Passage 5: The Great Sphinx Statue
The great Sphinx is a lion which the head of a person cut out of rock. It is
a statue located in Egypt. Legends have been told about the great sphinx. Many
of these stories talk about the Sphinx being strong and wise. Some people think
that there is hidden area inside the Sphinx for people to enter. But no one has
found a way to get inside.
There is a story about a young man
who fell asleep next to the Great Sphinx.
He had gone hunting in the daytime and he
was tired. The man had a dream that he
would be the King of Egypt if he cleaned
the sand away from the Sphinx. At that
time, the Great Sphinx was covered up with sand except for its head.
Sandstorms sometimes cover the body of the statue.
But the story doesn’t have an ending. What do you think happened? Did
the boy clean the sand away from the Sphinx? Did he become King of Egypt?
No one seems to know. The statue is very large. The whole statue is 150 feet
long with 50 feet long paws. The head is 30 feet long and 14 feet wide.
The sphinx is getting fixed. It will look like it once did. This process is
called restoring. Wind and sand have worn parts of the statue’s nose and some
other parts of the statue away completely. The parts will be rebuilt to look as
good as new.