"Sphinxes are legion in Egypt what is so special about this one? .
. . We shall take a stroll around the monument itself, scrutinizing
its special features and analyzing the changes it experienced
throughout its history. The evidence linked to the statue will
enable us to trace its evolution . . . down to the worship it
received in the first centuries of our own era, when Egyptians,
Greeks, and Romans mingled together in devotion to this colossus,
illustrious witness to a past that was already more than two
millennia old." from the IntroductionThe Great Sphinx of Giza is
one of the few monuments from ancient Egypt familiar to nearly
everyone. In a land where the colossal is part of the landscape, it
still stands out, the largest known statue in Egypt. Originally
constructed as the image of King Chephren, builder of the second of
the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx later acquired new fame in the guise
of the sun god Harmakhis. Major construction efforts in the New
Kingdom and Roman Period transformed the monument and its environs
into an impressive place of pilgrimage, visited until the end of
pagan antiquity.Christiane Zivie-Coche, a distinguished
Egyptologist, surveys the long history of the Great Sphinx and
discusses its original appearance, its functions and religious
significance, its relation to the many other Egyptian sphinxes, and
the various discoveries connected with it. From votive objects
deposited by the faithful and inscriptions that testify to details
of worship, she reconstructs the cult of Harmakhis (in Egyptian,
Har-em-akhet, or "Horus-in-the-horizon"), which arose around the
monument in the second millennium. "We are faced," she writes,
"with a religious phenomenon that is entirely original, though not
unique: a theological reinterpretation turned an existing statue
into the image of the god who had been invented on its basis."The
coming of Christianity ended the Great Sphinx's religious role. The
ever-present sand buried it, thus sparing it the fate that overtook
the nearby pyramids, which were stripped of their stone by medieval
builders. The monument remained untouched, covered by its desert
blanket, until the first excavations. Zivie-Coche details the
archaeological activity aimed at clearing the Sphinx and, later, at
preserving it from the corrosive effects of a rising water table."
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