Archeologists Discover Two Huge Sphinxes in Egyptian Ruins

Vice ^ | January 21, 2022 | Becky Ferreira

[SunkenCiv]

Archeologists have discovered the remains of two huge sphinx statues, each measuring 26 feet in length, at the funerary temple of King Amenhotep III, a pharaoh who reigned about 3,300 years ago, according to a recent statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

A team led by Horig Sorosian found the sphinxes partially submerged in water at the funerary building, known as the “Temple of Millions of Years,” located within the vast ruins of Luxor, Egypt, which includes the ancient city of Thebes.

Amenhotep III’s temple is packed with artifacts and was once a resplendent feature of Luxor. However, it has been eroded by thousands of years of floods and at least one ancient earthquake. The discovery of the sphinxes is part of a decades-long effort to restore the temple and the Colossi of Memnon, which are two gigantic stone statues of Amenhotep III that mark the entrance to the funerary complex.

The sphinxes are also representations of Amenhotep III, who is shown adorned with a mongoose headdress, a royal beard, and a broad necklace, according to Mustafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. During the cleaning and restoration process of the statues, Sorosian and her colleagues came across an inscription that reads “the beloved of the god Amun-Ra,” which is the royal name of Amenhotep III...

Sorosian’s team also discovered three black granite busts of Sekhmet, a goddess of war who took the form of a lioness, which will be moved to their original place within the temple.

The sphinxes are just the latest of many discoveries from ongoing excavation and restoration efforts at Luxor, which have included a never-before-seen mud-caked mummy and the “lost golden city” of Aten.

[Beowulf9]

But why make the king look like a sphinx? He never was a sphinx do they think he is in the afterlife one?

[cgbg]

The Egyptians believed they were immortal.

https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/egypt/egcr04e.html

[SunkenCiv]

Maybe they were *lion* about it.

[PIF]

Amenhotep II of the 12th Dynasty, not III, sorry. Very close match and right head dress for the period. The 25th did not use that head dress.

See "The Sphinx Mystery" by R Temple, pp. 187-195, figures 4.29 & 4.30 (Sphinx A23).

[slouper]

“The poem “Ozymandias” comes to mind.”

Funny thing, every time I see pictures of Dubai I think of Ozymandius.

[SunkenCiv]

There was no such pharaoh of the 12th dynasty. I'd guess you mean Amenemhat_II. And the style of those pharaohs who were in the 12th does indeed match with the Great Sphinx. See also Senwosret III as a Sphinx.

• image search

  Here's one of the 18th dynasty pharaonic sphinxes:

• Thutmose III

  One of his successors, Thutmosis IV, had the Dream Stele erected after clearing the Sphinx enclosure of sand. The problem with the pharaohs of the 18th (and the 4th, for that matter) was their lack of the jutting chin seen on the Great Sphinx itself -- more likely black African.

[PIF]

Spelling spelling - sorry again. Senwosret III has ‘sad’ eyes and wrong headdress, Thutmose III has rounded cheeks and wrong headdress so not them either.

[SunkenCiv]

Amenem, uh, not the rapper, I’m too lazy to look up the spelling again, but while there are similarities, the face doesn’t match, most obviously, the ears don’t line up on the two images.

Same lack of match between the 4th dynasty images and the Sphinx:

https://www.google.com/search?q=khufu&tbm=isch

[PIF]

The ears seem to line up in most images of the two - it just the angle of the shot that throws the eye off - If you compare the images in the book which are straight one for both, they do line up ; the headdress was only used in that dynasty, as I recall.