Candace Talmadge

Another Sphinx TV special in the wings ?

May 22, 2010 |  9 comments
Image Credit: Berthold Steinhilber Is a sequel to The Mystery of the Sphinx possible at last? The men featured in the 95-minute documentary, author John Anthony West and geologist Robert M. Schoch, are on the verge of finding out. The two are in southeastern Turkey for a week starting May 22 to inspect Gobekli Tepe, an enormous excavation under the direction of German archeologist Klaus Schmidt.

Sphinx initially aired on NBC in November of 1993. It earned an Emmy Award for best documentary and was viewed ultimately by more than 200 million people worldwide. The controversy it generated was been nonstop since, according to West.

In the film, West and Schoch, a geologist and associate professor of natural science at Boston University, argue that the erosion patterns on the walls of the Sphinx enclosure and on the Sphinx itself were from water, not desert sands.

If the Sphinx’s erosion was caused by water, it means that the mysterious monument with the lion’s body and man’s head was built far earlier than the 2,500 BCE construction date ascribed to it by traditional Egyptologists.

West explains that one of the arguments against their estimate of the Sphinx’s true age is that it places the monument’s construction back in hunter-gatherer times. “At that date, human beings were all presumed to be wearing bearskins and dancing around the fire,” West says.

That’s why the two are making a trip to Gobelki Tepe, which lies at the far northern edge of the Fertile Crescent. Schmidt has radiocarbon dated the structures at Gobekli Tepe to around 10,000 BCE. That makes them older than any previously known complex human structure, such as Stonehenge or anything in Egypt.

With only about 5 percent of it unearthed so far, Gobekli Tepe already has yielded about 20 groups of stone pillars 16 feet high and weighing approximately 10 tons each. Carved on the pillars are animals and other abstract pictograms. Internet photos of this pillar art reveal symbols shown in profile, in much the same way that ancient Egyptian art renders its subjects. The resemblance between the two is striking. “Schoch and I recognized instantly how important Gobekli Tepe was to us,” says West, who these days leads symbolist tours through Egypt. “It’s pretty spectacular.”

It’s important because the 10,000 BCE dating sets Gobekli Tepe’s construction also in hunter-gatherer times, when human beings are presumed, according to current archeological and anthropological theories, to have lacked the social organizations and tools needed to build such an enormous structure over hundreds if not thousands of years. Gobekli Tepe may be solid additional evidence that human beings could manage such projects a lot earlier in their history than heretofore acknowledged. This, in turn, helps validate West’s and Schoch’s view of the Sphinx’s real age.

The two cannot be certain, however, until they inspect Gobekli Tepe themselves. West says several times before they thought they had found evidence of early human activity comparable to the Sphinx construction only to be disappointed when they viewed it in person. If it is as old as dated, then Gobekli Tepe overturns everything archeologists and anthropologists think they know about when and how human civilization evolved.

“For us, this is enormously exciting,” West says. “We think Gobekli Tepe reignites the whole controversy, but now with evidence that is very, very difficult to ignore.” Gobekli Tepe may also provide just the visual story the two have been looking for to produce a sequel to The Mystery of the Sphinx.

If the resulting film makes a big enough splash, then West hopes it will provide the momentum to complete a long-planned project. He wants to take a group of geologists to visit the Sphinx in person to assess the erosion patterns. He intends for this group to include both those who support his and Schoch’s position and those geologists who oppose it. That’s because another argument against his and Schoch’s contention is that the geologists have not inspected the Sphinx in person. West agrees about the importance of them viewing the monument for themselves.

“If we get some opposition geologists there, maybe they’ll find something that allows them to retain the standard chronology for dating the Sphinx,” West says. “Who knows? Maybe we misinterpreted something.” West says he and Schoch are willing to go one on one with geologists who disagree with them. But they never wanted to risk the expense of taking a group to Egypt without being sure that Egyptian archeologists would grant permission for the group to inspect the Sphinx. Access is what they intend for a sequel about Gobekli Tepe and its astonishing implications for human history to achieve. [!gad]Is a sequel to The Mystery of the Sphinx possible at last? The men featured in the 95-minute documentary, author John Anthony West and geologist Robert M. Schoch, are on the verge of finding out. The two are in southeastern Turkey for a week starting May 22 to inspect Gobekli Tepe, an enormous excavation under the direction of German archeologist Klaus Schmidt.

Sphinx initially aired on NBC in November of 1993. It earned an Emmy Award for best documentary and was viewed ultimately by more than 200 million people worldwide. The controversy it generated was been nonstop since, according to West.

In the film, West and Schoch, a geologist and associate professor of natural science at Boston University, argue that the erosion patterns on the walls of the Sphinx enclosure and on the Sphinx itself were from water, not desert sands.

If the Sphinx’s erosion was caused by water, it means that the mysterious monument with the lion’s body and man’s head was built far earlier than the 2,500 BCE construction date ascribed to it by traditional Egyptologists.

West explains that one of the arguments against their estimate of the Sphinx’s true age is that it places the monument’s construction back in hunter-gatherer times. “At that date, human beings were all presumed to be wearing bearskins and dancing around the fire,” West says.

That’s why the two are making a trip to Gobelki Tepe, which lies at the far northern edge of the Fertile Crescent. Schmidt has radiocarbon dated the structures at Gobekli Tepe to around 10,000 BCE. That makes them older than any previously known complex human structure, such as Stonehenge or anything in Egypt.

With only about 5 percent of it unearthed so far, Gobekli Tepe already has yielded about 20 groups of stone pillars 16 feet high and weighing approximately 10 tons each. Carved on the pillars are animals and other abstract pictograms. Internet photos of this pillar art reveal symbols shown in profile, in much the same way that ancient Egyptian art renders its subjects. The resemblance between the two is striking. “Schoch and I recognized instantly how important Gobekli Tepe was to us,” says West, who these days leads symbolist tours through Egypt. “It’s pretty spectacular.”

It’s important because the 10,000 BCE dating sets Gobekli Tepe’s construction also in hunter-gatherer times, when human beings are presumed, according to current archeological and anthropological theories, to have lacked the social organizations and tools needed to build such an enormous structure over hundreds if not thousands of years. Gobekli Tepe may be solid additional evidence that human beings could manage such projects a lot earlier in their history than heretofore acknowledged. This, in turn, helps validate West’s and Schoch’s view of the Sphinx’s real age.

The two cannot be certain, however, until they inspect Gobekli Tepe themselves. West says several times before they thought they had found evidence of early human activity comparable to the Sphinx construction only to be disappointed when they viewed it in person. If it is as old as dated, then Gobekli Tepe overturns everything archeologists and anthropologists think they know about when and how human civilization evolved.

“For us, this is enormously exciting,” West says. “We think Gobekli Tepe reignites the whole controversy, but now with evidence that is very, very difficult to ignore.” Gobekli Tepe may also provide just the visual story the two have been looking for to produce a sequel to The Mystery of the Sphinx.

If the resulting film makes a big enough splash, then West hopes it will provide the momentum to complete a long-planned project. He wants to take a group of geologists to visit the Sphinx in person to assess the erosion patterns. He intends for this group to include both those who support his and Schoch’s position and those geologists who oppose it. That’s because another argument against his and Schoch’s contention is that the geologists have not inspected the Sphinx in person. West agrees about the importance of them viewing the monument for themselves.

“If we get some opposition geologists there, maybe they’ll find something that allows them to retain the standard chronology for dating the Sphinx,” West says. “Who knows? Maybe we misinterpreted something.” West says he and Schoch are willing to go one on one with geologists who disagree with them. But they never wanted to risk the expense of taking a group to Egypt without being sure that Egyptian archeologists would grant permission for the group to inspect the Sphinx. Access is what they intend for a sequel about Gobekli Tepe and its astonishing implications for human history to achieve.

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Candace Talmadge writes about the intersection of unexplained mysteries and spirituality. Her blog is StoneScribe (www.healingstonebooks.com/stonescribe) and her speculative fiction is the Green Stone of Healing(r) series (www.greenstoneofhealing.com). Comments (9)

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