The Great Sphinx of Giza

We begin our journey to the Sphinx with Google.

The Great Sphinx of Giza is a statue on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. It is the largest monolithic statue in the world; it was carved out of a single rock. The Sphinx is 241 feet long, 63 feet wide and 66.34 feet high. It is the oldest known monumental structure in the world, believed to have been built between 2558–2532 B.C.E.

From the Wikimedia Commons.

According to Wikipedia, Egyptian Arab historian al-Maqrīzī wrote in the 15th century C.E. that the Sphinx lost its nose in 1378 C.E. due to the iconoclastic vandalism of a Sufi individual named Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr. al-Dahr was outraged to find Egyptian peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope that their harvests would increase and subsequently broke the nose off the statue. He was hanged for his actions.

Photo credit: dungodung

Google Maps provided a satellite view of the Sphinx as well as a “Street View” perspective of the statue based on photographs people have shared on the Internet.

Flickr and Fotopedia provided great slideshows of photographs of the Sphinx.

It was hard to come by good information on the Sphinx. The best source I found for comprehensive information on it was Wikipedia.

The Great Sphinx of Giza is an icon of one of the most advanced civilizations in the ancient world. It’s among the places I’ve not physically been to yet. It is, however, one of the places I absolutely want to visit at some point in my life.