Entrance to the Sphinx
The Sphinx was in all probability an object of worship. From that altar between his paws the smoke went up into the gigantic nostrils now vanished from the face. “The ancient Egyptians called him ‘Neb,’ ‘Lord,’ a name generally applied to the gods in their popular pantheon, but specially to the Sphinx alone.” Dean Stanley writes this fine passage concerning the Sphinx: “And for what purpose was this sphinx of sphinxes called into being, as much greater than all other sphinxes as the pyramids are greater than all other temples and tombs? If, as is likely, he lay couched at the entrance now deep in the sand of the vast approach to the second, that is the central pyramid, so as to form an essential part of this immense group; still more if, as seems possible, there was once intended to be a brother sphinx on the northern side as on the southern side of the approach its situation and significance were worthy of its grandeur, and if further the Sphinx was the giant representative of royalty then it fitly guards the greatest of royal sepulchers and with its half human, half animal form is the best welcome and the best farewell to the history and religion of Egypt.” It is still a mystery. The riddle of the Sphinx is the question as to the reason of his being, the significance of his form and position. The explorers of these venerable structures—the temples and obelisks, the tombs and pyramids are as likely to differ as are all other students of archaeology.
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