The Sphinx was really buried in sand up to its shoulders until eventually the early 1800s, each time a Genoese adventurer named Capt. Giovanni Battista Caviglia tried (and finally unsuccessful) to dig out the statue with a staff of 160 Guys. Champollion mentioned that the sphinx became successively the image https://www.luxreisen.net/blog/wo-steht-die-sphinx-in-%C3%A4gypten