Free Republic

Climate key to Sphinx's riddle JEREMY WATSON GLOBAL warming is one of the greatest threats to present day civilisation but work by a team of Scots scientists suggests the ancient Egyptians may have been earlier victims of climate change. The pharaohs ruled their empire for hundreds of years, spreading culture, architecture and the arts before it collapsed into economic ruin. Why that happened is one of the great mysteries of history. Now a team of scientists from Scotland and Wales believe the answer lies beneath the waters of Lake Tana, high in the Ethiopian Highlands, and the source of the...

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...

According to Robert Temple, a moat theory explains the water weathering of the Sphinx without hypothesizing that it dates back to an earlier period of more rainfall than the present. I will not address his other hypotheses, which I do not find persuasive, that the Sphinx was the jackal [wild dog] Anubis and the face seen on the Sphinx is that of the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Amenemhet II, though I note the original Sphinx has been reworked and the head re-carved... Assuming the argument that the Sphinx sat in a pool, either the water level around the Sphinx was the...

Scientists see dark 'tendrils', signs of flowing water, emerge from rocky Martian outcrops Striking new images from the mountains of Mars may be the best evidence yet of flowing, liquid water, an essential ingredient for life. The findings, reported today in the journal Science, come from a joint US-Swiss study. A sequence of images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show many long, dark "tendrils" a few metres wide.

Wind is a much more powerful force in the evolution of mountains than previously thought, according to a new report from a University of Arizona-led research team. Bedrock in Central Asia that would have formed mountains instead was sand-blasted into dust, said lead author Paul Kapp. "No one had ever thought that wind could be this effective," said Kapp, a UA associate professor of geosciences. "You won't read in a textbook that wind is a major process in terms of breaking down rock material." Rivers and glaciers are the textbook examples of forces that wear down mountains and influence their...

The Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt, a massive structure carved from a single rock, has long fascinated visitors and experts alike. While many believed that the imposing statue, with its human head and lion's body, was created by humans during the ancient kingdom of Egypt around 2600 BC, its true origins remained shrouded in mystery. However, a recent study conducted by scientists from New York University, published in the journal Physical Review Fluids, provides insight into how this extraordinary statue was formed over 4,500 years ago. The multi-layered body: A puzzle Traditionally attributed to human craftsmanship, the exact process...

Groundwater reserves under Arabian deserts have yet to be exploited but could provide vital resources for agriculture in some of the world's driest areas, according to a space photography expert. Large underground reserves are situated under what appears to be barren deserts, said Farouk Al Baz... Director of the Centre for Remote Sensing at Boston University... Al Baz said radar images of Arab deserts have revealed numerous courses of rivers and streams that led to depressions where lakes have formed... "A lot of pumping in one area at the same level is not good. What is there is probably all...