The Sphinx – a symbol of Egypt known to the world, but how it was built is still a great mystery of mankind.
In front of the Khafre pyramid – the second largest pyramid in Egypt, there is a giant statue of an animal with a human face but the body of a lion lying in a prostrate position. That is the sphinx. Along with the pyramid image, the sphinx becomes a symbol when referring to Egypt.
The sphinx in front of the pyramid of Khafre is the largest statue of this animal in Egypt and probably also the largest statue in the world. According to the book Stories of World History , this statue is 57m long, 20m high, 2.3m wide mouth and 1.4m long ears.
Wikipedia adds, for a long time it was buried in the desert sand after the area of the tombs of the Pharaohs on the Giza plateau was abandoned. Attempts to excavate the first Sphinx were made in 1400 BC, when the young King Thutmose the 4th, after many attempts, managed to dig out the two front legs of the statue. The incident was recorded by this king in a marble stele placed between his legs that he dug. About 100 years later, there was a second excavation conducted by Pharaoh Ramesses II.
In 1817, during the first archaeological excavation supervised by Italian captain Giovanni Battista Caviglia, the entire chest part of the statue was liberated. From 1925 to 1936 the excavation of the Sphinx was completed. From there we can see the whole body of this great sphinx.
Although archeology has peeled off all the sand covering the sphinx, it has not been able to lift the mystery of the construction process and where the idea to sculpt this statue came from. Therefore, until now, there are still many different opinions about this statue.
Statue of the Sphinx next to the pyramid of Khafre. (Wikipedia image)
The book The Cultural Mysteries of Vietnam and the World cited a legend that when he built his pyramid, King Khafre did not dare to surpass his father Khufu, so he built his pyramid smaller. Still, he felt that the scene at his pyramid was missing something.
During a visit to check the construction progress, a worker asked the king to carve a stone larger than 2,000 tons on the construction site into a statue symbolizing the majesty of the Pharaoh. The statue that the craftsman proposed to engrave was the sphinx.
Another more popular legend says that the Sphinx was born from an Egyptian folk myth. The story goes that, when the king of Thebes, Raia, gave birth to a son, the astrologer looked at him and said, “This child will later kill his father and marry his mother”. Seeing the unjust prediction, the king sent a goat herder to bring the baby into the forest to feed the wolves.
The goatherd couldn’t bear to take the baby to a neighboring country to be raised by King Corinth’s goat herder. King Corinth and his wife loved the baby so much that they raised it as their own son and named it Oedipe.
Oedipe grew as big as blowing, soon became a handsome, strong-willed young man. Suddenly he heard an old prophecy. Thinking that the Corinths were his parents, he quietly fled the palace for fear of the prophecy. He headed for Thebes. On the way, Oedipe met a group of chariots shouting to give way. Relying on his health as a prince, he did not give way. The man in the carriage was angry and beat Oedipe with a whip. He reacted but unexpectedly hit that person to death without knowing it was his father.
Continuing into Thebes, Oedipe meets a youkai with the face and breasts of a beautiful maiden but the body of a lion. This youkai who calls himself a Sphinx every day stands on the way out to give everyone a puzzle, if anyone can’t solve it, it will tear the carcass and eat it. Meeting Oedipe, the youkai also repeats the routine.
Oedipe was not afraid, but asked again: “What if I can answer it” . Overconfident, the demon said that if he answered it would kill itself. After that, Sphinx asked a difficult question: “What animal walks on four legs during the day, two legs in the afternoon and evening, and three legs at night” . Oedipe was helped by Athena, so he immediately replied that it was a human. At first, a man crawls on two legs and two arms, grows up to walk on two legs, and in old age has to lean on a cane to form three legs.
The answer is completely correct, the youkai must keep his promise and jumped into the abyss to commit suicide. The people made Oedipe king of Thebes and married the old king’s queen. A few years later, Thebes was hit by a series of natural disasters. Oedipe traditionally went to the temple of the gods for guidance. Through magic, he knew that he had killed his father. Too painful Oedipe blinded his own eyes.
It is a sad story. However, the people grateful to Oedipe’s destruction of the monster carved a large statue of the demon with the body of a lion with a human face in the place where it often appeared and where it is the land of the pyramid square of Khafre today.
Although this legend is popular, recently, archaeologists have said that this sphinx is about 10,000 years old. Whereas King Khafre was king around 2,500 BC, so he could not have been the creator of it. It has been hypothesized that the statue may have existed before and that King Khafre was the only one to complete it. Some other theories suggest that the shape of the sphinx is due to the weathering of the sand wind in the desert or due to the great floods caused by the Nile River. However, none of these theories are really convincing. All still have to wait until one day, the shovel of a certain archaeologist reveals information about the process of building the sphinx.