First of all – the famous Sphinx, of course! To be honest, this gigantic fellow didn’t impressed me that much, as I though he would. A hideous creature with some important parts on his face missing…When I saw him for the first time, I found him look quite funny, actually - from the angle that we approached the statue, I saw a funny face with a big flapping ears...sort of - "wanna stroke him like a kitten" impression...But then we came closer...
Beside the fact that no one allowed to climbed on his knees (like I imagined, I would do!) the protective fence is actually quite far from the Sphinx and therefore one can only admire him from the distance. Having said that, I’m not implying that I’ve been disappointed by the Sphinx. In the end of a day, he is still a very mysterious member of the family of the ancient monuments and if you keep looking in his face for some time, you’ll start to see why his name in Arabic – Abu Al-Hol - Means "the father of horror". In fact, there is more about the greatness, then about being terrifying. The Sphinx was considered the biggest man made sculpture in the world for a long time. As my guide book said:
” The face of the sphinx is four meters wide and its eyes are two meters high. The mouth is about two meters wide, while the nose would have been more than 1.5 meters long…”
Now, I consider this really BIG. Do you? The Sphinx faces the rising sun and has a Temple in front of him. (this temple is in ruins now). And overall the body of the Sphinx has been buried into sands several times over the past several thousand years and has been digged out few times.
A beautiful legend exists about someone named Tuthmosis, who fall asleep by the sphinx and saw a dream where the lion roared at him in tears and begged to release him from the sands, he was stuck in up to his head at that time. In return the Sphinx has promised Tuthmosis to make him a Pharaoh and to make him famous. Tuthmosis ordered works to be done to push the sands off the body of a creature...well...historians know now Tuthmosis as being one of the famous Pharaohs in Egypt...
Maybe I should've cast a wish upon the Sphinx too...but then again - I couldn't possibly promise to dig him out of the sands, since he's already out quite complete...guess, I've missed my chance ;-)
There are other various legends about Sphinx. Generally he considered to represent Ra – the God of Sun (The lion was a solar symbol and it is said that the head has a face of the Pharaoh – which one – still debatable, most recent theory – that one of Chephren)Anyway, to be in Giza and not to see the Great Sphinx would’ve been a crime, so we've met the Beast.
We’ve spent whole day on the plato, venturing inside the pyramids, walking around in the sands, climbing some unidentified ruins. The plato is an archaeologist’s heaven – it will be not in one generation, all the treasures will be released from their sandy captivity. God knows, how many still buried all over the place!
But of course, the main thing, that lures all of the crowd there, were, are and always will be – the Three Pyramids of Giza. The mystery machines and inspiring masterpiece of ancient world.
