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The ancient pyramids and the Sphinx are probably the most profound impressions we have of ancient Egypt. The disappearing civilization left behind miraculous buildings, and archaeologists, like detectives, constantly pick up fragments of the past, trying to piece together and restore the closest historical truth. But compared to the pyramid with numerous clues, the fog surrounding the Sphinx seems to be even thicker.
According to archaeological evidence, the Sphinx was built over 2500 BC and has a history of approximately 4500 years. Unfortunately, this can only be used as indirect evidence, and we have not yet found any inscriptions related to it. Therefore, when the human face statue was built remains an unsolved mystery. And beyond that, why it was built, who built it, and how it was built have always been secrets that historians and archaeologists are dedicated to exploring.
The Sphinx is known as one of the architectural wonders, mainly due to its massive size – about 73 meters in length, 20 meters in height, and 19 meters in width. What is even more shocking is that most of the main body of the statue was directly carved from a piece of limestone in the Giza region. At the level of civilization at that time, it was hard to imagine how the ancient Egyptians could carve such a huge statue by hand.
However, in a recent study conducted in the Gallery of Fluid Motion, a journal of Physical Review Fluids, experimental physicist and applied mathematician Leif Ristroph from New York University and colleagues found that, The Sphinx may not be a purely artificial work: wind erosion may have carved the rock into a rough shape very similar to that of a lion, and ancient Egyptians may have further sculpted it on the basis of natural sculptures to create the Sphinx.
Wind erosion Yadan
This study can be traced back to 1981, when geologist Farouk El Baz, known for his field investigations of deserts around the world, published an article in the Smithsonian Magazine speculating that before the ancient Egyptians carved various details for the Sphinx, wind may have been the most important “carving knife”.
If you carefully observe the main body of the Sphinx, you may find that it is very similar to the rocks in some Gobi and desert areas of Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Gansu in China. This wind eroded landform is called the Yadan landform, which means “Yadan” in Uyghur language（ يارداڭ） The word means “a small hill with steep walls.”.