I looked all over for a date and got everything from “early 1800s” to “late 1800s” but nothing exact, so I had to make an educated guess. The first cameras practical enough to take such a photo were developed around 1840 and the excavations began in 1867.

      • Successful_Try543@feddit.orgEnglish
        9·
        1 month ago

        As the article is lacking some information, here is a translstion of a part of the German Wikipedia article:

        The Arab historian and physician Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (1161-1231) from Baghdad described the Great Sphinx and its magnificent nose in the 13th century. In the Middle Ages, the sphinx was still worshipped as a god by some sections of the population, while devout Muslims abhorred this cult. In Arab times, the Sphinx was given the name أبو الهول / Abū l-Haul, which means “father of terror”. In one of his books, the Arab historian Al-Maqrīzī (1364-1442) reports that the devout sheikh of a Cairo Sufi monastery, Mohammed Saim el-Dar (Muhammad Şā’im ad-Dahr, English: “Someone who fasts all the time”), was a fanatical iconoclast who cut off the nose of the sphinx in 1378 and was then killed by the angry crowd.

        The Danish artist Frederick Ludewick Norden (1708-1742) produced engravings of various Egyptian buildings in 1738 on the orders of King Christian VI. Among them was one with the buried Sphinx (Tête colossale du Sphinx), which also shows the head without a nose (published in French in 1755). The rumour that either Napoleon Bonaparte’s soldiers or those of the Ottoman Empire destroyed the nose during artillery exercises has thus been proven false. Napoleon was an enthusiast of Egypt, describing the country as the “cradle of the sciences and arts of all mankind” (l’Égypte - le berceau de la science et des arts de toute l’humanité). The scientists who came to the country with him also drew the Sphinx without a nose.

        TLDR: As the Great Sphinx still has had its nose around 1200 A.D. and was already noseless in 1738, its nose must have been destroyed in the meantime, supposedly by some furious sheikh in 1378.

          • Successful_Try543@feddit.orgEnglish
            3·
            1 month ago

            Indeed. However, somehow one can understand his furor, without condoning the destruction, as the people were worshipping the Sphinx as a god.
            As well, similar things still happen even today:
            In 2001, we could see in TV as the Taliban were destroying the Buddha statues in Bamiyan, which were about 1500 years old or in 2015, as the barbarians of Daesh were demolishing the ruins in Palmyra, a remainders of a city almost 2000 years old. These rages happened despite nobody was actually worshipping the statues, just because they did exist.

    • cheddar@programming.devEnglish
      122·
      1 month ago

      It’s true. Hitler wanted to move the Sphinx to his base on the other side of the moon. Of course, moving the whole thing would be too difficult, so they only took the nose.

      • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.socialEnglish
        9·
        1 month ago

        Hah.

        Just in case, though, I’ll clarify: what I’d heard was that, when the German army was in Egypt in WWII, some German soldiers used the nose for target practice and pulverized it. No aliens required.

        Edit: I’m remembering the story wrong: the target practice thing is attributed to Napoleon’s troops using the nose as target practice for cannon. It’d unsubstantiated in either case; it turns out no one alive really knows.

        • cheddar@programming.devEnglish
          4·
          1 month ago

          recent documentation

          uploaded 15 years ago

          I hate to break it to you, but this information is heavily outdated.

    • Senshi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 month ago

      The Germans never got even close to where the sphinx is located in WW2. The Allied stopped the Axis advance in North Africa hundreds of kilometres west of there.