Pyramid Quest by Robert M. Schoch Page A
Authors: Robert M. Schoch
Tags: Literature & Fiction, History, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Religious, Egypt, World, Occult, Ancient Civilizations, New Age; Mythology & Occult, Mythology & Folk Tales, Fairy Tales
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particularly when we consider the strongest evidence that Giza served as a holy site well in advance of Pharaoh Khufu and the Great Pyramid: the Great Sphinx.
PULLING BACK TIME’S VEIL
The immense Great Sphinx of Giza—66 feet high, 240 feet long, and with a headdressed human face 13 feet wide, all carved from solid limestone bedrock—has been dated since the 1950s to Khafre, the second pharaoh after Khufu. A number of lines of evidence support this attribution.
For one, the Great Sphinx fits into a ground plan that also includes the Sphinx Temple, the Valley Temple, Khafre’s Causeway, and the Khafre Pyramid. Given the artistic unity of this portion of the Giza site, the assumption is that one builder assembled the entire complex. In addition, an exquisite sculpture of Khafre was discovered in the Valley Temple in 1860. The sculpture, it is argued, adds to the likelihood that Khafre was the pharaoh responsible for the temple and, by association, for the Great Sphinx as well.
Further evidence is provided by the Dream Stela, an inscribed pillar of granite that was carved and set between the Sphinx’s paws by the New Kingdom pharaoh Tuthmosis IV (Thutmose IV) in approximately 1400 B.C. A significant legend surrounds the stela.
The body of the Great Sphinx lies below the level of the Giza Plateau in a pit—the so-called Sphinx enclosure—from which limestone was quarried to build other structures. Sand carried into the enclosure by the constant desert winds gradually fills the enclosure if it is not removed regularly. This is exactly what happened in the social and political breakdown that followed the collapse of the Old Kingdom in about 2150 B.C. After a few decades, only the head of the Sphinx, as enigmatic as ever, protruded above the sand.
Late-nineteenth-century photograph of the Great Pyramid, Great Sphinx, and partially excavated Valley Temple. Photograph by Frank M. Good. ( From Good, no date [1880?]. )
The story goes that a young prince of Egypt riding in the desert paused for a nap in the shade of the buried Sphinx. While he slept, Khepera, a form of the sun god Ra and the divinity that occupied the Sphinx, came in a dream and told the prince that if he cleared away the sand, he would ascend to the throne of Egypt. The prince did as the Sphinx bade him, and he, although not the natural heir to the throne, did become pharaoh. To honor the vision that brought him to power, Thutmosis IV had the Dream Stela carved and placed in front of the Sphinx.
Unearthed in the nineteenth century, the Dream Stela was reported to contain the first syllable of Khafre’s name. Unfortunately, this particular part of the inscription has flaked away and can no longer be studied except from reports made at the time of the discovery. Even if Khafre’s name did appear on the stela, however, its presence does not prove that he was the Sphinx’s creator. He may simply have been associated with a preexisting Sphinx, just as Thutmosis IV was over a thousand years later.
The next line of evidence comes from Mark Lehner, of the University of Chicago, and other Egyptologists who maintain that the face of the Sphinx is a sculpted portrait of Khafre. Using a computer program to reconstruct the damaged face of the Sphinx, Lehner claimed the image “came alive” when he gave it Khafre’s features. 4
This likeness-to-Khafre argument is the weakest proof of the three. For one thing, it amounts to circular reasoning. When Lehner made the face look the way he thought it should look, then it looked the way he thought it should look. Lehner’s notion has been further refuted by Frank Domingo, then a forensic officer with the New York City Police Department, who went to Egypt in October 1991 to do what forensic officers do—develop an image of the Sphinx’s damaged face as if he were reconstructing a criminal’s likeness from the victim’s fractured memory. Domingo concluded that Khafre and the Sphinx are not only different people
PULLING BACK TIME’S VEIL
The immense Great Sphinx of Giza—66 feet high, 240 feet long, and with a headdressed human face 13 feet wide, all carved from solid limestone bedrock—has been dated since the 1950s to Khafre, the second pharaoh after Khufu. A number of lines of evidence support this attribution.
For one, the Great Sphinx fits into a ground plan that also includes the Sphinx Temple, the Valley Temple, Khafre’s Causeway, and the Khafre Pyramid. Given the artistic unity of this portion of the Giza site, the assumption is that one builder assembled the entire complex. In addition, an exquisite sculpture of Khafre was discovered in the Valley Temple in 1860. The sculpture, it is argued, adds to the likelihood that Khafre was the pharaoh responsible for the temple and, by association, for the Great Sphinx as well.
Further evidence is provided by the Dream Stela, an inscribed pillar of granite that was carved and set between the Sphinx’s paws by the New Kingdom pharaoh Tuthmosis IV (Thutmose IV) in approximately 1400 B.C. A significant legend surrounds the stela.
The body of the Great Sphinx lies below the level of the Giza Plateau in a pit—the so-called Sphinx enclosure—from which limestone was quarried to build other structures. Sand carried into the enclosure by the constant desert winds gradually fills the enclosure if it is not removed regularly. This is exactly what happened in the social and political breakdown that followed the collapse of the Old Kingdom in about 2150 B.C. After a few decades, only the head of the Sphinx, as enigmatic as ever, protruded above the sand.
Late-nineteenth-century photograph of the Great Pyramid, Great Sphinx, and partially excavated Valley Temple. Photograph by Frank M. Good. ( From Good, no date [1880?]. )
The story goes that a young prince of Egypt riding in the desert paused for a nap in the shade of the buried Sphinx. While he slept, Khepera, a form of the sun god Ra and the divinity that occupied the Sphinx, came in a dream and told the prince that if he cleared away the sand, he would ascend to the throne of Egypt. The prince did as the Sphinx bade him, and he, although not the natural heir to the throne, did become pharaoh. To honor the vision that brought him to power, Thutmosis IV had the Dream Stela carved and placed in front of the Sphinx.
Unearthed in the nineteenth century, the Dream Stela was reported to contain the first syllable of Khafre’s name. Unfortunately, this particular part of the inscription has flaked away and can no longer be studied except from reports made at the time of the discovery. Even if Khafre’s name did appear on the stela, however, its presence does not prove that he was the Sphinx’s creator. He may simply have been associated with a preexisting Sphinx, just as Thutmosis IV was over a thousand years later.
The next line of evidence comes from Mark Lehner, of the University of Chicago, and other Egyptologists who maintain that the face of the Sphinx is a sculpted portrait of Khafre. Using a computer program to reconstruct the damaged face of the Sphinx, Lehner claimed the image “came alive” when he gave it Khafre’s features. 4
This likeness-to-Khafre argument is the weakest proof of the three. For one thing, it amounts to circular reasoning. When Lehner made the face look the way he thought it should look, then it looked the way he thought it should look. Lehner’s notion has been further refuted by Frank Domingo, then a forensic officer with the New York City Police Department, who went to Egypt in October 1991 to do what forensic officers do—develop an image of the Sphinx’s damaged face as if he were reconstructing a criminal’s likeness from the victim’s fractured memory. Domingo concluded that Khafre and the Sphinx are not only different people
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