THE SPHINX

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Introduction



Year 1, the 3rd month of Akhet, on the 19th day of the Majesty of Horus, the victorious bull, perfect of appearances; the Two Ladies, stable of kingship like Atum; the Golden Horus, strong of sword, who subdues the 9 Bows; the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Menkheperure, the son of Re, Thutmosis, the appearance of appearances, beloved of Harmakhis, bestowed with life, stability and authority like Re, eternally.

May the good god live, the son of Atum, who protects Harachti, the living statue of the Lord-of-All, the sovereign, created by Re, the excellent heir of Khepri, with the face as beautiful as (that of) his father, who came forth complete, equiped with his shape of Horus upon him, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, beloved of the gods, the possessor of charm with the Ennead, who has purified Heliopolis, who appeases Re, who has embellished the Temple of Ptah, who presents Maat to Atum and who rises her before the One-Who-Is-South-Of-His-Wall, who makes monuments as a daily offering to Horus, who does all things, who seeks what is beneficial for the gods of the South and the North, who builds their temples in white stone, who embellishes all their offerings, the bodily son of Atum, Thutmosos, appearance of appearances, like Re, the heir of Horus upon his throne, Menkheperure, bestowed with life.

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The Story




Behold, when His Majesty was a youngster, like Horus in Khemnis, his beauty like (that of) the one who protects his father and who is seen like the god himself, the army rejoiced in his love, the royal children and all the chieftains were in his power, making him flourish, and he repeated the circuit, his strenght like (that of) the son of Nut.

Behold, he engaged in a passtime, amusing himself in the desert of Ineb-Hedj, upon its northern and southern road, shooting at a bronze target, hunting lions and flocks and riding in his charriot, his horses faster than the wind, along with only two of his followers while nobody (else) knew about it.

Then the hour came to give rest to his followers, at the limbs of Harmakhis, beside Sokar in Ra-Setjaw, Renutet in Northern Djeme, Mut the mistress of the Northern Wall and the mistress of the Southern Wall, Sekhmet who presides over her Kha, Seth, the son of Heka, the Holy Place of the First Occasion (of creation), near the Lords or Kheraha, the divine road of the gods towards the West of Heliopolis.

Now then, the great statue of Khepri was lying in this place, great of power and powerfull of majesty, the shadow of Re resting upon it. The estates of Hut-Ka-Ptah and all the neighbouring cities come to it, their arms raised in adoration before him, carrying many offerings for his Ka.

One of those days, it so happened that prince Thutmosis came, passing by at the time of miday and he sat down in the shadow of this great god. Sleep seized him, a sleep at the time when the sun was at the zenith, and he found the Majesty of this noble god speaking with his own mouth, like the words of a father for his son, saying: "Look at me, see me, my son Thutmosis. I am your father, Harmakhis-Khepri-Atum, and I shall give you the kingship on earth, in front of all the living ones. You shall wear the White and the Red Crowns upon the throne of Geb, the heriditary prince. The earth shall be yours in its length and width, (everything) that the Eye of the Lord-of-All illuminates. The food of the Two Lands shall be yours, (as well as) the great tributes of every foreign land, (your) lifetime will be a time, great in years. My face is yours, my heart is yours as you are a protector to me, for my (current) condition is like one that is in need, all my limbs (as if they were) dismembered as the sands of the desert upon which I lie have reached me. So run to me, to have that done which I desire, knowing that you are my son and my protector. Come forth, and I shall be with you, I shall be your leader".

When he finished these words, this prince stared woke up at what he had heard ///.../// he understood the words of this god and he put a silence in his heart. Then he said: "/// Let us hasten back to our home in the city! We shall set aside an offering for this god and we shall bring him oxen, all the vegetables and our arms shall be raised in adoration to those who were (there) before (us) ///.../// noble ///.../// Khefren, the statue made for Atum-Re-Harmakhis ///.../// days of festivities ///.../// many ///.../// of My Majesty for her, living ///.../// for Khepri in the Horizon of the West of Heliopolis in ///...///

At this point the story breaks off.


http://www.ancient-egypt.org/index.html

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                       Frontal view showing the "Dream" stela of Thusmosis IV.

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                                            T H E   S P H I N X   T E M P L E





The Sphinx Temple is unique because of its special features connected to the sun. It is the oldest sun-temple in existence. This temple has a niche on the eastern side, for the ritual of the rising sun, and another niche on the western side for the ritual of the setting sun. The 24 pillars inside the temple represent the 12 hours of the day and the 12 hours of the night.

The temple was uncovered at the beginning of this century, with large boulders thrown both inside and outside the temple. The Antiquities Department of

Giza moved these 2-ton and 8-ton rocks and placed them in their appropriate locations with respect to the temple's original plans.

Cracks in the walls of the temple have been restored with mortar consisting of lime and sand.


http://guardians.net/hawass/release6-99.htm

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Geological fingerprints





 
Sphinx Temple blocks are from Sphinx quarry

The Swiss architect-Egyptologist, Herbert Ricke, concluded in his study of the Sphinx Temple (1967-70) that the Sphinx, Sphinx Temple, and Valley Temple were all part of the same quarry and construction process.

In 1980, geologist Thomas Aigner did a study of sea-floor sedimentation that formed the geological layers of the Giza Plateau. Mark Lehner and Aigner examined the geological layers of the Sphinx quarry and found that a certain number of these layers matched to the geological layers of the Sphinx Temple blocks.

The Sphinx Temple builders probably cut the large limestone blocks for the core of the temple walls (so-called "core blocks") from the lowest layers of Member II of the Sphinx quarry. We can identify the bedrock layers from where specific temple blocks were cut.

This indicates that the Sphinx and the Sphinx Temple were created at the same time. As we demonstrate in another article, the Sphinx Temple was built after the Khafre Valley Temple, making the lower parts of the Sphinx and its quarry younger than the Valley Temple.

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Unfinished business, unworshipped cult



 
Sphinx Temple blocks are from Sphinx quarry

The builders abandoned en route several huge limestone blocks intended for the third course of masonry on the Sphinx Temple. The builders stopped work on the temple after raising the core blocks at three corners, placing colossal statues inside the temple, and fitting the colonnade with its granite pillars.

The quarrymen stopped cutting the north edge of the Sphinx quarry, leaving a rock shelf of decreasing width from east to west. The abandoned blocks and the interruption of work on the north edge suggest that the Sphinx and Sphinx Temple were the final elements in Khafre’s building project and were never completed.

There is archaeological evidence indicating the builders never cleared their construction debris from the insides of the Sphinx Temple. Along with the fact that no titles of priests or priestesses of the Sphinx exist in any of the hundreds of Old Kingdom tombs at Giza, the unfinished state of the Temple suggests that the Sphinx cult may never have been active in the Old Kingdom.

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The Sphinx quarry



The south side of the Sphinx quarry is the north side of the Khafre causeway foundation. The causeway precedes the Sphinx quarry in construction sequence indicating that the lower parts of the Sphinx (and its enclosure or sanctuary) were carved later than Khafre’s pyramid, Pyramid Temple, causeway, and Valley Temple.

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The temple terrace





The fronts and the backs of Khafre’s Valley Temple and the Sphinx Temple are nearly aligned and they sit on the same prepared terrace below the Sphinx.

This broad terrace was cut for a reason and since there is no archaeological evidence of earlier structures, we conclude that the two Khafre temples were built as part of the same program. Archaeological evidence supports the idea that the Valley Temple was built before the Sphinx Temple.

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The causeway drainage channel





Khafre’s builders cut a drainage channel along the north side of the eastern end of the pyramid causeway. The channel opens into the upper southwest corner of the Sphinx quarry. They would not have cut a channel that drained water into the Sphinx enclosure ditch so the channel must have had a function that predated and was made obsolete by the quarrying of the Sphinx enclosure.

More than one thousand years after the Sphinx was created, Thutmosis IV cleared the sand away from the monument and established the cult of Hor-em-akhet, or “Horus in the Horizon.” Today you can see mud brick from Thutmosis IV’s enclosure wall blocking the drainage channel.

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Conclusion





Some Egyptologists propose that Khufu (2551-2528 BC) or Djedefre (2528-2520 BC) built the Sphinx. The archaeological evidence shows, however, that Khafre’s builders:



Completed Khafre’s Valley Temple with its granite casing.

Built a northern enclosure wall for the Valley Temple that clearly respects the Temple’s granite casing.

Built the Sphinx Temple, incorporating the northern Valley Temple enclosure wall.
 
Built the Sphinx Temple with blocks geologically linked to the Sphinx quarry.

Abandoned work on the Sphinx Temple and Sphinx quarry shortly before either were completed, indicating they were the last elements to be added to the project.

Furthermore, Djedefre ruled for a relatively short time and built his funerary complex north of Giza at Abu Roash.







Small ivory statue of King Khufu
(Cheops), builder of the largest
pyramid at Giza.
Found at Abydos in 1903 during
excavations by Flinders Petrie.
Height - 7.5 cm.
Old Kingdom - 4th Dynasty.





No matter what might be proposed about the giant Sphinx face resembling the only known image of Khufu (a tiny ivory figurine in the Egyptian Museum), and no matter how much the Sphinx fits some Egyptologists’ ideas that Khufu identified himself as the sun god, the Sphinx is integrated with, but later in sequence, than the other Khafre monuments, making Khafre the most probable candidate as the Sphinx’s owner.


http://www.aeraweb.org/khafre_structures.asp

[rockessence]

I was unable to open the picture of the Stela so am adding this one:



This is from a fascinating site on the geometry related to the sphinx....

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/morph225/images/Osirisraised(part4).htm

[mdsungate]

   Wow, “B” I’ve learned a lot of new things in this thread!  You could print this out into a booklet, and sell it at Giza, LOL! 

But there’s more of this “Enigmatic Edifice” and it’s story that we haven’t covered, yet.  What about the hidden chamber in the “rear” section?  (Okay, the “ass room”, LOL.) ?   Can we find a picture of it, or a map? 

Is there evidence of repairs to the chest?  Did Thutmosis build over the brass doors that were there, (supposedly?), or is that part of the original mother stone? 

And somewhere in this thread or one of the other related ones, there’s something about the possibility of there once being two Sphinx monuments at Giza.  What’s up with that? 

And Anthony West’s gang also had something about there not being enough rain to cause the amount of water erosion seen on the Sphinx for more like 30,000 years ago, when the climate of the entire Sahara region a lot wetter.