Is it true that the Egyptian Sphinx statue closed its eyes?

Photos of the Great Sphinx statue in Giza, where his eyes are supposedly closed, have gone viral on the Internet. We decided to check if there really were any changes to the legendary statue.

Photos of the Sphinx with her eyes closed appeared on the Internet in May of this year and were widely distributed throughout the world. Media, portals For travelers, social networks. There are posts like this on "Peekaboo". A video about this can be found at YouTube, mainly on channelsdedicated to mysticism. Users ask about this on portals questions and answers. Some write, that an ancient prophecy about the end of the world is connected with this.

Since the photo was widely distributed not only in the Russian segment of the Internet, but also in English and Arabic, the Egyptian authorities could not help but react to the news about the Sphinx closing its eyes. Source from the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities stated Arabic publication Erem that the photos were photoshopped to attract attention. 

The Egyptian Tourism Information Center also denied on its Facebook page that the Sphinx closed its eyes. having laid out fresh photo where the statue's eyes are open. The frame also shows a ticket with a completely recent date. Also in the center statedthat the eyes of the statue look like this because the photo was taken with a camera with poor resolution against the sun, at such an angle that the image was distorted.

By searching the Getty Images portal, where hundreds of thousands of photographs are collected, you can find photos of the statue over the years, in some of which, from a certain angle, the Sphinx looks like its eyes are closed. So this can hardly be considered a harbinger of the end of the world. One of the Egyptian guides also decided to debunk the myth that had arisen, he went to the statue and took a video that showed that the Sphinx did not close its eyes. 

So, despite the photos that are floating around the Internet, the eyes of the Great Sphinx are still wide open, as they have been for the last 4,500 years. This means that you don’t have to be afraid of the coming end of the world, which is supposedly foreshadowed by the sleeping sphinx.

*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

  1. Is it true that Egyptian authorities once issued a passport to a mummy?
  2. Is it true that the nose of the Great Sphinx was broken off by order of Napoleon?

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