For centuries, historians and archaeologists have investigated the mysteries of the Great Sphinx of Giza: What did it originally look like? What was it supposed to represent? What was its original name? But less attention has been paid to a fundamental and controversial question: What kind of terrain did the ancient Egyptians encounter when they began building this instantly recognizable structure, and did this natural environment contribute to its formation?

To answer these questions, sometimes asked by others, a team of scientists from New York University recreated the conditions that existed when the Sphinx was built 4,500 years ago to show how wind moves against rock formations. The world’s most famous statues for the first time

“Our findings suggest a possible ‘origin story’ for how Sphinx-like formations may arise from erosion,” explains Leif Ristroff, an associate professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and senior author of the study accepted for publication. in the magazine Physical Examination Fluids. “Our laboratory experiments surprisingly showed that Sphinx-like shapes can actually arise from materials destroyed by fast flows.”

The work focused on recreating yardangs, unusual rock formations found in deserts as a result of windblown dust and sand, and investigating how the Great Sphinx might have originated as a yardang; This was later elaborated into the form of a yardang, widely recognized by the people. statue.

To do this, Ristroff and his colleagues at NYU’s Applied Mathematics Laboratory took mounds of soft clay with a harder, less destructive material embedded in them, mimicking the site in northeastern Egypt where the Great Sphinx was found.

They then washed these formations with a rapid stream of water to recreate the wind, which hollowed out and reshaped them, eventually resulting in a Sphinx-like formation. The lion’s “head” became a harder or stronger material and many other features emerged, such as a carved “neck”, “claws” extending forward to the ground, and a curved “back”.

“Our results provide a simple theory for how formations like the Sphinx can arise from erosion,” Ristroph notes. “In fact, there are yardangs today that resemble sitting or lying animals, which supports our findings.”

“This study could also be useful for geologists because it reveals the factors that influence rock formations, namely whether they are homogeneous or uniform in composition,” he adds. “The unexpected shapes result from how flows are directed towards harder or less destructive parts.” Source