 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. In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx was revered as the solar deity Hor-em- akhet (English: "Horus of the Horizon" Hellenized: Harmachis), and the pharaoh Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC) specifically referred to it as such in his Dream Stele. ![]() 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, thus cultural material was limited. 3.3.6 Gap under southern large masonry box.2.5 Early European descriptions of the Great Sphinx of Giza.The archaeological evidence suggests that it was created by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of Khafre ( c. The Sphinx is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt and one of the most recognisable statues in the world. Its nose was broken off for unknown reasons between the 3rd and 10th centuries AD. It measures 73 m (240 ft) long from paw to tail, 20 m (66 ft) high from the base to the top of the head and 19 m (62 ft) wide at its rear haunches. The original shape of the Sphinx was cut from the bedrock, and has since been restored with layers of limestone blocks. The face of the Sphinx appears to represent the pharaoh Khafre. Facing directly from west to east, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. ![]() 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.
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