Shpinx of taharqo

1. Describe the "shpinx of taharqo"

2. what is the political context for this piece of art?

3. How does this sphinx differ from the Egyptian sphinx?

1. The penultimate king of XXV dynasty built its pyramid on the opposite bank of the Nile. It was the first and largest pyramid in Nuria, but today it is just a ruin.

It is unique in its structure because it consists of two pyramids built one over the other. The inner one is lined with smooth sandstone, and the outside, with a 69-degree tilt angle, is made in stepped layers. The pyramids were surrounded by a solid wall. The subterranean chambers of the Taharqo pyramid are architecturally rich in design and extremely finely crafted. In the tomb itself, six large pillars carved in living rock formed a three-nave barrel vault room in the center that housed a recessed sarcophagus site. Four rectangular recesses were carved in the north and south walls, and two in the west.

2. It was built during the reign of Nubians in Egypt.

To establish a chronology of the Third Intermediate of Egypt we have to start from the first exactly established year, and that is 664 BC when the 26th Dynasty began in Egypt with Psammetichus I. Exactly 26 the year before, the Nubian ruler of Taharqo began to rule, 690 B. C. He was the penultimate ruler of the Nubian dynasty in Egypt.

3. All Nubian pyramids have in common that they were built on elevated terrain, and differ in appearance and construction from the Egyptian ones. They are built of horizontal series of stepped blocks of local sandstone. They are six to thirty meters high.

The surfaces of their bases are relatively small, the length of the sides nowhere exceeding eight meters, but steeper than those of Giza. The only exception is the Taharqo Pyramids, whose height and length of the sides of the base are fifty meters.