BEIJING, Dec. 20 -- The riddle of the Sphinx has confounded generations of tourists and experts alike. Who built it, why, and what does it mean? Now a leading Egyptologist believes that he has pieced together the puzzle.

The riddle of the Sphinx has confounded generations of tourists and experts alike. Who built it, why, and what does it mean? Now a leading Egyptologist believes that he has pieced together the puzzle.

    After researching the pyramids of the Giza Plateau and their imposing half-human, half-animal guardian for 20 years, Vassil Dobrev of the French Archaeological Institute in Cairo has concluded that the Sphinx was the work of a forgotten pharaoh.

    For many years, it has been held that Khafre, a king of the Fourth Dynasty whose pyramid sits behind the Sphinx, built the monument in his own likeness. But Mr Dobrev believes the Sphinx was in fact created more than four and a half thousand years ago by Djedefre, Khafre's half brother and the son of Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid at Giza. When Khufu died, the people of ancient Egypt were weary, having spent decades building pyramids, says Mr Dobrev.

    He argues that Djedefre, who succeeded Khufu as pharaoh, built the monument in the image of his father, identifying him with the sun god Ra, as a piece of propaganda to restore respect for the dynasty. In a documentary for television channel Five, Secrets of the Sphinx, to be shown next Tuesday, Mr Dobrev challenges the accepted version of the origins of the Sphinx and the reign of Djedefre, who came close to being written out of ancient history. "This is the first time it has been proposed that the Sphinx has been built after the death of Khufu by his son Djedefre," said Mr Dobrev.

£¨Source: CRIENGLISH.com/The Independent£©