Posted on 02/05/2018 9:00:56 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Over a month ago his left lung collapsed completely, and about a week ago his kidneys failed. His heart rate is now slowing down as well. Dad made it very clear to us from the beginning, upon receiving his diagnosis, that he did not want to live a life on life support. Although it's truly impossible to know for sure what recovery could look like, it is very clear that he would not have the quality of life he would want, nor the quality of life we would want for him.
It was because of the virtually limitless support and aid from all of you that we were able to have him with us for another year. He effectively beat cancer, however his body was not able to bounce back the way we thought it could...
We are all deeply thankful for his powerful presence in all our lives. And as he said in his last speaking engagement when asked about preserving his legacy "... I don't actually give a damn about that ... that's their job" ... With the far reach of his work and the influence in both his personal field of study along with all those connected to it, not only his legacy but he himself, lives on through all of us who were inspired to pick up the torch and to never shy away from that which we are able to illuminate with it.
...we thank you all for your kind and essential support through this most difficult process. We have tried to include everyone we could think of that should receive this letter but are fully aware that it's impossible to come up with a comprehensive list, please don't hesitate to pass this along to anybody you feel needs to be informed with these developments.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.facebook.com ...
JAW is primarily responsible for reviving the observation that the Great Sphinx at Giza and its enclosure are marked by rain-induced erosion.
A truly courageous and legendary researcher. He will be greatly missed.
He’s 85. How did that happen? Where did the time go?
It’s the people who buck the system who unlock the doors.
Deepest respect for the man. Would love to have taken one of his Egypt tours.
Interesting. I had a friend named John West. He was a
real stand-up guy. He worked for the California National
Guard as a purchasing officer. We coached you football
together and were successful enough that we were asked
to coach the JV team at the local HS. John was an extreme
smoker. I dont know how he did this but at some point
he scored himself a heart transplant even with his
history. John returned to smoking after a couple of
years. Eventually he died of lung cancer,
Unfreaken believable.
Built 10,000 years ago.
Prayers for the John Anthony West family...may he be doing cartwheels and celebrating with God even as the tears are drying for those left behind.
I like advice he gave his daughter -- follow your dreams, but be prepared to starve.
I think the Sphinx is much much oder than the Pyramids.
It was clearly buried in water that cause major erosion along its sides. AND I believe buried and dug up many times before.
The Sides of the area that is dug our around it show water erosion that takes a long time. It was buried up to it’s neck.
Then what remained eroded away to leave what resembled a large rock.
When they built the Pyramids they also carved the face onto what probably used to be a lions head. That is why the face looks so out-of-proportion compared to the body.
So... it was many many many years before they think it was, Eroded by rivers on its sides, buried in muck up to it’s neck, the head eroded, it was re-carved, then dug out long enough ago that the sides of the enclosing box eroded.
At the heart of the matter, if the Sphinx was a carved Leo head, then the last time it would have been facing the rising of the Leo astrological was more than 22 thousand years ago, when the Giza Plain was a garden spot ... John Anthony West gave the world a chance to consider that notion by Bauval et al. Hope The Lord is giving West the details even as we type ....
Sounds like a fine man - praying for a peaceful transition and that your hearts rejoice in the knowing and remembrance of him.
That sounds about right
There’s some guy who claims that the walls of the dug out portion of the Sphinx complex were used in construction of the temple dedicated to a pyramid builder and therefore can’t be from really really ancient erosion.
Occurs to me that both ideas can be true. Didn’t the Egyptians often re-purpose tombs and temples. If I am a Pharoah and can simply write my name and place my statues all over an abandoned temple, I’d go for it.
I still have problems with the placement of the Sphinx in relation to the pyramids. The bend in the ceremonial boulevard doesn’t make architectural sense if you are going to build both structures according to some master plan.
But if you were going to build a crouching lion statue facing East multi-thousand years ago to honor the crouching lion constellation Leo, you might put it there. As a matter of fact, one image of the crouching lion constellation looks mighty like the Sphinx lion body before some idiot tried to put that tiny Pharoah’s head on it.
That's a good point about the causeway -- if the Sphinx hadn't already been there, why that route? Jean-Pierre Houdin actually has something of an answer to that, but in most respects he's excruciatingly conventional.
The temple (or whatever it was built to be) in front of the Sphinx was initially built of limestone quarried right out of the enclosure, or gap of air around the Sphinx -- but that limestone shows the same erosion patterns, and was later refaced in granite, with the granite cut down to fit into the irregular surface of the limestone. One stone has the tail end of some lines of hieroglyphs, "...beloved of.., ...living forever", showing it was scavenged from some other structure. The granit itself was still later pulled off, probably since the muzzie conquest.
Since the paws and front legs of the Sphinx, its tail, and so much else of its lower surface are constructed of small stones quarried and sculpted for the purpose -- and these are of all different ages, including quite modern date -- I very much doubt that with the information available the Sphinx can be said to have been a sculpture at all, prior to the New Kingdom. It was probably just the source of large, quarried stone, such as those used for that temple. Based on subsurface weathering, the rear of the Sphinx was carved out about twice as long ago as the front, which pretty much clinches the idea that, even if it was originally a sculpture, it wasn't anything like what is there today.
Among conventional Egyptologists, the view that the Sphinx bears the image of Khufu (it is clearly not Khafre) has started to catch on a little, and JAW pointed out years ago that a New Kingdom copy of an Old Kingdom inscription indicates that Khufu repaired the Sphinx.
The candidates for recarving the face and head to resemble the pharaoh are, IMHO, from either the 18th or the 27th dynasties, as the Sphinx was excavated by Thutmose IV (he erected the Dream Stele to tell posterity all about it, and to prop up his claim to the throne), but OTOH the physical characteristics of the face are more African, and the 27th dynasty was Nubian -- and those pharaohs really liked portraying themselves as sphinxes.
The documentary with West and Schoch is at the link below -- I hope it's not the version with Richard Hoagland and the other fringer who gets started on extraterrestrials while mentioning the "very unique inscription" that talks about Khufu's repairs.
Whoops, and sorry, I did a booboo I just noticed — the Nubian dynasty was #25, not #27.
I don’t know about the theory that the sculpture wasn’t originally contemplated and it was just a open air quarry for a temple that later took advantage of the rock in the “u” of the quarry.
Who ever saw a quarry built in a “U” shape? That isn’t a very efficient workspace IMO>
The usual take on the Sphinx is that it began as a yardang, or rather, that the head (and whatever has been removed above ground level) was a yardang.
The conclusion that it wasn't originally contemplated as a sculpture is imho, but based on the evidence. The area in front of the Sphinx was quarried out as well, but there's no telling how high that was. The techniques used to move 200 ton stones out of the Sphinx enclosure may have required the final appearance, also, the body of the Sphinx (much of which is covered with small 'repairs') may have been too flawed to cut into such large blocks.
Ok, lets go with the yardang theory for a moment (although there is noting else in the area to suggest formations like a yardang).
At some point, someone had to make a decision that the protubrance looked like the head of a lion or they wouldn’t have carved the body that way. I read somewhere that the many reproductions of the Sphinx in Egypt were made after the original Sphinx was created and then unearthed.
So many theories about Egypt flying around these days with new discoveries and new technology keeping the old career Egyptologists busy with refuting them by revising their old ones.
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