Message #32906

[Bianca]

Phase I of the Sphinx's Conservation:





                               Thutmosis IV and other New Kingdom (18th- 19th Dynasties)




 
Evidence for Thutmosis IV's campaign is preserved in the so-called dream Stele he erected between the two paws of the Sphinx in ca. 1400 BC. According to the story he inscribed in the Stella, prince Thutmosis went hunting in the Valley of Gazelles southeast of the Sphinx. The Sphinx spoke to him in a dream and asked the prince to free him from the sand. The Sphinx (Hor-em-Akht) offered in return the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.

From this story we know that the Sphinx was buried up to its neck in sand by 1400 BC.

The implication of the Thutmosis stela is that he freed the monument from the sand and thereby became pharaoh. Indeed, Thutmose IV's commitment to the Sphinx would explain the revival of cultic practice focusing on the Sphinx during that king's reign.

As mentioned above, the Sphinx became an important focus for a popular and royal cult under the name Hormakhet, "Horus in the Horizon," a combination of the god of kingship, Horus, and the sun god Re.