Estimated to be as old as 4,500 years, The Great Sphinx is one of the only surviving Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. A sphinx is a mythological creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human, prominent in Egyptian, Asian and Greek mythology. In Egypt, the sphinx was often depicted as a male with a Pharoah headdress.

The Ancient Egyptians never actually referred to the statue as “The Great Sphinx”. Texts from around 1400 BCE refer to it as “a statue of Khepi”. For years after this, The Great Sphinx remained buried under sand. Later, Thutmose IV unknowingly fell asleep on top of it and dreamt that a god called Horem-Akhet Khepri-Re-Atum told him to free the Sphinx from beneath the sand and he would become ruler. After this, the sphinx became “Horem-Akhet”. The next mention of it is during the Medieval period, when it’s referred to as “balhib” and “bilhaw.”

Made of cold cast resin. Hand painted.