<P>... the royal son, Thothmos, being arrived, while walking at midday and seating himself under the shadow of this mighty god, was overcome by slumber and slept at the very moment when Ra is at the summit (of heaven). He found that the Majesty of this august god spoke to him with his own mouth, as a father speaks to his son, saying: Look upon me, contemplate me, O my son Thothmos; I am thy father, Harmakhis - Khopri - Ra - Tum; I bestow upon thee the sovereignty over my domain, the supremacy over the living...Behold my actual condition that thou mayest protect all my perfect limbs . The sand of the desert whereon I am laid has covered me . Save me, causing all that is in my heart to be executed . </P> <P> Later, Ramesses II the Great (1279--1213 BC) may have undertaken a second excavation . </P> <P> Mark Lehner, an Egyptologist who has excavated and mapped the Giza plateau, originally asserted that there had been a far earlier renovation during the Old Kingdom (c. 2686--2184 BC), although he has subsequently recanted this "heretical" viewpoint . </P> <P> In AD 1817 the first modern archaeological dig, supervised by the Italian Giovanni Battista Caviglia, uncovered the Sphinx's chest completely . </P>

Who shot the nose off of the sphinx