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Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 109: Jan-Feb 1997 |
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Riddles Of The Sphinx
- Riddle 1. The body of the Sphinx, which is obviously lionesque, is in bad shape compared to the head. The head we see today is human with a pharaoh's headdress. The head's workmanship is excellent and comparable to that seen in the nearby Great Pyramid. The Sphinx's body, on the other hand, is highly eroded, even though it was completely buried under sand for centuries. This severe erosion led R.M. Schoch to proclaim that the Sphinx is actually thousands of years older than the Giza pyramids, much to the annoyance of conventional Egyptologists. (SF#79) Be that as it may, no one denies that the Sphinx's head and body are quite different.
- Riddle 2. The head of the Sphinx seems too small for the body. None of the many other sphinxes carved by the ancient Egyptians show such an error of proportion.
To answer both riddles, R. Waters suggests that the original Sphinx was actually carved as a complete lion several millennia before the Giza pyramids were erected. It was these later pyramid builders -- those master craftsmen in stone -- who recarved the head into human form, necessarily reducing its size relative to the body.
(Waters, Richard; "The Lion King," Fortean Times, p. 54, no. 91, October 1996)
Comment. Waters is not the first to reinterpret the Sphinx's head. Others have noticed that the surviving facial features of the Sphinx do not match those of the Pharaoh Chephren, the supposed builder of the adjacent Great Pyramid. J.A. West, in his 1979 book Serpent in the Sky, advances this idea. The lion-head surmise has also been mentioned in the recent TV documentary Mystery of the Sphinx. Another suggestion is that the surviving features more closely resemble those of Subsaharan Africans. (SF#83)
 | (Top) The sphinx today. (Bottom) Was the original Sphinx really a lion? |