The Sphinx is part of Khafre's pyramid complex. Egyptologists have questioned whether the face is a portrait of Khafre. But what we mean by "portrait" is debated even by historians of contemporary art. Most Egyptian statues are idealized images. But the same pharaoh or noble person could possess statues that are more idealized and others that are more naturalized. The Sphinx face, thirty times life-size, is purely idealized, with plastic eyebrows that look pasted on and cosmetic lines extending from the eyes.

Whether or not our impressions agree with Reisner's, we nevertheless measure the relative sizes and spacing of major elements in royal statuary, as well as the modeling, to differentiate between artists or periods. The king embodied social and cosmic order. Egyptian artists reflected this in a set of proportions to which they adapted styles that might have been specific to a ruling house.

The Sphinx's face, beard, and headdress are original, but the statue between the forelegs was added by Thutmose IV (ca. 1400 B.C.) when the Sphinx was about 1,200 years old.

Thomas Jaggers of Jerde Pertnership digitized the contour maps and elevations that were made in 1979 to form a computer model of the Sphinx. Mark Lehner produced a separate set of contour drawings to produce a second computer model of the Sphinx as it was restored in Dynasty 18 (overhead view, left). From the New Kingdom and on into the Roman period, the Sphinx was worshipped as Horus-in-the-Horizon. Kings and princes came to a chapel situated between the forelegs of the Sphinx to be ordained under the powerful images of the pharaoh and god that towered above them.