In Greek legends, the Sphinx used to ask riddles for men to answer.

But to modern archaeologists, the Sphinx also asks awkward questions that they don’t know the answer to.

We have already mentioned the mysteries of the Great Sphinx. Now there are even more mysteries, as two new Sphinxes have been found.

A new Egyptian Sphinx

There have been many books and a lot of speculation about a second Egyptian sphinx being at Giza. The Greeks, Muslims and Romans all mentioned a second sphinx at Giza.

Now a second Egyptian sphinx has been found. But it is not at Giza. In fact, it is at Luxor, almost 700 kilometres south of Giza. Luxor is the modern city on the site of the ancient Egyptian capital Thebes, and is a huge archaeological treasure-trove of temples, palaces and tombs. And recent road construction work has uncovered a new sphinx.

The Egyptian archaeological authorities are not releasing any information or photographs at this stage, so we cannot show you any pictures of this new sphinx. But reports from the area say that the sphinx they have found is very similar to the Great Sphinx at Giza, but smaller in size.

The sphinx at Luxor is already causing questions. The Egyptian capital was in Thebes a thousand years after the Pyramids were built in Giza, and no other sphinxes have been found there. So why was this one sphinx sculpted in Thebes. And the more important question is: why are the Egyptian authorities not revealing any information about the new sphinx. Egypt has a huge tourist trade and the Egyptian archaeology service is notorious for wanting to publicise their discoveries. So why are they being so secretive this time? Is there something about this new sphinx that undermines the conventional views of Egyptian history?

We are waiting more information.

Another Egyptian Sphinx found – but in Israel!

The strangest of the new discoveries is a sphinx found in Northern Israel.

Israeli archaeologists working at a famous site mentioned in the Bible, Tel Hazor, found parts of an Egyptian sphinx that is over 4,500 years old (a similar date to the time when the Great Sphinx had the new head added).

The sphinx statue is incomplete, with just the front legs and feet, and part of the body, but in another mystery, this statue has Egyptian writing carved into it (as we said above, the other sphinxes have no dedications or writing on them). The text says the statue is dedicated to the Pharaoh Menkaure, whose tomb is the smallest of the three pyramids at Giza.

Once again, a sphinx is creating riddles and mysteries. Tel Hazor is in the very north of Israel, north of the Sea of Galilee and near the Lebanese border. This is over 600 kilometres from Giza. And at the time of Menkaure, the Egyptian empire did not reach into this part of the Middle East.

So why is this sphinx in northern Israel instead of in Giza? No-one can explain. It’s another mystery.