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Revision as of 17:07, 9 March 2006 by Stbalbach (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Great Sphinx of Giza is a large half-human Sphinx statue in Egypt, on the Giza Plateau at the west bank of the Nile River, near modern-day Cairo (29°58′31″N 31°08′15″E / 29.975299°N 31.137496°E / 29.975299; 31.137496). It is one of the largest single-stone statues on Earth, and is commonly believed by Egyptologists to have been built by ancient Egyptians in the 3rd millennium BC.
Description
The Great Sphinx is a half-human statue with the face of a man and the body of a lion. Carved out of the surrounding limestone bedrock, it is 57 metres (260 feet) long, 6 m (20 ft) wide, and has a height of 20 m (65 ft), making it one of the largest single-stone statues in the world. It is located on the west bank of the Nile River within the confines of the Giza pyramid field. The Great Sphinx faces due east, with a small temple between its paws.
After the necropolis was abandoned, the Sphinx became buried up to its shoulders in sand. The first attempt to dig it out dates back to 1400 BC, when the young Tutmosis IV, falling asleep beneath the giant head, dreamt that he was promised the crown if he would only unbury the Sphinx. The young prince immediately formed an excavation party which, after much effort, managed to dig the front paws out. To commemorate this effort, Tutmosis IV had a granite stela known as the Dream Stela placed between the paws. It was only in 1817 that the first modern dig, supervised by Captain Caviglia, uncovered the Sphinx's chest completely. The entirety of the Sphinx was finally dug out in 1925, to the great pleasure of its numerous visitors.
The body of the Sphinx was carved out of solid bedrock; stones removed in this process, some weighing upwards of 200 tons, were used to construct the adjoining Sphinx Temple.
What name ancient Egyptians called the statue is unknown. Its Arabic name, Abu al-Hôl, translates as "Father of Terror". The Western name "Sphinx" was given to it in Antiquity based on the legendary Greek creature with the body of a lion and the head of a woman, though Egyptian Sphinxes have the head of a man.
French scholar Constantin-François de Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney (1757-1820) traveled in Egypt between 1783 and 1785 and expressed astonishment upon seeing black Egyptians and the "Negro" coutenance of the Giza Sphinx:
"... all have a bloated face, puffed up eyes, flat nose, thick lips; in a word, the true face of the negro. I was tempted to attribute it to the climate, but when I visited the Sphinx, its appearance, gave me the key to the riddle. On seeing that head, typically Negro in all its features, I remembered the remarkable passage where Herodotus says: 'As for me, I judge the Colchians to be a colony of the Egyptians because, like them, they are black with woolly hair. ...'"
Riddle of the Sphinx
The Great Sphinx is one of the world's largest and oldest statues, yet basic facts about it are unknown, such as the real-life model for the face, when exactly it was built, and by whom. These mysteries have collectively earned the title "Riddle of the Sphinx", a nod to its Greek namesake, although this phrase should not be confused with the original Greek legend.
Origins
The face of the Great Sphinx is generally thought to be a portrait of the Pharaoh Khafre (also known by the hellenised version of his name, Chephren), which would place its construction in the reign of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt (2723 BC–2563 BC). However, the idea that the face is that of Khafre is only based on the fact that his pyramid is behind the Sphinx when coming from modern Cairo; the political centre of Ancient Egypt was Memphis, south of the Giza plateau. When approching from Memphis the Sphinx is seen in profile in front of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.
Other theories exist. In 2004, French Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev announced the results of a 20-year re-examination of historical records and uncovering of new evidence that suggest the Great Sphinx is the work of the little-known Pharaoh Djedefre, Khafre's half brother and a son of Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza. He suggests it was built by Djedefre in the image of his father Khufu, identifying him with the sun god Ra in order to restore respect for their dynasty.
Comparative forensic studies of the facial structures of the Great Sphinx and that of statues of Khafre further suggest the two are not one and the same person.
Other alternative theories re-date the Sphinx to pre-Old Kingdom – and, according to one hypothesis, to prehistoric times.
Missing nose
The 1 m wide nose on the face is missing. It has long been presumed that the nose had been broken off by a cannon ball fired by Napoléon's soldiers. However, this is false, as sketches of the Sphinx by Frederick Lewis Norden made in 1737 and published in 1755 illustrate the Sphinx without a nose. The Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi, writing in the 15th century, attributes the vandalism to Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi fanatic from the khanqah of Sa'id al-Su'ada. In 1378, upon finding the Egyptian peasants making offerings to the Sphinx hoping to increase their harvest, Sa'im al-Dahr was so outraged that he destroyed the nose. According to the same account, the enraged locals, who regarded the Sphinx as their god, lynched Sa'im al-Dahr. This explanation is corroborated by recent evidence which suggests that two bars, used as levers, were inserted at the base of the nose to remove it between the 10th and 15th centuries.
In addition to the lost nose, a ceremonial pharaonic beard is thought to have been attached, although this may have been added in later periods after the original construction. Egyptologist Rainer Stadelmann has posited that the rounded divine beard may not have existed in the Old or Middle Kingdom, only being conceived of in the New Kingdom. This relates to the later fashion of pharaohs, which was to wear a plaited beard of authority—a false beard (chin straps are actually visible on some statues), since Egyptian culture mandated that men be clean shaven. Pieces of this beard are today kept in both the British Museum and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Alternative theories
In common with many famous constructions of remote antiquity, the Great Sphinx has over the years attracted speculative assertions by non-Egyptologists, mystics, and general writers. The reasons for these alternative theories of the origin, purpose and history of the monument invoke a wide array of sources and associations, such as astrology, lost continents and civilizations (e.g. Atlantis), numerology, mythology and other esoteric subjects. Egyptologists and the wider scientific community largely ignore such claims; however, on occasion they are drawn into public debate with these theorists, particularly when the claim purports to rely upon some novel or re-interpreted data from an academic field of study.
Water erosion
In recent years professor Robert M. Schoch of Boston University, Colin Reader and other geologists have pointed out that the Sphinx displays evidence of prolonged water erosion. Egypt's last significant rainy period ended during the third millennium BC, and these geologists have posited that the amount of water erosion evident on the Sphinx indicates a construction date no later than the sixth or fifth millennia BC, at least two thousand years before the traditional construction date and 1500 years prior to the accepted date for the beginning of Egyptian civilisation. This theory has not been accepted by mainstream Egyptologists. Alternative theories for the erosion include wind and sand, acid rain, exfoliation or the poor quality of the limestone used to construct the Sphinx.
Hancock and Bauval
One well-publicised debate was generated by the works of two writers, Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval, in a series of separate and collabarative publications from the late 1980s onwards. Their claims include that the Great Sphinx was constructed in 10,500 B.C.; that its lion-shape is a definitive reference to the constellation of Leo; and that the layout and orientation of the Sphinx, the Giza pyramid complex and the Nile River is an accurate reflection or "map" of the constellations of Leo, Orion (specifically, Orion's Belt) and the Milky Way, respectively.
Their initial claims regarding the alignment of the Giza pyramids with Orion ("…the three pyramids were an unbelievably precise terrestrial map of the three stars of Orion's belt"— Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods, 1995, p.375) are later joined with speculation about the age of the Sphinx (Hancock and Bauval, Keeper of Genesis, published 1997 in the U.S. as The Message of the Sphinx). By 1998's The Mars Mystery, they claim:
- "...we have demonstrated with a substantial body of evidence that the pattern of stars that is ‘frozen’ on the ground at Giza in the form of the three pyramids and the Sphinx represents the disposition of the constellations of Orion and Leo as they looked at the moment of sunrise on the spring equinox during the astronomical ‘Age of Leo’ (i.e, the epoch in which the Sun was ‘housed’ by Leo on the spring equinox.) Like all precessional ages this was a 2,160-year period. It is generally calculated to have fallen between the Gregorian calendar dates of 10,970 and 8810 BC." (op. cit., p.189).
A date of 10,500 B.C. is chosen because they claim this is the only time in the precession of the equinoxes when the astrological age was Leo and when that constellation rose directly east of the Sphinx at the vernal equinox. They claim also that in this epoch the angles between the three stars of Orion's Belt and the horizon was an "exact match" to the angles between the three main Giza pyramids. This time period also coincides with the American psychic Edgar Cayce's "dating" of Atlantis, and together these claims are used to support the overall belief in some advanced and ancient, but now vanished, progenitor civilization.
These claims, and the astronomical and archaeological data upon which they are based, have been refuted by scholars who have examined them, notably the astronomers Ed Krupp and Anthony Fairall. The refuting evidence includes noting that the correspondence of the angles between the pyramids and the angles in Orion's Belt at that epoch is not in fact precise or even very close, that the "Age of Leo" (period when the Sun's path appears in this constellation at the equinoxes) in fact starts 1500 years later than this, that the Zodiac of western astrology is known to have originated in Mesopotamia and not pre-ancient Egypt, and that if the Sphinx is meant to represent Leo, then it should be on the other side of the Nile (the "Milky Way") from the pyramids ("Orion"). Hancock and Bauval maintain their positions and continue to publish books on their speculations. The scientific community regards these as pseudoscience.
Controversy over race of Ancient Egyptians
Main article: Controversy over race of Ancient EgyptiansThe racial identity of ancient Egyptians is steeped in controversy, and the racial identity of the Great Sphinx has become part of that controversy. Today, the general consensus among scholars is that Ancient Egypt was a multi-racial society, with many modern historians reluctant to make definitive claims about the race of its inhabitants. Recent genetic analysis of pre-modern peoples has shown there was no such thing as "pure race", and such distinctions are legacies of 19th century racist approaches to history. Afrocentrists, however, insist that ancient Egyptians were black African peoples. They often claim that this "black identity" was strongest in early Egyptian history and waned over time. They also assert Egypt remained essentially a black, African civilization throughout the dynastic era. The conclusions of the Afrocentrists, however, are not accepted by the majority of Egyptologists.
Afrocentrists will often point to a quote by French scholar Constantin-François de Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney (1757-1820) who traveled in Egypt between 1783 and 1785, and who wrote his opinion about the "Negro" features of the Giza Sphinx:
"... all have a bloated face, puffed up eyes, flat nose, thick lips; in a word, the true face of the negro. I was tempted to attribute it to the climate, but when I visited the Sphinx, its appearance gave me the key to the riddle. On seeing that head, typically Negro in all its features, I remembered the remarkable passage where Herodotus says: 'As for me, I judge the Colchians to be a colony of the Egyptians because, like them, they are black with woolly hair. ...'"
It should be noted however that while this quote is interesting and old, it bears no more authority than any other modern observer, since the Sphinx's features are set in stone and have not changed since Constantin-François's observation.
See also
Notes
- "I have solved riddle of the Sphinx, says Frenchman", newspaper article from The Daily Telegraph. Last retrieved June 28, 2005.
- BBC Horizon programme (2000) on alternate theories of Hancock and Bauval
- Tony Fairall's criticisms
- critiques on the theory as pseudoscience
External links
- An academic article arguing the case for water erosion evidence
- Egypt—The Lost Civilization Theory
- Google Maps satellite view of Great Sphinx of Giza
- The Sphinx's Nose
- Sphinx photo gallery 1
- Sphinx photo gallery 2
