How the Great Sphinx of Giza may have started out with the face of a lion

Daily Mail ^ | 08 Dec 2008 | Daily Mail

[BGHater]

The Great Sphinx of Giza might have originally had the face of a lion and could be much older than previously thought, archaeologists have claimed.

Until now its origins have been one of history's most enigmatic mysteries, but a new study suggests that the icon did not have the face of a pharaoh.

The Sphinx is a statue of a reclining lion with a human head, which stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile River, near Cairo.

It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing 241 feet long, 20 feet wide and 65 feet high.

Uncovering the secret face: This digital recreation shows the Sphinx with the face of a lion

The Great Sphinx's paws and head are out of proportion, suggesting there may have been an even larger, earlier statue which was adapted Commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians in the 3rd millennium BC, it is the earliest known monumental sculpture.

Using the data retrieved by experts, visual effects artists have created digital images showing the Sphinx as it could have looked before the time of the pyramids.

English geologist Colin Reader said the Sphinx was not only older than previously thought, but may have originally had an entirely different face.

Egyptologists who have studied the Sphinx over the last two hundred years have long argued that it was built soon after the first pyramid - around 4,500 years ago.

But Mr Reader's study has found that rainwater erosion on the Sphinx’s enclosure appears to be consistent with the monument being created before the Great Pyramid in Giza.

A sunken palace on the Giza plateau provides further evidence that there was activity in the area before the building of the pyramids, Mr Reader said.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

thanks!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2025333/posts?page=31#31

[null and void]

Naaaah.

Originally it had the face of 0bama.

Then the builders realized he's not a sphinx he's a sphincter, ...

[SunkenCiv]

Giza pics:

http://www.egyptarchive.co.uk/html/plateau/plateau_09.html

I used one here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1442529/posts?page=25#25

[bigheadfred]

All they have to do is dig the other one up on the other side of the pyramid and all questions will be answered...

[FFranco]

You are correct. I conflated Thutmose III (the Napoleon of Egypt) and his grandson, Thutmose IV, who supposedly had the dream by the sphinx.

[SunkenCiv]

Heh... "The Second Sphinx Theory"...

My guess remains this -- that there was an earlier head of some sort; the rock decayed, and a big chunk of it overhanging the neck fell off. It got recarved at least once, possibly during the 25th dynasty. Cosmic ray exposure dating could settle it (for the head only -- the body has been covered with sand for most of the past 2500 years).

25th dynasty sphinx

Google

[SunkenCiv]

It’s difficult to keep them straight anyway, too many similar names, and in different orders father to son.

[RichInOC]

The Egyptian Kitty Frowns Upon Your Shenanigans.

(Egyptian Kitties...In WAY Before The ZOT.)

[wildbill]

Saw the program on Discovery or something, and it also posited that the lion head was looking eastward at some stars which are called the lion constellation.

[Islander7]

LOL!~ Yeah, I remember the news conference he did. I think he was on C-Span with a book review? (It has been several years; I’m at point that breakfast is difficult to remember some days.) He nailed it for sure. There are too many eerily similar myths and technologies scattered over the world for all that to be coincidence.

The recent findings in Turkey of the 11,000 y/o ruins gives weight to his argument too.

[Pelham]

“...and Napolean’s Army gave it a nose job!:”

I think that’s a myth. The nose was damaged by erosion IIRC.

[arrogantsob]

Thanks for the correction.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

The Sphinx was once lion-headed? Nah, the pharaoh it represents was always a pinhead. And nobody wanted to go to the awful trouble of whittling down the body to match the head, in all those centuries — there’s the real mystery.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Cayce was correct, as far as that goes. He envisioned the gaming.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Thutmose III in the New Kingdom. As I recall the story, it was while his step-mother, Hatshepsut, was reigning as pharaoh. He was hunting in the desert by the sphinx and took a nap in its shade. He dreamt that the sphinx promised that if he restored it, ie, uncovered it from the sand, he would be able to take his rightful place as pharaoh.

Tooty sounds like a conservative, doesn't he? The smart thing to be when a woman's on the throne and you have some standing to remove her. A good reactionary impulse is just the lever one needs.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Understandable, you probably saw the pyramid on the back of the dollar and connected the two...

[gleeaikin]

I seem to remember that around 20 years ago the rain erosion and early age hypothesis was being publicized. Was Eric von Danigen (sp?) involved in this? Also interesting was the age in the past that the Egyptian priest gave Solon for the episode of Atlantis. I think he said 9,000 years ago, which would have made it between 11 and 12 thousand years ago.

So much lost history, and so many archeologist, Egyptologists and others unwilling to make daring leaps of imagination and research. We need wealthy nonprofessionals to fund some imaginative work so the experts are not solely dependent to traditional money sources, which constrain them to conservativism. Think older than Clovis? among others. With 400 foot depths of shoreline and river mouths drowned since the last ice age, who knows what may lie underwater to be discovered?

Sunken Civ, I really enjoyed the picture show of Giza remains.

[Islander7]

You may find this of interest.

Black Sea slowly gives up ancient secrets

updated 3:22 p.m. CT, Mon., Oct. 11, 2004

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Four years ago, scientists thought they had found the perfect place to settle the Noah flood debate: A farmer’s house on a bluff overlooking the Black Sea, built about 7,500 years ago — just before tidal waves inundated the homestead, submerged miles of coastline and turned the freshwater lake into a salty sea.

Some believed the rectangular site of stones and wood could help solve the age-old question of whether the Black Sea’s flooding was the event recounted in the Biblical story of Noah.

That story told of a calamitous flood occurring over 40 days and nights. Scientists had largely dismissed it, believing the Black Sea filled up gradually with gently rising waters. That wisdom was rocked, however, when two scholars claimed several years ago that the Black Sea’s flooding was more recent — and so rapid and widespread that it forced people to move as far away as mainland Europe.

----- snip

[KevinDavis]

I know who are talking about.. The person is Graham Hancock and I have read most of his books. He gives very detailed explanation in how there could have been an ancient civilization before the Ancient Egyptians and so forth. He does make a good case.. I still think there was a main civilization that disappeared in an instant.. I think the story about Noah was about in how the main civilization disappeared.