The Sphinx is a colossal stone statue in Egypt that is also a living being: the personification of death, guardian of the solar pharaohs and of all that lives on earth, and the form the pharaoh takes to destroy his enemies. “Aquel que es faraón es la Esfinge” (“He who is pharaoh is the Sphinx”).
| Type | Entity |
| Location | Egypt |
| Spanish entry | Esfinge |
Description
It is “of stone, gigantic”, about two hundred and forty feet long, “almost 80 meters”; walking around it “is like going around a city block”. It is not female but a pharaoh, “a mixture of god and monster”.
After the earthquake it sank: “the Sphinx is at least some 20 feet buried”, front paws and head out of sight, while “the tail was left sticking out”.
The records fix a single Sphinx, buried beside the city whose population was saved; yet “there have been avenues of Sphinxes” in ancient Egypt. “The pyramid is in fact a representation of the Sphinx”, and it is “represented in many things”, such as the stela of Amun Ra.
Role
It is “the last most powerful being, sentinel of ancient Egypt”. It moves: a witness saw “the sphinx that moved”. Its movement coincided with an earthquake that sank twenty feet of ground and threatened a whole population; yet “strangely, the Sphinx did not stay afterward to destroy everything”: someone saved the population.
Open questions
- How many Sphinxes exist, and whether the others can move.
- Whether its movement caused the earthquake or the earthquake buried it.
- Which city and population; who stopped it, and how; any condition to invoke or stop it.
- In what sense the pyramid “represents” it.
- The 240-foot figure appears as a question, not a statement; the stone’s color and damage are unrecorded.