Great Sphinx of Giza

The Great Sphinx of Giza, commonly referred to as the Sphinx of Giza or just the Sphinx, is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human.[1] Facing directly from West to East, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The face of the Sphinx is generally believed to represent the pharaoh Khafre.[2]

For the magic periodical, see The Sphinx (magazine).
Great Sphinx of Giza
Great Sphinx of Giza
Shown within Egypt
LocationGiza, Egypt
RegionEgypt
Coordinates29°58′31″N 31°08′16″E
History
Materiallimestone
Views, Objects: Egypt. Gizeh [selected images]. View 06: Sphinx and Pyramid., n.d. Brooklyn Museum Archives

Cut from the bedrock, the original shape of the Sphinx has been restored with layers of blocks.[3] It measures 73 m (240 ft) long from paw to tail, 20 m (66 ft) high from the base to the top of the head and 19 m (62 ft) wide at its rear haunches.[4] It is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt and is commonly believed to have been designed, sculpted, and constructed by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of the pharaoh Khafre (c. 2558–2532 BC).[5]

Construction

The Sphinx is a monolith carved into the bedrock of the plateau, which also served as the quarry for the pyramids and other monuments in the area.[6] The nummulitic limestone of the area consists of layers which offer differing resistance to erosion (mostly caused by wind and windblown sand), leading to the uneven degradation apparent in the Sphinx's body.[6][7] The lowest part of the body, including the legs, is solid rock.[1] The body of the lion up to its neck is fashioned from softer layers that have suffered considerable disintegration.[8] The layer in which the head was sculpted is much harder.[8][9] A number of "dead-end" shafts are known to exist within and below the body of the Great Sphinx, most likely dug by treasure hunters and tomb robbers. Prior to 1925, a large gaping shaft similar to these existed on the top of the Sphinx's head. It is believed to have possibly been an anchoring point for a sculpted crown or headdress added during the period of the New Kingdom.[10]

Origin and identity
The Great Sphinx partly under the sand, ca. 1870s
French archaeologist Auguste Mariette (seated, far left) and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil (seated, far right) with others in front of the Sphinx, 1871
The Great Sphinx partially excavated, ca. 1878.
The Spinx circa 1880s, by Beniamino Facchinelli.
The Sphinx against the Pyramid of Khafre, 2005.

The Great Sphinx is one of the world's largest and oldest statues, but basic facts about it are still subject to debate, such as when it was built, by whom and for what purpose.

Names

It is impossible to identify what name the creators called their statue, as the Great Sphinx does not appear in any known inscription of the Old Kingdom and there are no inscriptions anywhere describing its construction or its original purpose. In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx was revered as the solar deity Hor-em-akhet (English: Horus of the Horizon; Coptic: ϩⲁⲣⲙⲁϣⲓ; Hellenized: Harmachis),[11] and the pharaoh Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC)[lower-alpha 1] specifically referred to it as such in his Dream Stele.[12]

The commonly used name "Sphinx" was given to it in classical antiquity, about 2000 years after the commonly accepted date of its construction by reference to a Greek mythological beast with a lion's body, a woman's head and the wings of an eagle (although, like most Egyptian sphinxes, the Great Sphinx has a man's head and no wings).[13] The English word sphinx comes from the ancient Greek Σφίγξ (transliterated: sphinx) apparently from the verb σφίγγω (transliterated: sphingo / English: to squeeze), after the Greek sphinx who strangled anyone who failed to answer her riddle.

Medieval Arab writers, including al-Maqrīzī, call the Sphinx balhib and bilhaw, which suggest a Coptic influence. The modern Egyptian Arabic name is أبو الهول (ʼabu alhōl / ʼabu alhawl IPA: [ʔabu alhoːl], "The Terrifying One"; literally "Father of Dread").

Builder and timeframe

Though there have been conflicting evidence and viewpoints over the years, the view held by modern Egyptology at large remains that the Great Sphinx was built in approximately 2500 BC for the pharaoh Khafre, the builder of the Second Pyramid at Giza.[14]

Selim Hassan, writing in 1949 on recent excavations of the Sphinx enclosure, summed up the problem:

Taking all things into consideration, it seems that we must give the credit of erecting this, the world's most wonderful statue, to Khafre, but always with this reservation: that there is not one single contemporary inscription which connects the Sphinx with Khafre; so, sound as it may appear, we must treat the evidence as circumstantial, until such time as a lucky turn of the spade of the excavator will reveal to the world a definite reference to the erection of the Sphinx.[15]

The circumstantial evidence mentioned by Hassan includes the Sphinx's location in the context of the funerary complex surrounding the Second Pyramid, which is traditionally connected with Khafre.[16] Apart from the Causeway, the Pyramid and the Sphinx, the complex also includes the Sphinx Temple and Valley Temple, both of which display similar design of their inner courts. The Sphinx Temple was built using blocks cut from the Sphinx enclosure, while those of the Valley Temple were quarried from the plateau, some of the largest weighing upwards of 100 tons.[17]

A diorite statue of Khafre, which was discovered buried upside down along with other debris in the Valley Temple, is claimed as support for the Khafre theory.[18]

The Dream Stele, erected much later by the pharaoh Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC), associates the Sphinx with Khafre. When the stele was discovered, its lines of text were already damaged and incomplete, and only referred to Khaf, not Khafre. An extract was translated:

which we bring for him: oxen ... and all the young vegetables; and we shall give praise to Wenofer ... Khaf ... the statue made for Atum-Hor-em-Akhet.[19]

Egyptologist Thomas Young, finding the Khaf hieroglyphs in a damaged cartouche used to surround a royal name, inserted the glyph ra to complete Khafra's name. When the Stele was re-excavated in 1925, the lines of text referring to Khaf flaked off and were destroyed.

Dissenting hypotheses

Theories held by academic Egyptologists regarding the builder of the Sphinx and the date of its construction are not universally accepted, and various persons have proposed alternative hypotheses about both the builder and the dating.

Early Egyptologists

Some early Egyptologists and excavators of the Giza pyramid complex believed the Great Sphinx and associated temples to predate the Fourth Dynasty rule of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. Flinders Petrie wrote in 1883 regarding the state of opinion regarding the age of the nearby temples, and by extension the Sphinx: "The date of the Granite Temple [Valley Temple] has been so positively asserted to be earlier than the fourth dynasty, that it may seem rash to dispute the point".[20]

In 1857, Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, unearthed the much later Inventory Stela (estimated to be from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, c. 664–525 BC), which tells how Khufu came upon the Sphinx, already buried in sand. Although certain tracts on the Stela are considered good evidence,[21] this passage is widely dismissed as Late Period historical revisionism,[22] a purposeful fake, created by the local priests as an attempt to imbue the contemporary Isis temple with an ancient history it never had. Such acts became common when religious institutions such as temples, shrines and priests' domains were fighting for political attention and for financial and economic donations.[23][24]

Gaston Maspero, the French Egyptologist and second director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, conducted a survey of the Sphinx in 1886. He concluded that because the Dream Stela showed the cartouche of Khafre in line 13, it was he who was responsible for the excavation and therefore the Sphinx must predate Khafre and his predecessors—possibly Dynasty IV, c. 2575–2467 BC.[25] English Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge agreed that the Sphinx predated Khafre's reign, writing in The Gods of the Egyptians (1914): "This marvelous object [the Great Sphinx] was in existence in the days of Khafre, or Khephren,[lower-alpha 2] and it is probable that it is a very great deal older than his reign and that it dates from the end of the archaic period [c. 2686 BC]."[26] Maspero believed the Sphinx to be "the most ancient monument in Egypt".[27]

Modern dissenting hypotheses

Rainer Stadelmann, former director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, examined the distinct iconography of the nemes (headdress) and the now-detached beard of the Sphinx and concluded the style is more indicative of the pharaoh Khufu (2589–2566 BC), known to the Greeks as Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza and Khafra's father.[28] He supports this by suggesting Khafra's Causeway was built to conform to a pre-existing structure, which, he concludes, given its location, could only have been the Sphinx.[22]

Colin Reader, an English geologist who independently conducted a more recent survey of the enclosure, agrees the various quarries on the site have been excavated around the Causeway. Because these quarries are known to have been used by Khufu, Reader concludes that the Causeway (and the temples on either end thereof) must predate Khufu, thereby casting doubt on the conventional Egyptian chronology.[22]

Frank Domingo, a forensic scientist in the New York City Police Department and an expert forensic anthropologist,[29] used detailed measurements of the Sphinx, forensic drawings and computer imaging to conclude the face depicted on the Sphinx is not the same face as is depicted on a statue attributed to Khafra.[30]

In 2004, Vassil Dobrev of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo announced he had uncovered new evidence that the Great Sphinx may have been the work of the little-known pharaoh Djedefre (2528–2520 BC), Khafra's half brother and a son of Khufu.[31] Dobrev suggests Djedefre built the Sphinx in the image of his father Khufu, identifying him with the sun god Ra in order to restore respect for their dynasty. Dobrev also notes, like Stadelmann and others, the causeway connecting Khafre's pyramid to the temples was built around the Sphinx, suggesting it was already in existence at the time.[28]

Fringe hypotheses

Orion correlation theory
Main article: Orion correlation theory

The Orion correlation theory, as expounded by popular authors Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval,[32] is based on the proposed exact correlation of the three pyramids at Giza with the three stars Zeta Orionis, Epsilon Orionis and Delta Orionis, the stars forming Orion's Belt, in the relative positions occupied by these stars in 10,500 BC. The authors argue that the geographic relationship of the Sphinx, the Giza pyramids and the Nile directly corresponds with Leo, Orion and the Milky Way respectively. Sometimes cited as an example of pseudoarchaeology, the theory is at variance with mainstream scholarship.[33][34][35]

Water erosion hypothesis
Main article: Sphinx water erosion hypothesis

The Sphinx water erosion hypothesis contends that the main type of weathering evident on the enclosure walls of the Great Sphinx could only have been caused by prolonged and extensive rainfall,[36] and must therefore predate the time of the pharaoh Khafra.

The hypothesis was championed by René Schwaller de Lubicz (1887–1961), who studied Egyptology while living in Egypt for 12 years, and by Robert M. Schoch, a geologist and associate professor of natural science at the College of General Studies at Boston University, as well as by John Anthony West, an author and alternative Egyptologist.

Colin Reader, a British geologist, studied the erosion patterns and noticed that they are found predominantly on the western enclosure wall and not on the Sphinx itself. He proposed the rainfall water runoff hypothesis, which also recognizes climate change transitions in the area.[37][38]

The Great Sphinx as Anubis

Author Robert K. G. Temple proposes that the Sphinx was originally a statue of the jackal god Anubis, the God of the Necropolis, and that its face was recarved in the likeness of a Middle Kingdom pharaoh, Amenemhet II. Temple bases his identification on the style of the eye make-up and style of the pleats on the headdress.[39]

Racial characteristics

Over the years several authors have commented on what they perceive as "Negroid" characteristics in the face of the Sphinx.[40] This issue has become part of the Ancient Egyptian race controversy, with respect to the ancient population as a whole.[41]

Hidden chambers
Further information: Hall of Records

There is a long history of speculation about hidden chambers beneath the Sphinx, by esoteric figures such as H. Spencer Lewis. Edgar Cayce specifically predicted in the 1930s that a "Hall of Records", containing knowledge from Atlantis, would be discovered under the Sphinx in 1998. His prediction fueled much of the fringe speculation that surrounded the Sphinx in the 1990s, which lost momentum when the hall was not found when predicted.[42]

Restoration

At some unknown time the Giza Necropolis was abandoned, and drifting sand eventually buried the Sphinx up to its shoulders. The first documented attempt at an excavation dates to c. 1400 BC, when the young Thutmose IV (1401–1391 or 1397–1388 BC) gathered a team and, after much effort, managed to dig out the front paws, between which he placed a granite slab, known as the Dream Stele, inscribed with the following excerpt:

Rear view of the Sphinx in March 1981, showing some of the restoration work up to that time.

... 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.[43]

Later, Ramesses II the Great (1279–1213 BC) may have undertaken a second excavation.

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),[44] although he has subsequently recanted this viewpoint.[45]

In AD 1817 the first modern archaeological dig, supervised by the Italian Giovanni Battista Caviglia, uncovered the Sphinx's chest completely.

One of the people working on clearing the sands from around the Great Sphinx was Eugène Grébaut, a French Director of the Antiquities Service.[46]

In the beginning of the year 1887, the chest, the paws, the altar, and plateau were all made visible. Flights of steps were unearthed, and finally accurate measurements were taken of the great figures. The height from the lowest of the steps was found to be one hundred feet, and the space between the paws was found to be thirty-five feet long and ten feet wide. Here there was formerly an altar; and a stele of Thûtmosis IV was discovered, recording a dream in which he was ordered to clear away the sand that even then was gathering round the site of the Sphinx.[47]

In 1931, engineers of the Egyptian government repaired the head of the Sphinx. Part of its headdress had fallen off in 1926 due to erosion, which had also cut deeply into its neck.[48] This questionable repair was by the addition of a concrete collar between the headdress and the neck, creating an altered profile.[49] Many renovations to the stone base and raw rock body were done in the 1980s, and then redone in the 1990s.[50]

Panoramic view of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Giza, 2010

Missing nose and beard
The Sphinx in profile in 2010

The one-metre-wide nose on the face is missing. Examination of the Sphinx's face shows that long rods or chisels were hammered into the nose, one down from the bridge and one beneath the nostril, then used to pry the nose off towards the south.[51] Mark Lehner who performed an archaeological study concluded that it was broken with instruments at an unknown time between the 3rd and 10th centuries AD.[52]

Drawings of the Sphinx by Frederic Louis Norden in 1757 showed the nose missing.[53] Many folk tales exist regarding the destruction of its nose. One tale erroneously attributes it to cannon balls fired by the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. Other tales ascribe it to being the work of Mamluks. Since the 10th century some Arab authors have claimed it to be a result of iconoclastic attacks.[52]

The Arab historian al-Maqrīzī, writing in the 15th century, attributes the loss of the nose to Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi Muslim from the khanqah of Sa'id al-Su'ada in AD 1378, who found the local peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest and therefore defaced the Sphinx in an act of iconoclasm. According to al-Maqrīzī, many people living in the area believed that the increased sand covering the Giza Plateau was retribution for al-Dahr's act of defacement.[54][55] Ibn Qadi Shuhba mentions his name as Muhammad ibn Sadiq ibn al-Muhammad al-Tibrizi al-Masri who died in 1384. He attributed the desecration of the sphinxes of Qanatir al-Siba built by the sultan Baybars to him, and also said he might have desecrated the Great Sphinx. Al-Minufi stated that the Alexandrian Crusade in 1365 was divine punishment for a Sufi sheikh of the khanqah of Sa'id breaking off the nose.[56]

Limestone fragments of the Sphinx's beard in the British Museum, 14th Century BC.[57]

In addition to the lost nose, a ceremonial pharaonic beard is thought to have been attached, although this may have been added in later periods after the original construction. Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev has suggested that had the beard been an original part of the Sphinx, it would have damaged the chin of the statue upon falling.[28] The lack of visible damage supports his theory that the beard was a later addition.

Residues of red pigment are visible on areas of the Sphinx's face. Traces of yellow and blue pigment have been found elsewhere on the Sphinx, leading Mark Lehner to suggest that the monument "was once decked out in gaudy comic book colors".[18]

Mythology

Colin Reader has proposed that the Sphinx was the focus of solar worship in the Early Dynastic Period, before the Giza Plateau became a necropolis in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2134 BC).[58] He ties this in with his conclusions that the Sphinx, the Sphinx temple, the Causeway and the Khafra mortuary temple are all part of a complex which predates Dynasty IV (c. 2613–2494 BC). The lion has long been a symbol associated with the sun in ancient Near Eastern civilizations. Images depicting the Egyptian king in the form of a lion smiting his enemies date as far back as the Early Dynastic Period.

In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx became more specifically associated with the sun god Hor-em-akhet (Hellenized: Harmachis) or "Horus-at-the-Horizon". Pharaoh Amenhotep II (1427–1401 or 1397 BC) built a temple to the northeast of the Sphinx nearly 1000 years after its construction and dedicated it to the cult of Hor-em-akhet.[59]

Some ancient non-Egyptians saw it as a likeliness of the god Horon. The cult of the Sphinx continued into medieval times. The Sabians of Harran saw it as the burial place of Hermes Trismegistus. Arab authors described the Sphinx as a talisman which guarded the area from the desert.[60] Al-Maqrizi describes it as the "talisman of the Nile" on which the locals believed the flood cycle depended.[61] Muhammad al-Idrisi stated that those wishing to obtain bureaucratic positions in the Egyptian government gave incense offering to the monument.[56]

Reception

In the last 700 years, there has been a proliferation of travellers and reports from Lower Egypt, unlike Upper Egypt, which was seldom reported from prior to the mid-18th century. Alexandria, Rosetta, Damietta, Cairo and the Giza Pyramids are described repeatedly, but not necessarily comprehensively. Many accounts were published and widely read. These include those of George Sandys, André Thévet, Athanasius Kircher, Balthasar de Monconys, Jean de Thévenot, John Greaves, Johann Michael Vansleb, Benoît de Maillet, Cornelis de Bruijn, Paul Lucas, Richard Pococke, Frederic Louis Norden and others. But there is an even larger set of more anonymous people who wrote obscure and little-read works, sometimes only unpublished manuscripts in libraries or private collections, including Henry Castela, Hans Ludwig von Lichtenstein, Michael Heberer von Bretten, Wilhelm von Boldensele, Pierre Belon du Mans, Vincent Stochove, Christophe Harant, Gilles Fermanel, Robert Fauvel, Jean Palerne Foresien, Willian Lithgow, Joos van Ghistele, etc.

Over the centuries, writers and scholars have recorded their impressions and reactions upon seeing the Sphinx. The vast majority were concerned with a general description, often including a mixture of science, romance and mystique. A typical description of the Sphinx by tourists and leisure travelers throughout the 19th and 20th century was made by John Lawson Stoddard:

It is the antiquity of the Sphinx which thrills us as we look upon it, for in itself it has no charms. The desert's waves have risen to its breast, as if to wrap the monster in a winding-sheet of gold. The face and head have been mutilated by Moslem fanatics. The mouth, the beauty of whose lips was once admired, is now expressionless. Yet grand in its loneliness, – veiled in the mystery of unnamed ages, – the relic of Egyptian antiquity stands solemn and silent in the presence of the awful desert – symbol of eternity. Here it disputes with Time the empire of the past; forever gazing on and on into a future which will still be distant when we, like all who have preceded us and looked upon its face, have lived our little lives and disappeared.[62]

From the 16th century far into the 19th century, observers repeatedly noted that the Sphinx has the face, neck and breast of a woman. Examples included Johannes Helferich (1579), George Sandys (1615), Johann Michael Vansleb (1677), Benoît de Maillet (1735) and Elliot Warburton (1844).

Most early Western images were book illustrations in print form, elaborated by a professional engraver from either previous images available or some original drawing or sketch supplied by an author, and usually now lost. Seven years after visiting Giza, André Thévet (Cosmographie de Levant, 1556) described the Sphinx as "the head of a colossus, caused to be made by Isis, daughter of Inachus, then so beloved of Jupiter". He, or his artist and engraver, pictured it as a curly-haired monster with a grassy dog collar. Athanasius Kircher (who never visited Egypt) depicted the Sphinx as a Roman statue, reflecting his ability to conceptualize (Turris Babel, 1679). Johannes Helferich's (1579) Sphinx is a pinched-face, round-breasted woman with a straight haired wig; the only edge over Thévet is that the hair suggests the flaring lappets of the headdress. George Sandys stated that the Sphinx was a harlot; Balthasar de Monconys interpreted the headdress as a kind of hairnet, while François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz's Sphinx had a rounded hairdo with bulky collar.

Richard Pococke's Sphinx was an adoption of Cornelis de Bruijn's drawing of 1698, featuring only minor changes, but is closer to the actual appearance of the Sphinx than anything previous. The print versions of Norden's careful drawings for his Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie, 1755 are the first to clearly show that the nose was missing. However, from the time of the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt onwards, a number of accurate images were widely available in Europe, and copied by others.

Legacy

Mystery of the Sphinx, narrated by Charlton Heston, a documentary presenting the theories of John Anthony West, was shown as an NBC Special on 10 November 1993. A 95-minute DVD, Mystery of the Sphinx: Expanded Edition, was released in 2007. Age of the Sphinx, a BBC Two Timewatch documentary presenting the theories of John Anthony West and critical to both sides of the argument, was shown on 27 November 1994. In 2008, the film 10,000 BC showed a supposed original Sphinx with a lion's head. Before this film, this lion head theory had been published in documentary films about the origin of the Sphinx.

  • André Thévet, Cosmographie de Levant (1556)
  • Hogenberg and Braun (map), Cairus, quae olim Babylon (1572), exists in various editions, from various authors, with the Sphinx looking different.
  • Jan Sommer, (unpublished) Voyages en Egypte des annees 1589, 1590 & 1591, Institut de France, 1971 (Voyageurs occidentaux en Égypte 3)
  • George Sandys, A relation of a journey begun an dom. 1610 (1615)
  • François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz, Les Voyages et Observations (1653)
  • Balthasar de Monconys, Journal des voyages (1665)
  • Olfert Dapper, Description de l'Afrique (1665), note the two different displays of the Sphinx.
  • Cornelis de Bruijn, Reizen van Cornelis de Bruyn door de vermaardste Deelen van Klein Asia (1698)
  • The Sphinx as seen by Frederic Louis Norden (sketches made 1737, published 1755)
  • Frederic Louis Norden, Voyage d'Égypte et de Nubie (1755)
  • Description de l'Egypte (Panckoucke edition), Planches, Antiquités, volume V (1823), also published in the Imperial edition of 1822
  • Description de l'Egypte (Panckoucke edition), Planches, Antiquités, volume V (1823), also published in the Imperial edition of 1822.
  • Members of the Second Japanese Embassy to Europe (1863) in front of the Sphinx, 1864
  • Jean-Léon Gérôme's Bonaparte Before the Sphinx, 1886
  • Johanne Baptista Homann (map), Aegyptus hodierna (1724)
  • Lantern Slide Collection: Views, Objects: Egypt. Gizeh [selected images]. View 04: Pyramids and Sphinx., n.d., Kay C. Lenskold. Floral Park, N.Y. Brooklyn Museum Archives
gollark: Except over time it probably works out the same.
gollark: <@246500785368596480> ?????
gollark: *should probably have kept double Z cheese*
gollark: 3 coppers for a cheese? *Wow*.
gollark: ~~copper > gold~~

See also

Notes
  1. See Thutmose IV#Dates and length of reign
  2. Early Egyptologists were inconsistent in their transliteration of pharaonic names: Khafre and Khephren are both references to Khafra.

References
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  26. Wallis Budge, E. A. (1904). The Gods of the Egyptians: Studies in Egyptian Mythology. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-22055-0.
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