All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S06E17.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH[EZTVx.to]

It rises from the sands of the Egyptian
desert, seeming to guard the great

pyramids of Giza. But surprisingly
little is known about this great wonder

the ancient world.

How could ancient Egyptians, 4 ,500
years ago, sculpt a

statue as mighty as this thing?

It's just an amazingly monumental
structure.

But it's silent. It doesn't tell us
exactly everything we need to know.

For thousands of years, the Sphinx has
guarded its many secrets.

The prevailing view is that you had
human workers carving it away to make

Now another theory comes along that the
bulk of it wasn't even done by human

beings. Now, we'll explore the top
theories surrounding the origins and

purpose... of this mysterious monument.

Was the Sphinx built by the same person
that killed his brother to become the

Pharaoh? It could be that the Sphinx is
part of a celestial map.

In 1987, a team of researchers think
they found hidden secret chambers that

located under the Sphinx.

Who built this massive statue?

And why was it made?

1403 BCE, the Giza Plateau of Egypt,
home to the Great Pyramids.

Pharaoh Amenhotep II rules the land.

His younger son, Prince Thutmose, has
come to Giza to hunt gazelle.

But this royal hunting ground has an
extraordinary past.

If you go back around a thousand years,
the Giza Plateau is a very important

place of monumental buildings.

It's there.

that some amazingly large pyramids are
built.

However, at this time, it's fallen into
disrepair.

Most of the structures have been covered
or partially covered by the desert

sands, and it's largely ignored.

By the time of Prince Thutmose, the Giza
Plateau is already over 1 ,000 years

old and already ancient. It's become
this playground, really, for the royal

family. They race their chariots, they
hunt, they use it for these different

expeditions.

So according to legend, Thutmose was out
on a hunting trip and he was looking

for a place to get out of the hot,
burning Egyptian sun.

And he found shelter next to this
object. And as he got closer to it, it

out that this object was a massive stone
head protruding from the desert sands.

He falls asleep and has a dream. And in
this dream, a god comes to him, the god

Horus, who says, if you free my body
from this sand, I will make sure that

you're king.

Because Prince Thutmose was not the heir
apparent for the throne of Egypt, this

sounded like a great deal for him. And
so Prince Thutmose then goes about

restoring this giant statue to its
former glory.

Once the prince begins clearing away the
sand, an extraordinary and mysterious

sculpture takes shape.

A towering figure carved from stone, now
known as the Great Sphinx of Giza.

Its body is about 250 feet long, which
is nearly a football

field long.

66 feet high.

And the shape of it is the head of a
king and the body of a lion.

Some have estimated that it must have
taken something like a million man

of labor to carve this thing. That would
be the equivalent of something like a

hundred workers working full -time over
the course of three years.

It is a marvelous statue.

And it's all made from one piece of
limestone.

And Thotmose calls it Har Am Achit,
which means Horus in the horizon.

Horus? who spoke to Thutmose in this
dream, is a god associated with

but also with the sun god Ra.

And so after clearing the sands around
this giant sculpture, Thutmose's dream

comes true. He does, in fact, become
king in around 1400 BCE.

As king, Thutmose not only digs it out
of the desert sands, but he also does

restoration work on the statue itself.

Analysis of pink remnants discovered on
the statue reveal a fascinating truth

about its appearance.

Experts now believe the face and body of
the Sphinx were painted a striking deep

red with dark eyeliner, while the Nemus,
or royal headdress, bore the noble

colors of the pharaoh, a vibrant blue
interlaced with gold stripes.

To commemorate his accomplishment,
Thutmose places an engraved vertical

known as a stela between the statue's
front paws.

King Thutmose, he put his dream on that
stela and wrote it down, wrote exactly

what happened, that he fell asleep, that
he had the dream, and the Sphinx made

him the next king of Egypt, all
inscribed on the dream stela. Not only

tablet establish a connection between
Thutmose and the Sphinx, but it

contribute seriously to the legend of
this mysterious object known today as

Great Sphinx of Giza.

For a few hundred years, you have people
traveling far and wide to come and see

the statue.

And that would include also travelers
from outside the Egyptian kingdom.

So this is where we actually get the
name, the Sphinx. It was called this

700 BCE.

It got this name from a Greek traveler
who was coming to look at the statue and

thought it bared a resemblance to their
mythological sphinx.

The sphinx of Greek mythology has the
head of a woman, the body of a lion, and

wings. It's an altogether fearsome
creature who, according to myth, asks

passerbys riddles, and if they can't
answer, devours them.

That is very different from the Egyptian
Sphinx, which has the head of a man and

the body of a lion, and is a guardian
and protects the entryway to the next

life. Over the centuries, though,
confusion has got these two mixed up,

such that we use the word Sphinx to
describe this Egyptian artifact.

It's believed that for hundreds of
years, the Egyptian Sphinx stood as a

of power and divine protection.

But as centuries pass and the kingdom of
Egypt falls, the desert once again

begins to reclaim the mighty structure.

And so with it, the sands of time come
back. They start to bury the Sphinx

until it's buried all the way up into
its neck. It remains buried in this way

for thousands of years until 1817, when
an Italian explorer rediscovers the

Sphinx and wants to figure out what's
beneath it.

They set about to uncover the Sphinx
from the desert sand. But unfortunately,

the task at hand is much harder than
expected.

The sand keeps coming into their
excavation pit, and it's just this near

impossible task for him to uncover the
Sphinx, to the point where he actually

abandons the project altogether and
gives up.

It's not until some hundred years later,
when in 1922, the archaeologist Howard

Carter finds...

King Tut's tomb that reignites an
interest in all things Egypt.

So now a French archaeologist mounts
another expedition to go down and take a

closer look at the Sphinx, and he does a
series of expeditions in the 1920s and

1930s. They're able this time to fully
clear away the sand, and when they do,

they're just amazed at what they see,
this, again, humongous sculpture of this

reclining lion with a human head.

Now that the Great Sphinx can be seen in
all its glory, people around the world

are in awe of this ancient one.

The Sphinx is an icon.

When you see it for the first time, it's
the world's largest mammoth statue,

at least for 4 ,000 years, and it's a
mystery.

The kind of engineering and workmanship
that would have been required to

construct this thousands of years ago is
really quite remarkable.

But there's an even bigger mystery that
still baffles the experts to this day.

What's most likely is that the Sphinx is
a symbol of power to a pharaoh.

Now the question is, which pharaoh was
it?

The first step in trying to figure out
The architect who made the Sphinx is to

try to identify who the model was for
the Sphinx's face. Almost certainly a

pharaoh. And so scholars have gone back
and compared the image of the Sphinx to

the various statues that are still
existing. And the closest match that

have found has been to the pharaoh
Khufu, who was also the pharaoh who

the construction of the Great Pyramid of
Giza, which is close by.

Khufu reigned Egypt for about 30 years,
back in 2550

BCE. He has the biggest, most
fascinating, most famous structure ever

created, the Great Pyramid of Giza, yet
we only have one confirmed statue

that shows us his face.

The only named portrait that we have of
Khufu is a tiny little statue that's

really only about three inches tall.
It's got broad eyes across the face.

this small little three -inch statue
didn't have a beard.

Most of the pharaohs that we see are
depicted with a long beard. So the fact

that we have the sphinx head and we have
the statue of Pharaoh Khufu, both

beardless, leads us to believe that
maybe he's the one who had it built.

Khufu is probably more familiar to
people as Cheops because this was the

Greek name for Khufu. And this is also
why his famous pyramid

is called the Great Pyramid of Cheops
rather than the Pyramid of Khufu for

people. The Great Pyramid of Cheops is
massive. For around 4 ,000 years, it was

the tallest man -made structure in the
world, around 482 feet high.

We know that the pyramids, of course,
were burial tombs for the ancient

kings. But also for the kings, they
would be a show of their power, their

majesty. So clearly, the Great Pyramid
shows off the king's power.

And if Khufu wanted to show this in
other ways, what better way than to

large sculpture combining his head with
the body of a lion?

Some Egyptologists believe the artistic
style of the Sphinx is consistent with

Khufu's era.

Scholars have found a lot of evidence of
associations of lions with the reign of

Khufu. So it could very well be that
whoever designed this monument was

on the lion as a metaphor for Khufu's
reign.

If truly Khufu did order the sculpting
of the Sphinx, then it makes

perfect sense, because looking at the
Sphinx next to the Great Pyramid of

Cheops's Pyramid, it looks like the
Sphinx is standing there with its

guarding the tomb of the king.

However, archaeologists have yet to
discover any inscriptions or records

explicitly link Khufu to the Sphinx.

But if it wasn't Khufu, Who else had the
power and ambition to build such a

bold monument?

Some people believe that the Sphinx was
built by his successor, and specifically

one of his sons who rose to the throne
through pretty scandalous means.

The enigmatic Sphinx has fascinated
humankind for thousands of years, but

about its origins remain unknown.

Given the location of the Sphinx and its
orientation with respect to the

pyramids on the Giza Plateau, including
the Great Pyramid of Cheops, most

scholars think that there's a definite
relationship between them and that all

them together project the majesty and
power of the Egyptian kings.

Some believe the Sphinx wasn't built
just to honor Khufu, but for a far more

sinister reason, one which could reveal
its true maker.

Scholars believe that Khufu intended to
leave his throne to his eldest son,

Khawav. But as so often happens in
history, royal bloodlines don't end up

according to plan.

It is clear that there is a problem
after Khufu's reign, and this gives his

younger sons a lot of time to kind of
bicker amongst one another and decide

takes the throne. And the best way to
take the throne was to get rid of the

person in front of you.

Prince Khawab was next in line to become
the next king of Egypt.

Prince Khawab died suddenly while Khufu
was still a king.

When one of the sons dies, the first in
line to succession, there's always the

speculation, anyway, that maybe the
death was deliberately carried out by

someone to make way for the next in line
to succeed.

And as it turns out, that son who does
succeed, Khufu, is Jadefra.

So not only was Jadefra not first in
line, to succession and born of a lesser

wife of Khufu. He was sort of a black
sheep of the family who was not very

popular with the people.

We know Jadefra experienced a lot of
kind of chaos and discontent during his

rule. And so Jadefra probably would have
been really concerned with

consolidating his power and making sure
that the people understood that he was

in charge and that he was the rightful
successor to his father.

Some researchers believe.

Jadephra tried to restore his good name
by building the Sphinx. So it makes a

lot of sense that Jadephra would have
been undertaking a lot of building

projects to commemorate and honor his
father, who was a lot more popular than

was. And this might be why he had the
Sphinx built, protecting his father's

pyramid. If Jadephra was the pharaoh who
built this monument to his father, not

everyone appreciated his efforts.

In addition to having the nose of his
statue, broken

off. His cartouches, these are Egyptian
hieroglyphics that contain the name of

the king.

Those were damaged and defaced as well.

And this would mean that in the
afterlife, he would be nameless. He

unknown.

The Sphinx may not be the only way
Jadephra tried to memorialize his

a stunning archaeological find at Giza
revealed.

So during excavations around the Great
Pyramid of Giza in 1954, archaeologists

discovered a large pit that was covered
with limestone slabs. And when they

eventually removed these limestone
slabs, what they found was a large

boat from ancient Egypt, over 144 feet
in length and over 4 ,500 years old.

A lot of scholars hesitate to decide
what the boat was for.

And theories could be the boat was made
for the king's body to be in, to come

all the way across the Nile and land
right in front of the pyramids. But then

found no remnants whatsoever that the
boat was ever used.

So the other theory, which is more
likely to be the case, that the boat was

of a symbolic boat for the afterlife.

The stone slabs that covered over the
pit in which the boat lies had

inscriptions on them which include the
name of Jadephra. So it's quite possible

that Jadephra had this boat constructed
for his deceased father Khufu. It

therefore, like the Sphinx, could have
been made by Jadephra in honor of his

father.

But some experts dispute this claim.

Essentially, there isn't enough
archaeological evidence to support the

he was the king who commissioned the
Sphinx to be built. But this doesn't

out that it was one of Khufu's
successors who had the Sphinx made. It

been another successor and not Jadefra.

Around the year... 2550 BCE, after
roughly a decade on the throne, the

Jadephra dies.

Some scholars believe he may have been
murdered.

It is believed that just as Jadephra
killed his brother in order to take the

throne, Jadephra in turn was killed by
his half -brother Khafre, who took the

throne from him.

During his reign, Khafre also showed an
interest in building large -scale

structures. leading some to wonder if he
might be the Sphinx's true architect.

All you have to do is take a look at the
massive statues that were made for

Khafre, particularly in his valley
temple at Giza.

Once you overlay the face of these
statues on the Sphinx, you can see that

is resemblance.

But the problem is, Khafre had
representations that showed him with a

looking at the Sphinx, The Sphinx
doesn't have a beard.

During examination of the Sphinx in the
1980s, scholars actually noticed that

there was essentially a bump underneath
the chin that might indicate that there

used to be a beard there.

It's quite possible that there
originally was a stone beard on the

would make it more in Capra's likeness
than his father, Pharaoh Khufu, and that

the beard might have just been lost to
time, maybe vandalism, or it could be

lost due to essentially long -term
erosion in the desert.

That's not the only potential link
between Pharaoh Khafra and the Great

Khafra, like his predecessors, built a
lot of structures on the Giza Plateau.

He built a huge pyramid for himself as
well that's only a few feet shorter than

the Great Pyramid of Cheops. He also had
a valley temple built there for

himself.

To a lot of Egyptologists, this close
proximity makes us think that this was

part of one plan, right? To have the
Sphinx built at the same time, maybe, as

this causeway connecting the temple to
his pyramid.

The position of the pyramids, the
temple, and the Sphinx line up during

celestial events with breathtaking
results.

This temple has 24 stone columns, and...

24, of course, are the hours of the day.

There are also, in the Sphinx Temple,
two niches on either side of the temple,

one on the east side and one on the west
side. In the Sphinx Temple, on the

equinoxes, the sun rises in the east
through the niche and then sets to the

west niche inside of the Sphinx Temple.

So it... puts together an interesting
sort of tableau because you have the

Sphinx Temple, you have the Sphinx
itself behind it, and behind that you've

the Pyramid of Khafre, all three of them
being lined up to celebrate a celestial

event.

The spring and the fall equinox. Only
those two days.

No other day. That's how perfectly
calculated they were. It wasn't a

coincidence. The alignment of the stars.

the Sphinx looking at the dad shining in
the morning in the form of a sun, and

the equinox day making the Sphinx and
the great pyramids of his dad come into

one as a shadow.

Could Capra have built the temple,
Sphinx, and pyramids as interconnected

structures to ensure his journey
alongside his father into the afterlife?

Ancient Egyptians had a very strong
astronomy field of study.

And you can tell from all the buildings
they've built how aligned with the stars

they were.

And the reason is because they believed
that they come from the stars and

eventually, when they are done with this
life, they go be immortal up in the sky

with the stars.

So if the Sphinx was actually built by
King Capra, this would make perfect

sense.

Modern science has found another link
between Capra and the Sphinx, revealed

microscopic organisms hidden within the
rock itself.

So when we look at limestone, limestone
is a compilation of mud, sand, and

also sea organisms.

Pneumolites is what we call them. We
look at these as the fingerprints of the

limestone, and it suggests...

that Khafre may have been the one that
built the Sphinx because the same stone

is used in the Sphinx as is used in the
structures that Khafre built.

According to some of these theories,
they had originally sculpted the Sphinx

then later used the stone that was
chiseled away from that for use in

other building projects.

But not everyone agrees this was all
Khafre's doing.

Some scholars are skeptical whether he
actually built his valley temple and

carved the Great Sphinx at the same
time.

The Great Sphinx of Egypt has fascinated
scholars and historians for centuries.

But who built it, and why, has long
remained a tantalizing mystery. Is it

possible modern science can finally
solve the questions around its origin?

In the 1980s, archaeologists make a
great leap forward when it comes to

unraveling some of the mysteries of the
Sphinx.

They begin to use radiocarbon dating
techniques to try to determine the age

the pyramids. And if you can determine
the age of the pyramids, you might know

the age of the Sphinx. Since you can't
carbon date stone, they focus on the

organic materials they find.

Wooden coffins, human bones, reed mats.

The hope is to pinpoint when the tombs
were being used.

This would mean that Giza was active,
and if it was active, you have a rough

idea of when it may have been built.

Radiocarbon dating of a lot of these
organic materials sets the building date

most of these temples and pyramids
during the reigns of Khufu to Khafra,

that doesn't necessarily link or tell us
when the Sphinx itself was built.

Some people suggest that the Sphinx was
built earlier.

than the pyramids on the Giza Plateau.
They think that, in fact, it was an

earlier ruler who ended up building the
Sphinx.

One piece of evidence that has given
rise to some theories that the Sphinx

date from a much earlier period than the
nearby pyramids is something called the

inventory stela, which was discovered in
1858.

in that area.

The inventory stela, we think, dates to
sometime in the 600 BCE.

The inventory stela lists everything
being found in that location at the

It says that King Khufu's pyramid was
built in the shadow of the

Sphinx, which led many...

Scholars to suggest that the Sphinx was
already there when the Great Pyramid was

built. If the Sphinx predates the
pyramids, then who is the architect of

colossal monument?

One clue may be hidden in the shape of
the Sphinx's head.

The proportions between the head of the
Sphinx and its body suggest that perhaps

there was a different head on the body
of the Sphinx originally.

which was then recarved and reshaped to
look like a human head. The head appears

to be too small in proportion to the
body of the Sphinx. And this is unusual

because Egyptian art is usually very
proportional.

Some suggest that the original statue's
head may have ties to the underworld.

There are some theories this body could
have originally been with the head of a

dog, which could mean that it was
representing the Egyptian god Anubis. He

the god of funerary rites. He was
actually the one that would kind of help

people get into the afterlife.

So this would make a lot of sense for
then why later pharaohs want to build

their pyramids, their tombs right next
to him.

Anubis was one of the oldest Egyptian
gods. It's associated with mummification

in the afterlife.

He was popular during the first dynasty,
which is long before the reign of Khufu

and his sons.

Some speculate that a much earlier ruler
carved the Sphinx with the head of a

dog or jackal as a celebration of
Anubis. But then, centuries later, after

Anubis has declined in popularity,
another ruler, maybe Khufu, one of his

descendants, has the Sphinx re -carved
in his own image.

Now, if that's the case, it would mean
the Sphinx is centuries older than

previously thought.

Then, in 1998, new evidence emerges that
backs up this idea.

A geologist by the name of Colin Reeder
examined the erosion on the Sphinx.

And in his view, the head appears to be
eroded from sand and wind,

whereas the lower portions, the body, of
the Sphinx looks to be water erosion.

The base being subject to water erosion
brings a lot of questions because

obviously we're in the middle of the
desert.

But we do know that Egypt had this
period known as the Neolithic Wet Phase,

anywhere from 4 ,000 to 9 ,000 years
ago.

And that's 7 ,000, 8 ,000 years before
the Great Pyramid of Giza was even

And if that is true, then there was a
whole civilization that have created

this thing over 7 ,000 years before
ancient Egypt as we know it.

Some scholars have tried to actually
look at the sedimentary evidence around

Giza Plateau to try to figure out if the
whole Giza Plateau was more like a

savanna with lush vegetation.

And what they found is that there is a
now dried out...

canal or branch of the Nile that
actually existed close by where the

located today.

Evidence of an ancient canal may
indicate a civilization even older than

previously believed, one whose ruler
could have built the mighty Sphinx.

If Colin Reeder is somehow right, the
horizontal erosion that was on the side

walls of the Sphinx suggests that the
Sphinx could have been there.

during the Neolithic time, the Wet Era.

In 2023, New York University publishes a
study that might upend everything we

think we know about how the Great Sphinx
was constructed.

Even though the prevailing view is that
you had a king decide to do this, here

we are in 2023.

And now another theory comes along that
the bulk of it wasn't even done by human

beings. A team of researchers decides
that they want to see if they can

replicate what could have become this
naturally occurring sphinx 4 ,500 years

ago in Giza.

The team from NYU found new evidence to
suggest that perhaps more powerful

forces were at play even before any
chisels hit the rock.

So the New York team was drawing on
research from the 1980s by a geologist

space scientist, Farouk Elbaz.

So Elbaz spends his later career
studying how desert landscapes form

using satellite imagery, using various
geological surveys. He's trying to

out how landforms develop and how they
evolve over time.

He has theorized that you can form these
kind of features on the surface of the

Earth and other planets as well through
wind and sand erosion that create a

large natural geological structure.

These are naturally occurring formations
that are known as mud lions,

largely because what happens is that the
softer mud floats away and that the

harder mud that's left often becomes the
figure of a recumbent lion. And

they are found all over the world,
largely in desert areas, but also are

on Mars.

According to this theory from Elbaz,
rather than starting from scratch and

carving this whole thing, they might
have seen this naturally occurring

formation that maybe resembled a lion or
some form of animal and then worked on

it after the fact.

Could desert winds also be responsible?

for helping to create the Great Sphinx.

Researchers were determined to find out.

So this research team tried to recreate
the geological conditions by getting

some soft clay and embedding within it
harder bentonite clay and

then running water over that so that it
would erode the soft clay on the

exterior, exposing some of that harder
bentonite clay.

They simulated the weather conditions,
what would have happened in the desert

under flooding.

The team uses 3D optical scanners to
record how the shape changes as the clay

structure erodes.

The results were really surprising.

In fact, it was the natural formation of
a lion that was left.

Not only do these erosion patterns
create a lion shape, but they even...

give more perhaps distinctive features,
things like paws and neck and even the

head of a lion as well.

So after a long time of that mound of
limestone has been there, a king

or an engineer thought, and it looks to
them like a body of a lion sitting with

its paws out.

So it may very well be, and it was
nature that created it. And then ancient

Egyptians came in, just put their final
touches.

and mated the mighty Sphinx.

Still, there's no way to be certain
whether nature truly shaped the Sphinx.

skeptics have suggested that we know
that erosion has been eating away at the

Sphinx since it was created, but this
doesn't necessarily mean that these same

forces were used to create the statue in
the first place.

We may never know with certainty who
built the great Sphinx.

But the more compelling question may be,
what else is it hiding?

While some Egyptologists and scholars
have debated the age of the sphinx,

other groups have actually debated what
potentially lies beneath the sphinx,

including the wild theory that there are
secret rooms and chambers of hidden

knowledge located below the statue
itself.

According to this theory,

There was a central library established
somewhere in one location with all

of the wisdom and technology of the age
in a repository of knowledge about a

vanished civilization.

And there are some who believe that that
library is located below the Great

Sphinx of Giza. And if that's true, it's
been buried there for thousands of

years.

Explorers have spent the last hundred
years looking for hidden passageways in,

around, and under the Sphinx.

As it turns out, there actually are
subterranean passages beneath the

In the 1920s and 30s, archaeologists did
find some passages there. They found

one at the rear or the rump of the
Sphinx.

and also another one between the paws of
the Sphinx. However, when they

investigated these passages, they
stopped in a dead end.

A half a century later, in 1977,
American researchers are able to use new

-imaging technology to look further into
these subterranean tunnels, and they

find some anomalies that they can't
explain.

They're not really able to explore it
further until 10 years later in 1987

a Japanese team was able to use an
electromagnetic sounding survey to look

this further.

The Japanese research team from Waseda
University in Tokyo, using

electromagnetic sounding to try to map
underneath the Sphinx, found a water

pocket 8 to 10 feet underground, a
couple of cavities behind the hind paws.

of the Sphinx and another cavity some
six feet away which seemed to also

other anomalies within it. They also
think that chamber located to the east

the Great Sphinx potentially contained
some ancient artifacts within it. This

finds increased interest in trying to
explore these anomalies that were being

found underneath the Sphinx.

But ultimately, for the safety of the
monument, the Egyptian officials decided

not to continue exploration of these
underground anomalies.

In 2019, though, the Egyptian government
did give permission to research teams

to do some digging. And so they were
able to investigate some of these

and passages under the Sphinx.

But alas, they didn't find anything.

Despite the dead ends, explorers
continue visiting Giza.

to search for this legendary lost hall
of records in 2021 dr manu this

is the day used new scanning technology
and he did find what he believes to be a

man -made room that is about 40 feet by
30 feet

under the sphinx and he believes it's
man -made because it has perfect

square right angles.

The fact that they found this man -made
room under the Sphinx that scans have

revealed suggests that perhaps the
Sphinx was constructed specifically to

or perhaps even to hide the location of
this library.

Now, according to the scans, though,
this room is flooded with water. That

that if there were all these records in
there, they would have been destroyed by

water long ago.

One Roman historian suggested that the
chambers beneath the Great Sphinx are

guarding knowledge, but instead
protecting a mysterious tomb.

Proponents of the theory of a burial
chamber find evidence in an ancient

the natural history of Pliny the Elder,
who visited the Great Sphinx and around

77 or 79 CE.

He recorded his observations about the
great structure in his book, Natural

History. Pliny wrote, The

problem

is no one has

been able to identify

that there ever was anyone named King
Harmaeus. There is a list from the

of Siti of the 75 pharaohs, and he is
not included among them at all.

We know, though, that this list omits
many of the older pharaohs. So if

King Harmaeus was one of them, it would
make the Sphinx even older than the

oldest current estimate.

Researchers continue to debate what the
chambers beneath the Great Sphinx might

hold. But until archaeologists are able
to excavate underneath the ancient

monument, the mysteries remain hidden.

Unfortunately, the Egyptian officials
haven't granted any more permission to

actually dig and find out what is in
this really interesting cavern. And so

there are people who are critical who
say that the Egyptian government is

these secrets of the Sphinx. But really,
until we can dig down there and see for

ourselves, we're just not going to know.

For decades, scholars have poured over
every inch of the Sphinx trying to solve

the many mysteries associated with it.

For every time they think they come up
with an answer, they always end up with

more questions about it. And to this
day, the Sphinx is still a subject of

endless debate.

All across centuries, the Sphinx has
been this mystical figure that is full

secrets. You just don't know what it is
and who built it and why.

And today, the Sphinx has been
associated with all these secrets. It's

that if you want to keep a secret,
they...

They say, silent as the Sphinx. And it's
true.

This structure is an enigma.

Even so, researchers continue trying to
solve the riddle of this impressive

monument, hoping that one day new
technologies will finally reveal who

built the great Sphinx of Giza and why.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for
watching History's Greatest Mysteries.