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This is the Documentary that shook up Egyptian Archaeology when it was broadcast on NBC television. "The Mystery of the Sphinx," introduced American viewers to the discovery by John Anthony West and Robert Schoch that the Great Sphinx of Giza might be thousands of years older than its assumed date of 2500 BC. Narrated by Charlton Heston, the documentary provides evidence that the ancient Egyptians possessed scientific knowledge unknown to us and carried on the wisdom tradition of an earlier lost civilization. The Great Sphinx of Giza belongs to the Giza necropolis west of Cairo. The site is a plateau containing the three great pyramids of Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura, together with the Sphinx and a number of smaller pyramids, temples, and tombs. This is the most important documentary ever done on ancient Egypt, and Egyptologists have done the best they can to ignore it over the past ten years. Geologist Robert Schoch and 'maverick' Egyptologist John Anthony West show that the weathering on the Sphinx is due to rain, not sand, wind, or the flooding of the Nile, as has always been suggested. When did the Sahara desert ever receive such measurable rainfall? Ten thousand years ago, when it was a lush green valley. The consequences of this revelation are devastating and it's almost comical to watch the most famous Egyptologists, Hawass and, Lehner stumble to argue the case against the disclosure on this video because, if it was accepted as true, all they have thought will have been a lie. To th eir credit, the makers of the video gave both sides a fair chance to state their case, as opposed to most traditional documentaries on Egypt, which are simply video travel brochures about the pyramids and the mummies. The fact is, that everything that we have told about the rise and development about Egyptian civilization is wrong, and with that, everything we believe about the rise of civilization is wrong, too. Egyptologists have a different version of events, one often unsupported by other sciences, but, once you watch this video, you will hold everything they say to a higher standard. One would have liked to see a more updated version of this video, to find out what has happened with the secret chamber discovered beneath the Sphinx's paw (the lost hall of records perhaps?), but, as of recently, the Egyptian arheologists have either not been inclined to investigate, or, at least, tell the world of the results. To put in a pleas for poor Richard Hoagland, who one reviewer has trashed: the face o n Mars has not been inconclusively proved to be a trick of light and shadow. Depending upon who you talk to, the jury is still out on that one, but that is another story and he and others can explain it better. In any event, that part has little to do with the rest of this work..
The Sphinx is the oldest and longest stone sculpture from the Old Kingdom. During the eighteenth dynasty, it was called "Horus of the Horizon" and "Horus of the Necropolis", the sun god that stands above the horizon. In later times, many sphinx images were carved in smaller sizes or in cameos with the faces of the reigning monarchs. The face of the Great Sphinx is believed to be that of Chephren, the fourth-dynasty pharaoh who built the second-largest pyramid in the Giza triad. In the image of the Sphinx, the pharaoh was seen as a powerful god. Carved out of a natural limestone outcrop, the Sphinx is 19.8 metres (65 feet) high and 73.2 metres (240 feet) long. It is located a short distance from the Great Pyramid. The main body sits along an east-west axis facing east. An enclosure of open floor surrounds the monument, narrowing somewhat in the western back end. There is an unfinished shelf along the western back wall slightly elevated from the rest of the enclosure floor. Large and small blocks of harder limestone, applied at different times in the past, form a protective covering or facing over the lower parts of the monument.
The rectangular structure known as the Sphinx Temple lies directly east of the statue. Adjacent and south of the Sphinx Temple lies a structure known as the Khafra Valley Temple. This is linked to a causeway that goes west-northwest to the second or Khafra Pyramid. The causeway runs above and along the south wall of the Sphinx enclosure. A Khafra Mortuary Temple stands east of the Khafra Pyramid on the upper plateau behind the Sphinx. Originally, all three of the big pyramids at Giza (Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura) had causeways, valley temples, and mortuary temples. These structures were originally faced with smoother and harder limestone or granite that was partly or entirely stripped in ancient and medieval times, leaving limestone core blocks that have weathered over the millennia.
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