THE EGYPTIAN SPHINX
By Cedric Leonard,
Author of :
The Quest For Atlantis - 1979
The Quest For Atlantis II - 2005
I have two old history books in my personal library which have photographs of the Egyptian Sphinx covered with sand: one written by West (1904) in which the Sphinx is covered up to the neck in sand and another by Myers (1904) which shows the Sphinx with the "chest" only partly excavated. People used to speculate as to what the body of the Sphinx might look like. Of course we now know that the body of the Sphinx is a lion. But why a lion?
According to some renegade scholars, such as John Anthony West and Graham Hancock, there is good reason for this, and it doesn't have anything to do with the historical Egyptians. These two scholars have upset the world of Egyptology by claiming that the Sphinx was sculpted by non-Egyptians more than 9,000 years ago (possibly 10,500 B.C.). They have claimed that the Sphinx has been covered in sand for most of its long history, and why not? If it wasn't continually being cleared by modern workers, it would have been re-buried up to its neck in sand since its excavation in the early 1900s. The shifting sand has to be fought back on almost a day-to-day basis. So, if it has been under the sand for most of its existence, why is it so weathered?
John Anthony West called upon Dr. Robert Schoch, a professor of geology at Boston University to evaluate the nature of the erosion of the Sphinx. After careful investigation, Schoch concluded that the "weathering" of the Sphinx was done by water, rather than by wind and sand as commonly believed; that it was first created back during the alluvial period toward the end of the Ice Age when Egypt was experiencing copious amounts of rainfall; and that the Sphinx must be at least 7,000 years old (a conservative estimate by his own admission; Schoch, 1992). He presented his findings to a large forum of geologists, and his conclusions that the weathering patterns evident on the sphinx were the result of water erosion, rather than wind, were generally accepted. Egyptologists, however, were outraged; but Egyptologists have never welcomed geologists into their play pen. But what has all this to do with lions?
It seems that West, following the work of an earlier researcher, Robert Bauval, determined that in the year 10,500 B.C., on the day of the Spring equinox, the Sphinx would be looking at his own counterpart in the morning sky, Leo the lion (West, 1979). In fact, they speculate, and rightfully so, that the original Sphinx also had the head of a lion. Colin Reader, another geologist noticed that the Egyptian "pharaoh-like" head we see today is much too small in proportion to the body of the Sphinx, and that, even though it has suffered damage from vandals, the face is not eroded like the body (if the head has always been exposed to the weather, it should be more eroded than the body). Reader believes the head of the original sphinx has been re-sculpted from an original lion's head into an Egyptian pharaoh-style head (interesting!). Take away the pharaoh-style head and all "Egyptian" traits disappear. All in all, the evidence seems to point to a Sphinx originally sculpted by an unknown culture in the far distant past, before the Egyptian culture was even in existence.
So why a Lion? We know that the mean ("central") date of the age of Leo is 9,880 B.C. We also know that the geological epoch known as the Pleistocene came to a close near that date; that a mass extinction of animals accompanied that end; that all Upper Paleolithic cultures ended on or near that date; that human population was decimated at that time; and that this Great Event was accompanied by worldwide volcanism (Hibben, 1946).
In addition, Manetho, the Egyptian priest-historian, records an abrupt interruption in his king-list at that time. In other words, worldwide changes of unimaginable magnitude happened during the age of Leo, events which were centered close to the date of 10,000 B.C. This is reflected in the famous Dendera Zodiac which begins with the sign of Leo. Did it harold a new beginning? The appearance of the famous Lion-sphinx in Egypt was no mere astrological coincidence. I suspect that the ancients knew when the geological cycles were due to occur, and that the Sphinx was a reminder of an event large and significant enough to affect all mankind.
http://www.atlantisquest.com/Archeology.html#sphinx 