Thousands of people know the old man of Giza, the Sphinx, but I have to tell you that I have a special relationship with him. Firstly I love to visit him because he has an aura--a 3500 year old aura--that I cannot explain, but I'll try. He is much smaller than he appears in pictures but his legacy is huge. Imagine, if you can, a monument that stood 1500 years before Christ. Not so long ago, in 1798 (!) the forces of Napoleon fought the battle of the Pyramids near the old man. There are many famous paintings of Napoleon sitting on his horse gazing at the Sphinx. Could it be that the Sphinx is so special to me because he has seen so much.
No, I'm not a nut-case who has found a new religion (worship of graven images etc.), just a guy who loves history and being in its presence. Let me move on: The Sphinx has no nose and there were rumours that Napoleon's troops had used it for target practice. This is simple conjecture. There is proof that the Sphinx lost his nose hundreds of years before Napoleon.
Now I'm going to let you into a little secret and I hope you'll enjoy the intrigue. Our little school has an archeologist parent and she invited us to a preview of what will be the new childrens' section of the Egyptian Museum. This is scheduled to open in March or April this year and will feature LEGO models of Egyptian life and artefacts like, for instance, the mask of Tutankhamen. All done in Lego, donated by the Danish Government . The new section is located at the rear of the museum in the basement ---an area no tourists have seen. In fact, few people know that the sarcophagus of Akhenaten is hidden away here, resting outside in the open air (that's another story).
So, as we toured the Lego pieces we came across some glass cabinets used for storage and in one of them was part of the Sphinxes beard. It looks like a large boulder and cannot possibly be the real thing,you think, but, being where you are, it must be. I mean, the Director of the museum cannot be wrong.
That night I rushed to Google and the two broken pieces of beard came up in a photo. The top piece, a boulder no less, and in the Cairo museum. The bottom piece, more angular, with carving, in the British museum.
I'm getting privileged input here and for a historian, that is so special. When I grow up I want to be an archaeologist!