Riddles of the Sphinx

NARRATOR:
Nothing represents the mysteries
of ancient Egypt

more than the Great Sphinx.

How did the Egyptians
build this crouching lion,

human-headed creature?

MAN:
This is the largest statue

ever built in ancient Egypt.

NARRATOR:
Who built it, and why?

MAN:
When it was in its heyday,

it was a very brightly painted
image,

painted in comic book colors.

NARRATOR:
The riddles of the Sphinx
have puzzled

all who have laid eyes on it,

from emperors to presidents.

Now, solving those riddles has
taken on a new urgency,

for after more than 4,000 years
with only pyramids as neighbors,

today the Sphinx stares out
at a fast food restaurant.

Traffic, tourism
and construction

are trembling it apart.

The Sphinx is almost
in downtown Cairo.

NARRATOR:
It's a full-frontal
urban assault.

Before it's too late, two teams
of scientists and builders

are tackling the age-old riddles
of the Sphinx.

MAN:
It's not easy, is it?

NARRATOR:
They're immersing themselves
in the world of ancient Egypt--

a world of pharaohs
and pyramids...

animal gods and mummies...

sun worship
and human sacrifice.

Will the eternal sands of Egypt
finally give up the secrets

of this human-headed lion?

(lion growling)

Right now, on NOVA:
"Riddles of the Sphinx."

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NARRATOR:
Giant paws longer than a city
bus stretch out before it.

A whipping tail
wraps around its back.

And its enormous body-- about
the weight of 50 jumbo jets--

is on haunches poised to pounce.

But this lion has a human head
as big as a house,

for this is the Great Sphinx.

At nearly 240 feet long, almost
the length of a football field,

and almost 70 feet tall,
the height of the White House,

the Sphinx is the largest statue
in all of Egypt,

a land renowned for
its oversized monuments.

It's here at Giza, home of the
Sphinx and the Great Pyramids,

where building big
really booms.

Around 2500 B.C.--
more than 4,000 years ago--

the Giza plateau is
a desolate landscape.

A visionary pharaoh named Khufu
constructs the Great Pyramid.

He's followed by his son,
and then his son's son,

who build two more pyramids.

Designed as giant tombs

to ensure the kings' safe
passage to the afterlife,

the pyramids and
their surrounding temples

transform an area
of the Giza plateau

into a vast city of the dead.

Pharaoh Khufu's pyramid is
the most famous gravestone

on Earth.

Khufu's architect
probably stood here

and looked out over the panorama
behind me

and maybe foresaw three
generations of building here

because of the excellent
conditions

for carving giant statues and
for building pyramids and tombs.

NARRATOR:
Khufu and his sons launch
a golden age of Egypt

known as the Old Kingdom.

But while the classic pyramid
can be traced back

to earlier forms, like the
Stepped Pyramid of Saqqara,

the Great Sphinx appears
out of nowhere,

unprecedented in size and form.

And while inscriptions
inside the pyramids

reveal who built them,

there are no such clues about
the origins of the Sphinx.

What is this crouching lion,
human-headed beast?

How did the Egyptians build this
wonder of the ancient world?

Whose face is this staring out
across the millennia?

Now two teams tackle these
age-old mysteries of the Sphinx.

One team of scientists
investigates the geology,

history and archaeology
of ancient Egypt.

Many people who try to look
at the Sphinx,

they look at it by itself.

But you have to look at all
the architecture,

archaeology, art, inscriptions.

You have to look at all of this

to explain the function
of the Sphinx.

NARRATOR:
Another team of stone-carvers
will build scaled-down replicas

of the Sphinx and its
missing nose

to shed light on how
the ancients carved

this wonder of the world.

RICK BROWN:
It's near mind-boggling--

in all of Egypt,
most of the stone's carved

with just pounding for thousands
and thousands of hours.

NARRATOR:
The race is on to unlock
the riddles of the Sphinx.

There have been thousands of
sphinxes throughout history.

But this sphinx,
the Great Sphinx,

is one of the very first

and is by far the largest
ever built.

LEHNER:
This was an age
of experimentation.

The Sphinx is an experiment.

It was something new,
something highly unusual.

NARRATOR:
So where did the idea of putting
a human head

on a lion's body come from?

Archaeologist Günter Dreyer is
searching the desert of Abydos,

about 300 miles south of Giza
and the Pyramids.

Dreyer is traveling back past
Khufu and the Old Kingdom

to the very dawn of Egyptian
civilization--

3000 B.C., 500 years
before the Sphinx.

Like Giza, Abydos is also
a city of the dead,

but without pyramids.

Here, Egypt's founding pharaohs
are buried

beneath the desert sands in
a complex of mud-brick tombs.

(speaking Arabic)

Today Dreyer is investigating
one of those tombs.

The tomb consists
of three huge chambers

underneath that mound
over there.

And in front of it,

there are three rows
of subsidiary burials--

altogether 35.

NARRATOR:
The main chamber was plundered
in ancient times

and the royal bodies stolen,

but inscriptions found inside
reveal a name--

Pharaoh Aha, the very first king
of Egypt's first dynasty.

As pharaoh, Aha wielded
absolute power.

The Abydos excavation reveals
evidence of human sacrifice.

The skeletons of 35
healthy adults,

most under the age of 20,
all part of a mass burial.

DREYER:
Even at that remote time, that
is not a natural age of death.

And so we may conclude they were
killed to follow the king

in his afterlife, to serve him
there in eternity.

NARRATOR:
The pharaoh and his worldly
goods are buried

at one end of the complex,

followed by the 35 victims
of human sacrifice

in smaller tombs.

And in the last tomb
are even more bones,

but these are not human.

For identification, they were
compared with modern skeletons.

By sifting, we found a lot
of animal bones,

especially bones of lions.

That was quite a surprise.

NARRATOR:
Several lions died
and were buried

at the same time
as the young adults,

evidence that they too
were sacrificed.

But why were these lions
entombed along with the pharaoh?

The king identifies himself
with the lion to show his power,

to express his power.

NARRATOR:
Dreyer's excavations reveal
that Egypt's first pharaohs

wielded enormous power...

enough to command the ritual
slaughter of dozens of people.

And the lion sacrifices provide
the first clue to the meaning

of the Sphinx's form:

lions symbolize the power
of the pharaoh.

But the Sphinx is more
than just a lion.

It's also part human.

Ancient Egyptians depict their
gods as part animal, part human.

But usually those gods have
animal heads and human bodies.

The Sphinx is just the opposite.

LEHNER:
When you put the human head
on the lion body,

you have all the strength
and power of the lion.

And you have the human head,

which is a symbol of
intelligence and control.

And so it is an image
of power under control.

NARRATOR:
But whose power and control?

LEHNER:
The human head is actually
wearing a scarf

called the nemes;
it's a headdress.

And only the pharaohs wore
the nemes headdress.

NARRATOR:
So the Sphinx is both a god
and a pharaoh.

(speaking Arabic)

And when it came to symbolizing
the power of the pharaoh,

the bigger, the better.

Over the next 500 years,

the pharaohs' tombs got
more and more massive,

from underground burial chambers

to aboveground tombs,

and from stepped pyramids
to the Great Pyramids of Giza.

But while the form and size
of royal tombs evolve slowly,

the Great Sphinx has
no precedent.

LEHNER:
It was the first time

in the history of Egypt
that they created sculpture

at this scale.

NARRATOR:
So, how was the Sphinx created?

Looking at its paws,
it appears to be built

with thousands of blocks.

Was it constructed like
the pyramids,

by stacking blocks of stone?

But a closer look reveals
that its upper body and head

are carved out of one huge rock.

Does that mean it was carved
like Mount Rushmore?

Clues lie in the stone of the
Sphinx and the rock around it.

Amazingly, nobody had ever
investigated its stones

in any detail...

Until Mark Lehner 30 years ago.

Today he's one of the world's
leading Egyptologists.

When I first came to Egypt,

the best maps that existed
of the Sphinx

were simply the outline.

NARRATOR:
If you're investigating
how the Sphinx was built,

the existing drawings were about
as useful

as if you were trying to build
a 50-story skyscraper

using just a satellite snapshot
of its roof.

That's how little was known
about the Sphinx.

To unlock its secrets,

someone needed to take a much
closer look.

LEHNER:
So I spent five years here
mapping every stone to scale.

This was my office.

And I would take my breaks here
and have a stale cheese sandwich

and a cup of Nescafé.

NARRATOR:
Lehner's mapping gave him
an intimate knowledge

of the Sphinx, its stone
and the Giza plateau.

To begin with, the Sphinx
is made of limestone.

Close inspection
of the limestone

reveals how it was formed.

LEHNER:
You see a pattern that looks
kind of like a brain coral,

or almost like a sponge.

All the limestone at Giza,

including the body
of the Sphinx,

was once the floor of a sea,
it was a seabed.

So you have frozen
into the stone

various elements
of seafloor life.

NARRATOR:
Millions of years ago,
the Giza plateau was underwater.

Sea creatures and plants died,
falling to the bottom.

Over time, their remains were
compressed to form limestone.

But not all limestone
is created equal.

Some limestone is formed
from the soft sea bottom

and some from hard coral reefs.

Together they form a kind
of layer cake

of hard and soft limestone.

LEHNER:
The Sphinx is composed

out of several different
limestone layers.

So it's as though you carved
the Sphinx out of a layer cake.

And there are gooey layers
of soft frosting,

and then there are intervening
harder layers.

NARRATOR:
The harder layers of rock
have held up better

than the softer layers.

Today it looks a lot different
from when it was first built.

Its original smooth surface
has been eaten away

by over 4,000 years of wind,
water and sand.

LEHNER:
Here on the right side
of the Sphinx chest,

we can see how weathering
has put

the softer layers
into deep recesses,

while the harder layers
protrude.

NARRATOR:
To Lehner,
this weathering pattern

is another important clue
to how the Sphinx was built.

Recent restorations obscure
this pattern...

but photographs from the 1920s
clearly show it...

on both the body
of the Sphinx...

and on the side of what is known
as the "Sphinx ditch."

The pattern acts
like a fingerprint.

And when Lehner compares
the Sphinx's body

with the side of the Sphinx
ditch, it's a perfect match.

We are certain that these are
the same layers of natural rock

that form the south side
of the Sphinx ditch.

NARRATOR:
Lehner identifies more of
that rock directly in front

of the Sphinx's paws
in the ruins of a building

known as the Sphinx Temple.

There, on the huge stone blocks

that were once the walls
of the Sphinx Temple,

he discovers those same familiar
layers of hard and soft stone

that he finds on the Sphinx.

LEHNER:
Because you can see the layers

runs continuously
from one block to another

through many of the blocks
forming the temple walls.

Here is one geological layer,

then this yellow band is
a softer geological layer.

NARRATOR:
But what does the similarity
of the rock in the Sphinx,

ditch and temple tell Lehner
about how the Sphinx was built?

LEHNER:
The Egyptians quarried
a horseshoe-shaped ditch,

leaving a core that left a big
block from which they carved

the Sphinx itself.

They moved the stone, sometimes
in blocks of a hundred tons,

down to the lower terrace
for fabricating the walls

of the Sphinx Temple.

NARRATOR:
So the starting point for
the Sphinx must have been

a huge rock sticking out of
the surface of the Giza plateau.

Workers cut a trench around it,

quarrying the stone out from
the ditch in huge blocks.

They hauled off those blocks to
build the nearby Sphinx Temple.

Then, sculptors carved
the giant rock

remaining in the center
into the shape of the Sphinx.

The Sphinx was carved right out
of the natural mother rock

of the Giza plateau.

NARRATOR:
But knowing that it's carved
right out of the earth

is only half the mystery.

How did they actually do it?

Sculpting a human-headed lion
out of 20,000 tons of limestone

is no small matter.

So, Fathi, we need to get
two types of rock.

NARRATOR:
To investigate the challenges
faced by the ancient sculptors,

archaeologist Richard Redding
and Fathi Mohamed,

a stonemason who has worked
at Giza since he was a boy,

team up to carve a mini-Sphinx.

So, let's see what
we can find here.

NARRATOR:
They search for limestone
that's as hard as the layer

in the Sphinx's head.

REDDING:
I think we've got it right here.

What you can see is this one's
nice and strong.

It's like the head.

Okay.

NARRATOR:
They find just the right stone
in a nearby quarry.

It's extremely heavy.

And hard... maybe too hard.

(translated):
Mr. Richard!

My tools will be ruined.

NARRATOR:
Fathi is worried that the hard
rock will ruin his tools.

FATHI MOHAMED (translated):
My tool's made of steel,
but the rock bent it.

The rock is very hard.

NARRATOR:
If Fathi is having
such a difficult time

using modern steel tools,

how did the ancient Egyptians
carve the Sphinx

with more primitive tools?

The answer will come
half a world away.

LEHNER:
Hey, Rick, New England
in the fall is a far cry

from Egypt in the desert.

NARRATOR:
Mark Lehner has come to consult
with Rick Brown,

a specialist in ancient tools.

Based on actual copper tools
found at Giza

and tomb scenes depicting
stonecutters at work,

Brown gathers everything an
ancient Egyptian would have had

to carve the Great Sphinx.

LEHNER:
Rick and I got together and
looked at all the evidence

we have from the tomb scenes,
from actual tools that we found,

and based on all this evidence,
Rick has put together

the rudiments of the toolkit
that the Sphinx builders

would have used.

BROWN:
So we have copper chisels,

two-handed pounder,
and there's the hammer.

NARRATOR:
To really understand
the challenge

of using these tools
for carving,

Lehner and Brown begin
by making them,

starting with a copper chisel.

Even a little bit
more right now.

We just need to get
some good heat.

NARRATOR:
Working long before the
invention of harder bronze

or iron,

the Sphinx sculptors had to make
do with softer copper.

BROWN:
This is what they would have
done in Egypt.

They take a blank of copper,
we're going to heat it

and we're going to fashion
this into a chisel.

NARRATOR:
The pure copper starts out
a metal gray,

and as it heats it turns red.

LEHNER:
So you want that piece
of copper red hot.

BROWN:
Yeah, when I get color
in the copper, we're ready.

Okay, it looks good.

Ooh, we got it red hot.

NARRATOR:
The heat softens the copper
into a more pliable material

that can be pounded into shape.

BROWN:
You know, this process
is so basic.

What they were doing was they
were using a hard material

to fashion and shape
a softer material.

NARRATOR:
But as the soft copper cools,
it hardens again.

I want to go back to the fire

because I can actually
break the metal,

so let's go back in the fire.

NARRATOR:
Already these ancient
tools reveal

there's more to making the
Sphinx than just carving.

LEHNER:
Charcoal was
a crucial ingredient

of making these monuments
at Giza.

They must have been
trucking wood in

and feeding these fires
all day long, all year round,

just to make the tools
to make the monument.

Now I want to have it
flatten down this time.

NARRATOR:
The heating/pounding cycle
is repeated over and over

until the shape is just right.

I want it to be straight
along the axis like this,

because if it's already
turning a little bit,

that means it's not going
to last as long.

That's right.

LEHNER:
They must have amassed
more copper

for building the Great Pyramid
and the Sphinx

than just about any
place in the world

in the third millennium B.C.

I mean, it just must have been
a huge cost in copper.

NARRATOR:
But the copper chisel was
the high-tech finishing tool

of the Old Kingdom.

The real grunt work was achieved

with something much more basic--
stone hammers.

BROWN:
Mark, if you look at this
photograph of the tomb of Ti,

there is a stone carver

using a tool like this,

and this is what
I've discovered--

you have to really look
carefully at these drawings

because they give a
lot of information.

NARRATOR:
Based on this 4,000-year-old
tomb painting,

Brown and Lehner make
their own hammers today.

I want to use a harder stone
against a softer stone.

LEHNER:
So you're using a stone
to make a stone tool.

There's a whole lot
of pounding going on.

NARRATOR:
The grooves and lashing
transform a simple stone

into an effective hammer.

LEHNER:
It's not easy, is it?

They probably did it as
quickly as tying a shoe.

The thing about this is
I think the critical thing

is it gives you
a lot more action.

BROWN:
He can work like that
for many, many hours

and not wear himself out.

NARRATOR:
Now Lehner and Brown will put
the tools to the test.

They're going to attempt to
carve the feature of the Sphinx

that's most conspicuously
absent-- the nose.

There are stories that it was
shot off by Napoleon's soldiers

using it for target practice.

(gunshots)

But they turn out to be false.

LEHNER:
About 300 years before Napoleon,

an Arab historian already
mentions that the nose is gone.

I think there's good evidence

that it was snapped off
intentionally.

There's a deep wedge
down the bridge

and there's another groove
in the Sphinx's left nostril.

I think somebody might have
pounded these metal wedges

and then snapped it
off to the south.

NARRATOR:
While the original nose
is lost forever,

today Lehner and Brown,

with just stone hammers
and copper chisels,

will carve a new one.

LEHNER:
Let's go to work.

BROWN:
I'm just using graphite.

NARRATOR:
Out of this six-foot chunk
of hard limestone

they will attempt
to carve a nose

nearly half the size
of the original.

We're going to make this nose
starting with tools like this?

Was that my idea?

Yes.

NARRATOR:
They dive in...

and quickly discover that hard
stone is much more effective

than the soft copper
in these early stages.

That's the evidence
that the pounder,

even though it seems primitive,
is actually quite effective.

NARRATOR:
But even with reinforcements

and after hours of pounding,
they've barely made a dent.

Will Lehner and Brown really be
able to carve a nose

with these ancient tools?

Zahi Hawass,

secretary general of Egypt's
Supreme Council of Antiquities,

is the official guardian
of the Sphinx.

He has searched this colossal
cat from head to toe

for clues to how it was built.

He knows from the geology
that it was carved

right out of the earth.

So why does the bottom appear
to be built out of stone blocks,

like the Pyramids?

Hawass investigates the size and
style of the blocks for answers.

If you look at the two paws
of the Sphinx,

this is a typical small stone

that the Romans in 30 B.C. came
and they did add this

to the Sphinx.

NARRATOR:
Just between the Sphinx's paws

Zahi Hawass finds blocks from
four different periods.

This is 30 B.C., 1550 B.C.,
and this is 2600 B.C.

NARRATOR:
Hawass concludes that Egyptians,
Greeks and Romans

have been covering the Sphinx
in blocks

for thousands of years.

But why?

The answer can be found
in a deadly hidden force

attacking the limestone
of the body of the Sphinx

and the surrounding ditch.

LEHNER:
All of this was once the floor
of a sea.

It was a seabed
50 million years ago.

So it's naturally full of salt.

NARRATOR:
When groundwater rises,
it seeps through the rock,

drawing the salt to the surface,

where it crystallizes
and expands.

The results are disastrous
for the Sphinx.

I hate to do this,

but it's happening naturally
all the time

on this wall next to the Sphinx.

The flakes fall and crumble.

This is what was happening
to the Sphinx body.

It's this process that results
in literally Sphinx dust.

NARRATOR:
Amazingly, from the day
it was built,

the body of the Sphinx has been
turning to dust.

The blocks put there
by Egyptians, Greeks and Romans

were to protect and conceal
its deteriorating body,

especially the more vulnerable
parts carved

from soft limestone.

But while the soft stone is bad
news for the Sphinx,

it's good news
for sculptor Fathi

because it's much easier
to work with

as he carves his mini-Sphinx.

(translated):
Now I am working on the foot
of the back leg.

I am sculpting the paw
and the thigh.

NARRATOR:
He makes quick progress

because the stone is so soft.

But now comes the hard part.

Fathi reluctantly returns
to the head,

which, like the original Sphinx,

is made of much harder
limestone.

(chisel ringing as it strikes)

Striking this harder rock, his
chisel is far less effective,

and progress slows dramatically,

even with the advantage
of his modern steel tools.

So how are Lehner and Brown
progressing back in New England

with their ancient copper tools?

(banging)

After days of work, their copper
chisels and stone pounders

are barely making a dent.

At this pace, it's unlikely
they're going to carve a nose

out of this rock anytime soon...

Unless Brown and his team resort
to taking some shortcuts.

Well, I guess you caught us.

We worked on the stone for
a long time using Egyptian tools

and then decided that we'd move
to the modern tools.

It's a lot faster.

NARRATOR:
Granted, the power tools
are a lot faster

than the ancient tools,
but surprisingly,

the basic carving process
hasn't changed much

since ancient times.

BROWN:
What the Egyptians would do is
they would make these channels,

these parallel channels.

Then you come back
with a flat chisel

and blast out all that material
in between.

NARRATOR:
But while Brown's pneumatic
chisel has a carbide tip

hammering at 2,000 hits
per minute,

the copper chisel the ancient
Egyptians would have used

lasts only a few dozen strikes.

BROWN:
You see after I've only gone

about the equivalent of maybe
ten centimeters,

my tool's already
almost useless.

BROWN:
Each time the tool gets dull,

we have to come back
and reheat.

When we reheat,
it softens the metal

and then we can re-shapen it.

NARRATOR:
Brown is wearing down tools
at an extraordinary rate.

For efficiency, he moves his
forge closer to the carving.

BROWN:
We brought our forge down here

closer to the stone
because we're just

blowing through the copper
chisels so fast

it gives us the opportunity
to use them, dull them,

sharpen them
and go right back to work,

which is probably like they did
in Egyptian times.

NARRATOR:
Brown is discovering it's taking

a lot of time and a great number
of copper tools,

and his stone shows little
evidence of progress.

It's hard to imagine this hunk
of rock will ever be

a finished nose,
even one nearly half the size

of what was originally
on the Sphinx.

It's even harder to imagine
carving the Great Sphinx

as big as a football field.

Clearly only a pharaoh could
pull this off.

The question is, which one?

The location of the Sphinx
undoubtedly links it

to the pyramids.

Whoever built the pyramids
likely built the Sphinx.

The problem is, the Sphinx
appears to sit right between

two pyramids,
built by two different pharaohs.

The first and largest pyramid
was built by Pharaoh Khufu,

who reigned around 2500 B.C.

His son, Khafre,
built the second,

slightly smaller pyramid.

Rainer Stadelmann,
a leading Egyptologist,

believes the head of the Sphinx

represents the pharaoh
who built it.

So Stadelmann compares
the face of the Sphinx

to the face of the pharaohs

in hopes of revealing
its true identity.

STADELMANN:
I remember when the statue was
still standing...

NARRATOR:
He turns to the only undisputed
portrait of Khufu ever found,

a small ivory statuette.

STADELMANN:
This piece is something
extraordinary.

And I am so excited
that you can open it.

NARRATOR:
It has not been removed

from its glass home in the
Cairo Museum for 30 years.

It is something
I would not have believed

that we are allowed
to do this.

And this statue is
a real masterpiece.

STADELMANN:
Everything is very
finely sculptured,

so detailed that one can
compare the statue

with the enormous
Sphinx statue.

The face is, for me, the same
face as the Sphinx,

a square face,
a little bit bitter mouth.

The eyes are protruding.

NARRATOR:
But there's also a less
subjective clue.

Unlike his son Khafre, the
builder of the second pyramid,

Khufu does not have a beard.

STADELMANN:
The statue does not
wear a beard.

So I am quite sure the Sphinx,

which has no beard at all,
is a picture of Khufu.

NARRATOR:
But Mark Lehner finds evidence

that the Sphinx originally
had a beard.

And he believes the face of
the Sphinx is the son, Khafre.

LEHNER:
An original beard would explain
this very enigmatic bump

on the Sphinx's chest.

It starts right about here and
it's just right in position

to support the long beard.

NARRATOR:
The debate rages on.

And I think the beard
was original.

NARRATOR:
The father, Khufu,
or his son, Khafre?

We don't know, you know...

NARRATOR:
The Sphinx's identity crisis
cannot be resolved

by facial features alone.

For Fathi,
sculpting the mini-Sphinx,

a solution is needed.

With the body almost completed,

Fathi returns to the harder
stone for the head

and must decide:
beard or no beard?

(translated):
I think the Sphinx
used to have a beard

because all of
the pharaonic statues

in the form of the Sphinx
had beards,

like those of Hatshepsut
and those of Ramesses,

so the Sphinx must have had
a similar beard.

NARRATOR:
It's the crowning moment
as Fathi places the head

on the body of his mini-Sphinx.

But the face is not that
of Pharaoh Khufu or Khafre.

It turns out Fathi has ignored
the advice of all the experts

and followed in the tradition
of the pharaohs.

Fathi's Sphinx bears
a striking resemblance...

to Fathi.

For more than 4,000 years,

this curious creature has
captured the imagination

of kings and emperors,
poets and painters...

and presidents.

Today the Sphinx
is the face of Egypt

and icon of its
age-old mysteries.

But what did it mean
to the ancient Egyptians?

The Old Kingdom collapses

and the Giza plateau becomes
an abandoned cemetery,

the Sphinx and Pyramids
neglected.

Nearly a thousand years pass

and the power
of the pharaohs rises again

in a period called
the New Kingdom,

beginning about 1500 B.C.

But centuries of wind and water
have eroded

the Sphinx's fragile body,

and desert sands have swallowed
the Sphinx up to its neck.

What happens next is written
in hieroglyphs

on a gigantic 15-ton
granite stela,

perched between its paws.

The inscription tells of a hero
who rescues the Sphinx.

A young prince clears away
the sands

and the Sphinx rewards him
by making him king.

His name is Thutmosis.

HAWASS:
Who was the first restorater
on earth?

I can say Thutmose IV.

He ordered his people to build
these two huge mud-brick walls

to protect the Sphinx from sand.

NARRATOR:
Opposite the Sphinx's
left haunch

and above the Sphinx ditch are
remnants of a mud brick wall.

Some of its bricks are stamped
with the name of Thutmosis.

Originally coated in plaster,

the wall stood nearly
30 feet tall.

And to restore the Sphinx's
weathered body,

Thutmosis placed large blocks
of stone on its paws.

Look at these stones.

That is the big stones that were
added in the New Kingdom.

NARRATOR:
And this stela
also reveals a clue

to what the Sphinx meant
to New Kingdom Egyptians.

KASIA SZPAKOWSKA:
When the kings wanted
to record something

that they wanted
to last forever,

they would write in stone.

And they would write on very
large stelae such as this one

in hieroglyphs.

NARRATOR:
Kasia Szpakowska translates
two key hieroglyphs.

SZPAKOWSKA:
You can see there's something
that looks like a bird there.

That's actually the sign
of the falcon.

That's the name "Horus."

NARRATOR:
Horus, depicted as a falcon,

is one of the oldest and most
important deities

in the Egyptian pantheon.

Egyptians believed that the
pharaoh was Horus incarnate.

SZPAKOWSKA:
And just below is the akhet,
the horizon,

with the two mountains
on the side

and the sun disk in between.

NARRATOR:
When the falcon and akhet
hieroglyphs are combined,

they form
"Horus on the Horizon,"

the name of an Egyptian god
who guards the entrance

to the afterlife.

This is the identity of the
Sphinx in the New Kingdom.

To ancient Egyptians,

the horizon was the entrance
to the afterlife.

Just as the sun sets over the
horizon and rises the next day,

they too believed
they could be reborn.

As the guardian
to the afterlife,

the Sphinx was crucial
to that process.

Thutmosis, by clearing away
the sands,

was not just saving the Sphinx,
he was saving a god.

And he does more.

Close inspection of the face
of the Sphinx

reveals traces of blue paint
still clinging to its ear.

The evidence suggests Thutmosis
gives the Sphinx

a New Kingdom monumental
makeover.

LEHNER:
We're used to seeing the Sphinx
as this beige-colored monument

out in the desert.

But when it was in its heyday,
reborn in the New Kingdom,

it was a very brightly
painted image,

painted in comic book colors.

The face was probably red.

It's possible that the headdress
was painted yellow and blue.

And this painting of the Sphinx
was something that,

for the Egyptians,
probably brought it to life.

NARRATOR:
The Great Sphinx,
revered as a god,

guarding the entrance
to the afterlife;

a statue of its savior,
Thutmosis,

overlooking a royal chapel
nestled between its paws;

protected from the howling winds
and sand

by a tall retaining wall

and brought to life
in vibrant color.

But the New Kingdom,
when Thutmosis ruled,

was over a thousand years after
the building of the Sphinx.

To him, the Sphinx
and whoever built it

were already ancient history.

So, what did the Sphinx mean
to its original builder--

either the father,
Pharaoh Khufu,

or his son, Khafre?

Mark Lehner returns
to the Sphinx Temple

to solve the final mystery.

The ruins of the temple sit
just ten yards

in front of the paws
of the Sphinx.

We know from other temples...

NARRATOR:
There, Lehner finds a series
of mysterious pillars.

They look a little bit
like Stonehenge.

NARRATOR:
There are 24 of these pillars.

Lehner believes they are linked
to the 24 hours of the day.

LEHNER:
It seems to have been

a very early massive temple
to the sun.

NARRATOR:
This notion is reinforced
by two inner sanctuaries

at opposite ends of the temple.

This niche or sanctuary
is symmetrical

with another niche on the west.

So, the two niches define
the temple axis,

probably for the rising sun
on the east

and for the setting sun
on the west.

NARRATOR:
During the spring
and fall equinox,

the two days of the year
when day and night

are in perfect balance,
the sun forms a line

between the east and west
sanctuaries of the temple.

As the sun continues its path
toward the horizon,

it passes over the shoulder
of the Sphinx

and beyond to one
of the Great Pyramids.

LEHNER:
These two niches line up
to the south side

of the second pyramid

at a point striking right over
the Sphinx's shoulder.

And this is where the sun sets
at the equinoxes.

NARRATOR:
When it sets at those special
times of the year,

the sun connects the Sphinx
Temple to the pyramid of Khafre.

And because the Sphinx Temple
and the Sphinx

were part of the same
engineering project,

they must have been built
by the same pharaoh.

LEHNER:
It's this line, this
astronomical alignment,

that's another clue

that ties this temple and the
Sphinx to the reign of Khafre,

the builder of the second
pyramid.

NARRATOR:
The sun also played a central
role in Old Kingdom religion.

Ancient Egyptian art depicts
a god supporting the sun disk

as it travels over the horizon
to the afterlife.

He was one of Egypt's earliest
gods, the double-lion Ruti.

After adding up the evidence,
the original meaning

and identity of the Sphinx
becomes clear.

To its builders in the Old
Kingdom, the Sphinx, as a lion,

was a symbol of the king.

Like Ruti, the Sphinx
was also a god--

guardian of the horizon,
the entrance to the afterlife.

The solar alignment
on the equinox reveals

that the Sphinx, Sphinx Temple
and Khafre's pyramid

are intimately connected.

Their singular purpose
was to ensure

the pharaoh's safe passage
to the afterlife.

It is Khafre's face that adorns
the Sphinx,

which protected
the mummified king

as he traveled toward
the pyramid,

following the path of the sun
over the horizon.

Back in New England,
Rick Brown and his team

are finally completing
their scaled-down Sphinx nose.

They're putting on the finishing
touches using replicas

of ancient copper chisels
in hopes of estimating

how long it took to carve
the Great Sphinx.

LEHNER:
Hey, Rick.

Mark.

So, you guys have been
at it two weeks?

Just over two weeks.

All day long,
every day.

Every day all day?

Well, that's a pretty good
looking nose job.

I'd like to know
how many hours total

it took for this nose, because
that might give us an idea

how long it took to carve
the Great Sphinx.

NARRATOR:
Although Brown had resorted at
times to using modern machinery

to speed up the carving,
he's gone to great lengths

to work out how long
it would have taken

using just ancient tools.

We calculated we could do
200 hits in five minutes,

over and over again, and sustain
that for an eight-hour day.

NARRATOR:
By measuring the amount of stone
chipped away,

he can calculate how much stone
one worker could remove.

BROWN:
It would take 40 hours

for one person to remove
one cubic foot of stone.

NARRATOR:
Based on Lehner's scale drawing,

they calculate how much stone
was removed

from around the Sphinx.

LEHNER:
So that big block
and that big block,

you got those out of there.

NARRATOR:
From there, it's a lot of math
to get the final figure

for how long it would have taken
to carve the whole Sphinx.

LEHNER:
So now we can use this, we
figure like a hundred carvers?

And you come out
with a million?!

Around a million hours.

A million person-hours
to carve the great Sphinx?

Well, that's impressive.

NARRATOR:
And if they spread that million
hours over 100 people,

they come up with
a rough estimate.

It would take a hundred carvers
three years to carve the Sphinx.

A hundred carvers,
three years.

NARRATOR:
But by carving
the scaled-down nose,

Brown and Lehner have discovered
that those 100 people

for three years is just one part
of a greater enterprise.

To build the Great Sphinx, there
must have been an army of people

cutting wood to stoke fires
and forges, making tools,

sharpening tools,
running them back and forth

and pounding away
at the giant rock

that would become the Sphinx.

RICK BROWN:
People was the power
of Egyptian times.

That's how they built
the pyramids,

that's how they built
the Sphinx.

NARRATOR:
That people power used to build
the Sphinx and the pyramids

did even more than create
monuments we still admire today.

LEHNER:
Marshaling all their human
and natural resources

to create this monumental
complex at Giza

must have had a huge effect
on the Egyptian state

and its economy.

The pyramids and the Sphinx did
as much to build Egypt

as the Egyptians did
to build them.

NARRATOR:
Building the pyramids and the
Sphinx actually built Egypt.

And the clues to solving
the riddle of the Sphinx

were hidden in plain sight.

LEHNER:
The record was in the geology.

It was in the
archaeological record.

It was in the changes

that the ancient Egyptians
made to the landscape

for building things
like the Sphinx.

NARRATOR:
Animal, human and god...

carved from the very earth

and inspiring the imagination
of people throughout time.

The Great Sphinx has achieved
the dreams

of its creators: eternal life.

(lion growling)

Millions of monarch
butterflies...

one incredible journey.

2,000 miles,
Canada to Mexico.

No GPS, no maps,

just an unquenchable drive
to go home.

How do they do it?

"The Incredible Journey
of the Butterflies,"

next time on NOVA.

Major funding for NOVA
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STEPHEN GREENLEE: Natural gas
is a cleaner-burning fuel,

yet a lot of natural gas has
impurities like CO2 in it.

Controlled Freeze Zone
is a new technology

being developed by ExxonMobil

to remove the CO2
from the natural gas

so we can safely store it

where it won't get
into the atmosphere.

ExxonMobil is spending
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I'm very optimistic about it,

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And:

And...

And by the Corporation
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On NOVA's "Riddles
of the Sphinx" Web site,

explore the Giza plateau,
using 360-degree panoramas,

hear about the lost city
of the pyramid builders,

and more.

Find it on pbs.org.

Captioned by
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access.wgbh.org

This NOVA program is available
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or call 1-800-play-PBS.

MAN:
One slip and that's it--
you're gonna die,

and you're gonna pull off
everyone with you.