The Great Sphinx

World's most famous sphinx (c. 2500 BC) – a recumbent lion with a human head on the Giza Plateau.

The Great Sphinx of Giza is the most famous and largest sphinx in the world – a recumbent lion with a human head, carved directly from the bedrock limestone of the Giza Plateau. Believed to have been created during the reign of Pharaoh Khafre (c. 2558–2532 BC) in the 4th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, the sculpture measures approximately 73 metres in length and 20 metres in height. It was originally thought to have been painted in vivid colours. For millennia it lay almost entirely buried in desert sand until systematic excavations in the 19th and early 20th centuries uncovered it. The Sphinx guards the Giza necropolis with its three famous pyramids and is one of the last surviving monuments of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World.