NYU researchers have suggested that the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt was likely first sculpted by wind erosion long before ancient Egyptian artists gave it its final form. The researchers conducted an experiment to test whether nature could create a lion-like piece of bedrock, which would have then inspired the Egyptians to shape it into their monument. The experiment produced a rough lion-like sculpture, which was shaped by a constant flow of water mimicking air and coming constantly from one direction directly in front of a half-ellipsoid mound with a single piece of hard rock at the top.

However, the researchers’ experiment has no bearing on the origins of the Great Sphinx of Egypt, which sits inside a hollow and was shaped by man thousands of years ago. The Great Sphinx has no front paws, which shows that the experiment by the NYU researchers does not explain how the Sphinx was formed. Furthermore, the wind at Giza is not constant from one direction, whereas the experiment only accounts for a constant wind direction from east to west.