MORE QUARANTINE STORIES--MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT SPHINX
Several years ago, Dianne and I took a trip to Egypt, and I wrote several articles about our experiences there. We stayed at the Oberoi Mena Hotel, a historic hotel just down the street from the Great Pyramid. The Sphinx is a mile or so farther down the road.
The Great Pyramid was the tallest building in the world until the Eiffel Tower in Paris was built in the late 1800's. We stood on the first tee at the hotel golf course, with the Great Pyramid looming over the trees and the Sphinx nearby. Its a strange feeling to tee off knowing that the Sphinx may be watching.
Visiting the Sphinx is somewhat underwhelming; compared to the pyramids behind it, it looks miniscule. But it is one of the largest statues in the world. It is 240 feet long and 66 feet high from the base to the top of the head. It is 62 feet wide at the rear. It faces due East toward the sunrise.
It is carved into the bedrock, a single piece of limestone, but different layers of rock have resulted in uneven erosion. The head was carved from a much harder rock layer.
Over a period of several thousand years, the Sphinx gradually came to be buried in sand from the Sahara. The only part showing was the mysterious face. There is only one Great Sphinx, but one can find numerous depictions usually guarding royal tombs and temples. In every case, it is the body of a lion and the head of a human. The word sphinx comes from Greek antiquity where it refers to a mythological beast with the body of a lion, wings and a woman's head. We don't know what the Egyptians called it.
Until Napoleon came to Egypt around 1800 there was no such thing as archaeology. Up to that time, people showed no respect for relics of ancient history. The Mamelukes used the Sphinx for target practice. Religious fanatics chopped away at the face in an attempt to destroy it. It used to have a beard.
Today they show a little more respect, but not much. For example, you never see a photo of the Sphinx from the rear. (Until now--see photo below). If you did, you would see, literally across the street, a few hundred feet away, a KFC restaurant, a Pizza Hut, a cheap hotel called the Sphinx House and a Hard Rock Café. The street is essentially the city limits between the City of Giza and the desert. Zoning laws are non-existent in Egypt, but the government relies heavily on the tourist industry and prohibited development next to the Sphinx. Unlike the Alamo, for example, in Texas, or the Old North Church in Boston. Street vendors, including little kids, sell trinkets at the statue, and they confront you at every turn.
In the evenings, they bring in folding chairs and hold concerts and a light show at the Sphinx. We enjoyed that very much.
Like its inscrutable face, the Sphinx holds many mysteries, and Egyptologists/archaeologists have been arguing the significance of it for centuries. Nobody is certain how old it is, who built it, or even what it is, and those ongoing debates may never be resolved. The same issues are debated with regard to the Great Pyramid. Most of the pyramids were built as tombs or to honor kings, but strangely nobody is buried in the Great Pyramid and no hieroglyphics are present to indicate its purpose. The same for the Sphinx.
The Sphinx as any casual observer would recognize, appears to have the body of a lion and the head of a man. From the 1500's to the middle of the 19th Century, several observers even described the Sphinx as a woman, noting that it has the face, neck and breast of a woman. Many experts assert that the head had been that of a lion or perhaps the jackal god Anubis who appears on many Egyptian monuments. They believe the face of a man (or woman), the Pharaoh, was carved much later.
There are a number of so-called "fringe" theories and many books written attempting to decipher the mystery of the Sphinx. For example, popular authors Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval theorize that the relative positions of the three Giza pyramids correspond to the three stars forming Orion's belt--they are not in a straight line.
Their theory asserts that the geographic relationship of the Sphinx, the three pyramids and the Nile corresponds with Leo, Orion and the Milky Way--as they were positioned 10,500 years ago during the Age of Leo the Lion (10,970-8,810 B.C.E.). At that time, the sun rose in the constellation Leo on the vernal equinox. Mainstream Egyptologists dismiss that as a crackpot theory, pseudo-archaeology (fake news, as you will), but nobody really knows the answers to the basics--who, when and why regarding the statue.
Excavations have shown water damage at the underground base of the statue which may indicate that it was built at a time when the climate was significantly wetter than it is today. It wasn't exactly the Sahara Forest at that time, but it has been a desert for at least 10,000 years. According to geologists, the erosion on the statue could not have been caused by wind and sand because it was buried in sand for thousands of years.
Carbon dating does not work for stone objects. Unlike all other Egyptian monuments we visited, the Sphinx has no hieroglyphic inscriptions on it. The Sphinx may be inscrutable, but the Egyptians generally are very scrutable. A tour down the Nile will show that the ancient Egyptians were prolific writers completely covering monuments, top to bottom. But the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid have no writing at all on them. Archaeologists cannot explain that.
The mainstream experts today believe that the Pharaoh Khafre had it constructed in the 25th Century B.C.E., making it the oldest sculptured monument in Egypt. The problem is that there are no contemporary inscriptions connecting it with Khafre. All the circumstantial evidence was written over 1000 years later. The evidence cited has to do with the Second Pyramid (next door to the Great Pyramid) which was said to be constructed by and is associated with Khafre. His connection with the Sphinx is all speculation because, as we've noted, there are no inscriptions.
Other experts believe the Sphinx was built to honor Khufu (Cheops) who was Khafre's father, The carved face does not resemble that on a statue of Khafre but they believe it looks like Khufu. But then it is missing the nose which was pried off by the Sufi Muslims in the 1300's according to Arab historians. The reason: to protest idol worship by the peasants who were delivering offerings to the Sphinx, hoping to increase their harvest.
The questions about the Sphinx probably will never be answered definitively without totally excavating it, which is not likely to happen. Keep in mind that only a fraction of historic Egyptian ruins have been uncovered, so Egyptologists will have job security for centuries to come.
The Great Pyramid was the tallest building in the world until the Eiffel Tower in Paris was built in the late 1800's. We stood on the first tee at the hotel golf course, with the Great Pyramid looming over the trees and the Sphinx nearby. Its a strange feeling to tee off knowing that the Sphinx may be watching.
Visiting the Sphinx is somewhat underwhelming; compared to the pyramids behind it, it looks miniscule. But it is one of the largest statues in the world. It is 240 feet long and 66 feet high from the base to the top of the head. It is 62 feet wide at the rear. It faces due East toward the sunrise.
It is carved into the bedrock, a single piece of limestone, but different layers of rock have resulted in uneven erosion. The head was carved from a much harder rock layer.
Over a period of several thousand years, the Sphinx gradually came to be buried in sand from the Sahara. The only part showing was the mysterious face. There is only one Great Sphinx, but one can find numerous depictions usually guarding royal tombs and temples. In every case, it is the body of a lion and the head of a human. The word sphinx comes from Greek antiquity where it refers to a mythological beast with the body of a lion, wings and a woman's head. We don't know what the Egyptians called it.
Until Napoleon came to Egypt around 1800 there was no such thing as archaeology. Up to that time, people showed no respect for relics of ancient history. The Mamelukes used the Sphinx for target practice. Religious fanatics chopped away at the face in an attempt to destroy it. It used to have a beard.
Today they show a little more respect, but not much. For example, you never see a photo of the Sphinx from the rear. (Until now--see photo below). If you did, you would see, literally across the street, a few hundred feet away, a KFC restaurant, a Pizza Hut, a cheap hotel called the Sphinx House and a Hard Rock Café. The street is essentially the city limits between the City of Giza and the desert. Zoning laws are non-existent in Egypt, but the government relies heavily on the tourist industry and prohibited development next to the Sphinx. Unlike the Alamo, for example, in Texas, or the Old North Church in Boston. Street vendors, including little kids, sell trinkets at the statue, and they confront you at every turn.
In the evenings, they bring in folding chairs and hold concerts and a light show at the Sphinx. We enjoyed that very much.
Like its inscrutable face, the Sphinx holds many mysteries, and Egyptologists/archaeologists have been arguing the significance of it for centuries. Nobody is certain how old it is, who built it, or even what it is, and those ongoing debates may never be resolved. The same issues are debated with regard to the Great Pyramid. Most of the pyramids were built as tombs or to honor kings, but strangely nobody is buried in the Great Pyramid and no hieroglyphics are present to indicate its purpose. The same for the Sphinx.
The Sphinx as any casual observer would recognize, appears to have the body of a lion and the head of a man. From the 1500's to the middle of the 19th Century, several observers even described the Sphinx as a woman, noting that it has the face, neck and breast of a woman. Many experts assert that the head had been that of a lion or perhaps the jackal god Anubis who appears on many Egyptian monuments. They believe the face of a man (or woman), the Pharaoh, was carved much later.
There are a number of so-called "fringe" theories and many books written attempting to decipher the mystery of the Sphinx. For example, popular authors Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval theorize that the relative positions of the three Giza pyramids correspond to the three stars forming Orion's belt--they are not in a straight line.
Their theory asserts that the geographic relationship of the Sphinx, the three pyramids and the Nile corresponds with Leo, Orion and the Milky Way--as they were positioned 10,500 years ago during the Age of Leo the Lion (10,970-8,810 B.C.E.). At that time, the sun rose in the constellation Leo on the vernal equinox. Mainstream Egyptologists dismiss that as a crackpot theory, pseudo-archaeology (fake news, as you will), but nobody really knows the answers to the basics--who, when and why regarding the statue.
Excavations have shown water damage at the underground base of the statue which may indicate that it was built at a time when the climate was significantly wetter than it is today. It wasn't exactly the Sahara Forest at that time, but it has been a desert for at least 10,000 years. According to geologists, the erosion on the statue could not have been caused by wind and sand because it was buried in sand for thousands of years.
Carbon dating does not work for stone objects. Unlike all other Egyptian monuments we visited, the Sphinx has no hieroglyphic inscriptions on it. The Sphinx may be inscrutable, but the Egyptians generally are very scrutable. A tour down the Nile will show that the ancient Egyptians were prolific writers completely covering monuments, top to bottom. But the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid have no writing at all on them. Archaeologists cannot explain that.
The mainstream experts today believe that the Pharaoh Khafre had it constructed in the 25th Century B.C.E., making it the oldest sculptured monument in Egypt. The problem is that there are no contemporary inscriptions connecting it with Khafre. All the circumstantial evidence was written over 1000 years later. The evidence cited has to do with the Second Pyramid (next door to the Great Pyramid) which was said to be constructed by and is associated with Khafre. His connection with the Sphinx is all speculation because, as we've noted, there are no inscriptions.
Other experts believe the Sphinx was built to honor Khufu (Cheops) who was Khafre's father, The carved face does not resemble that on a statue of Khafre but they believe it looks like Khufu. But then it is missing the nose which was pried off by the Sufi Muslims in the 1300's according to Arab historians. The reason: to protest idol worship by the peasants who were delivering offerings to the Sphinx, hoping to increase their harvest.
The questions about the Sphinx probably will never be answered definitively without totally excavating it, which is not likely to happen. Keep in mind that only a fraction of historic Egyptian ruins have been uncovered, so Egyptologists will have job security for centuries to come.
posted by kensuskinreport at
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