Fascinating detective work on the Sphinx's missing nose! Frederick Louis Norden sketched it without a nose in the 1730s — long before Napoleon showed up. Archaeologist Mark Lehner spotted chisel marks suggesting deliberate defacement. The strongest account credits Muhammad Sa'im al-Dar, who removed the nose in 1378 CE after seeing locals offering devotions to the Sphinx. 🏛️
Sphinx nose removed in 1378 CE, not by Napoleon's army
EgyptGeneral
Key facts
- Frederick Louis Norden drew the Sphinx already missing its nose in the 1730s, decades before Napoleon's army arrived in Egypt
- Archaeologist Mark Lehner identified tool marks consistent with deliberate chiseling, not blast damage
- The strongest historical account points to 1378 CE, when Muhammad Sa'im al-Dar defaced the nose after seeing locals making offerings to it
Site mentioned
Sources
Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie (1755) records Frederic Louis Norden's extensive documentation and drawings of his voyage through Egypt in 1737–38.
File:Norden, 1755 (2).png - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org
The Great Sphinx of Giza in Frederic Louis Norden's, Voyage d'Égypte et de Nubie (1755) This file has been identified as being free of known ...
[PDF] Frederik Ludvig Norden - Royal Academypubl.royalacademy.dk
A French poem from the reign of the latter (1699-1730), Under King Christian VI (1730-46) the first Danish scientific expe dition to Egypt was dispatched. The ...
Sphinx's nose during the Egyptian campaign, historical evidence ...threads.com
Danish explorer Frederic Louis Norden's sketches from 1737 show the Sphinx already without its nose, well before Napoleon's arrival in Egypt.
Census: Frederic Louis Norden - Colonial Sensecolonialsense.com
Frederic Louis Norden ... Norden made a voyage through Egypt all the way down to Sudan in 1737–1738, on the request of King Christian VI of Denmark.
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