The Age of the Great Sphinx

Egypt's national symbol and one of the world's most famous sights is the Great Sphinx of Giza, a giant stone figure with the body of a lion and the head of a man wearing the pharaoh's crown. Despite its fame, Egyptologists, archeologists, geologists, and others continue to discuss the Sphinx's unsolved "riddle": How old is it exactly? According to common belief, the monolith is around 4,500 years old and was created for Khafre, a Fourth Dynasty king who reigned between 2603 and 2578 BC.

However, not everyone believes that the Sphinx was created for Khafre. Despite the Sphinx's location within the pyramid complex typically regarded as Khafre's, no contemporary inscriptions link him to the statue, according to some Egyptologists as early as the mid-nineteenth century. Various researchers have credited the Sphinx to Khafre's father, Khufu, as well as Djedefre, another of Khufu's sons, over time. A new theory suggests that the statue's origins date back considerably further, to roughly 9,000 years ago. Advocates of this idea point to significant limestone erosion near the top of the Great Sphinx, stating that the region last experienced enough rainfall to cause this level of deterioration in 7000 BC.

Date: 4,500 years old
Location: Giza, Egypt