A fragment of the Great Sphinx’s beard

The curved limestone fragment once belonged to a beard beneath the Great Sphinx’s face. Seen on its own, it takes a moment to connect this piece of carving with the huge monument at Giza. The Sphinx itself remains in Egypt. A royal beard was a recognisable sign in Egyptian sculpture. This fragment is associated, with some uncertainty, with an Eighteenth Dynasty renewal of the Sphinx. The date of that addition belongs to a later chapter than the creation of the original monument. Ancient monuments could be repaired, renewed and given new details over long periods. The explorer Giovanni Battista Caviglia donated the fragment in 1818. Its journey brought a small part of a much larger structure into a gallery of Egyptian sculpture. Look at the surviving curve and the break. Both help you place it. One preserves the intended form of the beard, while the other marks the fragment’s separation from the monument.