kmt_sesh, on 24 December 2012 - 10:17 PM, said:
What you're quoting about the blocks applied to the Sphinx in the Old Kingdom is not on the basis of renovations but reflects the original architecture from 2500 BCE. The Egyptians were expert stone masons and knew where faults and weaknesses lay in the stones they were using. They would've known large portions of the massif from which the Sphinx was carved, was composed of poor-quality limestone. This would've needed reinforcing from the very start.
This is definitely what Lehner mentioned in his
ARCEsphinx project.
"Judging by the way in which the surfaces of successive limestone beds were laid bare and followed by the Old Kingdom quarries in the area, the ancient Egyptians must have had an idea of the strength and quality of the various beds..........As they worked the stone down to form the body and sanctuary of the Sphinx they must have encountered the large fault that runs N-S and cuts the intended back of the Sphinx towards the rear, where it opens to a space a meter or more wide. This fault is clearly shown in Arch. Lacau photos. nos. CI 52 and 55, members of a series showing the condition of the Sphinx when excavated in 1925-6. This fault was recognized as a natural feature by Mariette, [5] who was the first to clear it; after it was blocked up along the sides with cement and limestone blocks, however, others have taken it to be an intrusive tomb shaft. .....How did the 4th Dynasty builders deal with this gaping fault in their plan for a finished statue? This and other questions led us to consider that the earliest level of masonry abutting the core-body, a layer of some of the largest blocks added to the Sphinx, may he in fact of Old Kingdom date, so that the body of the statue was finished at that period with the addition of large blocks and limestone-mortar packing."
But he also mentions:
"It seems necessary to conclude, therefore, that the core-body, of the Sphinx was already in a severe state of erosion when the earliest level of masonry was added, either completing sculpture left unfinished in the Old Kingdom, or restoring the original contours of a statue finished from the parent rock alone."
Now from both the statements above it is apparent that when the first masonary was added during the fourth dynasty, the Sphinx was very badly eroded! So is it possible that during construction timeframe of few years itself sphinx eroded to level of 25 cm? If that so, by this time Sphix should have been vanished and meet the sand.
kmt_sesh, on 24 December 2012 - 10:17 PM, said:
I would definitely disregard the Wiki quote about Mark Lehner. Unless this is quoting something he might have said many years ago when he was part of the A.R.E. organization, and prior to his legitimate education and training to become an Egyptologist, the Wiki comment is plainly misleading. Lehner has authored a considerable body of literature, from lay books to many peer-reviewed papers and articles, and I've never once come across this comment he was supposed to have made.
I totally agree with you. Wiki can't be source of truth. But it is immensely helpful to people who wants quick reference to knowledge. It is slowly becoming encyclopedia that is trusted due to it's strict moderation of knowledgeable content. It is probably the same as papyrus to the ancient people.
Coming to the point, I have never dis-regarded Lehner. He is definitely the most knowledgeable Egyptologists in the present day. But that doesn't mean that he can't go wrong with his instict at times.
kmt_sesh, on 24 December 2012 - 10:17 PM, said:
J.A. West mostly parrots what Schoch has said and wrote. West is far from the worst alternative figure out there, but he's neither an historian nor researcher. As for Schoch, he is certainly a professionally trained geologist, but when one reviews his written material in whole, one cannot help but notice he's kind of gone off the deep end and has strayed from reason.
I beg to defer you here. We need to remember that History is not exactly science. I can't proceed to know quantum physics until and unless I clear my classical physics concept. But the same is not true for history. I don't need to go back to primary school and study history there to reach a level to understand Egypt's history. History is knowing exactly about our past (I am sorry, I don't to teach you what history is, as you are one genuine historian in the forum with all respect, but just putting my point). You can't alter what was done in the past, so you don't need an innovative mind like scientist to become a historian. But in case pre-historic events that don't have any written evidence, we require an innovative mind to find a clue of the mystery, so we need more than a historian here. Also, to become a historian is it so necessary to have a two year university degree? How a person who invested so much time studying monuments be less knowledgeable than a person taking a degree from university? I am sure West can sit in the examination hall to get a degree easily. Will that make him historian? I think we should at least respect someone's effort and passion of doing something positive towards one stream of human intelligence.
I agree that West's logic of ET, mars etc are ridiculous. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't know anything about Egypt. It is in fact good that he didn't come from conventional history. Because all the conventional historian's mind is set with some existing knowledge and when they come to research they do have a pre-concived notion with a close mind.
We need to respect the fact, West is the person who brought in Schoch into the Egypt and it opened a new horizon on the study of Sphinx. Also West was the person to take forensic help to find whether Sphinx's face if that of Khafre's. A totally scientific approach and that exposed the truth, till then it was claimed and accepted to be Khafre's face by orthodox historians. And so on....
kmt_sesh, on 24 December 2012 - 10:17 PM, said:
In point of fact Schoch's conclusions about the Sphinx have been addressed and reviewed by numerous colleagues in the archaeogeology and geological community, and have been dismissed as untenable. I would especially recommend the material written by James Harrell on this matter. I am certainly no geologist, but in my own review of Schoch's position, it's vividly apparent that he's posited one remote possibility about the Sphinx but has wholly ignored a wide array of other evidence that must be considered as a unit. There's a good reason Schoch is known to be wrong.
This is a very important point needs to be observed closely. As you mentioned, various studies have been done by geologists to validate Schoch. James Hurrell, Lal Gauri,
David Billington, Colin Reader are the foremost names here. The first two geologists have criticized Schoch while the later two supported his interpretation to some extent.
Now we need to see who is Lal Gauri and Jame Hurrell and what was their theories, rahter hypothesis. Dr gauri was the person who has been a fellow researchers of Lehner since his ARCE project in 1980s. Gauri was the person who sat along with Lehner in the 1992 conference against Schoch. Similarly Hurrell is also a co-worker of Lehner and Gauri since 80s. They have been supporting Lehner in his findings about Sphinx as a unit of Khafre's complex. Now. it is obvioud to doubt their independce of thought on this. They already have a notion that the Sphinx is built by Khafre for decades and it will be difficult to name their research un-influential. They first came up with the haloclastly model of erosion where the limestone will dissolve salts, which are then carried by percolating moisture into the spaces inside the porous limestone. It was very well depicted the ARCE project paper and before Schoch's research. This defintely explains current day erosion of the Sphinx but defies to expalain the vertical erosion pattern. It was uninamously accepted. Later, post Schoch research, Hurrell came up with his "wet-sand" hypothesis. This hypothesis says that the vertical erosion pattern is due to the wet sand accumulating on the Sphinx's surfaces. The sand was wetted by two processes, Nile inaundation and rainfall. According to Hurell, the rain water arrived at the SPhinx complex by either overland or by subsurface flow". This hypothesis was well criticized by Colin Reader later in his paper. He states:
"Unfortunately for Harrell’s argument there is a major contradiction inherent in these objections. His statement that run-off can be observed today does not sit particularly well with his second point that, as rainfall would infiltrate the exposed limestones, run-off would not be generated at Giza. This contradiction is maintained when later in his March 2000 paper, Harrell returns to run-off as one of the primary methods by which sand within the Sphinx enclosure will have become wet.
..........
..........
Notwithstanding this, it is my opinion that the degradation of the Sphinx enclosure is not consistent with what would be expected from the mechanism described by Harrell. If sub-surface flow emerged as spring lines in the western face of the Sphinx enclosure, a series of open, solution cavities (Karstic features seen elsewhere at Giza) would be evident emerging from deep into the limestone. These features, if present at all, do not dominate the western Sphinx enclosure walls. In fact the most significant degradation consists of the deep sub-vertical features and rounded or coved appearance to the rocks, features that are so typical of surface erosion by flowing water."
Colin mentions that
" Having ‘disposed’ of my argument, Harrell then goes on to describe the work of Gauri et al14, fellow advocates of the conventional Fourth Dynasty age of the Sphinx. Gauri attributes the degradation of the Sphinx to chemical weathering and exfoliation, a process that Harrell views as complimentary to his own ‘wet-sand’ hypothesis. Whilst I accept that Gauri’s chemical weathering has affected the exposed limestones within the Sphinx enclosure, in my July 1999 paper2, I discussed at length the limitations of this process, indicating that it fails to explain the more intense degradation of the western Sphinx enclosure walls.
Both chemical weathering and wet sand are considered by their respective authors to have been particularly active up to the present day and are the cause, they believe, of the more intense degradation in the western Sphinx enclosure. On this basis they argue that it is not necessary for the Sphinx to have been built before the Fourth Dynasty. The evidence from the site, however, is that the processes that led to the more intense degradation of the Sphinx enclosure, are not currently active and have not been experienced for at least the past 2500 years."
So do you think that actually Gauri and Hurrell actually disproved Schoch?
Now let's look into Colin Reader and David Billington. Both of them expert geologists and investigated the erosion independent of Schoch and Lehner. Both are not egyptologists but researched the Sphinx without a pre-concieved notion. Both supported the rain water erosion pattern proposed by Schoch. Livington while supported Schoch completely, while Colin reader went ahead with his hypothesis of rain water run-off in addition to the simple rain water erosion. So, he wouldn't agree to Schoch in the dates of the Sphinx but definitely identifies it to be older than Khafre.
kmt_sesh, on 24 December 2012 - 10:17 PM, said:
Orthodox scholars have never closed the doors to new ideas. That is not, and can never be, how research is conducted. The only thing that matters is the totality of extant evidence. Anything beyond that brings one either into the realm of unhelpful speculation or, in the extreme, nonsensical science fiction.
I would be very wrong if I say that the orthodox scholars are closed eyes. They have completely built the timeline, history, culture of a five thousand year old civilization. But I feel a recent trend of extreme ego clash between both the parties.
When Lehner published his ARCE research, he was not a scholar at that time as you mentioned rightly. But what we see that over later period he never ever tried reset his mind and tried to investigate Sphinx from ground zero. His endeavours were mainly to add more supportive material to his exisitng theory of Khafre. The questions raised in this theory were dismissed all the time. And I always believe his initial notion was first triggered by dream stele and Salim Hassan and he just worked on support that.
kmt_sesh, on 24 December 2012 - 10:17 PM, said:
Geologists like James Harrell and seasoned Egyptologists like Mark Lehner, as well as critical research organizations like the Giza Plateau Mapping Project, have and continue to address many questions about the Giza Plateau and its monuments. They have contributed vital conclusions to our understanding, such as the age of the Sphinx and how it can be understood as an integral part of the Khafre pyramid complex. We cannot place the blame on them when alternative and fringe writers spin fanciful fictions on the one hand and ignore the extant evidence and scientific conclusions on the other.
I really feel pity on Geologists like James Hurrell at times. They have more confidence on Archeology than their own geology. They assume archeology defined by Lehner is absolute and then try to fit their geology into it. But I believe history work the other way round. When any excavation is done, the time line is determined first by carbon dating and then style, culture, design is defined. But for sphinx it's happening the other way round. I belive the geology should be the closest thing to carbon dating to determine the age of the sphinx. Once the date is confirmed we should try to fit to a king.
kmt_sesh, on 24 December 2012 - 10:17 PM, said:
The research is out there, available to everyone to read and absorb. No one is stopping the questioners from taking advantage of it.
Yes and the questions are simple:
1. Lehner believes it is built by Khafre and the face is also of Khafre. So is there any scientific evidence that the face is of Khafre? Now please don't blame the egyptians for creating so imperfect face of the king. On one hand we credit them for extraordinary on the other hand we forgive them also making such a blunder that even the racial attributes of the king couldn't be maintained by the sculptors.
2. Is there any written evidence? If no then why are we so much sure of Khafre? Is it because of the astronomical alignment of Sun on equinox with Sphinx's shoulder with Khafre's pyramid?
3. As carbon-dating etc can't be done directly on the original structure, can we take account of the geology which can be of more scientific approach than other assumptions?
4. Regarding the Khafre's complex as unit, it is the strongest point suggested by Lehner. It is the most abstract point any one can support. When it comes Egyptological archeology and style, it's difficult to confront Lehner. But it is questioned very easily. There is this interesting discussion from Hurrell and reader debate:
Hurrell:
"Another argument Reader makes for his earlier date has to do with the location of the causeway connecting Khafre's pyramid and valley temple. He says because there are Fourth Dynasty limestone quarries on both the causeway's northern and southern sides it must predate them, and as part of an important religious monument of the Early Dynastic period later quarrying would not have cut through it. This sounds reasonable but Reader overlooks two other, and I would say even more likely, explanations. Khafre was Khufu's son and so it is entirely possible that the future location for Khafre's causeway was known and so excluded from quarrying while Khufu's pyramid was being built. Alternatively, if Khafre's causeway was not already planned in Khufu's time then the quarry on the north side may not cut the causeway simply because there was no need to quarry that far to the south. There was ample limestone available for quarrying to the west and closer to Khufu's pyramid." The argument defintely feels very lame, it predicts future!
Reader replies to that:
"Finally, Harrell also objects to my pre-Fourth Dynasty attribution for the alignment of ‘Khafre’s’ causeway. I based this conclusion on the fact that this linear body of rock had survived Khufu’s quarrying of the site, which suggests that it was a feature of some importance (consistent with my view that it was part of an early site of solar-worship). Harrell considers that when Khufu was developing the site, his son’s mortuary complex (i.e. Khafre) may well have already been in the planning stage and the alignment of the causeway may have already been established. This argument, however, neglects any consideration of the reign of Djedefre, Khufu’s direct successor, who began the construction of his mortuary complex at Abu Rawash. I consider that the shift in location to Abu Rawash severely weakens any consideration of a ‘masterplan’ for the Giza site."
It means that Sphinx as a part Khafre's unit is not full proof too.
So why is this adamancy about Khafre?
Why can't the Egyptologists simply admit that there is lot to be investigated for SPhinx? Nothing is conclusive. Why they try to impose Khafre?
Schoch's 10000 years old Sphinx may be over estimated. But there is enough evidence NATURE has written on the Sphinx's body that it is built much before Khafre. Do you beleive in nature's law or Lehner's words?
Hope everyone had a merry Xmas.
Edited by abhijit_b, 26 December 2012 - 11:13 AM.
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