Alright, I’ve made it pretty clear that I’m a huge history person, right? (Particularly when I was talking about Philadelphia: see here.) I’m also pretty big on mythology. (Just finished reading Percy Jackson. It’s a great series, go read it. No, wait, finish reading this post, then go read it. There ya go.) Well, just ’cause I feel like it, I wrote up a post about the Sphinx!
The Great Sphinx is a historical piece of sculpture located in Giza, Egypt. It was built out of limestone in about 2500 B.C.E. to protect the Pharaoh Khafre and his tomb. It faces east, which might have something to do with the Egyptian belief that the rising sun was a symbol of new life.
It very slowly accumulated sand up to its head, until about 1400 B.C.E. This was because of a boy called Thutmose, who dreamed one night that the Sphinx instructed him to clear it of sand, and that if he did he would be rewarded by becoming pharaoh. Thutmose very enthusiastically freed the Great Sphinx of the excess sand surrounding her, and, eventually, did become pharaoh. Odd, huh?
The Sphinx again continued building up sand, while, at the same time, losing its nose, getting holes drilled into its back, and losing a huge chunk of its right shoulder. How’s that for multitasking?!! About 1990 (C.E.) or so, people started using a computerized restoration system for the Sphinx.
The Sphinx also makes an appearance in Greek mythology. Weird, right? Especially because, unlike in Ancient Egypt, in Greece the Sphinx was an evil being, terrorizing the city of Thebes (Both Greece and Egypt have a city called Thebes, but in this case, I’m referring to Greece), and killing all who couldn’t answer her riddle (poor people!). When the Greek hero Oedipus solved her riddle, she devoured herself in defeat. The riddle was somewhat based off the Egyptian association of the sunrise and new life. Here’s the riddle: What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening? The answer is a man because when we are babies and toddlers, we crawl, during the main body of our lives, we walk on our legs, and when we are old, we require a cane or walking stick.
