The Sphinx was actually buried in sand as many as its shoulders right until the early 1800s, any time a Genoese adventurer named Capt. Giovanni Battista Caviglia tried (and eventually unsuccessful) to dig out the statue which has a workforce of a hundred and sixty men. The later Greek sphinx https://www.luxreisen.net/blog/wo-steht-die-sphinx-in-%C3%A4gypten