The Sphinx was in fact buried in sand as much as its shoulders till the early 1800s, whenever a Genoese adventurer named Capt. Giovanni Battista Caviglia tried (and eventually failed) to dig out the statue having a staff of a hundred and sixty men. Now Laius experienced sons by concubines, https://www.luxreisen.net/blog/ferien-in-%C3%A4gypten