"She's really lovely," said Ali Hassan, director of pharaonic monuments for the Egyptian Antiquities Organization.

Later excavations in the 1970s -performed by the Egyptian Antiquities Organization and the German Institute of Archaeology- led to the establishment of the stratigraphic sequence.

"The head of the Sphinx will not fall down," said Rainer Stadelmann, head of the German Antiquities Organization in Cairo.

The biggest restoration work dates back to 1984, when the Egyptian Antiquities Organization made ambitious plans to restore the fort.

At the Antiquities Organization Mr. Kadry shifted its emphasis from excavation to preservation.

Excavations this year by a team from Yale University, working with the Egyptian Antiquities Organization, have produced the first strong evidence pointing to where the pyramid builders lived.

The co-leader of the project is Dr. Zahi Hawass, director for the Giza Pyramids of the Egyptian Antiquities Organization.

Since two slabs tumbled from one shoulder in 1988, the Egyptian Antiquities Organization (E.A.O.), a Government body, has been making repairs and continuing its scrutiny of the decay.

"It's the tourists, they're the problem," said Shawky Nakhla, head of restoration and conservation for the Egyptian Antiquities Organization.

"We are like a good mother who has 100 children," said Sayed Tawfiq, the director of the Egyptian Antiquities Organization in Cairo.