THE SPHINX

The ageless, inscrutable Sphinx is the world's oldest riddle. A reclining statue of a lion with the head of a man, it is partly carved from the plateau rock near the Great Pyramid. There are three separate layers of rock in the figure which explains the pattern of weathering: a hard outcrop, almost undamaged from exposure, forms the head; a bed of softer limestone, alternating with harder and softer layers, constitutes most of the body; and the base is again a harder limestone. This, and the fact that it is rapidly falling apart, is all that is known with any great certainty about the Sphinx. It is believed by most Egyptologists that the Sphinx was constructed at the same time as the [I 046 / P 003 / Great Pyramid] and its face is that of the pharaoh, Chephren. However, recent seismological studies by Boston University geologist, Robert Schoch, show that the monument may be 6,000 - 10,000 years old. Having the face of Chephren is no contradiction. The statue's connection to the pharaoh's temples and the matching stone of the upper half to the Great Pyramid could indicate a renovation - the Sphinx has been recarved and restored many times. Nevertheless, this confirms what many locals believe from legends dating before modern archaeological studies and inscriptions on the Inventory Stele that relate how Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid, ordered a temple built alongside an existing Sphinx. Further, the fifth-century Greek historian, Herodotus, relates how an Egyptian priest told him that "the sun had twice set where it now rose, and twice risen where it now set." This cryptic statement may refer to the wobble of the earth's axis from which the 2,000-year-long Ages of the Zodiac are determined - in technical terms, the precession of the [G 010/ equinoxes]. If so, Egyptian history could date back 36,000 years. This would agree with opinion that erosion at the base of the Sphinx resulted from water (rather than sand), which was attributed to severe flooding in Egypt from melting ice of the last Ice Age c.15,000 - 10,000BC. Thus, if the statue was carved before Egypt was under water, it would have existed at a time when currently accepted theory states that there was no civilization on earth. This would mean theories on the evolution of civilization would need to be rewritten.