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Why was the Sphinx really built?


j4k3

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-First off, let me tell you that i'm definitely not educated properly when it comes to these Ancient Mysteries.(Huge noob) I'm just truly intrigued and want to learn more from your opinions/fact that you might have.. Try not to hate on my grammar/noobness, thanks.

-Why do you think the Sphinx was built? Many say the Egyptian Pharaohs used slaves to build these massive "tombs", but with most of the facts i have read this really confuses me. First off.. these so-called "tombs" have yet to produce a corpse. These aren't your normal coffins, these take decades to build. Why on earth would anyone want to intend on their death decades before they would even perish. I've also read that in 1817 Gianbattista Caviglia cleaned the front of the Sphinx. This hadn't been done since the fall of the Roman Empire. When clearing the sand around the 'feet' of the Sphinx he noticed 13 lines of text located on the left paw. And get this, written in Greek. Hmm, again makes 0 sense seeing Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphs. Another thing is that the word 'Egypt' and the word 'Pyramid' of both of Greek descent. The text he found on the paw read: "This structure is the work of the immortal Gods. Placed so as to dominate the soil of this Land of harvest, Built in the center of a cavity from which they withdrew the sand, Like an island of stone in the vicinity of the pyramids, So that we can see it, Not as the sphinx defeated by Oedipus, But as a sacred servant of Leto, Who guards with vigilance; The Sacred Guide of the Land of Egypt." This Text is puzzling yet very intriguing.

-As you can see, i can't drawn any conclusions which is why im asking for opinions.

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Not surprising at all, given that the Greeks ruled Egypt beginning around 300 BC forward until the Roman Conquest (Cleopatra.)

Read about it here.

Harte

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Opinion: Same reason we blasted and carved faces into a mountain in South Dakota... Because they could!

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Not surprising at all, given that the Greeks ruled Egypt beginning around 300 BC forward until the Roman Conquest (Cleopatra.)

Read about it here.

Harte

Thanks, always looking for new info.

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I thought it was symbolic of Horus but do not quote me on it lol .

Aria that's what i thought to, but Horus never had ears nor a beard. The sphinx had a beard and still has the ears..

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Opinion: Same reason we blasted and carved faces into a mountain in South Dakota... Because they could!

Big difference between the two... Let's just start with umm technology maybe?.. It's a hassle for us to do something like this even today, let alone thousands of years ago. Oh and did i mention it's carved into Bedrock.. That's no ordinary stone. One of the most solid, dense, hard rock. But thanks for the input.

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I found this interesting :

The Egyptian's did have a name for the Sphinx beginning in the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom. It was 'Haremakhet' in Egyptian and 'Haremakhis' in Greek and the Sphinx's name meant "Horus in the Horizon." This was in context to some of the new Deities that were born of that era and were derived from foreign sources. Yet there is no evidence or documentation from the Old Kingdom or Middle Kingdom (Giza was mostly abandoned during this period) to provide us with its original name or function.

Haremakhet was designated to the Great Sphinx of Giza to define it as the 'King of Egypt' ( a King was a physical carnation of Horus in his lifetime and reigned as Horus as legend tells as ruler of all of the lands - 'Osiris and Isis legend' ) as there were other Sphinxes in Egypt as well as other countries. So this particular name was born from the God or Deity 'Horus' (which is in great controversy as Horus is depicted by a Falcon not a Lion - and every Pharaoh reigned as a depiction of Horus ) and also as far fetched as being related to Solar worship. The name 'Haremakhet' did not appear until Amenophis I and the Great Sphinx images on the stele of Amenophis II and Tuthmosis IV were actually the image of the existing Great Sphinx which was previously sculpted. It is thought that the face of the Great Sphinx is that of Chephren's as the Sphinx somewhat over looks Chephren's Funerary - Mortuary Temple Complex on the Giza Plateau.

Edited by aria7
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Oh and did i mention it's carved into Bedrock.. That's no ordinary stone. One of the most solid, dense, hard rock. But thanks for the input.

Yeah, but it's just limestone bedrock.

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Either way, That's still a task.. As far as we know they used bronze tools... That wont get you far even if it is limestone.

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Either way, That's still a task.. As far as we know they used bronze tools... That wont get you far even if it is limestone.

A task yes, but probably less of a task then building a pyramid and they made tonnes of those.

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Either way, That's still a task.. As far as we know they used bronze tools... That wont get you far even if it is limestone.

Some bronze alloys can be harder than wrought iron. Don't underestimate the strength and durability of bronze. There are theories that a significant reason for some civilizations progress into the iron age is simply due to the expense and difficulty in finding or importing enough tin.

Edited by Slave2Fate
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Some bronze alloys can be harder than wrought iron. Don't underestimate the strength and durability of bronze. There are theories that a significant reason for some civilizations progress into the iron age is simply due to the expense and difficulty in finding or importing enough tin.

But what do you think it was used as? .. we already know that it was a hassle to build.. now why did they build it?

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But what do you think it was used as? .. we already know that it was a hassle to build.. now why did they build it?

For the most beautiful and amazingly human reason of all - someone wanted to see if it was possible to do so pigheaded push forward and did it.

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But what do you think it was used as? .. we already know that it was a hassle to build.. now why did they build it?

Obviously the sphinx was a symbol. Either of the divinity or strength of the reigning pharaoh most likely. Pharaohs had egos the size of...well, the pyramids really.

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Equally, you have to remember Egypt is basically sand and a river that floods once a year.

There's no where that's "sacred", no "sacred groves" or "sacred mountains" - no one place you can point to, call sacred to the gods, and hold ceremonies there (or even ... use as a navigational aid, ie "west of the sacred grove") so they had to build them.

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-First off, let me tell you that i'm definitely not educated properly when it comes to these Ancient Mysteries.(Huge noob) I'm just truly intrigued and want to learn more from your opinions/fact that you might have.. Try not to hate on my grammar/noobness, thanks.

-Why do you think the Sphinx was built? Many say the Egyptian Pharaohs used slaves to build these massive "tombs", but with most of the facts i have read this really confuses me. First off.. these so-called "tombs" have yet to produce a corpse. These aren't your normal coffins, these take decades to build. Why on earth would anyone want to intend on their death decades before they would even perish. I've also read that in 1817 Gianbattista Caviglia cleaned the front of the Sphinx. This hadn't been done since the fall of the Roman Empire. When clearing the sand around the 'feet' of the Sphinx he noticed 13 lines of text located on the left paw. And get this, written in Greek. Hmm, again makes 0 sense seeing Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphs. Another thing is that the word 'Egypt' and the word 'Pyramid' of both of Greek descent. The text he found on the paw read: "This structure is the work of the immortal Gods. Placed so as to dominate the soil of this Land of harvest, Built in the center of a cavity from which they withdrew the sand, Like an island of stone in the vicinity of the pyramids, So that we can see it, Not as the sphinx defeated by Oedipus, But as a sacred servant of Leto, Who guards with vigilance; The Sacred Guide of the Land of Egypt." This Text is puzzling yet very intriguing.

-As you can see, i can't drawn any conclusions which is why im asking for opinions.

I believe the sphinx was intentionally to be Djedefre`s wife or mother, built by Djedefre but Khafra formed it into his image.

Edited by docyabut2
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I guess it could make sense.. Last i heard The sphinx and the 3 pyramids were aligned a certain way to fit if you put a diagram from the Aerial view. Trying to find it now. And im not thinking of orions belt because thats obviously just the pyramids.

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-First off, let me tell you that i'm definitely not educated properly when it comes to these Ancient Mysteries.(Huge noob) I'm just truly intrigued and want to learn more from your opinions/fact that you might have.. Try not to hate on my grammar/noobness, thanks.

-Why do you think the Sphinx was built?

Pretty much the same reasons as other contemporary similar structures.

Many say the Egyptian Pharaohs used slaves to build these massive "tombs",

Then 'many' are pretty out of date.

but with most of the facts i have read this really confuses me. First off.. these so-called "tombs" have yet to produce a corpse.

Many 'corpses' were looted, stripped of valuables, cast aside, ended up in museums, etc. For that point to be relevent, we would have to find an undisturbed pyramid or burial.

These aren't your normal coffins, these take decades to build. Why on earth would anyone want to intend on their death decades before they would even perish.

Because their consciousness is not focused on 'why on earth' - the 'afterlife' is more important to some people, as it is today. We are all going to die ... some people think they should address that .... before it is too late.

I've also read that in 1817 Gianbattista Caviglia cleaned the front of the Sphinx. This hadn't been done since the fall of the Roman Empire. When clearing the sand around the 'feet' of the Sphinx he noticed 13 lines of text located on the left paw. And get this, written in Greek. Hmm, again makes 0 sense seeing Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphs. Another thing is that the word 'Egypt' and the word 'Pyramid' of both of Greek descent.

So are most of the names of the Gods that came down to us, the Egyptians did not call Osiris and Isis by those names for example. They used a different language.

The text he found on the paw read: "This structure is the work of the immortal Gods. Placed so as to dominate the soil of this Land of harvest, Built in the center of a cavity from which they withdrew the sand, Like an island of stone in the vicinity of the pyramids, So that we can see it, Not as the sphinx defeated by Oedipus, But as a sacred servant of Leto, Who guards with vigilance; The Sacred Guide of the Land of Egypt." This Text is puzzling yet very intriguing.

-As you can see, i can't drawn any conclusions which is why im asking for opinions.

I am not sure what puzzles you, but as I see it : people came across the 'lost sphinx' - it position seemed dominant (and Egypt was known for its harvests) - it appeared to have been filled with sand (the area of rock that it was cut out from ) and they dug some of it out, revealing that the Sphinx had been carved out by removing the strone around it so it appears to be in a 'pit' ... or an island of stone , and it is in the vincinity of the pyramids. - now it seems more grand, not like the one in the Myth of Oedipus, but like .... well, what the text refers to.

Edited by back to earth
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Big difference between the two... Let's just start with umm technology maybe?.. It's a hassle for us to do something like this even today, let alone thousands of years ago. Oh and did i mention it's carved into Bedrock.. That's no ordinary stone. One of the most solid, dense, hard rock. But thanks for the input.

Quite right it is no ordinary stone. It is a pegmatite. There are much harder rocks than a pegmatite.

The sphinx is carved out of a softer rock.

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Have they found another sphinx yet?

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-First off, let me tell you that i'm definitely not educated properly when it comes to these Ancient Mysteries.(Huge noob) I'm just truly intrigued and want to learn more from your opinions/fact that you might have.. Try not to hate on my grammar/noobness, thanks.

-Why do you think the Sphinx was built? Many say the Egyptian Pharaohs used slaves to build these massive "tombs", but with most of the facts i have read this really confuses me. First off.. these so-called "tombs" have yet to produce a corpse. These aren't your normal coffins, these take decades to build. Why on earth would anyone want to intend on their death decades before they would even perish. I've also read that in 1817 Gianbattista Caviglia cleaned the front of the Sphinx. This hadn't been done since the fall of the Roman Empire. When clearing the sand around the 'feet' of the Sphinx he noticed 13 lines of text located on the left paw. And get this, written in Greek. Hmm, again makes 0 sense seeing Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphs. Another thing is that the word 'Egypt' and the word 'Pyramid' of both of Greek descent. The text he found on the paw read: "This structure is the work of the immortal Gods. Placed so as to dominate the soil of this Land of harvest, Built in the center of a cavity from which they withdrew the sand, Like an island of stone in the vicinity of the pyramids, So that we can see it, Not as the sphinx defeated by Oedipus, But as a sacred servant of Leto, Who guards with vigilance; The Sacred Guide of the Land of Egypt." This Text is puzzling yet very intriguing.

-As you can see, i can't drawn any conclusions which is why im asking for opinions.

Greetings, comatosed. I'm not sure if you and I have interacted before. Welcome to UM. Don't concern yourself with being a "noob" or having "noobness" (I like that term). You learn by asking questions and by studying the subjects which interest you.

Others have contributed very useful posts, so I will corroborate. That Greek writing should be found in conjunction with any Egyptian monument is not surprising, nor is it to find Aramaic, Babylonian, Persian, Latin, and other ancient tongues. Even Etruscan is documented. All this underscores is the mixing of cultures and peoples in the ancient world. Greek took dominion of Egypt in 332 BCE when Alexander the Great marched in at the head of his Macedonian army, and set in motion 300 years of Greek rule. You find Greek inscriptions and graffiti all over Egypt.

As it happens, much of the vocabulary we use in modern times to discuss ancient Egypt is in Greek or Arabic (e.g., Osiris, Isis, Amenophis, Memphis, Deir el Medina, Saqqara). This is what inevitably happens when the native tongue is supplanted by the languages of more powerful conquering peoples. The ancient Egyptian language is long dead, even though we can read its various scripts.

As for the Sphinx (yes, itself from the Greek language), little is concretely known about how its original builders thought or felt about it. The monument dates to the mid-third millennium BCE, and the fact is no texts contemporary to that time survive to tell us about the Sphinx. We simply cannot be certain, so we need to extrapolate from its context. It sits at the eastern edge of a Dynasty 4 necropolis, so it is clearly an integral part of that necropolis.

Docy wrote that it was probably commissioned by Djedefre, the king who followed Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid. With respect, this is unlikely and not well supported. We have some evidence that Djedefre helped to finish his father's pyramid complex, which initiated Giza as a royal necropolis, but then Djedefre left Giza and began the construction of his own pyramid to the north, at Abu Rawash. In Khufu's and Djedefre's time. the Sphinx is unlikely to have existed in any form, except for the protruding knob of limestone that would one day become its head.

Painstaking analysis conducted by the Giza Plateau Mapping Project has demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the Sphinx is structurally a part of the pyramid complex of Khafre (the second king to erect a pyramid at Giza). Quarrying operations show the Sphinx took form at the same time this pyramid complex did, including its attendant temples and causeway (source). We don't know what the Sphinx was called by the Dynasty 4 Egyptians, but the sphinx as a motif predates the one at Giza and it's a familiar mixture of lion and man: one of the pharaonic icons for kings. In fact, kings in Egypt were often referred to as mAi, the ancient Egyptian word for "lion." For all intents and purposes the Sphinx appears to be a royal guardian figure, in the guise of Khafre, for the Khafre pyramid complex. It's equally possible that Khafre intended it to be a guardian figure for everyone else buried at Giza. That it faces east is logical to the ancient Egyptian mind, for east was the rising sun and a powerful symbol of eternal spiritual resurrection.

Another poster pointed out that the Sphinx was called Horemakhet in the New Kingdom, which is correct. This is the first time we have evidence for a name for the Sphinx (c. mid-second millennium BCE) but we can't be sure if this is of any relevance to the Old Kingdom. Giza was no longer a burial ground by the New Kingdom, but had become both a religious center and leisure ground to which ancient Egyptian tourists journeyed and where kings like Tutankhamun hunted.

Nowadays one encounters all sorts of bizarre information about the Sphinx. There is Robert Schoch's old theory that it's many thousands of years older than conventionally thought, and Robert Temple's speculation that the Sphinx actually began as an Anubis form. These and other alternative approaches do not survive scrutiny and are not supported by the wider scientific and historical academic community.

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I thought I'd reserve a second post to address some of your other points, given my penchant for long-winded posts.

Note to Harte: See? I'm writing long-winded posts again. :w00t:

The idea that slaves built these structures is hardly modern, although much compounded by Hollywood and modern fiction novels. It can be traced all the way back to Josephus, a Jewish writer of late antiquity who posited that Hebrew slaves built the pyramids. This is of course comically wrong, as the Hebrews as a culture did not even exist when the pyramids were built. It is now more than passingly understood that the folks who built the pyramids and other royal monuments were paid corvée laborers. It's not as though they had a choice, as corvée was functionally similar to a military draft, but these workers were paid, supplied, fed, and cared for. We know that the governor of each province of ancient Egypt was responsible for raising men in his region for whatever tasks the king needed, be it military or works projects.

Then we have inferences, such as in Herodotus, that rulers like Khufu were merciless tyrants who forced his people into brutal abject toil. This we also cannot attest. The truth is, we have little understanding of the actual character or personality of any ancient Egyptian king. It was also Herodotus who wrote that Khufu prostituted his daughter to raise funds for building the Great Pyramid. This underscores the facts that ancient Greek writers could spin very colorful stories but were often very short on facts (which they replaced with very colorful stories).

The pyramids as tombs is a hot-button topic here at UM. As in the real world, the majority of us do not doubt that the pyramids were tombs. But there is a sect of posters who refutes this and replaces the idea of tombs with all sorts of unusual speculations. All I can say is, no professional researcher who bears expertise in the study of ancient Egyptian pyramids doubts their purpose as tombs. One must observe the context of these monuments and their place in the wider ancient culture. I don't want to bog down this discussion with yet another tedious debate on fringe approaches to pyramids, so I'll leave it at that.

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Have they found another sphinx yet?

Not one of this size, no. Much smaller ones have been found.

Quite right it is no ordinary stone. It is a pegmatite. There are much harder rocks than a pegmatite.

The sphinx is carved out of a softer rock.

Thanks for that info, was under the impression that it was bedrock. as i am not familiar with many rocks i assumed. which is why im on the forum... you can only learn from your mistakes

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A key point on the pyramids as tombs debate; we know they put their pharaohs into mastabas and much later into rock cut tombs, in-between they put them into pyramids. Now for those who assign other purposes to the pyramids - where did they put all those pharaoh during the pyramid age?

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