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

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

Mysterious desert landforms called yardangs can bear an uncanny resemblance to seated lions — so much so that some researchers think one lionlike yardang might have had the honor of later being carved into the Sphinx by ancient Egyptians. The basic ingredients for these unusual rock formations might be rather simple, researchers report in the November Physical Review Fluids. Scientists were able to reliably sculpt hand-sized, sphinx-shaped yardangs from clay globs in a water tunnel so long as two basic conditions were met: consistent prevailing winds and a

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