In 1825, French archaeologist Jean-Jacques Rifaud was digging through the ruins of Tanis in Egypt's Nile Delta when his team uncovered a colossal statue carved from a single block of pink granite. The sphinx measured 183 centimeters tall, 480 centimeters long, and 154 centimeters wide, making it one of the largest sphinx sculptures ever found outside Egypt itself. What made the discovery remarkable was not just the size but the layered history carved into its surface. Multiple pharaohs had inscribed their names on the statue across nearly two thousand years, each ruler claiming ownership of a monument that predated them all. The Great Sphinx of Tanis now sits in the Louvre Museum in Paris, where it has become one of the centerpieces of the Egyptian antiquities collection.
Material and Craftsmanship
The sphinx was carved from a single block of pink granite, sometimes called rose granite or red granite depending on lighting and weathering. Granite of this type came from quarries near Aswan in Upper Egypt, approximately 800 kilometers south of Tanis where the statue was eventually found. Pink granite contains quartz, feldspar, and mica crystals that give it both its distinctive color and exceptional hardness. This material was selected for monuments intended to last, as it resists weathering and erosion far better than limestone or sandstone.
Ancient Egyptian stonemasons worked granite using stone pounding tools made from dolerite, a harder igneous rock. Workers would strike the granite repeatedly with dolerite hammers to pulverize the surface and gradually remove material. For finer details, they used copper chisels and wooden mallets, though copper is softer than granite and would have required constant resharpening or replacement. Some evidence suggests they may have used sand as an abrasive during the polishing process. The surface was originally polished smooth to highlight the natural sheen and pink coloration of the stone, though centuries of exposure have left weathering marks and subtle discoloration across the exposed areas.
Visible tool marks remain on less accessible parts of the sphinx, particularly on the underside and at the joints where the body meets the base. Linear striations show where pounding stones struck repeatedly in the same area. The precision of the carving demonstrates advanced understanding of stone properties and considerable skill in working with one of the hardest materials available to ancient craftsmen. The entire process of quarrying, transporting, and carving a granite statue of this size would have required months of continuous labor by multiple teams of specialized workers.
Form and Features
The sphinx depicts a recumbent lion with a human head. The body is elongated, with the forelegs extended forward and the hind legs tucked beneath the torso. The forepaws show anatomical detail including individual claws and musculature. The human head wears a nemes headdress, the striped royal headcloth that covers the hair and falls behind the ears. A uraeus cobra sits on the forehead, representing the protective serpent goddess Wadjet. The face has a straight false beard attached to the chin, a symbol of kingship and divinity in ancient Egyptian iconography. The facial features are idealized rather than portrait-specific, with serene symmetry, almond-shaped eyes, and a neutral expression.
The proportions create a balanced composition. The lion body is considerably larger than the human head, emphasizing stability and the sphinx's role as an immovable guardian. The overall pose suggests watchfulness and vigilance, with the sphinx positioned as if looking toward the eastern horizon where the sun would rise each morning. The sculpture faces east, aligning with solar and regenerative themes that were central to Egyptian religious thought.
The statue's current surface condition shows significant weathering. Erosion has softened some of the sharper details, particularly on exposed areas like the head and shoulders. The pink granite has darkened in places due to centuries of environmental exposure before the statue was moved indoors. Despite this weathering, the fundamental form remains intact and the craftsmanship is still evident in the surviving details.
Function and Use
The sphinx served as a guardian figure. In ancient Egyptian religious architecture, sphinxes were placed at temple entrances, along processional ways, and near sacred structures to protect against malevolent forces. The hybrid form combining a lion's body with a human head symbolized the fusion of physical power and intellectual authority. Lions were associated with the sun god Ra, embodying strength, ferocity, and royal might. The human head represented wisdom, divine rulership, and the specific pharaoh who commissioned or claimed the monument.
The Great Sphinx of Tanis was discovered in the ruins of the Temple of Amun-Ra at Tanis, which served as Egypt's capital during the 21st and 22nd dynasties (roughly 1070 to 725 BCE). The temple complex was one of the most important religious sites in Lower Egypt during this period. The sphinx would have been positioned where it could guard the sacred space, likely near a pylon entrance or along an avenue leading to the inner sanctuaries. Its eastward facing orientation connected it to the daily cycle of the sun god Ra, who was born each morning and traveled across the sky before descending into the underworld at night.
The practice of positioning sphinxes as guardians was ancient by the time Tanis became a capital. Similar statues had been used for this purpose since at least the Old Kingdom, more than a thousand years earlier. The symbolism remained consistent across dynasties: the sphinx embodied the pharaoh's role as protector of Egypt, defender of ma'at (cosmic order), and intermediary between the human and divine realms.
Cultural Context
The dating of the Great Sphinx of Tanis remains contested among Egyptologists. The earliest surviving inscription on the statue mentions Pharaoh Amenemhat II of the 12th Dynasty, who ruled approximately 1915 to 1885 BCE during the Middle Kingdom. This suggests the sphinx was carved during his reign or earlier. However, some scholars argue for an even older origin in the Old Kingdom's 4th Dynasty (around 2620 to 2500 BCE) based on stylistic analysis of the carving techniques and proportions. The debate continues because later pharaohs repeatedly reinscribed the monument, obscuring or removing earlier text.
What is certain is that multiple rulers added their names to the sphinx long after its original creation. Inscriptions bear the cartouches of Merneptah of the 19th Dynasty (1213 to 1203 BCE), who ruled during the New Kingdom, and Shoshenq I of the 22nd Dynasty (943 to 922 BCE), who made Tanis his capital. There may also be inscriptions from Apophis of the 15th Dynasty (around 1580 to 1540 BCE), though this attribution remains uncertain. This practice of usurping earlier monuments was common in ancient Egypt, where later pharaohs would chisel off previous inscriptions and carve their own names instead, claiming ownership of works that predated them by centuries.
The repeated reinscription reflects both practical considerations and ideological ones. Pharaohs needed to demonstrate their legitimacy and divine favor by associating themselves with powerful symbols of royal authority. An ancient, impressive monument like this sphinx carried accumulated prestige. By adding their names to it, successive rulers claimed continuity with Egypt's glorious past and presented themselves as rightful heirs to the throne. The fact that this particular sphinx was repeatedly claimed by different dynasties, including the Hyksos rulers who were themselves foreign invaders, demonstrates how valuable such monuments were as political propaganda.
Tanis became prominent relatively late in Egyptian history. The city rose to importance during the 21st Dynasty when the power of Thebes in Upper Egypt declined and the political center shifted to the Nile Delta. During the Third Intermediate Period, Tanis served as one of Egypt's primary capitals and was filled with monuments transported from older sites or newly constructed. Many objects found at Tanis, including this sphinx, originated elsewhere and were moved to the city to enhance its prestige and sacred character. The Great Sphinx of Tanis may have been carved originally for a different location, perhaps Memphis or another Middle Kingdom site, before being transported north to Tanis when that city became a royal capital.
Discovery and Preservation
Jean-Jacques Rifaud conducted the first formal excavations at Tanis in 1825. He was working in the ruins of what had once been the great Temple of Amun-Ra, a massive religious complex that dominated the ancient city. Among the rubble and collapsed structures, his team found two large pink granite sphinxes. One was the Great Sphinx now in the Louvre. The other sphinx also ended up in Paris. Both had been buried under sand and debris for centuries, their existence forgotten after Tanis declined and was gradually abandoned following the collapse of ancient Egyptian civilization.
Auguste Mariette, one of the pioneering figures in Egyptology, conducted more extensive excavations at Tanis between 1860 and 1864. William Matthew Flinders Petrie, the British archaeologist who developed many modern excavation techniques, worked at the site from 1883 to 1886. Pierre Montet led the most significant 20th century excavations from 1929 to 1956, during which he discovered intact royal tombs from the Third Intermediate Period in 1939. These tombs contained golden funerary masks and treasures comparable to those found in Tutankhamun's tomb, though they received far less attention because the discovery occurred during World War II when global attention was elsewhere.
The Louvre Museum acquired the Great Sphinx in 1826 as part of the second Egyptian collection of Henry Salt, a British diplomat and antiquities collector. Jean-François Champollion, the scholar who had deciphered hieroglyphs using the Rosetta Stone just four years earlier, led the negotiations on behalf of the French state. Initial plans called for placing the sphinx outdoors in the center of the Louvre's Cour Carrée, but this idea was abandoned. Instead, the sphinx was exhibited in the museum's courtyard, which became known as the Cour du Sphinx, from 1828 until 1848. The statue was then relocated to the Galerie Henri IV, which remains the main monumental sculpture room of the museum's Egyptian Department.
In the mid 1930s, the sphinx was moved again to its current location in a crypt designed by Louvre architect Albert Ferran. The crypt connects the two halves of the southern wing of the Cour Carrée. The sphinx sits in a dramatic underground chamber where lighting emphasizes the pink color of the granite and the monumental scale of the sculpture. The display presents the sphinx at ground level rather than on a high pedestal, allowing visitors to view it from multiple angles and appreciate details like the carved claws and the inscriptions on the shoulders and sides.
Why It Matters
The Great Sphinx of Tanis represents the continuity of Egyptian artistic and religious traditions across more than a thousand years. The monument was carved in the Middle Kingdom or possibly earlier, transported to Tanis during the Third Intermediate Period, and repeatedly claimed by rulers from multiple dynasties. Each pharaoh who inscribed his name on the statue was asserting his connection to Egypt's ancient heritage and his legitimacy as a divine ruler. The practice of usurping monuments demonstrates how Egyptian civilization valued its own past and how later rulers used that past to shore up their authority.
The sphinx also illustrates the technical capabilities of ancient Egyptian stonemasons. Working with one of the hardest available materials using only stone and copper tools, they created a sculpture that has survived for millennia with its fundamental form intact. The precision of the carving, the balanced proportions, and the smooth polished surface all testify to advanced knowledge of materials and highly developed craftsmanship. Modern experiments attempting to replicate ancient Egyptian stone carving techniques have confirmed the extraordinary skill and labor required to produce works like this.
As one of the largest Egyptian sphinxes outside Egypt, the Great Sphinx of Tanis has become a focal point for understanding Egyptian religious iconography and the function of guardian statues in temple architecture. It provides a well-preserved example of the sphinx form that can be studied in detail by scholars and viewed by millions of museum visitors who might never travel to Egypt. The multiple layers of inscriptions make it particularly valuable for studying the practice of usurpation and how Egyptian rulers manipulated symbols of royal power across different historical periods.
The sphinx's presence in the Louvre since 1826 has made it one of the most accessible major Egyptian monuments in Europe. It has appeared in countless photographs, art history textbooks, and documentaries about ancient Egypt. For nearly two centuries, it has served as an introduction to Egyptian civilization for visitors from around the world, standing alongside other masterpieces in the Louvre's collection as evidence of ancient Egypt's artistic achievement and enduring cultural influence.