CLCV 2906 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Ankh, Ancient Egyptian Deities, Lapis Lazuli
24 May 2016
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Document Summary
The largest and most known sphinx is in front of the temple complex of khafre, it is built out of a single piece of limestone. The sphinx is a representation "living image" of the ka of the dead king khafre. The sphinx shows development, it starts off as a simple guardian spirit and then takes on religious meaning and develops into a sacred item in of itself. Pope gregory the 9th decided that the pagan gods never existed, rather they believed that they were evil spirits or demons. Thus to show that they are not welcome (disinviting the pagan gods) they used to vandalise their statues and converted the pagan temples into churches. With the sphinx the muslim villagers used to worship the sphinx as a charm to bring rain and so muhammad salim al-dahr ordered the nose broken. The forecourt area between the legs of the sphinx became the area of worshipping the kings and later the pharaohs.
