How Did the Great Sphinx Lose Its Nose?

The Great Sphinx of Giza is a majestic limestone statue. And like the mythical creature in the Greek tradition, the sphinx has the head of a human and a lion’s body. But the most telling feature of this statue is its missing nose.

For so long, people believed that Napoleon’s troops shot off the sphinx’s nose with a cannon when they arrived in 1798. But according to modern-day Egyptologists, more likely to blame for the damage is Arab historian and religious leader Muhammad Sa’im al-Dahr. Upset that the peasants were going worshipping a statue and making offerings to the sphinx, he defaced it to prove it was merely stone.