The Great Sphinx — A Puzzle is Solved

The Great Sphinx — A Puzzle is Solved

At 73.5 m long and over 20 m high the Great Sphinx is the most immense sculpture ever made by man. It shows a being that is part—lion and part—man, a creature metamorphosed into a divine being by the combined strength of a powerful wild animal and the intelligence of a human ruler. Earlier two—dimensional images of this creature as a griffin show it in action destroying the enemy. In the sculpture this power is tamed, controlled by human intelligence, and it has transformed into a divine, magisterial calm. Even if one agrees today that the Sphinx is a work of the Fourth Dynasty, the attribution to either Cheops, Djedefre or Chephren remains a matter of dispute. So far there is no inscriptional evidence that clearly names any of these three kings as the statue’s creator. The mention made of Chephren on the sphinx stela of Thutmosis IV (Eighteenth Dynasty) was, first of all, made a good thousand years later and, secondly, stands today out of context: in light of a similar text on the sphinx stela of Amenophis II it should probably be explained as “resting place/horizon of Cheops and of Chephren,” in other words the necropolis of Giza. A small, unique stela from the time of Ramesses of an “excellent scribe Monthu-her” bears the earliest image of the two pyramids, of Cheops and Chephren, with the Sphinx correctly shown in front of the Pyramid of Cheops. The area in which the Sphinx stands was undoubtedly ground quarried for stone to build the Cheops pyramid. Yet even this point is not unequivocal evidence that Cheops constructed the Sphinx.

Some reevaluations and an analysis of stylistic criteria can take us further. After Snefru in Dahshui it was Cheops in Giza whose designs and achievements are ultimately the finest. His pyramids, his temple, and even his statues, as surviving fragments show, are at once innovative and supreme achievements. He is the great originatoi the sun god; his sons follow him. He is therefore the most obvious candidate to be the inventor of the form of the Sphinx. The layout of the entire plateau argues for this interpretation. The causeway of Chephren takes account in its slanting course of something earlier, something important that already stood there; from the situation as it stands this can only have been the Sphinx. Stylistic considerations also point indisputedly toward Cheops. The overall form of the Sphinx’s face is broad, almost square. On the other hand the features of Chephren were long, noticeably narrower, the chin almost pointed. The Sphinx has the earlier, fully pleated type of nemes headcloth as does the head fragment of a statue of Cheops in The Metropolitan Museum, and still no band in the form of a raised hem over the brow. This is the norm from Djedefre onward. Under Chephren only the lappets of the nemes headcloth are pleated and never the hood. The side wings of the Sphinx’s nemes headcloth are deeply hollowed, but with Chephren hardly at all. With Chephren the headcloth corners curl up, but they do not do so with the Sphinx.

The Sphinx has a uraeus cobra placed on the lower edge of the headcloth and in contrast to those of Chephren and Mycerinus it shows high relief with naturalistic detailing of the serpent’s neck and the scales of its hood. The eyebrows of the Sphinx bulge powerfully forward, and they are pitched high and slope down toward the temples. The eyes are deep-set, but strongly modeled. They are large and wide open, to which perhaps the monumentality of the head owes something. These wide- open eyes are absolutely typical of sculpted heads from the time of Cheops. The ears are fundamentally different from those of the statue of Chephren. The ears of the Sphinx are very broad and folded forward, those of Chephren elongated and situated closer to the temples.

A decisive criterion is the absence of a beard. Since the Sphinx has no indications of hair on its chin, there certainly would not have been one in the Old Kingdom. The god’s beard is an innovation of the New Kingdom, and it also included a platform, which was adorned with a royal figure of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The small ivory statuette of Cheops does not have a beard, nor do the heads attributed to him (Brooklyn 46.167 and Berlin 14396), or the relief images. Whereas the kings of the Fourth Dynasty that follow — Djedefre, Chephren, and Mycerinus — all wear the ceremonial beard in relief and in modeled form. Therefore all evidence suggests that the Great Sphinx, like the great pyramids, is an original creation of Cheops.