Sphinx of Giza
The Sphinx of Giza is a giant (66 feet (20 meters) high and 240 feet (73 meters) long) statue near the Giza pyramids in Egypt. Crafted in the shape of a lion with a man's head, it is thought to have been built during the rule of Pharaoh Khafre (2520-2494 BCE), or at least sometime in that millennium. Despite it being one of the world's oldest and most famous statues, its origins are still fairly mysterious.
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[edit] Disputed age
If you ask most Egyptologists, the Sphinx was probably carved around 2500 B.C.E.
Some recent evidence suggests that the Sphinx of Giza may be older than previously thought.[1] Some Egyptologists suggest that both archaeological and geological evidence indicates that the sphinx was constructed between 7000-5000 B.C.E. as claimed by by Dr. Robert M. Schoch of Boston University examined the effects of weathering on the body of the sphinx. It indicated that the erosion was caused by water rather than wind erosion[2], which is traditionally believed to have been the cause of the damage to the body of the sphinx, as the sphinx was buried in sand for long periods of time. However, later theorists pointed out that water erosion looks an awful lot like a process called salt exfoliation[3], which requires regular changes in humidity but no actual liquid water. Theories about the source of the damage are varied and place the construction of the sphinx at anywhere from 5000 to 10,000 BCE, at the end of the last ice age.
However, you can find plenty of cranks, even cranks with Ph.D.s who insist this is not the case and instead promote different versions of "history is much older than historians and archaeologists claim".[4] Sounds familiar?
A further strand of woo involves claims that the face of the sphinx is "the same as" the Face on Mars, and that the Martian Cydonia region contains a complex of associated pyramids and causeways similar to that at Giza. ZOMG! IT'S ALIENS BULT THE PYRAMIDS!. [5]
[edit] The nose knows...
The Spinx has no nose - traditional Egyptologists attribute this to vandalism in the 14th century by Muslim fanatic Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, who attacked the statue after hearing of peasants making tribute to it. He was hanged for his crimes. This is in direct conflict with the stories that Napoleon accidentally destroyed it, that the Sphinx caught a cold and sneezed it off, that it was broken off when Obelix climbed on it[6] or that it is due to erosion caused by the Noahic Deluge.
[edit] But what about the comedy spectacles?
The sphinx also had a beard, most likely added in the 18th Dynasty during a New Kingdom restoration of the statue. A new temple dedicated to it was also added at this time, and its remains can still be seen to the northeast of the sphinx.[7] The remains of the beard were discovered in excavations conducted in 1817 by Giovanni Battista Caviglia, working for Henry Salt. A part of it now resides in the British Museum, while other fragments, found in subsequent excavations in 1925-1926, are now in the Cairo Museum.[8]
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Schoch, Robert M. (1999-2000), Geological evidence pertaining to the age of the great sphinx [1]
- ↑ Wikipedia on the water erosion debate
- ↑ Exfoliation (geology)
- ↑ For instance, the aforementioned Dr. Robert M. Schoch who belongs to the "all pyramids are much older than history" variant
- ↑ http://mars-earth.com/cydonia_eygpt/
- ↑ For which pictorial evidence exists
- ↑ Wilkinson, R W (2000), The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt, Thames and Hudson, London
- ↑ http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/f/fragment_of_the_beard_of_the_g.aspx