Many years ago, movie creators did not have special effects software to allow them to easily produce difficult backgrounds and scenes. They needed to hire hundreds of actors for scenes that involved big crowds and also used larger-than-life replicas to depict giant objects and monuments.
The 1923 blockbuster The Ten Commandments was among those old movies that had large movie sets. Among the gigantic props used were giant sphinxes made of plaster of paris.The sphinxes, whose body parts were built in Los Angeles, were later transported to and assembled in Guadalupe, California.
It is believed that the film crew dynamited the set after the filming was over and the 21 sphinxes used in the movie were buried in a trench.
Doug Jenzen from the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Center, however, said that large parts of the set were probably just buried by natural elements such as the wind, rain and sand. Evidence also revealed that the sphinxes are roughly in the same location they were during the making of the movie.
The silent movie played an important part in finding a lost giant sphinx; it helped guide an excavation in 2012 that unearthed the head of a sphinx described to be about the size of a pool table in the dunes of Guadalupe.
"We'd work during the day, and we'd watch the movie at night to figure out what we were finding," said M. Colleen Hamilton, a historical archaeologist with Applied EarthWorks in California.
The archaeologists did not have time then to exhume the sphinx's body so they buried the body in the sand to protect it. After two years, they went back with the objective of finishing the project but the site was destroyed because erosion.
Fortunately, they found the body of another sphinx, whose color had been dulled because of its exposure to moist beach air. The archaeology team led by Applied EarthWorks then began excavating the sphinx's body on Oct. 6. The process was slow and difficult but the team finally removed the body after eight days.
Because of these efforts Hollywood fans will be able to see the reconstructed body and head of the sphinxes used in one of the most remarkable and earliest movies made. The relic will be displayed at the Dunes Center some time next year.
The Ten Commandments, which was produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, was the most expensive film made during the period, costing more than $1 million.
