Landmark Africa
The Great Sphinx
The Great Sphinx is a giant stone statue in Egypt. It has the body of a lion and the head of a king. It is lying down near the pyramids.
The Great Sphinx at Giza, Egypt, is a lion with a human head, carved out of the solid rock about 4,500 years ago. It is about 73 meters long and 20 meters high, one of the largest sculptures in the world. Most experts think it shows the face of King Khafre.
Carved from the Giza bedrock in the 4th Dynasty, most probably under Khafre, the Great Sphinx is a recumbent lion with a royal human head, about 73 m long and 20 m high. Its rock layers, repairs and lost nose record 4,500 years of weathering, restoration and study.
Photo: MusikAnimal, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Discover the Great Sphinx
The Great Sphinx is in Egypt, a country in Africa.
It is a giant statue lying down, like a resting cat. It has a lion's body and a person's head. It was carved out of the rock right where it sits. The pyramids stand behind it.
The Great Sphinx lies on the Giza plateau, at the edge of the desert near Cairo, close to the famous pyramids. A sphinx is a statue with the body of a lion and the head of a person. In ancient Egypt, sphinxes showed the king with a lion's body, to show how powerful he was.
This one is enormous: about 73 meters long and 20 meters high, among the largest sculptures in the world. It was not built from blocks. Workers carved it straight out of the limestone rock of the plateau, about 4,500 years ago.
Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities calls the Great Sphinx the most famous of Egypt's colossal statues and the oldest, carved directly out of the bedrock during the 4th Dynasty (c. 2613 to 2494 BCE). Ancient Egyptian sphinxes represented the king with the body of a lion, a clear demonstration of his power.
Britannica describes it as a colossal limestone statue of a recumbent sphinx, about 240 ft (73 m) long and 66 ft (20 m) high, among the world's largest sculptures, with a lion's body and a human head wearing a royal headdress. Pigment residue suggests the entire statue was once painted. It lies within UNESCO's World Heritage Site of Memphis and its Necropolis, which names the Great Sphinx among its monuments.
- Where
- Giza plateau, Egypt, beside Khafre's valley temple
- Size
- about 73 m long, 20 m high
- Made of
- Limestone bedrock, carved where it stands
- Age
- 4th Dynasty, about 4,500 years old
Whose face is it?
Long ago, a king named Khafre built a pyramid at Giza.
Most experts think the Sphinx was carved for him. They think its face looks like his face. Many years later, another king may have helped look after it.
The Sphinx sits right beside a temple built for King Khafre, the king who built the second pyramid at Giza. Archaeologists found that his temple was finished before work on the Sphinx began. Its face also looks very like statues of Khafre. So most experts think the Sphinx was made for him, though a few think it was made for his father, Khufu, or his brother.
About 1,100 years later, around 1400 BCE, King Thutmose IV may have started the first efforts to protect it. He set up a huge stone slab with writing, called a stela, between its front paws.
The Ministry points to the evidence for Khafre (c. 2558 to 2532 BC in its dating; Britannica gives c. 2472 to 2448 BCE): the Sphinx and its temple lie directly beside Khafre's valley temple and the lower end of his causeway, careful analysis shows the valley temple was finished before work on the Sphinx began, and the face strikingly resembles Khafre's statues. Britannica notes that others credit his older brother Redjedef or their father Khufu.
Mark Lehner of Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA), who mapped the Sphinx and its temple stone by stone from 1979 to 1983, concludes that Khafre created most of the Sphinx, though Khufu might have started it, and rejects claims that it is thousands of years older. Britannica says efforts to preserve the statue may have begun under Thutmose IV (c. 1400 to 1390 BCE), who, the Ministry records, erected a monumental stela, the Dream Stela, between its front paws.
Carved from the rock
Workers did not stack blocks to make the Sphinx.
They cut away rock all around a big lump of stone. Then they carved the lump into a lion with a king's head. They used stone hammers and copper tools.
First, workers dug a huge U-shaped trench, called a ditch, into the rocky plateau. They left a giant block of limestone standing in the middle, and carved it into the Sphinx. The stones they cut from the ditch were used to build the temple in front of it. Some weigh up to 100 tons!
The rock is made of layers that formed on an ancient sea floor millions of years ago. The head was carved from a harder layer, so its details have lasted well. One estimate says 100 workers with stone hammers and copper chisels would have needed about three years.
AERA explains that the quarrymen cut a U-shaped ditch and left a large block of limestone from which the Sphinx was carved. The core blocks of the Sphinx Temple, some weighing up to a hundred tons, show the same geological layers as the Sphinx's bedrock, so they were quarried from the ditch: the statue and temple belong to one quarry-and-construction sequence.
The layers formed in the Eocene, some 34 to 56 million years ago, under a retreating sea. The lowest, hard reef layer (Member I) forms the floor; the soft-and-hard marl beds of Member II run through the body; the head is of the harder, fine-grained Member III, which is why details like the eyebrows have survived wind, rain and sand. Britannica cites an estimate that 100 workers with stone hammers and copper chisels would have needed about three years to finish the statue.
Head, body, paws and temple
The Sphinx wears a royal headdress, a cloth that hangs down beside its face.
Its nose is missing. Its long front paws stretch out in front. Long ago, the whole statue was painted.
The head wears a royal headdress, with flaps that hang beside the face. The nose is missing, and no one knows for sure how it was lost. A story says soldiers of the French general Napoleon shot it off, but drawings made before they came already show the Sphinx without a nose.
The long body has stripes of rock layers, and stone blocks have been added over the centuries to repair it. The front paws stretch out toward a temple, the Sphinx Temple. Tiny traces of paint show that the whole statue was once colored.
Britannica describes the human head with its royal headdress and notes that the body has suffered the most erosion, though the face is also damaged. The missing nose is unexplained: the claim that Napoleon's troops shot it off is contradicted by pre-Napoleonic illustrations of a noseless Sphinx; another theory attributes the damage to Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr in the 14th century.
AERA's work shows the natural strata of the limestone running along the body, overlaid by masonry veneers from different periods of repair, which Lehner color-coded by period on a 1979 elevation drawn by Ulrich Kapp of the German Archaeological Institute. Between the front paws stands the Dream Stela of Thutmose IV, and in front lies the Sphinx Temple; the Ministry adds that Amenhotep II built a temple next to the Sphinx.
- Length
- about 73 m (240 ft)
- Height
- about 20 m (66 ft)
- Between its paws
- The Dream Stela of Thutmose IV
- In front
- The Sphinx Temple
Studying the Sphinx today
Today, scientists study the Sphinx very carefully.
They draw maps of every stone. They take pictures from the air. This helps them take care of it.
Until 1979, nobody had ever made an accurate drawing of the Sphinx to scale. From 1979 to 1983, a team mapped it stone by stone and made hundreds of maps and drawings. Some of the areas they recorded have since been covered by repair work, so their drawings are the only record left.
In 2018 and 2019, archaeologists came back with new tools, including radar that sees under the ground, and drones and laser scanners that made a complete 3D picture of the Sphinx.
AERA reports that no scale drawings of the Sphinx existed before the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) Sphinx Project of 1979 to 1983, directed by James Allen with Mark Lehner as field director. It produced master plans, elevations, sections and profiles and mapped masonry repairs, the temples, the Sphinx amphitheater and the structural geology: 364 maps and drawings, 3,857 slides and 1,740 black-and-white photographs. Later conservation covered some documented areas, leaving the archive as their only record; digitizing it began in 2016.
The Return to the Sphinx Viewing Project, directed by Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner, used mapping, topographic survey and ground-penetrating radar at the Sphinx's base in 2018 and at the Sphinx Temple in 2019, while a Japanese team led by Yukinori Kawae recorded the whole statue in 3D by drone, photogrammetry and laser scanning.
Amazing facts
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The Sphinx was once painted.
Tiny bits of old paint suggest that the whole Sphinx was once painted in color.
Pigment residue suggests the entire Great Sphinx was painted.
-
Its head is made of harder rock than its body.
The head was carved from a harder layer of rock, so details like the eyebrows have lasted about 4,500 years.
The builders used the massive, fine-grained Member III beds for the exposed head; the softer Member II beds of the body weathered faster.
-
No one is sure how the Sphinx lost its nose.
A story says Napoleon's soldiers shot off the nose, but drawings made before they arrived already show it missing.
Pre-Napoleonic illustrations show a noseless Sphinx; one theory attributes the damage to Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr in the 14th century.
-
Nobody drew an exact map of the Sphinx until 1979.
The first exact drawings of the Sphinx were made from 1979 to 1983, stone by stone.
The ARCE Sphinx Project (1979 to 1983) made the first scale plans of the Sphinx: 364 maps and drawings.
Words to know
- sphinx
- a statue with the body of a lion and the head of a person
- bedrock
- the solid rock under the soil and sand
- limestone
- a rock made mostly from the shells and skeletons of tiny sea creatures
- stela
- a tall stone slab with writing or pictures carved on it
- erosion
- slow wearing away of rock by wind, water and sand
- archaeologist
- a scientist who learns about the past by studying what people left behind
Discovery challenge
-
What animal's body does the Sphinx have?
The Sphinx has a human head and the body of which animal?
Which animal's body represented the king's power in Egyptian sphinxes?
- A lion
- A horse
- An elephant
Show the answer
A lion
A lion! It is lying down like a resting cat.
It has a lion's body and a human head wearing a royal headdress.
A lion: sphinxes showed the king with a lion's body as a demonstration of his power.
-
How was the Sphinx made?
How did workers make the Great Sphinx?
What method produced the Great Sphinx?
- It was carved from the rock where it sits
- It was made of bricks
- It was cast in metal
Show the answer
It was carved from the rock where it sits
Workers carved it from the rock where it sits.
Workers dug a ditch around a big block of limestone and carved the block into the Sphinx.
Quarrying a U-shaped ditch left a block of bedrock that was sculpted; the ditch blocks built the Sphinx Temple.
-
Which king do most experts think the Sphinx was made for?
Which king do most experts think the Sphinx's face shows?
To whose reign do most scholars attribute the Great Sphinx?
- Tutankhamun
- Khafre
- Ramses II
Show the answer
Khafre
King Khafre, who built a pyramid at Giza.
Most experts think it shows Khafre, whose temple stands right beside it.
Khafre: his valley temple was finished first and the face resembles his statues; some argue for Redjedef or Khufu.
-
What part of the Sphinx is missing?
Which part of the Sphinx's face is missing?
Which damaged feature of the face has an unexplained loss, despite the Napoleon story?
- Its nose
- Its ears
- Its whole head
Show the answer
Its nose
Its nose! No one knows for sure how it was lost.
The nose is missing; drawings show it was gone before Napoleon's soldiers came.
The nose: pre-Napoleonic illustrations already show it missing.
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The Giza pyramid complex is a group of ancient tombs on a rocky plateau beside the Nile River in Egypt. Three kings from one family, Khufu, his son Khafre and his grandson Menkaure, built huge pyramids there about 4,500 years ago. Around them are temples, small pyramids for queens, rows of tombs for nobles, the Great Sphinx and even the town where the builders lived.
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For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Locate Giza in Egypt and describe the Great Sphinx as a lion with a royal human head.
- Explain how the Sphinx was carved from bedrock and how its rock layers affected its weathering.
- Describe how archaeologists use evidence to decide who built the Sphinx.
- Discuss why careful mapping and recording help protect ancient monuments.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Archaeologists used the Sphinx's temple stones to work out who built it. What clues would you look for?
- The Sphinx's head has lasted better than its body. Why might one kind of rock last longer than another?
- A famous story about the nose turned out to be wrong. How can we check whether a story about the past is true?
Try at home or in class
- Press layers of different colored modeling clay into a block, then carve a small animal from it with a spoon and look at the stripes.
- Rub a soft rock (chalk) and a hard rock (a pebble) on sandpaper the same number of times and compare how much each wears away.
Key vocabulary: sphinx, bedrock, limestone, stela, erosion, archaeologist
Where these facts come from
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- The Great Sphinx , Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Egypt
- Great Sphinx of Giza , Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Who Built the Sphinx? The Sphinx Temple Has the Answer (Mark Lehner) , Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA)
- Sphinx Project , Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA)
- Memphis and its Necropolis: the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur , UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA); see each media record)
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated October 27, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.