of Cheops
If the body and head are carved into the rock, legs stretched were added in masonry. In the beginning, according to the writings of Pliny the Elder and traces on the face, the Sphinx would be entirely covered with plaster painted face and body in red, Nemesis in blue and yellow as it was common to do so Egyptian statuary. But archaeologists date the paintings of a later era, the New Kingdom, when the Sphinx was honored as dynastic god.
It was also found foundations of a temple and a statue of a king walking in front of his chest, but it is perhaps of late additions, like the stele of pink granite placed between his legs by Thutmose IV. Carved into the rock, this stele tells the dream of Thutmose IV: it was the Sphinx to meet the God appeared to him in a dream, the promise in exchange the throne of the Kingdom of Egypt. This event, recorded on the stele, then it served its legitimacy.
The text of the stela would be it
”One day it happened that the son Thutmose Royal, who would walk at noon, rested in the shade of this great god, the numbness of sleep know when the sun was at its zenith. He realized then that the majesty of this god August he spoke of his mouth even as a father spoke to his son, saying, look at me, contemplating me, O my son Thutmose I am your father-Horakhety Khepri-Ra-Atoum I will give you the kingdom on earth, head of the living, you bear the crown white and red crown on the throne of Geb, the prince (the gods). The land t’appartiendra in length and width, and everything qu’illumine eye brilliant master of the universe. (…) This is now the desert sand storm me, the sand above which I was once, so hurry up to me, so that you can accomplish anything I want.