Is the Sphinx the oldest Statue in the world?

The Sphinx was not assembled piece by piece but was carved from a single mass of limestone exposed when workers dug a horseshoe-shaped quarry in the Giza plateau. Approximately 66 feet tall and 240 feet long, it is one of the largest and oldest monolithic statues in the world.



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The earliest and most famous example in art is the colossal recumbent Great Sphinx at Giza, Egypt, dating from the reign of King Khafre (4th king of 4th dynasty, c. 2575–c. 2465 bce).

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Most Egyptologists believe the Sphinx was built during the reign of the Pharaoh Khafre, also known as Chephren, about 2500 BC. But scientists who conducted a series of unprecedented studies at the Giza site told their colleagues that their evidence shows the Sphinx was there long before Khafre came to power.

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For years, Egyptologists and archaeologists have thought the Great Sphinx of Giza to be about 4,500 years old, dating to around 2500 B.C. However, some recent studies have suggested that the Sphinx was built as long ago as 7000 B.C.

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NARRATOR: According to this theory a fanatical dervish named Muhammad Saim al-Dahr was responsible. He is said to have hired some men to smash off the Sphinx's nose as she was still worshipped as a false god. To this day, the Arabs refer to the Sphinx as Abul Hol or father of terror.

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The Great Sphinx of Giza is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a human and the body of a lion. Facing directly from west to east, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The face of the Sphinx appears to represent the pharaoh Khafre.



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Stonehenge was constructed about 4,500 years ago at around the same time as the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Despite their differences, these distant sites had much in common.

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Some tourists planning a Great Sphinx of Giza tour wonder if you can go inside og the Great Sphinx enclosure. It is possible, but only during our tour of the Giza Pyramids and Sphinx.

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Prehistoric. The Venus of Berekhat Ram, an anthropomorphic pebble found in northern Israel and dated to at least 230,000 years before present, is claimed to be the oldest known statuette.

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Egyptologists currently say the Great Sphinx was built about 4,500 years ago during the reign of the pharaoh Khafre (2500 BCE) but there is a very high possibility (supported by archeological and literary proofs) of the Sphynx being built between 10,000 - 5,000 BCE.

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A number of shafts or tunnels are known to exist within or below the body of Great Sphinx at Giza. Zahi Hawass (pictured here) approaches a small square lid of a shaft (shaft C), believed to have been dug by treasure hunters at some point in antiquity.

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This is something impossible since Archaeology and history tell us that the pyramids at the Giza plateau are around 4.500 years old.

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sphinx, mythological creature with a lion's body and a human head, an important image in Egyptian and Greek art and legend. The word sphinx was derived by Greek grammarians from the verb sphingein (“to bind” or “to squeeze”), but the etymology is not related to the legend and is dubious.

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There was a single sphinx in Greek mythology, a unique demon of destruction and bad luck. Apollodorus describes the sphinx as having a woman's face, the body and tail of a lion and the wings of a bird.

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