Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries, Brian Haughton [books you need to read .TXT] 📗

ravages of time, man, and modern pollution. In fact, the only thing that has saved it from complete destruction is that it has been submerged beneath the desert sand for most of its life. There have been various attempts at restoration over the millennia, beginning in c. 1400 B.c.with the pharaoh Tuthmosis IV. After falling asleep in the shade of the Sphinx when out hunting, the pharaoh dreamt that the great beast was choking from the sand engulfing it, and that it told him if he cleared the sand he would obtain the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. In between the front paws of the Sphinx is a granite stela, now called the Dream Stela, which is inscribed with the story of the pharaoh's dream.

Despite this clearing, the colossal sculpture soon found itself beneath the sand once again. When Napoleon arrived in Egypt in 1798, he found the Sphinx without its nose. 18th century drawings reveal that the nose was missing long before Napoleon's arrival; one story goes that it was the victim of target practice in the Turkish period. Another explanation (and perhaps the most likely), is that it was pried off by chisels in the eighth century A.D. by a Sufi who considered the Sphinx a sacrilegious idol. In 1858, some of the sand around the sculpture was cleared by Auguste Mariette, the founder of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, and between 1925 and 1936, French engineer Emile Baraize excavated the Sphinx on behalf of the Antiquities Service. Possibly for the first time since antiquity, the Great Sphinx was once again exposed to the elements.

The Great Sphinx in 1867, in its unrestored original condition, still partially buried in the sand.

The explanation for the enigmatic sculpture (favored by most Egyptologists) is that Chephren, a Fourth Dynasty pharaoh, had the stone shaped into a lion with his own face at the same time as the construction of the nearby Pyramid of Chephren, around 2540 B.c. However, there are no inscriptions anywhere that identify Chephren with the Sphinx, nor is there mention anywhere of its construction, which is somewhat puzzling when considering the grandness of the monument. Despite many Egyptologists claims to the contrary, no one knows for sure when the Sphinx was built or by whom. In 1996, a New York detec

tive and expert in identification concluded that the visage of the Great Sphinx did not match known representations of Chephren's face. He maintained that there was a greater resemblance to Chephren's elder brother, Djedefre. The debate is still continuing. The mystery of the Sphinx's origin and purpose has often given rise to mystical interpretations, such as those of English occultist Paul Brunton, and, in the 1940s, American psychic and prophet Edgar Cayce. While in a trance, Cayce predicted that a chamber would be discovered underneath the front paws of the Sphinx, containing a library of records dating back to the survivors of the destruction of Atlantis.

The Great Sphinx was excavated from a relatively soft, natural limestone, left over in the quarry used to build the Pyramids; the forepaws being separately made from blocks of limestone. One of the main oddities about the sculpture is that the head is out of proportion to its body. It could be that the head was re-carved several times by subsequent pharaohs since the first visage was created, though on stylistic grounds this is unlikely to have been done after the Old Kingdom period in Egypt (ending around 2181 B.c.). Perhaps the original head was that of a ram or hawk and was recut into a human shape later. Various repairs to the damaged head over thousands of years might have reduced or altered the facial proportions. Any of these explanations could account for the small size of the head in relation to the body, particularly if the Great Sphinx is older than traditionally believed.

There has been lively debate in recent years over the dating of the monument. Author John Anthony West first noticed weathering patterns on the Sphinx that were consistent with water erosion rather than wind and sand erosion. These patterns seemed peculiar to the Sphinx and were not found on other structures on the plateau. West called in geologist and Boston University professor Robert Schoch, who, after examining the new findings, agreed that there was evidence for water erosion. Although Egypt is arid today, around 10,000 years ago the land was wet and rainy. Consequently, West and Schoch concluded that in order to have the effects of water erosion, the Sphinx would have to be between 7,000 and 10,000 years old. Egyptologist's dismissed Schoch's theory as highly flawed; pointing out that the once prevalent great rain storms over Egypt had stopped long before the Sphinx was built. More seriously, why were there no other signs of water erosion found on the Giza plateau to validate West and Schoch's theory? The rain could not

have been restricted to this single monument. West and Schoch have also been criticized for ignoring the high level of local atmospheric industrial pollution over the last century, which has severely damaged the Giza monuments.

Someone else with his own theory regarding the Sphinx's date is author Robert Bauval. Bauval published a paper in 1989 showing that the three Great Pyramids at Giza-and their relative position to the Nile-formed a kind of 3-D hologram on the ground, of the three stars of Orion's belt and their relative position to the Milky Way. Along with best-selling Fingerprints of the Gods author Graham Hancock, Bauval developed a theory that the Sphinx, its neighboring pyramids, and various ancient writings, constitute some sort of astronomical map connected with the constellation Orion. Their conclusion is that the best fit for this hypothetical map is the position of the stars in 10,500 B.c., pushing the origin of the Sphinx even further back in time. There are various legends of secret passages associated with the Great Sphinx. Investigations by Florida State University, Waseda University in Japan, and Boston University, have located various anomalies in the