been to be a vast domain. It is thought to be constructed by Khufu during the Old Kingdom era to protect Pharaoh Khufu on his journey to the afterlife. At the foot of the Sphinx stands a temple, known as the Sphinx Temple. The stones in the Temple match the rock from the ditch of the Great Sphinx indicating the material would have been relocated from the ditch during construction. The Temple has 24 stones thought to represent the 24 hours of the day. Excavation of the Temple provides evidence of a mass human sacrifice of 35 bodies possibly killed to serve in the afterlife. The bodies of Lions were also found within the Temple area. There are no historical records or knowledge from Ancient Egypt on the Sphinx.
Because there are no historical records available; scientists would need to spend years attempting to understand the riddle of the Sphinx before time erodes it.
Two teams of scientists spent years trying to unravel the secrets of the Sphinx. Mark Langer an Egyptologist, started with little more than simple drawings, and spent five years mapping the entire Sphinx in an effort to solve the riddle of the Sphinx. He believes the massive sculpture was not formed piece by piece, but carved out of a giant rock within the surrounding landscape, after he was able to match the limestone from the sides of the Sphinx with the limestone of the ditch that surrounds the Sphinx. The stone removed from the ditch area was relocated to the area known as the Temple in the front of the front feet of the Sphinx. Langer continues to explain the block formations are likely the result of other Greeks, Egyptians and Romans attempting to prevent the erosion over the years from destroying the massive sculpture. It was also noted that the nose of the Sphinx is missing, but no facts are available to explain how or when it was removed. Zahi Hawass has identified blocks from multiple periods leading to the conclusion that the Sphinx has been covered in blocks for thousands of years in an effort to preserve the
sculpture.
Archeologist Richard Redding and Sculptor Fathi Mohamed worked to create a scaled down version of the Sphinx, using similar materials, in an effort to understand how it was carved. They looked at what tools may have been used to create the Sphinx based drawings in the Pyramids and from tools that were found in Giza. These tools needed to be recreated in order to accurately determine how the Sphinx was carved. Redding and Mahamed determined that the Sphinx would have taken more than one million hours to carve with the tools available in ancient Egypt. The film used footage from the researchers to dramatize the work and research that went into understanding the construction of the Sphinx. I felt like I was there with them on an archeologist dig in Ancient Egypt.
The presentation of this film gave me a good understanding of the purpose of the Sphinx. Although I had heard of the Sphinx I knew very little about it. I found this documentary to be incredibly informational and very interesting. I think they did a great job uncovering what seems to be a plausible theory of the purpose of the Sphinx, as well as identifying the face of the Sphinx as Khafre. I was particularly impressed at how they were able to identify the lines from the temple area over the shoulder of the Sphinx, to line up and connect the temple directly to second Pyramid. It absolutely astounds me to understand that five thousand years ago something so massive could have been created so accurately with ancient tools. It was also clear that the Sphinx had significant importance to the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom era who were responsible for the initial construction. That significance transitioned to other cultures as well, this is evident by the attempts to repair the erosion of the Sphinx over the years by the Romans, the Greeks as well as the Egyptians of the later eras.
I enjoyed watching this film; it was very interesting to see how many scientists investigated the Sphinx and its surrounding area. I was amazed at the effort the scientists went through to recreate the Sphinx to determine how it would have been created, and to estimate how many people it would have taken to carve the great Sphinx.