The team at New York University discovered that the clay eventually resembled a Sphinx-like formation which was subsequently detailed by humans.<\/p>\n
Historians and archaeologists have, over centuries, explored the mysteries behind the Great Sphinx of Giza: What did it originally look like? What was it designed to represent? What was its original name? But less attention has been paid to a foundational, and controversial, question: What was the terrain the Ancient Egyptians came across when they began to build this instantly recognizable structure\u2014and did these natural surroundings have a hand in its formation?<\/p>\n
To address these questions, which have been raised on occasion by others, a team of New York University scientists replicated conditions that existed 4,500 years ago\u2014when the Sphinx was built\u2014to show how wind moved against rock formations in possibly first shaping one of the most recognizable statues in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur findings offer a possible \u2018origin story\u2019 for how Sphinx-like formations can come about from erosion,\u201d explains Leif Ristroph, an associate professor at New York University\u2019s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the senior author of the study, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Fluids. \u201cOur laboratory experiments showed that surprisingly Sphinx-like shapes can, in fact, come from materials being eroded by fast flows.\u201d<\/p>\n
The work centered on replicating yardangs\u2014unusual rock formations found in deserts resulting from wind-blown dust and sand\u2014and exploring how the Great Sphinx could have originated as a yardang that was subsequently detailed by humans into the form of the widely recognized statue.<\/p>\n
To do so, Ristroph and his colleagues in NYU\u2019s Applied Mathematics Laboratory took mounds of soft clay with harder, less erodible material embedded inside\u2014mimicking the terrain in northeastern Egypt, where the Great Sphinx sits.<\/p>\n
They then washed these formations with a fast-flowing stream of water\u2014to replicate wind\u2014that carved and reshaped them, eventually reaching a Sphinx-like formation. The harder or more resistant material became the \u201chead\u201d of the lion and many other features\u2014such as an undercut \u201cneck,\u201d \u201cpaws\u201d laid out in front on the ground, and arched \u201cback\u201d\u2014developed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur results provide a simple origin theory for how Sphinx-like formations can come about from erosion,\u201d observes Ristroph. \u201cThere are, in fact, yardangs in existence today that look like seated or lying animals, lending support to our conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe work may also be useful to geologists as it reveals factors that affect rock formations\u2014namely, that they are not homogeneous or uniform in composition,\u201d\u00a0 he adds. \u201cThe unexpected shapes come from how the flows are diverted around the harder or less-erodible parts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The paper\u2019s other authors are Samuel Boury, a postdoctoral researcher at the time of the study, and Scott Weady, an NYU doctoral student at the time of the study.<\/p>\n
The work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DMS-2206573).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The team at New York University discovered that the clay eventually resembled a Sphinx-like formation which was subsequently detailed by humans. Historians and archaeologists have, over centuries, explored the mysteries behind the Great Sphinx of Giza: What did it originally look like? What was it designed to represent? What was its original name? But less […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-egypt","category-usa"],"yoast_head":"\n