Chapter 2　Giants and Pygmies

Egyptian sculpture in-the-round was usually either gigantic-as tall as a house-or tiny-only an inch or so high. Statues of kings and important people were usually colossal.Egyptians thought a statue the size of an ordinary man or woman was not big enough for a king or a queen.

The biggest statue in the world is the Great Sphinx1，which is near the three Great Pyramids. It is a huge lion with a king's head.The Egyptians liked to combine men and animals in this way, but more often they put an animal's head on a man's body.

A cat's head or a bird's head on a man's body seems most unusual, like a monster, and may even make us shudder. But a man's head on an animal's body seems only a myth and doesn’t shock us as much.

The Great Sphinx was supposed to be the god of the morning and so he faces east toward the rising Sun and gazes at it unblinkingly, as he has done each morning for thousands of years. His nose is as tall as a person.The triangular pieces at the sides of his head are not hair；they form a fancy headpiece for ceremonies much like the beard on the pharaoh at the Temple at Abu Simbel.There are many more sphinxes in Egypt, all of which are much smaller than the Great Sphinx.The smaller sphinxes usually were arranged to form an avenue leading up to a temple, with many of them in a double row.