Damage to the nose area was shown in a very clear sketch
pre-dating the time of Napoleon's soldiers,
who were wrongly blamed for it.

To me, it's a graceful, noble face, and probably
(along with the size of the structure) a primary reason
for its popularity.  Most of it was covered in sand
for centuries, which is why it's not in worse shape
after about 5,000 years.

I would have taken more of the full sphinx but never
made it further than the entrance. Our Nile tour group
was scheduled to get to the Egyptian Museum (that we saw
on our own also the day before as there is so much there).

Instead of splitting us off into sphinx visitors and
camel-photo group, they had everyone at the camel site,
which took time away from the sphinx (not my ideal choice).

In the meantime, I was off enjoying views of all 3 pyramids
and their physical relationsihp to one another (there are
entire treatises on amazingly calculated alignments) and
Cairo in the distance. They got terrific photos of
some of the group on camels though.