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The Great Sphinx of Giza, is a limestone riddle Medieval Arab writers, including
statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical al-Maqrīzī, call the Sphinx balhib and
creature with the body of a lion and the bilhaw, which suggest a Coptic influence.
head of a human. Facing directly from West The modern Egyptian Arabic name is (‘abu
to East, it stands on the Giza Plateau on alhīl / ‘abu alhawl IPA: [‘abu alho’l], “The

the west bank of the Nile Terrifying One”; literally
in Giza, Egypt. The face “Father of Dread”)
of the Sphinx is generally Some early Egyptologists
believed to represent the Great and excavators of the
pharaoh Khafre. Giza pyramid complex

and associated temples to
Cut from the bedrock, Sphinx believed the Great Sphinx
the original shape of the predate the Fourth Dynas-
Sphinx has been restored ty rule of Khufu, Khafre,
with layers of blocks. It of Giza and Menkaure. Flinders
measures 73 m (240 ft) Petrie wrote in 1883 re-

long from paw to tail, 20 m garding the state of opin-
(66 ft) high from the base ion regarding the age of
to the top of the head and the nearby temples, and
19 m (62 ft) wide at its rear haunches. It is by extension the Sphinx: “The date of the
the oldest known monumental sculpture in Granite Temple [Valley Temple] has been
Egypt and is commonly believed to have so positively asserted to be earlier than the
been designed, sculpted, and constructed fourth dynasty, that it may seem rash to
by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom dispute the point”.
during the reign of the pharaoh Khafre

(c. 2558–2532 BC).
The commonly used name “Sphinx” was
given to it in classical antiquity, about
2000 years after the commonly accept-
ed date of its construction by reference to
a Greek mythological beast with a lion’s
body, a woman’s head and the wings of an
eagle (although, like most Egyptian sphinx-
es, the Great Sphinx has a man’s head and
no wings). The English word sphinx comes
from the ancient Greek (transliterated:

sphinx) apparently from the verb (translit-
erated: sphingo / English: to squeeze), af-
ter the Greek sphinx who strangled anyone
who failed to answer her.