Well that was an interesting plan drawing of the Sphinx but who drew it? Is it just imaginary?
The find of the unassembled boat can certainly leave one to think that there are other goodies awaiting discovery at the site.
You know, the bases for the pyramids needed to be flat so I would think so I had the idea of building a dyke around the planned area, fill it with water and then have my guys hack down everything that sticks out. Keep lowering the water till you get it down level.
Has anyone ever scoured the region for casing stones that were not broken up for other buildings? I have thought the same about Stonehenge; maybe there are some in the Salisbury Plain area intact. Could be some casing stones under the sand that did not make it into Cairo.
There must have been a lot of “industrial accidents” whilst removing those big heavy objects down those steep sloping sides unless they just prised them loose up high and let them slide and tumble to the ground.
Industrial accidents... in the 20th c, a large stone, perhaps at Avebury, was winched back up onto its base, and where it had lain were the remains of a 15th century (based on coins in a coin purse) man, possibly the guy supervising the removal of stones, who’d been crushed to death when the stone went over.
Most of the megalithic sites have been plundered for stone, just as classical buildings were, just as ancient Egyptians plundered slightly more ancient Egyptian structures, etc. Roman emperors issued a series of laws to try to defeat the practice of nightly dismantling of underutilized public buildings (down-at-the-heels temples and whatnot), which were being used as quarries for ready building materials. :’)
The crown of the Khafre pyramid retains its original casing stones.
The Sphinx drawing showing underground passages was, as I said, imaginary. There is a void under the left paw; when standing face to face with the Sphinx the viewer has the right paw on his or her left, and the left paw on his or her right. :’) That feature was found during those sonic studies done by the Schoch-West team.
http://www.robertschoch.com/images/sphinx/chamber.jpg
The odd stone box near the Sphinx’ right foreleg is known to be hollow, but that’s probably just one of those things, and it’s never been opened. Probably New Kingdom in date, and probably nothing inside it. Repairs to the Sphinx, and alterations to it, began during the 4th dynasty, and antedate Khafre; at least one conventional Egyptologist regards the Sphinx as a project of Khufu’s, but it’s clearly older than that.
