The Sphinx:

Ask not why

Profile by Samir Sobhi

The Sphinx appears in legends and myths, all over the world. It is known to travellers and poets, archaeologists and robbers raiding the ancient sites. The Sphinx, too, has suffered discrimination. It has not been counted as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, on an equal footing with the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Great Wall of China. Yet its share of world attention has never diminished. Is the Sphinx as old as the age in which it was built, as old as the day it was recovered from the desert sands, or as old as the history of humanity itself?

For more than four millennia, the Sphinx has watched the march of time: Greeks, Romans, Copts, Arabs and Turks came and went. The French under Napoleon were the first to sketch the Sphinx and to unravel the wonders of Ancient Egypt. Mohamed Ali, the reformer who modernised Egyptian life, was essentially a futurist, with little interest in antiquities. More recently, the Sphinx came under threat by the Pyramid Plateau Housing Project, a mammoth development scheme opposed by intellectuals and large swathes of the population alike. Well-founded alarm was voiced regarding the threat the project would pose to the priceless monuments in the Pyramids area, from drinking and drainage water seeping into the desert, from erosion, and pollution from human sources. Fortunately, the late president, Anwar El-Sadat, personally intervened to halt the project.

Silent for thousands of years, the Sphinx was not doomed to silence for ever. Today, it is part of a sound and light project. When night has fallen, the dark, still plateau comes back to life. Awash in bright stage lights, the desert reverberates, echoing with the voices of kings, queens, high priests, generals, soldiers and masses, shouting, whispering, cheering, riding to battle.

I decided that I would approach the Sphinx through the camera lens. I spent ten days with the photographer, observing and taking shots of the statue from all angles. Each photo revealed some new aspect of this enigmatic creature.

The papyri scattered throughout the museums of the world will reveal new facts about Egypt, Misraim or the Land of Kinana. Then, perhaps, the Sphinx's secrets will be revealed.

The Sphinx, today, is as bewildered as Ramses II. The two are ailing. The Pharaoh is to be moved from Ramses Square to some less polluted location. As for the Sphinx, it is being eroded by climate, pollution and human activity.

Since the beginning of this century, several teams have carried out restoration work on the huge beast. Did they do more harm than good? Today, the damage is being reversed. The unknown sculptor who carved the Sphinx millennia ago covered it with a layer of stone. The statue could be suffering from an illness as old as the rock from which it was carved. How old is that? Only the papyri know...

Sitting opposite Zahi Hawwas, director of the Giza plateau, I was struck by the resemblance. Hawwas said that legends, fantasies and research have proliferated. The Sphinx seems to exist to baffle mankind. In the heart of the enormous statue, five metres deep, is a 10 x 12-metre chamber . Hawwas says that the Cable News Network has focused on the restoration of the statue. CNN announced that the sphinx had recovered, and could once more guard the Pyramids of Giza, particularly the Pyramid of Khafre, the king who gave his features to the Sphinx.

At this point, the Sphinx intervened: "Some claim that I will soon be 4,600 years old. I am looking forward to celebrating the occasion, even if the candles on the birthday cake do not reflect the true number of my years! The first to sketch me came with the French Expedition, but I remember that by then, my beard had already been whisked away, and my nose broken."

I am presently looking at a picture of Gamal Mukhtar, late director of the Antiquities Department. I can hear him explaining the Sphinx.

"The idea emerged when a valley temple was built at the edge of the Nile, east of the Pyramids. Here the high priests performed funerary rites, after which the deceased was carried up the causeway to the mortuary temple prior to interment in the pyramid. It was essential, therefore, to build the Sphinx: human reason and sheer animal force would keep an ever-vigilant eye on the City of the Dead. The Sphinx guarded the necropolis, and was himself immune to death. Thus the Sphinx survived, by struggling against the hostile forces of nature, the environment and man."

Sayed Tawfiq, a former director of the Antiquities Department, who discovered 36 tombs in the district of Saqqara, writes: "The Sphinx is perched near the funerary temple of King Khafre at the eastern edge of the Plateau, facing east. The statue is part of the remains of the pyramids of King Khafre. In 1886, Maspero continued earlier excavations, removing earth from around the temple, and the Department of Antiquities completed the operation in 1926. In 1936, the clearing of sand and reconstruction works were finalised."

Although tradition has it that Napoleon's army broke the Sphinx's nose (which, like that of Cleopatra, certainly changed the course of history), the Mameluke chronicler Al-Maqrizi writes that a Sufi named Sa'im Al-Dahr, his contemporary, committed the act in abhorrence of idolatry.

In the New Kingdom (1567-1080BC), the Sphinx represented the sun-god Re-Harakhte, meaning "Horus of the horizon". He was regarded as the guardian of the necropolis, and a deity in his own right, with a congregation who flocked to worship at his feet on pilgrimage. In Egyptian mythology, the lion was the guardian of holy places. In a text of the 26th Dynasty (644-525BC), the following words are said to have come from the lips of the Sphinx: "I protect your tomb, guard your burial chamber and deter strangers..."

Sphinxes are intimately linked to Ancient Egypt. There are two conflicting theories regarding their origin. In Greek mythology, a winged lioness with a woman's head was a cruel being who spoke in riddles. The second legend identifies the sphinx with lion gods. In Egypt, it is usually represented as possessing the head of a pharaoh and the body of a lion. The common elements in the two legends gave rise to general confusion, and to the belief that the Greek name and the representation of the sphinx had been taken from Egypt through Syria. If valid, such a theory would simply imply that the sphinx left Egypt a docile deity, only to turn into a cruel monster in Greece. In Egyptian mythology, however, the sphinx was never cruel: neither the statues with a woman's head (representing queens) nor those with the head of a lion and the wings of a hawk. The sphinx has always been identified with kingship, unrelenting in the face of enemies, a king or the sun-god. Just as a lion, the Sphinx was invincible in quelling rebels and defending the righteous. A pharaoh would compare himself to a pride of lions protecting a temple. The pharaoh called himself the twin brother of the sphinx, describing the two of them as lions, the "guardians of the two horizons." The sphinx is at times represented as a god in the form of a lion, defending his pride. This concept is clearly manifested in the rows of sphinxes with ram heads on the path leading to the Temple of Karnak. Lions with ram heads are associated with Amun.

But the Sphinx in Giza is the largest and most famous of sphinxes. The statue, made of limestone, is over 70 metres high. It was built by Khafre to guard the western passage, where the sun and the dead disappear. When kings went hunting in the vast desert around the Sphinx, the events were recorded in mural engravings. On pitching its tents near the Sphinx, a Canaanite tribe took the statue for the god Hurun.

The Sphinx disappeared, buried in the sand, only to reappear once more, as majestic and awe-inspiring as ever. Observing its eyes and mouth, now, one can easily believe that the divine beauty of the face could have lasted, sand notwithstanding, had it not been for a mediaeval prince who destroyed the "idol's smile" with gunfire.

Hawwas explained the area encompassing the Pyramids and Nazlet Al-Simman was known in hieroglyphics as the "Land of Osiris, lord of the gate to the labyrinths of the underworld."

Egyptians were the first to meditate about the sky, the earth, water, light, the sun and moon. "Who created this universe?" Their constant questions were behind their creation of the oldest civilisation in human history.

The Pyramids are visited every year by millions. Some come for spiritual reasons: there are New Agers, and those for whom Akhnaten is the first monotheist and Thutmosis III the greatest military commander of all time. The rituals of their pilgrimage include a visit to the pyramids at sunrise and the chanting of hymns in the burial chambers inside the great Pyramid. At the foot of the Sphinx, they chant hymns of adoration. They believe in an afterlife, and in the cleansing effect of their pilgrimage to Egypt.

The Sphinx, illuminated in the glare of the stage lights, seems impervious to these strange goings-on.

Mukhtar El-Suweifi, a member of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, is a Sphinx fan. He follows current Sphinx events avidly, and enjoys rumours just as he does hard facts. The beard is due to return from London, he assures me... the Sphinx will look different after a costly and difficult operation. Our minister of culture has stated that the Sphinx will last another 5,000 years before erosion affects it again.

On the stele between the great beast's paws, a story is told: a prince, who had fallen asleep in the shade of the Sphinx, dreamed that the statue told him he would become the ruler of Egypt, if he cleared away the sand surrounding it. The prince kept his promise to the Sphinx, and became King Thutmosis IV.

A mortuary text speaks of two sphinxes, one for sunrise and another for sunset. The gods Shu and Tefnun were represented as two lions: symbols of strength.

Perhaps the sun-god Atun, with its scorching rays, is the protector of lions. The relation between lions and the fertility of the land may be manifested at the flood season: at the earliest signs of the flood, the lion appears in the sky, and the land bears fruit, its fertility restored. The lions could also be part of the sun's journey into the underworld after sunset. Lions, after all, are charged with watching over the eastern and western borders of Egypt.

The Sphinx whispers softly: "I was created by a genius, a master of cubism, impressionism, surrealism..." More than ever, this mysterious beast is an enigma which modern science will unravel -- but which only legend can explain.