THE SPHINX

Remnants of a Lost Civilization?

Writer John Anthony West and Boston University geologist Robert Schoch contend that weathering of the Member II layers indicates that the Sphinx was built between 5000 and 7000 BC. If Egyptologists tend to ignore West and Schoch it is because the two mostly ignore the evidence of the Old Kingdom Egyptian society that surrounds the Sphinx, concluding that the monument must be the remnant of a much older civilization, otherwise unknown to archaeology. They do not explain how their lost civilization disappeared from the archaeological record, nor how the Old Kingdom society of Khufu, Khafre, and their cohorts are so abundantly represented in that record. Nor do they explain what happened to this lost civilization during the thousands of years between their mysterious Sphinx builders and the Old Kingdom (2575-2134 BC). Apart from these problems, the West-Schoch case is flawed in the specifics they cite about erosion on the Sphinx.

During the American Research Center in Egypt Sphinx project, we identified Member II layers in our drawings by giving each one a number (and a Roman numeral for subdivisions); for example, li denotes the soft bottom, lii the hard top of the first Member II layer above Member I. Geologists Thomas Aigner and Lal Gauri have studied these layers. Gauri has analyzed samples from their surfaces at the Stone Conservation Laboratory at the University of Louisville to understand the mechanics of how the layers eroded, a process that has left a profile of rounded protrusions at the top and deep recesses at the bottom of each layer.

The bases of the lowest layers (li, 2i, and 3i), which are the most recessed, are so soft that in places (such as the inner side of the left forepaw) you can crumble the stone with your fingertips. The surface of the harder, protruding layers is constantly flaking in large patches, like giant potato chips. A gust of strong wind sends these flakes rattling across the stone surface of the Sphinx, after which more flakes appear on the surface.

In 1978 when we carried out the first thorough cleaning around the base of the Sphinx since the late 1920s and 30s, Sphinx "dust" from these disintegrated chips had accumulated around the base of the chest and the rock walls of the ditch. In places along the upper edge of the Sphinx's back, where the 1926 restorers poured gray cement into cracks and fissures, the surrounding stone has flaked away, leaving the cement protruding.