The Sphinx gets a facelift

Scientists have begun work on a new restoration programme of the Great Sphinx at Giza, Egypt. The work will focus on the head and the chest of the statue, which have suffered extensive damage through sand erosion and desert winds. The Supreme Council of Antiquities, who is carrying out the work, said that this programme will repair damage caused by earlier renovations, which used cement to reconstruct the statue.

“When you put cement on its body, it stops the breathing of the limestone” said Council head, Zahi Hawas. At 57 metres long and over 20 metres tall, the Sphinx is one of the largest single stone statues in the world. Its name comes from the Greek word for ‘strangler’ though the monument itself almost certainly predates the Greek legends of Sphinx. It is thought to have been built during the reign of the 4th Dynasty Pharaoh Khafre (2558 – 2532 BC) however, due to patterns of what appears to be water erosion, some experts support a theory that it up to 6000 years older. For most of its life it remained buried under sand, thwarting attempts by various teams throughout history to uncover it. Between 1925 and 1936 the French engineer Emile Baraize excavated the body of the Sphinx and exposed the entirety of the statue, apparently for the first time since antiquity. Despite millennia of sandblasting traces of the original paint can still be seen near one ear, suggesting that the great statue was once highly decorated. The last work on the colossal artefact was carried out in 1996.