How the Great Sphinx of Giza may have started out with the face of a lion

Daily Mail ^ | 08 Dec 2008 | Daily Mail

[BGHater]

The Great Sphinx of Giza might have originally had the face of a lion and could be much older than previously thought, archaeologists have claimed.

Until now its origins have been one of history's most enigmatic mysteries, but a new study suggests that the icon did not have the face of a pharaoh.

The Sphinx is a statue of a reclining lion with a human head, which stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile River, near Cairo.

It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing 241 feet long, 20 feet wide and 65 feet high.

Uncovering the secret face: This digital recreation shows the Sphinx with the face of a lion

The Great Sphinx's paws and head are out of proportion, suggesting there may have been an even larger, earlier statue which was adapted Commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians in the 3rd millennium BC, it is the earliest known monumental sculpture.

Using the data retrieved by experts, visual effects artists have created digital images showing the Sphinx as it could have looked before the time of the pyramids.

English geologist Colin Reader said the Sphinx was not only older than previously thought, but may have originally had an entirely different face.

Egyptologists who have studied the Sphinx over the last two hundred years have long argued that it was built soon after the first pyramid - around 4,500 years ago.

But Mr Reader's study has found that rainwater erosion on the Sphinx’s enclosure appears to be consistent with the monument being created before the Great Pyramid in Giza.

A sunken palace on the Giza plateau provides further evidence that there was activity in the area before the building of the pyramids, Mr Reader said.

[BGHater]

Note. Edited title to fit into header. Correct title:

'How the Great Sphinx of Giza may have started out with the face of a lion thousands of years before the pyramids were built'

[BGHater]

Mega kitty ping.

[arrogantsob]

Others have made the same claim about the age and there is no doubt that it has been covered and uncovered by the sands several times. Didn’t Cheops have it speak to him in a dream urging him to uncover it?

[Young Werther]

...and Napolean’s Army gave it a nose job!

[muawiyah]

Lots of theories. The records left by the Egyptians themselves suggest the Sphinx, exclusive of the head, was carved out of the limestone as large blocks were cut for building the Pyramids.

The head is vastly older having stood up like a mushroom above the then surface.

It's even painted with red stripes and white dots like an amanita muscaria which points to its existence in an earlier and colder period of time.

[BGHater]

Still waiiting for the Edgar Cayce chamber to be found.

[FFranco]

Didn’t Cheops have it speak to him in a dream urging him to uncover it?

---

I think that was Thutmose III in the New Kingdom. As I recall the story, it was while his step-mother, Hatshepsut, was reigning as pharaoh. He was hunting in the desert by the sphinx and took a nap in its shade. He dreamt that the sphinx promised that if he restored it, ie, uncovered it from the sand, he would be able to take his rightful place as pharaoh.

Thutmose III (Egypt’s greatest conqueror, ‘The Napoleon of Egypt’) was a New Kingdom pharaoh of the 18th dynasty. Cheops was Old Kingdom, I think of the 3rd dynasty.

This is from memory, so I could be mistaken in parts.

[IYAS9YAS]

I would beleive that - given the scale of the human head to the body. I saw a program more than 10 years ago that posited this.

[Islander7]

GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE PERTAINING TO THE AGE OF THE GREAT SPHINX

by Dr. Robert M. Schoch © 1999-2000

ABSTRACT

Many recent Egyptologists have attributed the carving of the Great Sphinx of Giza to the Old Kingdom Pharaoh Khafre (Chephren), ca. 2500 B.C. However, on the basis of a number of lines of geological, seismological, Egyptological, and related evidence, I have come to the conclusion that the structure commonly known as the Great Sphinx was built in stages (originally it may not have even been a Sphinx). Initial carving of the core body of the Sphinx is estimated to have taken place during the period of approximately 7,000 to 5,000 B.C. The Sphinx has subsequently been reworked and refurbished many times over the succeeding millennia ‑‑ including, probably, during the reign of Khafre. In particular, the rump or rear of the Sphinx was carved out or recarved much later than the core body, and the head of the Sphinx has been recarved.

------ snip

SUMMARY OF GEOLOGICAL AND FIELD EVIDENCE BEARING ON THE AGE OF THE SPHINX

Major geological and field evidence bearing on the age of the Great Sphinx is summarized in this section. I have divided this evidence into four main categories:

1) Weathering Patterns,
2) Two-Stage Construction of the Sphinx and Valley Temples,
3) Ancient Repair Campaigns to the Body of the Sphinx, and
4) Seismic Surveys of the Sphinx Area.

Weathering Patterns

Modifications to rock surfaces, such as those resulting from weathering, erosion, and paleosol development, have long been utilized as criteria in determining the relative times since fresh rock surfaces were first exposed to the elements (see, for example, Brookes, 1985; Coates, 1984; Evans, 1985; Finkl, 1984; and Vreeken, 1984). Such methodologies have been widely used to date Quaternary land surfaces in particular, but the same concepts can also be applied to other dating problems -- such as the age of the initial carving of the Sphinx relative to other cultural features found on the Giza Plateau.

------- Snip

Long, well researched and documented paper from a geologist's point of view. Interesting read for sure.

[pabianice]

[BenLurkin]

[50sDad]

This is mearly a revisionist historian attack on women!

[Verginius Rufus]

I have heard an Afrocentrist claim that Napoleon's troops deliberately shot away the nose so that it wouldn't be obvious that the Pharaoh being depicted was Black!

I don't know if they really know when the nose was damaged...I think the Turks have also been blamed.

[KevinDavis]

Call me crazy.. When I was a kid I thought that was George Washington..

[Disciplinemisanthropy]

actually, i think i did too. thats messed up

[RightWhale]

For a long time have thought the original head was of a lion. The present head is about half the proportionate size compared to the body, and the back of the neck has clearly been chopped away to fit the head, but the fair line was broken. The original geological formation was a yarddang, fairly common in the region.

[KevinDavis]

Or maybe Washington was an ancient.. J/k I agree that is messed up..

[Oatka]

GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE PERTAINING TO THE AGE OF THE GREAT SPHINX
by Dr. Robert M. Schoch © 1999-2000

Thanks for posting this - I was about to do the same. Schoch has it nailed. I liked the guy after he tangled with the Egyptologists, who look on all other disciplines as "outsiders" who know nothing. I remember them jumping all over his findings. Schoch just shrugged and basically told them, "Hey, I'm just a geologist, and the geology of the sphinx tells me it sides were weathered by rainfall. It's YOUR problem if the rains stopped before 3000 BC."

[Daffynition]

Fugetaboutit. It was a shoe.

[SunkenCiv]

It was Thutmose IV who had the dream, and he also erected The Dream Stele, which was found still standing between the paws.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

thanks!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2025333/posts?page=31#31

[null and void]

Naaaah.

Originally it had the face of 0bama.

Then the builders realized he's not a sphinx he's a sphincter, ...

[SunkenCiv]

Giza pics:

http://www.egyptarchive.co.uk/html/plateau/plateau_09.html

I used one here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1442529/posts?page=25#25

[bigheadfred]

All they have to do is dig the other one up on the other side of the pyramid and all questions will be answered...

[FFranco]

You are correct. I conflated Thutmose III (the Napoleon of Egypt) and his grandson, Thutmose IV, who supposedly had the dream by the sphinx.

[SunkenCiv]

Heh... "The Second Sphinx Theory"...

My guess remains this -- that there was an earlier head of some sort; the rock decayed, and a big chunk of it overhanging the neck fell off. It got recarved at least once, possibly during the 25th dynasty. Cosmic ray exposure dating could settle it (for the head only -- the body has been covered with sand for most of the past 2500 years).

25th dynasty sphinx

Google

[SunkenCiv]

It’s difficult to keep them straight anyway, too many similar names, and in different orders father to son.

[RichInOC]

The Egyptian Kitty Frowns Upon Your Shenanigans.

(Egyptian Kitties...In WAY Before The ZOT.)

[wildbill]

Saw the program on Discovery or something, and it also posited that the lion head was looking eastward at some stars which are called the lion constellation.

[Islander7]

LOL!~ Yeah, I remember the news conference he did. I think he was on C-Span with a book review? (It has been several years; I’m at point that breakfast is difficult to remember some days.) He nailed it for sure. There are too many eerily similar myths and technologies scattered over the world for all that to be coincidence.

The recent findings in Turkey of the 11,000 y/o ruins gives weight to his argument too.

[Pelham]

“...and Napolean’s Army gave it a nose job!:”

I think that’s a myth. The nose was damaged by erosion IIRC.

[arrogantsob]

Thanks for the correction.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

The Sphinx was once lion-headed? Nah, the pharaoh it represents was always a pinhead. And nobody wanted to go to the awful trouble of whittling down the body to match the head, in all those centuries — there’s the real mystery.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Cayce was correct, as far as that goes. He envisioned the gaming.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Thutmose III in the New Kingdom. As I recall the story, it was while his step-mother, Hatshepsut, was reigning as pharaoh. He was hunting in the desert by the sphinx and took a nap in its shade. He dreamt that the sphinx promised that if he restored it, ie, uncovered it from the sand, he would be able to take his rightful place as pharaoh.

Tooty sounds like a conservative, doesn't he? The smart thing to be when a woman's on the throne and you have some standing to remove her. A good reactionary impulse is just the lever one needs.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Understandable, you probably saw the pyramid on the back of the dollar and connected the two...

[gleeaikin]

I seem to remember that around 20 years ago the rain erosion and early age hypothesis was being publicized. Was Eric von Danigen (sp?) involved in this? Also interesting was the age in the past that the Egyptian priest gave Solon for the episode of Atlantis. I think he said 9,000 years ago, which would have made it between 11 and 12 thousand years ago.

So much lost history, and so many archeologist, Egyptologists and others unwilling to make daring leaps of imagination and research. We need wealthy nonprofessionals to fund some imaginative work so the experts are not solely dependent to traditional money sources, which constrain them to conservativism. Think older than Clovis? among others. With 400 foot depths of shoreline and river mouths drowned since the last ice age, who knows what may lie underwater to be discovered?

Sunken Civ, I really enjoyed the picture show of Giza remains.

[Islander7]

You may find this of interest.

Black Sea slowly gives up ancient secrets

updated 3:22 p.m. CT, Mon., Oct. 11, 2004

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Four years ago, scientists thought they had found the perfect place to settle the Noah flood debate: A farmer’s house on a bluff overlooking the Black Sea, built about 7,500 years ago — just before tidal waves inundated the homestead, submerged miles of coastline and turned the freshwater lake into a salty sea.

Some believed the rectangular site of stones and wood could help solve the age-old question of whether the Black Sea’s flooding was the event recounted in the Biblical story of Noah.

That story told of a calamitous flood occurring over 40 days and nights. Scientists had largely dismissed it, believing the Black Sea filled up gradually with gently rising waters. That wisdom was rocked, however, when two scholars claimed several years ago that the Black Sea’s flooding was more recent — and so rapid and widespread that it forced people to move as far away as mainland Europe.

----- snip

[KevinDavis]

I know who are talking about.. The person is Graham Hancock and I have read most of his books. He gives very detailed explanation in how there could have been an ancient civilization before the Ancient Egyptians and so forth. He does make a good case.. I still think there was a main civilization that disappeared in an instant.. I think the story about Noah was about in how the main civilization disappeared.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, I’m going to archive that one.

[SunkenCiv]

von Daniken wasn’t involved in that, unless as a cheerleader or something, but the Bauval stuff is just about as farfetched as anything VD (heh) wrote. The water erosion of the Sphinx and enclosing wall was (first?) noticed by fringe author Rene A. Schwaller de Lubicz, who died in 1961. John Anthony West (and perhaps others before him) noticed this and kept the idea alive. JAW tried to interest various geologists in the problem, finally found Robert Schoch, who (other than in the past couple of years, I suspect due to his goofy girlfriend who he’s now left) is pretty much an ordinary, inside the box kind of thinker. He figured a free trip to Egypt would be fine, then found when he arrived that there are two kinds of erosion — wind erosion here and there, but mostly water erosion.

John Anthony West
http://www.jawest.net/

Dr. Robert M. Schoch
http://www.robertschoch.com/

[MHGinTN]

Schoch and West convinced me long ago that the Sphinx was first a lion in an African empire, then recarved head under another, different national leader of Egypt thousands of years later. They guess the age at 5 to 7,000 years when it was recarved! They based it on the erosion of the base having surface waters doing it so the Ice Age had to be source of such rains and running waters.

[MHGinTN]

I should have read the thread before posting. Darn!

[SunkenCiv]

:’) Hey, I never do. ;’)

[gleeaikin]

Interesting link, I would love to have a better date on the Black Sea flooding. Incidentally, last I heard Ballard was getting ready to do work in Texas coastal waters.

[gleeaikin]

I know about Graham Hancock and have two of his books. Find them very provocative and interesting. I was talking about something publicized earlier than Hancock. A separate thought—Hancock talks about a small group of wise men/teachers who dispersed through the world bringing knowledge to various groups to kick start civilization after the universal catastrophe. Check out references to Melchizadec (sp?) in the Bible. How Abraham bowed to his superiority, and Jesus was described as a priest after Melchizadec (this may not be the precise description). Was M one of these wise men or a successor in an established “school”.

[KevinDavis]

von Daniken is believer of Ancient Astronauts..

[Islander7]

Life Existed 9,000 Years Ago (Florida, 12,000 YO Artifacts)

Little Salt Spring ranks as one of the major archaeological sites in the western hemisphere. Even though only 5 percent of the spring has been explored, divers have found artifacts dating back 12,000 years ago.

[SunkenCiv]

Wayback machine search links for images of basically unknown provenance (probably some kind of alleged psychic thing):

Sphinx Temple

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