A 264-foot long replica of Egypt's ancient Sphinx in China is to be demolished after complaints from the Egyptian government.
The Sphinx replica- right down to the broken nose- in the northern Hebei province was meant to be a temporary fixture located in a $480 million cultural theme park, according to Chinese news reports gathered by The New York Times.
But the replica, which is slightly bigger than the original 65-foot tall Sphinx, damages the cultural heritage of the real one, according to a letter sent by the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities to Egypt's permanent envoy to the United Nation's.
The original half-man, half-lion statue, located near the Pyramids of Giza and the Nile River, is already registered on UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites.
The company New Great Wall constructed the replica for the park's "world heritage exposition," according to Chinese reports. The replica, made of steel and cement, was meant to be a temporary fixture for movies sets and "TV culture tourism."
A park official said the replica was not meant to be offensive.
"We are very respectful to world cultural heritage and express our apologies for any misunderstanding," an unnamed park official told the state-run news agency Xinhua, according to AFP.
It is not clear when the fake sphinx will be taken down.
This is not the first time China has replicated UNESCO World Heritage sites. A Chinese mining mogul in the southeastern Guangdong province recreated the ancient, salt-mining Austrian village of Hallstatt in 2012, The NY Times reported.
State media called the village replica "a bold example of China's knock-off culture," according to AFP.
There is a similar version of Washington D.C.'s Capitol in the form of a court building in Zhejiang province.
China also has its own version of the U.S.'s Mount Rushmore and France's Eiffel Tower
