Facts About Sphinx of Egypt - strangefacts

• Sphinxes are massive stone statues that depict the body of a reclining lion with the head and face of a human

• The Great Sphinx's paws and head are out of proportion, suggesting there may have been an even larger, earlier statue which was adapted

• Egyptologists have long argued the monument outside Cairo, which has the head of a pharaoh and the body of a lion, was built soon after the first pyramid - around 4,500 years ago

• Schoch claims the amount of water erosion the Sphinx has experienced indicates a construction date no later than the 6th millennium BC or 5th millennium BC, at least two thousand years before the widely accepted construction date and 1,500 years prior to the accepted date for the beginning of Egyptian civilisation

• The figures are found all over the world in different forms, but they are most commonly linked with Egypt, which features the most famous example in the form of the Great Sphinx of Giza

• Incredibly, the statue is carved out of one monolithic piece of rock, and at 240 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 66 feet tall, it is considered to be the biggest monument of its kind in the world

• Historians largely accept the function of the Sphinx to have been that of a symbolic guardian, since the statues were strategically placed around important structures like temples, tombs, and pyramids

• It stands adjacent to the pyramid of the pharaoh Khafra, and most archeologists believe that it is his face that is depicted on that of the statue

• Despite its reputation as one of the most famous monuments of antiquity, there is still very little known about the Great Sphinx of Giza

• Egyptologists might have a small understanding of why the statue was built, but when, how, and by who is still shrouded in mystery

• The pharaoh Khafra is the main suspect, which would date the structure back to around 2500 BC, but other scientists have argued that evidence of water erosion of the statue suggests that it is much older and perhaps even predated the dynastic era of the Egyptians

• This theory has few modern adherents, but if true it would mean the Great Sphinx of Giza is even more mysterious than previously believed

Facts About Nazca Lines - strangefacts

• The Nazca lines are a series of designs and pictographs carved into the ground in the Nazca Desert, a dry plateau located in Peru

• They cover an area of some 50 miles, and were supposedly created between 200 BC and 700 AD by the Nazca Indians

• The area of the Peruvian desert in which the Nazca Lines were drawn is called the Pampa Colorada. It is 15 miles wide and runs some 37 miles parallel to the Andes and the Pacific Ocean.

• They designed them by scraping away the copper colored rocks of the desert floor to expose the lighter-colored earth beneath

• The lines have managed to remain intact for hundreds of years thanks to the region’s arid climate, which sees it receive little rain or wind throughout the year

• Some of the lines span distances of 600 feet, and they depict everything from simple designs and shapes to characterizations of plants, insects, and animals

• Scientists know who made the Nazca Lines and how they did it, but they still don’t know why?

• The most popular and reasonable hypothesis is that the lines must have figured in the Nazca people’s religious beliefs, and that they made the designs as offerings to the gods, who would’ve been able to see them from the heavens

• Other scientists argue that the lines are evidence of massive looms that the Nazcas used to make textiles

• one investigator has even made the preposterous claim that they are the remnants of ancient airfields used by a vanished, technologically advanced society

• Astronomer Robin Edgar presented the theory that Nazca lines particularly the ones that feature animals, fish and humans were created in order respond to the "Eye of God" which would be a feasable explanation as during the Nazca line period it co-insides with a large amount of solar eclipses took place over the southern Peru area

• Robin Edgar believed this as a solar eclipse would resemble the pupil and iris looking down on the people below, therefore it is believed that the lines were created in order for the eye in the sky to view the Nazca lines

• The Nazca lines are featured in the book "Chariots of the Gods" by Erich Von Daniken that discusses his belief that the Nazca lines were created by aliens and used as landing strips

• Erich Von Daniken felt that the designs were to complex and covered such a large distance that they could not have been created by humans due to the size of the lines, lack of tools plus they had no ability to view the lines from the air