The Great Sphinx of Giza, built 4500 years ago near the Great Ancient Pyramids in Cairo c.2603-2578 BC, is notorious for its broken nose. Mark Lehner, an archaeologist, concluded the nose was broken sometime between the 3rd and 10th centuries. So, what happened?
Origin: Why was the Sphinx Built?
There is no definitive answer for who built the Sphinx, why they built it or when it was built. However, the most popular theory is that it was built by Pharaoh Khafre. Pharaoh Khafre was the son of Pharaoh Khufu who built the Great Pyramid, the oldest and largest of the three Giza Pyramids. When Khafre become Pharaoh, he constructed his own pyramid next to the Great Pyramid, along with the Great Sphinx. Some historians believe the Sphinx had been created to one day harness the power of the sun and other Gods in order to resurrect Khafre's soul. The idea that Pharaoh Khafre founded the Sphinx was greatly supported by French archaeologist, Auguste Mariette, who discovered that the face on the Sphinx resembles the face of statues depicting Pharaoh Khafre.
Theories:
1. 15th century Egyptian Historian
Al-Maqrizi claimed that a Sufi Muslim, Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, had obliterated the Sphinx's nose in 1378. The alleged motivation for this was the fact that Egyptian peasants had a tradition of making offerings to the Great Sphinx in order to control the flood cycle and ensure a successful harvest. These actions contradict the Islamic faith which condemns idol worshipping, thus provoking Sheikh al-Dahr according to al-Maqrizi claims. Historian Ulrich Haarmann claims that locals were so devastated by the damage that they lynched and buried al-Dahr near the monument. The theory that the Sufi Sheikh damaged the Sphinx's nose has been reinforced by evidence which illustrates that a bar, lever or long rods were hammered into the stone (one going drop from the top of the nose on its bridge, and another going up from the bottom of the nose under its nostril) to chisel the nose off.
2. The Attack of the Iconoclasts
Numerous Egyptian statues are found to have damaged noses. Curator of the Brooklyn Museum's Egyptian art, Edward Bleiberg, outlines that this phenomenon was due to the fact that statues upset and triggered iconoclasts (destroyers of art that is used for religious worship) to remove the statues' noses. Bleiberg concludes that noses were deliberately targeted; whilst it is easy for accidental damage to occur to three-dimensional protruding noses, the noses chiselled out of flat reliefs indicates intentional destruction. Ancient Egyptians built statues like the Sphinx to represent a meeting point between the supernatural and the mortal since they believed a deity could inhibit these statues. Iconoclasts directly oppose this belief claiming that the divine could not reside in a statue. Consequently, Bleiberg believes that iconoclasts damaged statues' noses to diminish the amount of power these statues conveyed, 'the damaged part of the body is no longer able to do its job' since the statue-spirit can no longer breathe, thus killing the deity within. Additionally, ears could be removed to prevent the statue-spirit hearing prayers, or arms could be removed to prevent them making offerings. Bleiberg's theory about iconoclasts removing statues' noses can be extended and applied to the Sphinx's nose, and perhaps can explain further why Sufi Sheikh, Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, was motivated to remove the Sphinx's nose.
3. Napoleon Bonaparte
The tale outlines that cannonballs fired by Napoleon's soldiers ruptured the Sphinx's nose during a French battle near Giza in 1798. However, sketches from before Napoleon's time drawn by Dane Frederic Louis Norden in 1737 illustrate that the Sphinx's nose was already broken (as well as al-Maqrizi's 15th century writing). Additionally, findings in 2009 from historian Bassam el-Shamaa' explain that Bonaparte's campaign was at Imbaba, far from the Sphinx's location. Instead, El-Shamaa' believed the Sphinx's nose was a victim to natural erosion and natural disasters including earthquakes.
4. Natural Erosion and Natural Disasters
Nature has been known to unsettle statues, and likely did so in the case of the Sphinx also. Nezar al-Sayyad is a historian that names natural erosion, especially due to the effects of rain, to be the main cause behind the Sphinx's lost nose, rather than Napoleon or the Sufi Sheikh. Nonetheless, not all historians believe nature is the direct or sole cause of the Sphinx's damaged nose since a large piece of limestone dating from 4500 BC has survived in spite of hazardous natural conditions.
Conclusion:
There is no solid explanation for what happened to the Sphinx's nose. However, historians largely agree that the Sufi Sheikh, Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, is the most likely culprit behind the Sphinx's damaged nose. This combined with natural factors, such as erosion, likely contributed to the demise of the Sphinx's structure overtime.
References:
Anthony Holmes, Ancient Egypt in an Hour (Harper Press, 2011).
Caitlind Alexander, 14 Fun Facts About the Sphinx (Learning Island, 2011).
History, 'The Sphinx', 2018.
Julia Wolkoff, 'Why Do So Many Egyptian Statues have Broken Noses?', CNN, 2019.
Nezar al-Sayyad, Cairo: Histories of a City (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011).
Rana Atef, 'Who Broke the Sphinx's Nose?', Egypt Today, 2018.
Smithsonian Journeys, 'What Happened to the Sphinx's Nose?', 2020.
Ulrich Haarmann, 'Regional Sentiment in Medieval Islamic Egypt', Bulletin of The School of Oriental and African Studies, 43 (1980): 55-66.
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