Writing

The Sphinx

The Sphinx
By
Kenneth J. McCormick
http://aboutfacts.net

It's dead eyes look out over the ageless sands. Sands that saw a great civilization rise out of the nothingness of the desert and become one of the greatest that this world has ever seen. It is the inscrutable Sphinx, an ancient statue with the head of a man and the body of a lion. The giant statue of the Sphinx is sort of the Mona Lisa of statues. The facial expression has intrigued people for thousands of years. It is said that this great monument was built by the Egyptians around 4,500 years ago. But what is a Sphinx? It was an ancient mythical beast that symbolized the pharaoh as the incarnation of Ra who was the sun god. Lest you think that only Egypt had a sphinx let me set the record straight. The sphinx was common at the time through out the middle east and even in Greece.

The sphinx didn't always have the respect it garners today. If you look at it, you will notice that the nose is broken off. It is said that Napoleon's Grand Army used it for target practice and knocked the nose off with cannon fire. This may not be true and it may have been the Turks who pried off the nose many hundreds of years before the French Army ever came to Egypt. It is suspected that this was done for religious reasons.

Some people are sure that the Sphinx wasn't really built by the Egyptians. They claim that it is at least 10,000 years old and that the ancient Egyptians respected it and this is why the pyramids were built in the same area. But why would someone say that the Sphinx is this old? Lets start this discussion with the 'sleeping prophet', Edgar Cayce. He was the most accurate prophet of modern times. He would go into a sleep like trance and his secretary would record everything he said. In 1935, while in a trance, he began to talk about the Sphinx. He stated that a hidden cache of records was buried under the paws of the Sphinx by a civilization that had vanished. He claimed that this race had created the Sphinx over 12,500 years ago, which is much further back in the past than the accepted theory.

This isn't the only theory that dates the Sphinx back this far. Some scientists have examined the Sphinx and came to the conclusion that the statue is suffering from water damage that caused erosion. But the region has been dry for over 8,000 years. This would mean that the monument would have to be older than 8,000 years increasing the chance that Cayce could have been right.

Now here is a question for you, if some ancient race was smart enough to build the Sphinx is there any other evidence around that they could have built other things of equal or greater magnitude? To find out the answer to this we have to examine things that are older than 12,500 years., but lets make it 10,000 years because the dates are unsure.

The Monoliths found under the water near the coast of Japan are now believed to be up to 10,000 years old. Unfortunately this is controversy on whether they are man made or created by some freak of nature they just happened to use water that carved steps, platforms, and faces. Science now believes that Stone Age people knew how to make wine, yogurt and cheese so maybe some were a lot more advanced than we previously believed. In Zambia a Manganese mine was found that was over 28,000 years old. Mysterious cement cylinders ranging from 40 to 75 inches in diameter and up to 100 inches long were found on the Isle of Pines. The cement was speckled with iron gravel and silica. The cylinders are believed to be up to 13,000 years old but their purpose hasn't been determined. Stone ovens for cooking were discovered that were over 28,000 years old. They were located in Japan and showed that people of this time were a lot more sophisticated then was ever suspected.

Even if a lost race didn't build the Sphinx, it may have been possible for some ancient peoples to have built it. I only cited a few examples of ancient technology. I could have went on to say that there are thousands of miles of ancient aqueducts under Iran that are old enough to rival the 10,000 year old date for the Sphinx. I could also have said that if you study the positions of the stars 12,500 years ago, it matches the present positions of the pyramids, making their known dates of construction suspect. I didn't mention the pyramids because there is so much overwhelming evidence to indicate that they are dated correctly. Anyone who has watched the History Channel knows this. But it does make you wonder why this coincidence occurs? Could it have been that the pyramids were partially constructed by some superior race who never finished them and the ancient Egyptians did? This might account for the fact of the alignment and perfect angles that seem to be beyond the capabilities of any ancient race. We might have just had the sphinx and several unfinished pyramids in the beginning. This would also account for the evidence showing the Egyptians built the pyramids because they would have partially built them.

The Sphinx faces due east so it can see the rising sun. It is believed that the head was altered several times and that the original head might have been that of a lion. In 1978 two passageways were found, one behind the head the other on the tail. Most of the monument was under the sand until it was completely dug out in 1925. The Sphinx is not built from quarried rock like the pyramids but carved out of the actual bedrock of the area. Sphinx means strangler. The ancient Greeks gave that name to a creature that had the head of a woman, the body of a lion and the wings of a bird. The statue is the largest ever made on site by man. The Sphinx was built along with a temple. and some other structures. The bedrock it is built out of is known as the Muqqatam Formation and is about 50 million years old. The Sphinx is 238 feet long and 66 feet high. The eyes are 6 feet high and the nose would have been almost 5 feet high. When it was built, a scale of about 22:1 was used for the lion's body but the head used a scale of about 30:1. A shaft was drilled behind the head in the 19th century. Since the statue was buried for most of its existence in sand, it was protected from erosion. Now that it is exposed, it is crumbling.

The final word on the Sphinx by Edgar Cayce was that the secret room under it would be discovered in 1998 but this fact wouldn't be shared with the world until many years later.

Copyright © 2005 by About Facts Net and its licensors. All rights reserved.

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About the author:
Ken is the webmaster of About Facts Net, an interesting, free Internet Magazine. The magazine is suitable for the entire family and many of the articles are accompanied by photographs, video and/or audio.

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