THE SPHINX

In some of the West-Schoch photographs we see West standing inside the opening of one of the larger fissures in the walls of the Sphinx ditch. He would have us believe that it is a major piece of evidence for rainwater erosion that occurred after the sphinx was created. We are apparently supposed to believe that the other joints are also surface features created by torrents of rainwater running over the sides of the Sphinx and into its ditch. In Mystery there is a graphic of the Sphinx layers entirely unblemished by any vertical fissures. Rainwater then pours over the edge of the rock wall and gouges out vertical gullies suggesting how the fissures were created. In fact the joints existed in the rock long before the ancient quarrymen ever fashioned the Sphinx and its ditch. That the television scenario may look convincing testifies more to the power of animated video graphics than to bedrock reality. Schoch is aware of the technical studies that discuss how these fissures were formed--he cites them in his articles. But in the unabridged Mystery, he points to a fissure on the south wall of the Sphinx ditch, "clearly formed by water running down the wall, pecking out weak spots."

Next Schoch and West point to the façade of the tomb of Debehen, who lived during the 4th Dynasty. They claim it was carved, as Heston reads from his teleprompter, from "the exact same layers as the Sphinx," and that the facade is weathered by wind.

The evidence, apparently, is the sharp angle between the harder protruding layers and the softer recessed ones. Schoch and West find it chronologically significant that the tomb was eroded by wind, evidenced by an angular profile, while the Sphinx (they claim) was eroded by rain, evidenced by the rounded profile.