Operations of Captain Caviglia at the Sphinx

The features of the Sphinx, whatever their beauty or merit may formerly have been, are now so timeworn and mutilated by violence that they can scarcely be said to represent the human countenance; but from the outline of the face, no man, not under the influence of some visionary system, could ever, I think, conclude with Volney that the physiognomy was that of a negro. Even Denon, who has delineated the Sphinx with a negro face, contradicts in his text the authority of his own pencil. Were the whole of this hollow cleared of the sand which now encumbers it, and the land restored to cultivation, as it might be without any very extraordinary expense, the Sphinx, in spite of the injuries of time, might once more be a sublime object; as it is, the greater part of the interest which it inspires is traceable to the imagination.

Nevertheless the physiognomy of this stupendous image has drawn from a recent traveller the following reflections: – “Near the Pyramids, more wondrous and more awful than all else in the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphinx. Comely the creature is, but the comeliness is not of this world; the once-worshipped beast is a deformity and a monster to this generation: and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty – some mould of beauty now forgotten: forgotten, because that Greece drew forth Cytherea from the flashing foam of the AEgypt, and in her image created new forms of beauty, and made it a law among men, that the short and proudly-wreathed lip should stand for the sign and the main condition of loveliness, through all generations to come. Yet still there lives on the race of those who were beautiful in the fashion of the elder world; and Christian girls of Coptic blood will look on you with the sad serious gaze, and kiss your charitable hand with the pouting lips of the very Sphinx.” (Eothen).

It is impossible, however, to form any adequate idea of the grandeur of the Sphinx without having recourse to laborious and expensive excavations; for although the imagination may descend through the sand and pursue the dimensions of the statue, it is necessarily checked by the reflection, that it has no certainty to proceed on, and may be dealing with one of its own creations while attempting to familiarise itself with a reality. Once, and once only, since the time of the Romans, has this prodigious image been laid bare to its basis. Mr. Salt, while Consul-General o Egypt, and Captain Caviglia, achieved this undertaking and the account given by the former of their operations is so interesting, that I am tempted to abridge it here: –
This monument, so imposing in its aspect, even in the mutilated state to which it has been reduced, has always excited the admiration of those who possessed sufficient knowledge of art to appreciate its merits at a first glance; for though, to an untutored eye, there remains so little of the features as scarcely to give more than a general idea of the human head, yet, by repeated and accurate observation, the several parts may be sufficiently traced to afford a tolerably complete idea of its original perfection.

The contemplative turn of the eye, the mild expression of the mouth, and the beautiful disposition of the drapery at the angle of the forehead, sufficiently attest the admirable skill of the artist by whom it was executed It is true that no great attention has been paid to those proportions which we are accustomed to admire, nor does the pleasing impression which it produces result from any known rule adopted in its execution, but it may rather be attributed to the unstudied simplicity of the conception, to the breadth yet high finish of the several parts, and to the stupendous magnitude of the whole.

Such are the sentiments which a repeated view of this extraordinary work has inspired. At first, I confess, that, like many other travellers, I felt that the praises lavished upon it by Norden, Denon, and by others, were exaggerated; but the more I studied it at different hours of the day, and under different effects of light and of shade, the more I became convinced of their having barely done justice to its merits: it must indeed be allowed, that the drawings by both these gentlemen but faintly accord with their encomiums; but, after having repeated the same task myself with little success, I must admit, that the difficulties which attend the undertaking are sufficient to baffle the efforts of any one not professionally dedicated to the arts.

Before I proceed, I must promise, that the general impression made upon me by this monument, has been produced by a deliberate contemplation of it, when laid open to its base, with the fragments of a beard resting beneath the dun, with its paws stretched fifty feet in advance, and with the temple, the granite tablet, and the altar, represented in the accompanying sketches, spread out on a regular platform in its front. These interesting objects, which no one for ages had had an opportunity of seeing, have undoubtedly tended to exalt it in my estimation; and, in order that I may endeavour to convey something of the same feelings to others, I shall proceed to a detailed account of what was discovered by Captain Caviglia; which, together with the several sketches taken on the spot during the progress of his operations, may remain as a record of his labours, when the objects themselves are destroyed, or again entombed in the moving sands.

From various reports I learned that the French had made a considerable excavation in front of the Sphinx, and that they had just discovered a door when compelled to suspend operations. This account was repeatedly confirmed by the Arabs, several of whom declared that they had been present at the discovery; and said, that the door led into the body of the Sphinx; while others affirmed that it conducted up to the second pyramid. Though little stress could be laid on such statements, they still rendered Captain Caviglia very unwilling to give up his researches, without at least doing all in his power to ascertain the fact.

To this end he first began to open a deep trench on the left, or northern side, opposite the shoulder of the statue; and, though the sand was so loose, that the wind drove back frequently during the night more than half of what had been removed in the day, yet be managed by the aid of planks, arranged so as to support the sides, to dig down in a few days to the base. The trench, however, being no more than twenty feet across at the top, and not above three feet wide at the bottom, the workmen were evidently placed in a dangerous situation; for if any large body of sand had fallen in, it must have smothered those who were employed below. It was, therefore, found necessary to abandon this part of the attempt. By what had been done, however, the height of the statue from the top of the head to the base was ascertained, and it was also found that the external surface of the body was composed of stones of various sizes, put together with much care. The form of the masonry was not very regular, but it consisted of three successive ledges, sufficiently broad for a man to stand upon, and intended, probably, to represent the folds of a mantle or dress. It seemed to have been added by the Romans.

The result of the first operation not proving satisfactory, Captain Caviglia began a large excavation towards the front, in which he employed, from the beginning of March to the end of June, from sixty to a hundred labourers. Many interesting discoveries were now made. Among other fragments that were found, were portions of the beard of the Sphinx, and the head of a serpent. Most of these lay in a small temple, ten feet long and five feet broad, which was immediately below the chin of the statue, and which contained, according to Pliny, the body of Amasis, the first king of the eighteenth dynasty. Between the front walls of this temple, a small lion of good workmanship was found, with the head towards the image; and, as small statues of the bull Mahdes are similarly placed in Indian temples, I conceive that this statue was in its original position. Fragments of other lions, rudely carved, and the head and shoulders of a Sphinx, were likewise discovered. All these remains, together with certain tablets found in the small temple, the walls, and the platform, had been ornamented with red paint; which colour, according to Pausanias, was appropriated in Egypt, as in India, to sacred purposes.

A large part of the left paw was uncovered, and the platform of masonry was found to extend beyond it. In the course of a fortnight Captain Caviglia had removed the sand from the paw, and from the outer walls of the temple, in front of which was an altar formed of granite. It is now in the British Museum, and has had at the angles projecting stones, which may be supposed to have been called the horns of the altar. This fragment still retains the marks of fire – the effects, probably, of burnt offerings.

Captain Caviglia succeeded in laying open the base of the Sphinx, and in clearing away the sand in front of it, to the extent of more than a hundred feet. Many short Greek inscriptions were indistinctly cut on the paws of the statue. They prove that the image was held in high veneration; confirm the expression of Pliny, “quasi silvestre nemus accolentium;” and contain various phrases, which elucidate many doubtful points in the sculptures of the adjacent tombs.

Entrance to Sepulchral Chamber near Sphinx

It is scarcely possible for any person, unused to occupations of this kind, to form an idea of the difficulties which Captain Caviglia had to surmount when working at the depth of the base; for, in spite of all his precautions, the slightest breath of wind or concussion set the surrounding particles of sand in motion, so that the sloping sides crumbled away, and mass after mass tumbled in, till the whole moving surface bore no unapt resemblance to a cascade of water. Even when the sides appeared most firm, if the labourers suspended their work only for an hour, they found that the greater part of their labour had to be renewed. This was particularly the case on the southern side of the right paw, where the people were employed for seven days without making any sensible advance, because the sand rolled down in one continued and regular torrent as fast as it was removed. He therefore only examined the end of the paw, when an imperfect description was discovered on the second digit, and a few dedicatory phrases, addressed to Harpocrates, Ares, and Hermes. At the distance of about two feet to the southward of the right paw, the platform abruptly terminated. It was therefore supposed that the Sphinx was placed upon a pedestal; but, by extending the operations in front of the statue, the platform was found to be continued, and the steps were discovered. They were bounded on each side by walls formed of unburnt brick, like those which enclosed the ancient cities and temples of Egypt. The inner sides of the walls, nearest the steps, were lined with stone, and coated with plaster; the stonework, however, appeared comparatively modern, for upon several of the blocks were the remains of Greek inscriptions, which alluded to other buildings. Another of the inscriptions recorded repairs, which were performed by the orders of Antoninus, and of Verus. The walls appeared to branch off towards the north, and also towards the south, and to form a large enclosure around the Sphinx; but their direction was not ascertained. The steps, about a foot in breadth and eight inches in height, were thirty in number. They ended abruptly on the northern side, so as to leave a passage between them and the wall. This passage was not examined. On a stone platform, at the top of the steps, was a small building, which, from its construction, and from various inscriptions found near it, seemed to have been a station whence the emperors, and other persons of distinction who visited the Pyramids, could witness the religious ceremonies performed at the altar below. An inscription on the front of it was much worn.

The platform above the steps was of narrower dimensions, and the abutments had a theatrical appearance. In a few days another flight of thirteen steps was discovered, and another small building, which appeared by the inscription to have been erected under the Emperor Septimius Severus; and the name of Geta is erased from the inscription, in the same manner as it has been taken from the inscription upon the triumphal arch at Rome. At this place, another inscription on a stele, erected in the reigns of Marcus Antoninus and of Lucius Verus, was found; it was sent to the British Museum, and recorded that the walls were restored on the 15th of Pachon, (10th of May,) in the sixth year of the reign of the Emperor Antoninus and Verus. From these facts, and many others to which we might refer, it appears that the Romans were at considerable pains to preserve the sacred monuments of the countries they conquered. In this they set us an example which we should do well to follow. The Taj Mahal, indeed, and one or two other great monuments, are preserved at the public expense in India; but others, equally interesting, are suffered to go to decay, and to have the operations of time accelerated by ignorance and barbarism.

At the top of the second flight of steps a platform is carried on with a gradual ascent, to the length of 135 feet, bounded by a wall on the southern side till it arrives nearly at the level of the ground, when the rock rapidly descends towards the Nile, whether or not in the form of
steps was not discovered. It is difficult to convey, even by drawings a distinct idea of this approach to the Sphinx. It was impossible, however to conceive anything more imposing than the general effect or better calculated to set off to advantage the grandeur of the enormous monument, particularly in the evening, when the sun was setting behind it. The spectator advanced on a level with the breast, and thereby witnessed the full effect of that admirable expression of countenance, which characterises the features, whilst, as he descended the successive flights of stairs, the stupendous image rose before him, whilst his view was confined, by the walls on either side, to the interesting object, for the contemplation of which, even when he had reached the bottom of the steps, a sufficient space was allowed for him to comprehend the whole at a single glance.

Such was the result of Captain Caviglia’s exertions in June, when, in consequence of exposing himself too much to the sun, he was unfortunately seized by an attack of ophthalmia, that compelled him to suspend his operations, and shortly afterwards to return to take charge of his ship at Alexandria. It is, perhaps, a circumstance unexampled in Mohammedan countries, that these operations should have been carried on by a single individual, attended occasionally only by one soldier, without the slightest molestation having been offered, or unpleasant circumstance having occurred, notwithstanding that numerous parties of idle soldiers went every day to inspect the excavation, and that thousands of Arabs, during part of the time, were encamped in the neighbourhood; the circumstance unquestionably does honour to the government of Mohammed Ali, who, on this occasion, as well as on many others, has shown a remarkable liberality in facilitating the researches carried on by Europeans in any way connected with science. The whole expense of these operations amounted to about 18,000 piastres (£450); “and I have to add,” says Col. Vyse, “that Captain Caviglia, to whom by our engagement was left the disposal of everything that might be discovered, very handsomely requested me to forward the whole, of what I might think interesting, to the British Museum, as a testimony of his attachment to our country, under the flag of which he had for some years sailed.”.

From Egypt and Nubia
by J.A. St. John, 1845.