The Dream Stela Between the Sphinx's Paws

The Dream Stela is the only inscribed object that almost every visitor to the plateau sees without knowing what they are looking at. It stands upright between the front paws of the Sphinx, is just under four meters high, and weighs several tons.

It was erected by Thutmose IV, a king of the Eighteenth Dynasty, whose reign is dated by researchers to the years 1401–1391 BC. About eleven hundred years separate the construction of the Sphinx from this moment. For Thutmose, the structure was already an ancient monument, as distant in time as the Roman Empire is for us today.

What is written on the stela is a story, not a construction record. It tells of an afternoon, a dream, and a bargain between a young man and a god. And it is simultaneously a political document, the purpose of which can be identified with some certainty.

This page covers four things: the story on the stone, the purpose behind it, the block itself and its surprising origin, and finally that damaged line that has appeared in every discussion about the Sphinx for two hundred years.

The Story on the Stela

The story on the stela can be summarized in a few sentences, and it is better than any summary might suggest.

The young Thutmose, not yet king, is wandering alone on the plateau. It is midday and hot, and he lies down in the shade of the Sphinx to sleep. At the moment when the sun is at its zenith, the god appears to him in a dream. He calls himself Hor-em-akhet, Horus in the Horizon, linked to the three manifestations of the sun god in the morning, at midday, and at night. The god complains that the desert sand has covered him and makes an offer: If the young man frees him from the sand, he will become king of Upper and Lower Egypt.

Noteworthy is the state of the monument presupposed by the narrative. At that time, the Sphinx was largely buried in sand. According to expert assessment, the head was likely visible and perhaps the outline of the body could be made out, but the paws were not. Thus, the god asking for help protruded as a head from a field of sand.

Equally noteworthy is what was happening around it. During the New Kingdom, the plateau was not a quiet place of devotion but an excursion ground for the court. According to the depiction by Egyptologist Kasia Szpakowska, kings came here to hunt, drive chariots, and shoot bows; there were resting places with shade for horses, and a predecessor had built a temple nearby. So the dream did not take place in a wasteland, but on grounds that we would probably describe today as a local recreation area with attractions.

Why the Stela Was Erected

The purpose behind it is already hinted at, and it is the actual reason for its erection.

A king who can appeal to a divine command does not need to justify a hereditary succession. That is exactly what the text achieves. It does not say: I am king because my father was. It says: The god chose me and promised me the kingship, and I fulfilled my part of the bargain. Whether Thutmose needed this is open, as little is known about his path to the throne.

There is also a second purpose, which sounds less like propaganda and carries more weight in Egyptian thought. Maintaining sacred buildings was one of the core duties of a king. Restoring a decaying monument was not only a pious duty but also maintained the order of the world, for which there is a specific word in Egyptian. Thus, the stela documents both: a claim to power and the fulfillment of an official duty.

Remarkable is how modern the process seems. A monument decays, an official has it restored, and the measure is documented and made publicly visible. Today, this is done by a signpost and an entry in a list; the official overview of the site lists the necropolis accordingly as an ensemble with a long history of use and maintenance. Back then, it was achieved by a granite block between the paws.

And thus it is the oldest surviving evidence of something that has shaped this site to this day: A ruler finds an old building, has it cleared, and records this in writing. This process repeats itself multiple times in the history of the plateau, with different participants and languages.

The Stone Itself Is Reused

For many experts, the stone itself is more interesting than the text, and here lies the most surprising detail on this page.

The stela is not a specially quarried block but a reused building component. According to the prevailing interpretation, it is a lintel from the Mortuary Temple of Khafre, i.e., from the complex to which the Sphinx belongs. Evidence for this includes depressions on the back that fit the tenon sockets of a door threshold in that temple. If this is correct, Thutmose used a piece from the very structure he was restoring for his inscription.

This is less disrespectful than it sounds and was common in Egyptian terms. Stones were reused over centuries, and a block from the immediate vicinity was obvious for a monument at this location. Nevertheless, it remains remarkable: The most famous text about the Sphinx stands on a piece of the associated temple.

Of the text itself, only about half is legible today. A large, irregular crack runs through the slab, beginning roughly in the twelfth line; the lines below are only partially preserved. The stela was excavated in 1817 by Giovanni Battista Caviglia, who cleared the Sphinx down to its base. What happened afterward is a well-known story in conservation: A text that lay in the sand for millennia weathered significantly faster after being exposed.

The Line Contested for Two Hundred Years

Finally, the line contested for two hundred years, which explains why this stela appears in every discussion about the Sphinx.

In the damaged area, people believed they recognized a sequence of syllables that can be read as the beginning of the name Khafre. If this were confirmed, it would provide evidence from the New Kingdom explicitly linking the Sphinx to that king, thus serving as an argument for the traditional attribution.

However, this is not reliable, for several reasons. The context is damaged, leaving unclear what the name refers to: the Sphinx, a neighboring structure, or something entirely different. Early copies from the nineteenth century show more at this point than the current stone, meaning parts of the debate rely on copies rather than the original. And even if the name stood there, it would have been written eleven hundred years after construction, making it a tradition rather than a contemporary record.

Therefore, the attribution of the Sphinx to Khafre relies mainly on other factors: its location within his complex, the causeway, and the quarry depression whose blocks are used in his Valley Temple. The stela is a secondary argument often presented as the primary one.

This does not change the evaluation of the stela itself. It remains one of the most important sources for the Sphinx, just for a different question than the one for which it is usually cited. What it proves is not the construction date but the reception history: that the Sphinx was worshipped as a deity eleven hundred years after its creation, that it was buried in sand, and that a king deemed it worthwhile to change this and record it in writing. As evidence for the reception of a monument, it is hard to overestimate. As a document regarding its origin, it is of little use. The entire necropolis is now listed as an ensemble on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and the stela is among the objects explicitly protected as part of this designation.

Incidentally, little of this is visible on site. The stela sits in the pit between the paws, and you view it from several dozen meters away from the elevated terrace. The upright block is visible, not the text. To know what is written on it, you must have read it beforehand, and that is exactly what this page is for.