Paper short abstract:

Through an examination of text and photographic materials from the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century, this paper argues that the strategies employed by Westerners to convey the size and scale of the Great Sphinx of Giza in photography are symptomatic of imperial ideologies of the period.

Paper long abstract:

The Great Sphinx at Giza has been a site of wonder (and tourism) at least since the days of ancient Greece and the answer to why this sphinx has received more attention than others seems to be rooted in its awe-inspiring proportions. From its beginnings in 1839, photography was among the many technologies used by Western visitors to come to terms with the Sphinx's enormity. Among the most photographed of Egypt's monuments, the man-headed lion began appearing in albums, lantern slides, stereographs, travelogue illustrations and even official reports from the British Ordnance Survey. Often accompanied by captions, these images, whether commercial, educational or governmental, were highly scripted messages that can be considered symptomatic manifestations of the dominant—namely colonialist—ideologies of the period. Along with physical format, which determined the viewing context of an image, text played a crucial role by framing and interpreting photographs of the Sphinx. Tourist memoirs, archaeological publications and guidebooks never fail to remark upon the colossus, often providing copious measurements and comparisons. However, in the blank expanse of the desert with little besides the equally gigantic pyramids to set it against, communicating the Sphinx's dimensions in photography was no easy task. Through an examination of text and photographic materials from the late nineteenth- and the early twentieth-century, this paper argues that the strategies employed by photographers to remedy this conundrum of scale were not innocuous, but to the contrary, participated in an imperial conquering of space and a condescending representation of Egypt's people.