News Earth

Before ancient Egyptians, nature sculpted sphinxes. Here’s how

Steady winds can carve sphinxlike landforms called yardangs out of featureless blobs

small sphinx carved by water wind

Particles laced with fluorescent dye light up water currents that swirl around a clay-coated, 3D-printed sphinxlike object, showing how wind might help carve similarly shaped objects in some desert environs.

Applied Math Lab/NYU

By Elise Cutts

- More than 2 years ago

Read another version of this article at Science News Explores

The Great Sphinx of Giza might have been sculpted by desert winds long before it was ever touched by human hands.