Great Sphinx of Giza Historical Timeline

The Sphinx is generally believed to have been carved during the reign of Pharaoh Khafre in the Fourth Dynasty, around 2500 BCE, as part of the same building program that produced Khafre's own pyramid immediately behind it — though this attribution, based largely on the statue's face and its alignment with Khafre's pyramid complex, is not universally accepted among Egyptologists, and alternative dates have been proposed over the years.

The Sphinx was buried up to its shoulders in desert sand for long stretches of its history, with the body only fully excavated in the early 20th century; a dream recorded on the "Dream Stele" placed between its paws describes a young prince (later Pharaoh Thutmose IV) clearing the sand around 1400 BCE after the Sphinx supposedly promised him the throne in return. The statue's nose, famously missing today, was likely deliberately damaged sometime in antiquity or the medieval period — the popular legend blaming Napoleon's soldiers dates from long after the damage had already occurred and is not supported by historical evidence.