THE SPHINX

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Oh dear! Poor Sphinx.

Work went ahead. Its paws and rear haunches were covered with nearly 2,000 limestone blocks held in place with cement (the suitability of which was later questioned). Meanwhile, its neck caused considerable concern because it seemed to be eroding more rapidly than the rest of the statue.

Culture Minister Farouk Hosni called on UNESCO to form a committee comprising 13 specialists in the fields of archaeology, reconstruction, restoration and geophysics, to discuss procedures needed to protect the Giza Plateau generally and the Sphinx's neck in particular. It was even thought a good idea to ask the British Museum to send the Sphinx's beard of the back to Egypt so that it might ensure more stability to the head. The British Museum was said to be willing, as long as Egypt covered the cost. So the matter ended there.

The committee members, meanwhile, agreed that the Sphinx was suffering from weathering and chemical saturation by carbonic, nitric and sulphuric acids "produced by chemical pollutants associated with neighbouring cement and other industrial facilities," as well as vibration caused by dynamiting in quarries in the vicinity, not to mention the rumbling of heavy tourist buses across the plateau. Additionally, there was seepage from the inadequate sewage system of the neighbouring Nezlet Al-Simman village.

When, in 1988, a sizable piece of bedrock toppled from the right shoulder of the Sphinx it caused much concern. A "Save the Sphinx" campaign was immediately launched with a large initial donation by American Express in Cairo, as well as the Getty Conservation Institute of California in collaboration with the EAO. A six-and- a-half-metre-high mini-observatory was set up on the statue's haunches to monitor the direction and changes in the speed of the wind, the humidity and pollutants in the atmosphere, the temperature and effects of water and salt on limestone.

Could it have monitored winged creatures?

Probably not.

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The Sphinx naturally remained a subject of debate and, not surprisingly, there was a windfall of contradictory statements in the press. One report in Al-Ahram daily newspaper in 1991 once again outlined the rapid state of the deterioration of the neck.

Yet, in Al-Gomhuriya a day later, a statement appeared saying that the Sphinx was not in any danger at all; that the slaking stone on its chest was not an alarming phenomenon because the monument could easily be treated by chemical processes. Salah Lamei, professor of architecture and member of the Sphinx Restoration Committee; Mahmoud Taher, director- general of the Information Department of the EAO; and Shawki Nakhla, director-general of restoration, all agreed that the statue was only suffering to a minor degree. The problem, they claimed, was a natural result of the monument being subjected to heavy rainfall, humidity and wind. Farouk Hosni stated moreover that there was "no point in making media propaganda out of it". That was when Hawass made his comment of the Sphinx surviving for another thousand years.

A long-term master plan for the Giza Plateau was worked out under the directorship of Zahi Hawass and in collaboration with American Egyptologist Mark Lehner of the Stanford Research Institute (who earlier carried out a project to probe the ground beneath the Sphinx in an electrical-resistivity survey). Egyptologists and geologists studied the geology of the Giza formation; a workmen's village with a camp for craftsmen, overseers, and storerooms was excavated; and an enormous bakery was discovered where no fewer than 14 types of bread were made to feed the workmen.

The veil of obscurity surrounding the Pyramids builders was coming to light.

As for the Sphinx, a comprehensive article appeared in the October 1994 issue of Archaeology Magazine entitled "The Sphinx: who built it and why?" which carried a computer-generated contour map of the plateau and images of the geographical strata, but no mention of its condition -- or the possibility of the new threat.

How much damage are the pigeons causing? And how can the problem be remedied? Perhaps a pigeon-repellent device, similar to the bat-repellent device used (against the law) in some churches in the UK, might do the trick!

But who would finance such a project?
 

 


© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly

[Bianca]

Horus
Hero Member

Posts: 142



    Re: THE THREE HALLS OF RECORDS - By Drs. Gregory & Lora Little
« Reply #60 on: September 19, 2007, 11:28:59 am » Quote 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Bianca, Rockessence, all,

OK, this is a looong complex story, and it took me a while and hours of interviews to find out just what the heck happened at Giza in the late '90s when they were searching for the Hall of Records to fulfill Cayce's 1998 prophecy.  I started this process in 1997.  It might be worthwile to open up a whole new thread on it.  I'll try to give a couple of encapsulated explanations here.

I didn't mean to imply that Schor was the original discoverer of that wellshaft leading to the Tomb of Osiris, and the article quoted above doesn't indicate that West's team did either, and that's because the link I provided earlier explains that it was known of long before:
http://www.towers-online.co.uk/pages/shaftos1.htm
Schor only relocated it and found the coffin lid but they were in there in the first place because the GPR indicated that a tunnel a from the Sphinx area intersected this shaft.  This would provide a way of accessing the vaults below the Sphinx without digging into the actual Sphinx enclosure which was and is forbidden! 

The reason that apparently "negative" or controversial links come up for Schor is because they emanate from authors Robert Bauval, Graham Hancock, John Anthony West along with his colleague Robert Schoch, and the linchpin character in this drama -a video producer named Boris Said -now deceased.  It would be an understatement to say that these men were at odds with Schor. 

   Basically, Hancock and Bauval got Schor kicked out of Giza because they were going to be excluded from the opening and filming of the chamber beneath the Sphinx.  They did this by initiating a smear campaign in the press accusing Schor of "clandestine" activities at Giza for unscientific, New Age purposes.  The stink they made in the British press specifically resulted in putting pressure on the EAO (Egyptian Antiquites Organization as it was called then) to revoke Schor's permit. 

Now it's true that Schor and Jahoda were looking for the Hall of Records, but they were also doing a legitimate, multi-faceted, scientific investigation with Florida State University, and had full, archeological permits granted by the Egyptian government.

That's the supershort version. 

Horus



http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,630.msg124219.html#new

[Bianca]

                                      HIDDEN SPHINX CHAMBER TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED






A.R.E. NEWS
Around The World

VentureInward Magazine
Jan/Feb. 2009 Issue
Virginia Beach, Va

Joe Jahoda, a longtime member of A.R.E., has struck a deal with Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General
of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, to drill into the chamber that was discovered beneath
the Sphinx in 1997 using ground-penetrating radar. 

John Van Auken, a director at A.R.E., recently met with Dr. Hawass, and was delighted to confirm his
plans to drill and drop a camera into the chamber.

Edgar Cayce's readings say that chamber is an antechamber to the Hall of Records and that there is
a passageway from it into the Hall. 

It requires a special drill, which A.R.E. has already purchased and sent to Egypt, under Jahoda's directions.

Further developments on this exciting opportunity will be reported in future issues of

                                                             VENTURE INWARD

as they happen.

[Bianca]

http://www.crystalinks.com/initiationegypt.html