TRAVEL   EGYPT   TOURS 

Part of the uraeus (sacred cobra which protected from evil forces), the nose and the ritual beard are missing; the beard is now displayed in the British Museum. Traces of the original paint can still be seen near one ear.It is true that originally the Sphinx’s face was painted dark red.

 

The Sphinx has suffered greatly from the ravages of time, man and modern pollution. In fact, what has saved it from complete destruction is the fact that it has been submerged beneath the desert sand for most of its life.

There have been various attempts to restore the Great Sphinx over the millennia, beginning in c1400 BC 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.

 

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.

 

Myth and Mystery

 

A number of mysteries surround the Great Sphinx, perhaps even more than the pyramids. First, it is not known why the builders chose such heavy blocks to chip off the Sphinx for the temple or how they moved them to build the temple.

 

Second, the Sphinx was widely believed to have been an oracle. Between its paws is a 15th-century BC stone tablet recounting a vision given to a prince who slept in the shadow of the Sphinx (and perhaps sought its divine aid) and later became a pharaoh through its intercession.

But the most interesting mysteries of the Sphinx (or at least those producing the most provocative theories) have to do with how it came to be weathered. The most obvious answer is that it was by millenia of desert winds.

 

But when geologist Robert Schoch and Egyptologist John Anthony West examined it in 1990, Schloch concluded it had been weathered by rainfall, not by wind and sand. If that's true, its date of construction might be closer to 7000 BC.

 

Similarly, when the maverick Egyptologist R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz visited Giza in the 1930s, he immediately declared that the Sphinx had been weathered by water, not by wind. But instead of suggesting rainfall, Schwaller proposed that the Sphinx had been worn by seawater and that its origins lay in the ocean.

Schwaller also suggested that the Sphinx was far older than its accepted date of about 2500 BC.

 

The current date for the beginnings of Egyptian civilization is about 3000 BC, which means that the Egyptians developed their sophisticated science, mathematics and building skills in a mere 500 years. He proposed that Egyptian knowledge was not a new development, but a legacy from a far older civilization, possibly Plato's Lost City of Atlantis.