The Head in the Sand
2,500 BC
-2500 -2500
31.07E30.00N
ARC

GIZA, EGYPT
	As the soldiers of Napoleon's army marched across the sands to Giza, Egypt, in 1799, they suddenly came upon an astonishing sight, the giant head of a man sticking up out of the sand. Awestruck, the men stopped and stared in amazement.
	The head was all that remained exposed of one of the largest and oldest statues in the world, the Great Sphinx, which was carved about 4,500 years ago.
	A sphinx was a mythological being known to the Egyptians and Greeks. In Egypt they were a symbol of protection and often lined paths to temples. They had a lion's body and the head of a man, falcon or ram.
	Archaeologists believe that because the Great Sphinx is located near the pyramid of King Khafre and wears a royal headdress that it is his face on the statue.
	The statue is 240-feet long and 66 feet high with a face more than 13 feet wide. The head and body are carved of a single block of limestone with the legs and paws built of separate blocks of stone. The statue was apparently carved from a mound of rock that was left over when the pyramid was finished.
	Over the ages the sand has again and again threatened to bury the Sphinx. When just the head was exposed around 1400 BC, Thutmos IV cleared it away, saying he dreamed the god Horus asked him to do it.
	The sand was again removed in 1818, 1886, 1926 and 1938. Wind, sand and rain have worn away at the Sphinx and at one time or another it may have been used as a target for gun practice. Since the 1970s scientists have been treating it with chemicals to preserve it.
	Like much Egyptian sculpture, the Sphinx seems stiff and lifeless. In general, Egyptian statues show people posed and expressionless, while paintings show them in a very awkward position, with their heads facing forward, chest facing the side, and legs facing forward. Try that in front of a mirror!
	It wasn't that the Egyptians were incapable of lifelike statues. We know this because Pharaoh Akhenaten tried to break centuries of tradition and have statues carved in lifelike fashion. The statue head of Akhenaten shows a man with a long jaw and heavy lips. But the painted limestone bust of his wife, Nefertiti, which was also carved about 1360 BC in the same lifelike manner, shows a beautiful woman.
	Despite Akhenaten's efforts, the old style prevailed again when he died.