When Napoleon soldiers from France was drunk they shot the Sphinx nose so constantly that it finally fell off the Sphinx,
Which made a great but untrue fable.
The first recorded picture of the Great Sphinx was painted hundreds of years before Napoleon's Army arrived in Egypt. It had no nose then so it was not an effort by the French to destroy a historical monument.
The most likely reason was not man made, but a minute natural fissure that expanded over the centuries..
If you are talking about the sphinx in Egypt then it is the nose. When the British occupied Egypt they used the sphinx as target practice and took away much of its face. Last I heard restoration attempts are underway.
The Sphinx was built in approximately 2500 BC. This is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the nose: The one-meter-wide nose on the face is missing. Examination of the Sphinx's face shows that long rods or chisels were hammered into the nose, one down from the bridge and one beneath the nostril, then used to pry the nose off towards the south.[32] The Egyptian Arab historian al-Maqrīzī, writing in the 15th century AD, attributes the loss of the nose to iconoclasm by Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi Muslim from the khanqah of Sa'id al-Su'ada. In AD 1378, upon finding the Egyptian peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest, Sa'im al-Dahr was so outraged that he destroyed the nose, and was hanged for vandalism. Al-Maqrīzī describes the Sphinx as the "talisman of the Nile" on which the locals believed the flood cycle depended. There is also a story that the nose was broken off by a cannonball fired by Napoleon's soldiers, that still lives on today. Other variants indict British troops, the Mamluks, and others. However, sketches of the Sphinx by the Dane Frederic Louis Norden, made in 1737 and published in 1755, illustrate the Sphinx already without a nose.
The Sphinx did not lose its nose by Napoleon because the Sphinx's' nose was already gone before Napoleon so Napoleon couldn't have been the cause of the lose of the Sphinx's nose. The Sphinx actually lost a considerable amount of its features in 1378CE when a local Sufi Sheik thought the Sphinx to be idolatrous and attempted to blow it up with explosives. His name was Sayim al- Dahr whose was called by the locals contemporary to his time as the Perpetual Faster. Local legend tells that the Sphinx took revenge on him by creating a sand storm that lasted three days and nearly destroyed the local village where he lived.
The nose.
the other answer was messed up, so here is the real one. the sphinx is supposed to be a lion with the head of a man/pharaoh. its reason of making was to guard every pyramid. its nose is missing because some say Napoleon and his men used the sphinx's nose for target practice.
We got the idea of having a sphinx like cat on the cover from Chris's cat.
The sphinx, located in Egypt. Was a well preserved monument until the British started using it for target practice. 2nd Answer: Some say that it was the Turks who shot the Sphinx's nose off, others say it was Napoleon's French army. But, the Sphinx's nose was clearly missing before Napoleon was even born! The Sphinx was pretty deteriorated for a thousand years or more before its nose fell off.
If you are talking about the sphinx in Egypt then it is the nose. When the British occupied Egypt they used the sphinx as target practice and took away much of its face. Last I heard restoration attempts are underway.
There is no specific date. Some have suggested Napoleon's army shot the nose off with canon balls, but there are sketches of the Sphinx that pre-date Napoleon by 50 years and they show the already Sphinx missing it's nose. On the other hand there are chisel marks that indicate someone climbed up there and used a tool to break off the nose.
Napolean
yes but the nose fell off
The erosion of the Sphinx has been caused by thousands of years of it being battered by sand in strong winds, gradually weathering and wearing it down.Since the industrial revolution, the Sphinx is also being affected by acid rain and pollution, which is slightly speeding up the erosion.If you are asking about the nose of the Sphinx, which is missing, that was not eroded.The Sphinx does not have a nose because Napoleon, when he went through Egypt, ordered his men to use the nose of the Sphinx as target practice.
The Sphinx was built in approximately 2500 BC. This is an excerpt from Wikipedia about the nose: The one-meter-wide nose on the face is missing. Examination of the Sphinx's face shows that long rods or chisels were hammered into the nose, one down from the bridge and one beneath the nostril, then used to pry the nose off towards the south.[32] The Egyptian Arab historian al-Maqrīzī, writing in the 15th century AD, attributes the loss of the nose to iconoclasm by Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi Muslim from the khanqah of Sa'id al-Su'ada. In AD 1378, upon finding the Egyptian peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest, Sa'im al-Dahr was so outraged that he destroyed the nose, and was hanged for vandalism. Al-Maqrīzī describes the Sphinx as the "talisman of the Nile" on which the locals believed the flood cycle depended. There is also a story that the nose was broken off by a cannonball fired by Napoleon's soldiers, that still lives on today. Other variants indict British troops, the Mamluks, and others. However, sketches of the Sphinx by the Dane Frederic Louis Norden, made in 1737 and published in 1755, illustrate the Sphinx already without a nose.
The Sphinx did not lose its nose by Napoleon because the Sphinx's' nose was already gone before Napoleon so Napoleon couldn't have been the cause of the lose of the Sphinx's nose. The Sphinx actually lost a considerable amount of its features in 1378CE when a local Sufi Sheik thought the Sphinx to be idolatrous and attempted to blow it up with explosives. His name was Sayim al- Dahr whose was called by the locals contemporary to his time as the Perpetual Faster. Local legend tells that the Sphinx took revenge on him by creating a sand storm that lasted three days and nearly destroyed the local village where he lived.
The nose.
The nose.
the Egyptians made a replica of King Khufu (the sphinx) but they were not allowed to make exact replicas of pharaohs so they had to take off the nose.