Today’s random object was The Sphinx, a 240-foot-long, 66-foot-high monument CARVED from limestone, not BUILT like the pyramids, and LOST in the sand not once, but twice.

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On the stream, I sketched this miniature Sphinx while walking through the mystery: a face too small for its body, missing inscriptions, and some very strange design choices. The whole thing sits in a dip near the pyramids at Giza, which made it easier to bury during sandstorms, but harder to explain how a whole civilization forgot it was there. It wasn’t until a king “dreamed” it needed to be restored around 1000 BC that it re-entered the story, and it’s been under restoration ever since.

We also talked about the rain-weathering controversy and whether it might be older than the pyramids. There’s no real consensus, but enough erosion weirdness to make people wonder. There’s something wonderful about how little we truly know. No hieroglyphs. No clear origin. Just speculation, broken noses, and scaffolding mishaps.

The restoration part gets philosophical. Cement repairs in the 80s caused more damage than good, and now there’s debate about whether to keep fixing it or let it decay. I ended up siding with the idea of it being performance art. It’s been patched for over 3,000 years, and that’s part of what it is now. Like one of those dances that go on forever but just changing the dancers. Or that song played by pipes in the desert wind that will continue as long as there is wind and pipes.  Like the Ship of Theseus, as every piece gets replaced, but the memory carries on… maybe that’s the real sculpture.