 The image of the great Sphinx is highly symbolic these days, but the reporting of what the Sphinx looked like before the invention of photography is incredibly anomalous. It would take European artists until 1743 to accurately represent the ancient wonder. It would appear that understanding was playing a key role in perception and in these matters we struggle to properly explore the image of the Sphinx and instead of a depiction we end up with characterization that looks nothing like the monument today. In 1556 Andrei Thavet depicted the enigmatic masterpiece. Strangely Thavet was a renowned memory artist, often boasting of a prodigious memory. This guy made this art two years after visiting the Ghetto Plateau and although this piece of art is not in the likelihood of the Sphinx, we can assume its features are accurate even though the art is misrepresented. In 1579 Johannes Helfovich made this hideous piece of art. Again, the artist is misrepresenting the monument, but he does tell of a mysterious passage that he says priests could enter and project their voices as if they themselves were the voice of the Sphinx. This artist is the first European to begin a perception of the headdress, which is further represented in 1647. But by this time jealous Europeans must have began to realize that the wonders of the past were on show at this location and this image of the Sphinx appears to show a harlot with a hair net and obvious measure as to not report back to European civilization that a more ponderous civilization had already been in existence. Three years after the hair net insult, another European artist again depicts the Sphinx as a woman with a big collar and hair net. It wouldn't be until 1743 when Richard Polcock made the first modern accurate representation of the great Sphinx. Polcock spent five years touring the region of Egypt. Here he would sketch on site, whereas previous efforts were done either ironically, insultingly or from memory. Big breakthroughs happened in 1743. We watched Mercury transit the sun and Comet C1743C1 was visible to Earth observers. All this and European and American cultures were shown for the first time what the great monument on the Giza Plateau actually looked like. Now even though the artistic depictions before Polcock's representation do not look anything at all like the Sphinx we see today, all these artistic renderings including future sketches up until 1822 appear to show the Sphinx with similar features. It has a headdress, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, etc. In 1822 however, André Duceffet, a French painter in Napoleon's army, shows us for the very first time that the Sphinx nose is broken. No previous works of art show this. Before we go any further on the matter, we should say that a 1755 depiction of the Sphinx, as portrayed by Norton, has long thought to have shown the Sphinx with a broken nose. To us this is just shadowing by the artist who highlight its features. We don't believe this representation shows the nose broken and this means it was during Napoleon's occupation that this may have happened. We have heard tales about how the French army targeted the Sphinx with a cannonball. This isn't the case because closer examination of the ancient wonder shows a clear sign that iron rods had been inserted into the nose at three locations and the nose was wedged off. Now, we don't know when this was done, it isn't documented, but this art before photography is important and it shows us this fact. We are told that the nose of the Sphinx was probably stripped away about a thousand years ago when the son of Saladin entered the plateau with an army, hell bent in stripping the entire plateau for the purposes of rebuilding. He wanted the masonry and after a conservative attack on the Pyramid of Mancura over an eight month period, they had more than they needed. The son of Saladin did not touch the Sphinx however and he mentions this fact when he mentions the Abul Hul. This is the Arabic word for the Sphinx which means father of Terra by the way and he says the nose was still intact. In fact he says the monument had a handsome face with a prominent feature not disturbed through the sands of time with a reddish tint and varnish as if it had just been painted. The iron rods at the Sphinx's nose shows us that a deliberate action of destroying the Sphinx was undertaken by Napoleon. If the Sphinx's nose was broken all the way through antiquity then these artists would have documented it. Sure their perceptions are questionable but not the detail and we just wanted to show this to you guys. The first time the Sphinx is depicted without a nose is in 1822. Was Napoleon looking for hidden chambers in the monument as reported in 1556 by Thibet as being a room that allowed you to project your own voice as if it was the Sphinx talking. What do you guys think about this anyway? Comments below and as always thank you for watching.