Ancient Civilisations - The Egyptian Sphinx

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Measuring 240 feet long from paw to tail, and around the height of a six-story building, the Great Sphinx is one of Egypt’s most spectacular, and mysterious, monuments. Believed to have been built over four millennia ago, much of its story has been lost to history, and the rest is shrouded in myth. So what do we know about who built it? What caused such an impressive structure to be forgotten for centuries? And how is it being protected today? This is a Short History Of The Egyptian Sphinx. A Noiser Production. Written by Nicole Edmunds. With thanks to Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. For ad-free listening, exclusive content, and early access to new episodes across the Noiser network, join ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Noiser+⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠noiser.com/subscriptions⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the year 1400 BC. The midday sun shines on the vast, lush plains of Giza in Egypt, bleaching the limestone buildings of bright white, as a soft breeze ripples the long grass. A dozen horses gallop across the plains, kicking up dust, stones and sand as they go. Sitting proudly on their backs, their riders whoop and cheer with excitement,

their heavy lion-skin robes snapping in the wind. The rider at the front of the group, King Amunhotep II, sits astride a beautiful, sleek black horse. His rich jewelry glistening in the sun, he turns around to face his men, holding up his bow in triumph to signal his hunting victory. A little way off, lying beneath a tamarisk tree is the body of a lion, the king of the jungle, slain by the king of Egypt. The men ride on, but one of the party lags behind. The king's son, Tut Moses, slows his horse to a stop, and swings his legs over its back, landing on the dry grass with a soft thud. He watches the hunting party ride off,

knowing they won't miss him if he takes a break for a minute or two. After all, he's only the king's second son. It's his elder brother who's destined to be a great pharaoh. His mouth is dry. and his limbs exhausted from the morning's hunt. The hot sun has made him sleepy, so while his friends are busy admiring their prey, he shakes off his cloak and lays it on the ground.

Leaning his throbbing head against a nearby slab of stone, he falls into a deep sleep. The world around him melts away, blurring into a strange dream scape. He sees himself running barefoot along a riverbank, as crocodiles snap at his heels. Now he's standing outside the royal palace, hammering on the front doors to be let in. Then the palace shrinks, shifting into something new.

Sandy Sphinx, with the body of a lion and head of a man stands before him. The creature introduces himself as Hamaka, the god of the sun. In a silky voice, he laments that he's been trapped under the shifting desert for decades, and longs to be released. He proposes a deal. If Prince Tuchmosis uncovers his body from the suffocating sand, he'll ensure he becomes Pharaoh after his father.

It's an irresistible deal, so he gets to his feet, ready to shake the gods' paw. But as he does so, Hamaket fades limb by limb until his entire body has vanished. It's as though the god was never there. Moments later, the prince awakens, confused and groggy.

He rubs his head, which is sore from leaning against the stone. And it's when he brushes the sand away from where he was sleeping, that he discovers the stone is shaped exactly like a giant animal's paw. Prince Tartmosis has been asleep against the centuries-long buried great sphinx of Egypt. Though we can't be sure whether this ancient prince really did dream of the sphinx, if the legend is true, then the creature kept his end of the bargain. Tert Moses eventually usurped his brother to become King Tutmosis the fourth of Egypt, and during his reign, Sphinx-worshipping took off around the empire,

perhaps in homage to the creature that made it all possible. But Tadmosis' dream isn't the only myth entwined with the Sphinx, measuring 240 feet long from paw to tail, and around the height of a six-story building. building, the Great Sphinx is one of Egypt's most spectacular and mysterious monuments. Believed to have been built over four millennia ago, much of its story has been lost to history. So what do we know about who built it? What caused such an impressive structure to be forgotten for centuries?

And how is it being protected today? I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Network, this is the Egyptian Sphinx. 3150 BC. In the arid deserts of Africa, along the banks of the River Nile, what will become one of history's most prominent civilizations is just beginning. Through trade, economic deals and military tactics, King Nama has joined the two regions of Upper and Lower Egypt to form a single Egyptian empire. But though now united, the people of Egypt aren't always easy to control. So Nama employs a number of of peacekeeping methods to maintain the fragile harmony of his new kingdom. Chief among them is religion. Salima Ikram is a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo.

For the ancient Egyptians, religion was terribly important, because you have to think, especially early on, you really don't have any defenses against the world which is difficult and challenging and terrifying. So gods and people who might help you become increasingly important and crucial to your own survival, as well as the survival of the entire world around you and the cosmos, which is why the Egyptians seem to have had a very complex religion, which also was inspired by nature. Much like the Romans and Greeks who will eventually follow,

the ancient Egyptians hold their gods in the highest esteem. They must be worshipped, appeased, and honoured with offerings or tributes to ensure general prosperity and good health. If anything goes awry, it signals the wrath of the gods. And when things go well, it must be because the gods are looking down favourably. Perhaps to distinguish them from mere mortals, the deities of ancient Egypt rarely take human form. Anubis, god of the afterlife, is depicted as, part jackal. Pathor, a goddess of the sky, has a cow's head, while Thoth, God of wisdom and magic, is

variously shown with some features of a baboon or an ibis. But it's Horus, God of the sky, who's often depicted as one of the most important creatures in Egyptian religious mythology, a sphinx. An iconic image from Egypt is the sphinx, which has the head of a human and the body of a lion, And the Sphinx was dissociated with the sun god. It is a manifestation of both the king and the sun god. So the sphinx embodies the power of the sun god, the power of the king, and the lion is used as this sort of part of the creation

because it's the king of the beasts. It is yellow like the sun. And of course the ruff of the lion is again like the rays of the sun emanating. So it was chosen as a quintessential symbol of the sun god. Centuries later, the Greeks will popularize their version of the Sphinx, who fiercely guards the city of Thebes, killing any trespassers who fail to solve her riddle. The Greeks will also give the creature its name,

from the verb Shingi, which means to bind or strangle, a testament to the Sphinx's deadly reputation. But it's in ancient Egypt, where the Sphinx is, originates. At first, Sphinxes are drawn as simple carvings, or made into small figurines to decorate people's homes, primarily the wealthy. Then, as the Egyptian Empire expands, it enters the era that will become known for its monument building. Though the craze will eventually lead to the construction of the great Sphinx, what comes first are its predecessors, Egypt's pyramids. In the period known as the Third Dynasty, which begins in around 2670 BC, King Zosa commissions an elaborate funerary complex that will house his body after death.

The notion of the afterlife is embedded in Egyptian culture, and naturally Zosa wants to do everything in his power to ensure a smooth journey from mortality to eternity. Of course, when people think about Egypt, in addition to the sphinxes and mummies, they think about pyramids. of course, the pyramids they think about are the great pyramids of Giza, but Egypt has more than 80 pyramids, and the first amongst those was the step pyramid at Sakara, built for King Zosa by his architect Imhotep. And this is an extraordinary building because it is the first monumental stone structure ever built in the world. The stone's blocks are smaller because it's sort of models on mud brick architecture, but then exaggerated. And that's why we have it the way it is. The step pyramid is really the one that started the ideas of pyramids that

established a lot of the parts of the complex. And so it started off by being a very simple stone structure that was rectangular. But then they thought, ooh, we can go higher with this and let's make it go up towards the sky. And so you have these steps that have been added on. So what you see now is a total of six steps and it all used to be encased with white limestone. So it was this gleaming, monumental creation dedicated to the god King Zoser. Zosa's step pyramid triggers a flurry of pyramid building throughout Egypt, with later rulers eager to make their mark on the desert landscape. A little over a century after Zosar's architectural triumph,

King Hufu takes monument building to another level when he oversees the construction of the great pyramid of Giza. For his pyramid, Hufu selects the Makatum formation, a vast undeveloped rocky plain in the north of Egypt in what is now southern Cairo. Crucially, the area consists of layers and layers of solid limestone rock, strong enough to bear the weight of a giant monument. Kufu recruits hundreds of men and houses them in a workers' camp known as Gergett Khufu, the settlement of Khufu.

The men are divided into teams and allocated jobs in the construction process, from laying the foundations and quarrying limestone to transporting the bricks, each one weighing around a ton to the desired site. It's possible that the bricks are positioned to align with the Great North Star, drawing on symbolism to connect the pharaoh to the celestial gods. Each day the men labor from dawn till dusk, spurred on by the friendly rivalry between opposing teams. Finally, after an estimated 25 years,

years, the Great Pyramid of Giza is complete. It measures 481 feet high and 755 feet wide. In modern terms, that's 100 foot taller than the Statue of Liberty. When Hufu dies, his mummified body is placed in a tomb inside the pyramid. Surrounded by religious artifacts within a divine structure, his soul will no doubt have a splendid afterlife. His great pyramid becomes legendary in ancient Egypt. So when his second son and eventual heir, Chafre, comes to the throne, he has enormous shoes to fill. Thanks to his trail-blazing father, the kingdom Chaffre inherits is hugely successful. By now the Egyptian Empire is at its zenith, stretching from Libya in the west to the Sinai Peninsula in the east and Nubia in the south.

protected by the Nile in one direction and the desert in the other, any would-be invaders are kept at bay. With such a stable empire at his fingertips, Chafre is able to focus on the future, particularly his own. Keen for his funerary monument to equal, if not surpass, that of his father, Chaffrey flexes his pharaonic powers and orders the construction of a second pyramid on the Giza plateau. When complete, his pyramid will be a few feet short. than his father's. But because it's built on an elevated area of the plateau, from a distance, both structures will appear to be of equal height. However, while the men are hard at work on the pyramid, Chaffrey is already embarking on his most ambitious architectural project yet. It's sometime during

the year 2,500 BC. In a horseshoe-shaped stone quarry, a few miles east of the Giza complex, a swarm of men are at work. Hundreds are deep inside the excavation, working in teams of four to move enormous slabs of limestone onto a set of wooden tracks. They wind ropes around the massive bricks, then drag them along the slats,

pulling and heaving until their muscles burn. These blocks of limestone are being transported to the Giza complex, where they'll form the base of King Haferi's pyramid. Above these layers, standing high on a rugged formation of limestone are more men. But their job is different. They are artists here not to build a pyramid, but a great statue. Their task is to use the rock that's left over and shape it into a giant sphinx with the body of a lion and the head of their pharaoh.

Clutching their tools, they climb around the rock, shaving sections into enormous paws, whittling down its chest and gently shaping its ears. One of the artists, a skinny teenage boy, sits on the northern corner of the platform, working on what will eventually be the creature's chest. Bare feet dangling off the side, he taps away at the limestone with a chisel and hammer until he has a smooth, sandy surface. The teenager pauses to run his hand along it, but now a dusting of sand showers his head. He looks up and spots the culprit, an elderly stone worker balanced on a wooden scaffold a few feet above.

The boy climbs up to examine his work and sees the old man is carving a deep oval hole, the length of a man lying down in the very front of the rocky platform. At the center of the Depression is a great round stone. As he stares at it, it seems to stare back. The artist is carving the air. eye of their king. The sight is impressive, and as the youth gets back to work, he is distracted. Imagine being important enough to have your face carved on a monument, but it gives him an idea. Soon the other workers are taking a quick break for lunch, downing tools and hurrying towards

the shade of the tamarisk trees. With the coast clear, the teenager takes his chance. Ignoring the rumble of his stomach, he clambers down from the platform and heads towards one of the blocks lying on the tracks. Withdrawing a chisel from his tunic pocket, he crouches next to the rocks and scrapes the blade into the limestone. With surgical precision, the teenager carves his initials. He smiles as he sits back and admires his handiwork, knowing that his name will be preserved for eternity, as one of the builders of King Haferi's Great Sphinx. The Great Sphinx of Giza is a fabulous monument because it's carved out of the living rock

and it is in the place where one of the quarries used to get the stone for the pyramid of King Kufu was located. But it seems that for some reason this rock was just left in place, either deliberately, they decided, oh, this is a good site to make a huge, massive sculpture that we're not. would act as the guardian of the entire cemetery. And so it's really carved out of the living rock,

and they've quarried away around it. They used the stone to make the pyramid, but then they fashioned this wonderful lion with a human head, which then they would have to have had scaffolding to get up to, to do all of this work. And there is quite a lot of fineness you can see still and paint. So what you see as a great sphinx now is a sort of grey-white thing, was once brilliantly painted

with yellowish things for the headdress, blue maybe, red for the face, eyes outlined. So really like a massive living image of the king as a god presiding over this necropolis. So it was made very carefully by people clambering all over it. But while historians offer their ideas regarding how the sphinx is built, there's ongoing controversy as to who it's built for. Most agree it's likely constructed under the orders of King Harfrey,

but there is room for speculation. Many scholars think that King Chafrey was the one who constructed the strings or ordered its construction because of its location near his Valley Temple. However, other scholars think that King Khufu had this made and that's why King Khafre's Valley Temple was chosen to be there, there's also a misalignment between his pyramid and the causeway. And pure scholars think that it was King Jeddh-F-ray, who had something to do with it. But that is because his name is Jedd-F-ray, i.e., the first king in that dynasty,

to really use the word Ray, which is the name of the sun god. Under the instruction of its creator, whichever king that may be, the Sphinx transforms from limestone rock to mythological creature, built as the eternal guardian of the royal tombs. All around it, other funerary monuments are erected. Eventually, 23 statues of Harfrey decorate the valley temple. Meanwhile, a road, the ceremonial causeway, links the elements of the complex, tying together the sphinx, the pyramid and temple as part of Harfrey's journey to the afterlife.

The great sphinx at Giza was made as a guardian of the entire cemetery and also as as a manifestation of the might and power of the ruler. So you have the ruler's face as the sun god, and it would be the first thing that people saw. And in fact, you had that, and you have these huge pyramids rearing up behind. So it was mainly protection, the presence of a god on earth,

manifestation of power, and ostentatious display of control and wealth. Following Halfray in 2532 BC, his son, Mencori, takes the reins and continues his father and grandfather's building legacy. He constructs a third pyramid at the Giza plateau to complete the trio. However, towards the end of Mencori's rule, pyramid building takes a back seat in Egypt. The Old Kingdom is noted for its magnificent pyramids, the huge sphinx, and its very great monumental architecture.

But what happened is that as time progressed, the whole ethos changed. And because the rulers wanted to use their resources for different things, so you have mud bricks, and then they faced with stone, so it looks like a big fancy pyramid. But then instead, they also said, well, we want a more complicated temple with more decoration. And also, by the way, we need to build a canal here. You need a network of canal. So instead of taking all their labor and resources for this, monument, they still had a lot dedicated to that, but they spent their resources for other things,

such as temple, building for cults of living of gods, as well as sort of public works that benefited the entire country. So it's not that the monumental ability stopped, it's just that they used resources differently. As well as the monuments, rulers have other things on their minds. As the old kingdom enters its final days, the power of pharaohs is challenged by provincial governors and wealthy landowners. New pockets of independents spring up, creating instability throughout the empire. The eras that follow see bouts of famine, war, and poverty, along with transient episodes of peace. While the Egyptian Empire shifts, Sphinx imagery stays in vogue. Apertropaic wands, curved ceremonial knives made of hippopotamus ivory, inscribed with double-headed

Sphinxes become popular as gifts, said to protect women in childbirth and babies. But though the idea of the Sphinx is going strong, the same cannot be said of the great Sphinx. As it was built from a natural formation of rock, many of its foundations sit below ground level, allowing decades of sand to be blown over the statue and fill in the gaps. The Sphinx is buried in a sandy tomb. while the pyramids sitting high above the desert landscape escape this fate. It is interesting to see that, you know, in the new kingdom they needed to clear the sphinx of sand because throughout Egyptian history, although the sphinx was important,

maybe the site of Giza was not given as much focus or attention, and that's why the sphinx would come and go in terms of religious popularity. So people around it knew that it was an important monument, that it was the sun god, that he would protect them in their little area. But the king and the court, who was in charge of looking after such monuments, obviously was not equally attentive throughout the 3,000 years of Egyptian history. However, the Sphinx's fortunes are about to change. In 1427 BC, King Ammanhotep II of the 18th dynasty takes the throne.

Amongst the new kingdom pharaohs, Amunhotep II is really, you know, the quintessential jock. He is the one who was always boasting about, I know my horses, I love my horses, I'm horse racing. Or I'm in my chariot and I am pulling my bows and arrows and I'm piercing these huge ingots at high speed while I go by. So he also was at the Giza Plateau, and it seems to have turned into a place where kings froliced.

So the area between Giza and Sakara, I think they might have even had a place as sort of a game reserve for hunting. places for chariot racing, places for sportsmanship, and you had these little tiny kiosk kind of things made by different kings around the area of the sphinx, because it would have been an obvious magnet. Sometimes the sphinx was all covered up, but the sphinx's head and then the Giza pyramid. Of course, it was a royal playground. It's during this era between the reigns of Amenhotep II and his son, Tup Moses IV,

that sorting fact from fiction gets even murkier. Some historians claim that it's Amenhotep II who recognizes the great sphinx as a representation of the sun god Hamaket, and though it's almost completely buried by this point, constructs a temple next to it to worship the god. But a second school of thought argues that it's in fact took Moses the fourth who restores the sphinx. So there's a wonderful story which we know because there's a big piece of stone as stila between the pores of the sphinx that. tells the story. And in it, the man who became King Tukmosis, he was not the heir to the throne, but in it he says, I was hunting in this area, I was hunting lions and all the things, and then I got really tired. And so I went and I slept in the shadow of the sphinx, and I had a

dream. And Reharovati, which is what the sphinx is, the god said to me, if you clear away the sand from around me and let me be seen again, then you will become Pharaoh. So promptly, Tertmosis cleared the sand away and then somehow his older brother died and he became king. And so this is all about it and he was also very big on Reharafti and solar gods. So that is how, if you look after a monument, you can be king. As king, Tuk Moses places importance on the worship of sphinxes and organizes the monument's first major restoration. Having endured years of wind, scorching temperatures and neglect, the body of the sphinx has begun to fall away in large chunks.

When it's freed from the sand, it emerges misshapen and rugged, its face lacking the detail the ancient artist's painstakingly carved. So, to Tumoses builders insert a large boulder into the back of the Sphinx to support its foundation. Then they fill its body with masonry to strengthen the softer layers, restore the creature's shape and touch up the color. To protect it from unwanted visitors, a massive mud-brick wall is also built to encircle the sphinx. But Tudmose's pharonic pride doesn't allow him to complete the restoration

without a little something to recognize his own brilliance. Between the pores of the sphinx, he erects a 15-ton, eight-foot-tall steeler or stone plaque. Through a series of hieroglyphs, it retells the dream encounter between himself and the Sphinx, uniting their names for eternity. Sadly, Tud Moses IV is the final Egyptian pharaoh to pay tribute to the great Svinks. After he is headed off to the afterlife, the monument has to wait until the arrival of the Greek rulers, the Ptolemis, in the third century BC, to experience a taste of its full.

former glory. In the Ptolemaic era, we have all these kings doing some kind of conservation work, especially down near the pores. And so you can see that the Ptolemy's did it and probably even the Romans continued this thing. And it's nice to think of Cleopatra popping over to Giza saying, ooh, the Sphinx needs a fresh coat of paint here. So let's do something and the eyeliner looks wretched. Please touch it up at once. When the Romans arrive in 30 BC, they are overjoyed. to inherit such grand monuments, and numerous emperors lead reconstruction projects. In the second century AD, Marcus A.Ralius sets about restoring the Sphinx, and his efforts are continued by Emperor Septimus Severus. Under Roman instruction, the Sphinx gains a staircase

inside the hollow portion of its body, and its flaky limestone walls are reinforced with stone and plaster. A platform is erected on the outside of the statue to allow esteemed guests to witness religious ceremonies in the temples below. So you can see that the sphinx has been modified as well as restored over time and it was not a static monument. It was a dynamic monument

so that whenever people were paying attention and when the sphinx was exposed it would be altered, added to change, restored, repainted, and it was a place where, of course, for the locals or people who lived anywhere in the greater capital area, the Sphinx was something of a place to go and hang out and be blessed by. The Western Roman Empire eventually crumbles in the 5th century AD, but the Sphinx's fame perseveres.

The monument becomes a site of pagan pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages, and many travelers from the time report visiting it in their journals. but not all of them are impressed. In 1402, an Arab historian writes that the Sphinx has been disfigured to remedy some religious errors. And a century later, a French naturalist claims, it no longer has the stamp of grace and beauty. Few centuries after this, rumors start up about the Sphinx's nose. One of the first people to document the Sphinx without a nose is a Danish naval captain. who sketches the monument in 1737.

As his drawings circulate, one theorist suggests that the nose was removed by rulers of opposing religions to suffocate the Egyptian spirits living inside. Another suggests it's the fault of a jealous Muslim leader. There are lots of stories when you go to Giza about how the sphinx lost its nose, and in fact it was because there was a fundamentalist Muslim

who thought that people were paying too much reverence to this place and to the Sphinx. And also they said its Arabic name is Abulholl, Father of Fear. So in a way, he wanted to say, look, it's just a statue. It doesn't have control over you or anything else. And so he got people in and basically blew off the Sphinx's nose and attacked it to say, I am doing this, I'm still alive, the Sphinx has no power over you. Get a grip, guys. One of the most famous theories about the Sphinx's nose is that it's used as target practice by Napoleon Bonaparte and his troops,

when they invade the country in 1798. Given that the first reports of the missing nose come around 60 years before the French invasion, it's clear the claim is false. But it is true that the French emperor pays the monument a visit. When Napoleon arrives at imbaba, a small city 10 miles north of the Giza complex, his army prepares to fight against the Egyptian troops and seize the city. But Napoleon isn't in Egypt for a one-off war, a long-time lover of all things Egyptian, he wants to settle,

which is why he's brought along almost 200 scholars, architects, doctors, geographers, engineers, and artists. Looking out towards the pyramids and the great sphinx, the emperor pays homage to Egyptian architecture. instructing his troops, think of it, soldiers. From the summit of these pyramids, 40 centuries look down upon you. In the same way the Sphinx witnessed the age of pharaohs come to an end, followed by the demise of Greek and Roman emperors, so too does it watch on as Napoleon's hubris proves to be his undoing. Led by Admiral Nelson, British forces defeat the French in 1801 and drive them out of Egypt. But as it turns out, you can take the dictator out of Egypt, but you can't take Egypt

out of the dictator. On Napoleon's return to Europe, a fascination with ancient Egypt blossoms. During the 19th century, a field of study known as Egyptology becomes fashionable. Academics and archaeologists grow obsessed with the notion of Egypt as a kind of unopened treasure chest, a mysterious nation crawling with thousands of years of magical secrets. In 1817, Italian captain Giovanni Battista Caviglia attempts to dig the monument out of the tons of sand that bury it. Using planks of wood to prevent the sand from pouring back in, his team of 160 men eventually reveal its chest. Caviglia discovers a fragment of the Sphinxies' beard, partially dissolved in the sand, as well as a statue of King Tutmosis the fourth between its pores,

and numerous remains of Sphinx figurines. Sadly, Kaviglia ultimately admits defeat, realizing that although the Sphinx's temple and parts of its chest and head are now free, he cannot prevent the sand from returning to bury the Sphinx's body. Further archaeologists continue Kaviglia's vision, clearing sand throughout the 19th century. But it isn't until 1937 that Egyptian archaeologist Selim Hassan finally succeeds in exhuming the Sphinx. Between October 1936 and June 37, Hassan and his team move around 1,300 cubic meters of sand per day. Like Kaviglia, they discover a treasure trove of ancient remains buried around the sphinx.

statues, religious ornaments, monuments to King Amunhotep II and Ramesses II, as well as traces of Roman and Greek graffiti. By the end of Hassan's project, the Sphinx is finally free. For the first time, since perhaps the days of Tudmosis IV, visitors can admire every inch of the monument, from the base of its paws to the tip of its headdress. Around the time of Hassan's work, a stranger than fiction rumor relating to the Sphinx begins circulating through American popular culture. American clairvoyant Edgar Casey claims to have psychic ability to see historical events, using a technique called retrocognition. Through various readings on ancient Egypt, he claims that not only was he formerly the Egyptian priest Rata, but he knows what happened to the lost city of Atlanta.

According to Casey, refugees fled from Atlantis to Egypt and buried their secrets in a hall of records beneath the Sphinx. It's a tall tale, to say the least, and Casey is hardly the most reputable source. But his claim sparks interest throughout America, and years later reaches the ears of a young archaeologist called Mark Lehner. It's late in the afternoon in March 1980, on the Giza Plateau. in Egypt. Nessled between the enormous paws of the Sphinx is a wooden office, a temporary home of American archaeologist Mark Lehner. Most of the other workers have gone home, but Lena remains. Dogged in his determination to discover the monument's mysteries, he sits scribbling notes at his makeshift desk. Finishing the latest observations, he snaps the work into a binder, then checks his

watch. There's still time to get another set of measurements before calling it a night. He grabs his canvas bag from a hook and then heads outside. With the sun dipping below the pyramids, he climbs a ladder leaning against the rump of the great stone beast. Standing on the top rung, he withdraws a wooden drawing board and folding ruler from the bag draped over his shoulder. In his teeth, he grips a pencil. Now he gets to work. Lena, extended. extends the ruler from the very corner of the Sphinx's rear to a small indentation further up its body. Carefully stepping from the ladder to the sandy surface, he scribbles the measurement down on his drawing board, as he scratches the results. Lena notices the paper he's writing on is starting to glow.

Looking to the west where the sun is setting, he allows himself a moment to appreciate the glory of it. The shadows of the enormous pyramids stretch out towards the goddial. like Sphinx, as if the ancient pharaohs are bowing down to it. Lena might be observing it over four millennia later, but tonight, on the March equinox, the ancient Egyptian architecture is as powerful as ever. Over five years, Mark Lainer and his team survey all aspects of the Sphinx, from the stones that form its crumbling crown to the dead-end tunnels and abandoned passageways that crawl beneath. What results is the most detailed map of the monument ever created?

Mark Lehner has done a lot of work on the Sphinx, and part of it, of course, involves some clearance and a closer study. In those days, he did it some time ago, so you couldn't do the same kind of photogrammetry you do now. But it was extremely close scholarly work on how the Sphinx was made, what the different layers are in terms of the geology, and also he became able to pinpoint which restoration might have been made in, say, the New Kingdom or the Middle Kingdom or the Ptolemaic period.

By taking samples of the different bricks that make up the statue, Lena constructs a detailed and layered image. Though the rocks of the sphinx were likely all taken from the Mochatum formation, the base of the sphinx, its paws, tail, and lower half of its body, consists of stone known as member one, a hard material providing a strong foundation. The member one stone rises to a height of 12 feet at the sphinx's rump and 3 feet at its paws. By far the largest portion of the sphinx's body is cut from member two stone. Seven layers alternate from soft to hard as they rise in elevation.

The more delicate elements such as the Sphinx's head, neck and facial features are carved from Member 3 stone. Much softer, it's ideal for shaping details, but it's also less durable, and succumbs to weathering at a faster rate. This ladder of hard to soft stone explains why the Sphinx has eroded in such an uneven way, but it also proposes an alternative theory as to how the Sphinx was created. It's possible that, rather than being built simply through the excavation of material for Ha-Frey's pyramid, its construction was carefully planned, with the bricks deliberately layered and positioned. We'll never know for certain which method was used, but it's possible that the truth lies

in a combination of the two theories. Perhaps the foundations of the Sphinx were left over from quarrying Ha-Raeing Ha-Raeus. Phaarais pyramid, while the upper levels were more selectively chosen. Though Lena never proves the existence of Casey's mythical hall of records, he does make another curious discovery. Littered around the plateau are fragments of discarded tools, suggesting workers left the job before it was finished. Some scholars who found tools lying around at the base of the sinks have thought that this is because the sphinx was incomplete.

But it is also possible that the tools don't date back to the time when the sphinx was being made, because the sphinx was restored several times in antiquity by many different rulers. So it's quite possible that the tools that were found are really not from the original carving of the sphinx, but from the restorations that happened over the millennia. But Lena's work does also pose an intriguing question. When the archaeologists are exploring some of the deeper tunnels below the sphinx, they find significant traces of moisture. How did water penetrate a statue sitting in the middle of a bone-dry desert? One of the issues with the stings why it constantly needs conservation, in addition to being attacked from outside wind and so on,

because there is groundwater eventually and the Sphinx is actually as a lower level than the rest of the monuments and the Giza Plateau, it is quite possible that it has been absorbing groundwater, which limestone does do, and this has been affecting the interior of the Sphinx as well and might have activated salts

that had been trapped in the limestone because this whole area was once underwater because it was under a big sea. And you can in fact walk around Giza and still see bottles from sea creatures. Today, 4,000 years since its likely initial creation, the Great Sphinx remains one of the most recognizable monuments in Egypt, if not the world.

Every year, around 14 million tourists flock to admire the Giza Plateau and bask in the impressive architecture of civilizations gone by. But though the view is astonishing, in many ways it's unrecognizable from the one in general. enjoyed in its glory days. Our experience today of the Sphinx is very different from what it would have been in the time that it was first made. Of course, when it was first made, it would have been, you know, this gleaming white limestone, but with the face painted and maybe a yellow wash to the body to make it look more like a lion.

And of course, there was also a large temple in front of it, which people sort of forget about. It's still there, but it would have been in a functional way. the water, the river, and the canals actually came far closer to the sphinx, and there would have been fields and water, so you would have had this sphinx rearing out as if it were coming out of the sort of start of creation. And this, again, then behind the sphinx, you would have seen the Giza pyramids, which would have been a fabulous sight looking like massive mountains, again plain white, with their tops covered with gold, which would have reflected the sunlight. And so you would have had this incredible image, both with the sphinx and with the pyramids, expressing the power of the sun god and of the king, which would have made any common person quail in awe. However, in the 21st century, architects and admirers of the sphinx face problems which the ancient Egyptians would never have worried about. Fumes from cars and factories have penetrated the sphinx, causing it to deteriorate at a faster rate. and pollution in the water is taking its toll too.

In response, engineers have installed hydraulic pumps in the Sphinx's base, which divert the corrosive groundwater. The Egyptian government has also implemented strict laws about the proximity of factories to the monuments of Giza and regulations about cleaner car engines. The hope is that the Sphinx's story will not end anytime soon. If it is adequately preserved, The statue can continue to guard not only the Egyptian Empire's long dead kings and queens,

but the memory of one of the world's greatest civilizations. I love the sphinx because it's just such a fun, mad, insane monument where you've got this big giant lion with a human head. And I love to go and see the paint on it still. And I really wish the nose was still there because you would get a much better sense of it. But the eye line and the eyes and then the fact that the painter's there, and you think, what kind of brushes were they using? Were they using rollers or what?

And how many people were employed? And was it something that people regularly did during the forced dynasty as sort of say, okay, three months on, must go paint the face of the Sphinx? And were there special teams for this? So looking at the Sphinx, it just gives you this insight or a lot of questions about how things were done in ancient Egypt. And also, it's just such a jolly thing to have.

Next time, we'll bring you the First Emperor of China. Everything we know about the First Emperor should be taken slightly with a pinch of salt. We have no idea, since there are no other sources, how true it was. The only thing you can be sure of is that there was a great wall, there was unification. He had huge palaces. He did have an enormously rich capital, and we know where all this took place, and there's been good archaeology to back up that. But some of the more leery details of how he came to power are to be doubted.

It makes wonderful television, but it may not be as true as the Chinese like to believe. That's next time.