14 Under the category of anomalies, West made specific reference to the bowls carved
out of diorite and other hard stones described in Part VI.
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This was a conviction I increasingly shared—and, I reminded myself,
that most nineteenth-century Egyptologists had shared it too.
Nevertheless the Sphinx’s appearance argued against such intuitions
since there was no doubt that its head looked conventionally pharaonic.
‘If it’s as old as you think it is,’ I now asked John, ‘then how do you
explain that the sculptors depicted it wearing the characteristic nemes
head-dress and uraeus of dynastic times?’
‘I’m not bothered about that. In fact, as you know, Egyptologists
contend that the face of the Sphinx resembles the face of Khafre—its one
of the reasons why they claim it must have been built by him. Schoch and
I have looked into this very carefully. We think, from the proportions of
the head relative to the rest of the body, that it’s been recarved during
dynastic times—and that’s why it looks very dynastic. But we don’t think
it was ever meant to represent Khafre. As part of our ongoing research
into these issues we had Lieutenant Frank Domingo, a forensic artist with
the New York Police Department, come over and do point by point
comparisons between the face of the Sphinx and the face of Cephren’s
statue in the Cairo Museum. His conclusion was that in no way was the
Sphinx ever intended to represent Khafre. It’s not just a matter of it being
a different face—it’s probably a different race.15 So this is a very ancient
monument that was recarved at a much later date. Originally it may not
even have had a human face. Maybe it started out with a lion’s face as
well as a lion’s body.’
Magellan and the first dinosaur bone
After my own explorations at Giza I was interested to know whether
West’s research had cast doubt on the orthodox dating of any of the
other monuments on the plateau—particularly the so-called Valley Temple
of Khafre.
‘We think there’s quite a lot of stuff that may be older,’ he told me. ‘Not
just the Valley Temple but also the Mortuary Temple up the hill, probably
something to do with the Menkaure complex, maybe even the Pyramid of
Khafre ...’
‘What in the Menkaure complex?’
‘Well, the Mortuary Temple. And actually I’m only using the
conventional attribution of the Pyramids for convenience here ...’
15 'After reviewing my various drawings, schematics and measurements, my final
conclusion concurs with my initial reaction: the two works represent two separate
individuals. The proportions in the frontal view and especially the angles and facial
protrusion in the lateral views, convinced me that the Sphinx is not Khafre. If the ancient
Egyptians were skilled technicians and capable of duplicating images, then these
two works cannot represent the same individual.' Frank Domingo, cited in Serpent
in the Sky, p. 232. See also AAAS 1992, for Schoch's views on the recarving of the
Sphinx's head.
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‘OK. So do you think it’s possible that the pyramids are as old as the
Sphinx too?’
‘It’s hard to say. I think something was there where those pyramids now
are—because of the geometry. The Sphinx was part of a master-plan. And
the Khafre Pyramid is maybe the most interesting in that respect because
it was definitely built in two stages. If you look at it—maybe you’ve
noticed—you’ll see that its base consists of several courses of gigantic
blocks similar in style to the blocks of the core masonry of the Valley
Temple. Superimposed above the base, the rest of the pyramid is
composed of smaller, less precisely engineered stuff. But when you look
at it, knowing what you’re looking for, you see instantly that it’s built in
two separate bits. I mean I can’t help but feel that the vast blocks on the
bottom date from the earlier period—from the time the Sphinx was
built—and that the second part was added later—but even then not
necessarily by Khafre. As you go into this you begin to realize that the
more you learn the more complex everything becomes. For example,
there may even have been an intermediate civilization, which actually
would correspond to the Egyptian texts. They talk themselves about two
long prior periods. In the first of these Egypt was supposedly ruled by the
gods—the Neteru—and in the second it was ruled by the Shemsu Hor, the
“Companions of Horus”. So, as I say, the problems just get more and
more complicated. Fortunately, however, the bottom line stays simple.
The bottom line is the Sphinx wasn’t built by Khafre. The geology proves
that it’s a hell of a lot older ...’
‘Nevertheless the Egyptologists won’t accept that it is. One of the
arguments they’ve used against you—Mark Lehner did so—goes
something like this: “If the Sphinx was made before 10,000 BC then why
can’t you show us the rest of the civilization that built it?” In other words,
why don’t you have any other evidence to put forward for the presence of
your legendary lost civilization apart from a few structures on the Giza
plateau? What do you say to that?’
‘First off, there are structures outside Giza—for example the Osireion in
Abydos, where you’ve just come from. We think that amazing edifice may
relate to our work on the Sphinx. Even if the Osireion didn’t exist,
however, the absence of other evidence wouldn’t worry me. I mean, to
make a big deal out of the fact that further confirmatory evidence hasn’t
been found yet and to use this to try to scuttle the arguments for an older
Sphinx is completely illogical. Analogously it’s like saying to Magellan ...
“Where are the other guys who’ve sailed round the world? Of course it’s
still flat.” Or in 1838 when the first dinosaur bone was found they would
have said, “Of course there’s no such thing as a giant extinct animal.
Where’s the rest of the skeletons? They’ve only found one bone.” But once
a few people began to realize that this bone could only be from an
extinct animal, within twenty years the museums of the world were filled
up with complete dinosaur skeletons. So it’s sort of like that. Nobody’s
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thought to look in the right places. I’m absolutely certain that other
evidence will be found once a few people start looking in the right
places—along the banks of the ancient Nile, for example, which is miles
from the present Nile, or even at the bottom of the Mediterranean, which
was dry during the last Ice Age.’
The problem of transmission
I asked John West why he thought that Egyptologists and archaeologists
were so unwilling to consider that the Sphinx might be a clue to the
existence of a forgotten episode in human history.
‘The reason, I think, is that they’re quite fixed in their ideas about the
linear e
volution of civilization. They find it hard to come to terms with the
notion that there might have been people, more than 12,000 years ago,
who were more sophisticated than we are today ... The Sphinx, and the
geology which proves its antiquity, and the fact that the technology that
was involved in making it is in many ways almost beyond our own
capacities, contradicts the belief that civilization and technology have
evolved in a straightforward, linear way ... Because even with the best
modern technology we almost couldn’t carry out the various tasks that
were involved in the project. The Sphinx itself, that’s not such a
staggering feat. I mean if you get enough sculptors to cut the stone away
they could carve a statue a mile long. The technology was involved in
taking the stones, quarrying the stones, to free the Sphinx from its
bedrock and then in moving those stones and using them to build the
Valley Temple a couple of hundred feet away ...’
This was news to me: ‘You mean that the 200-ton blocks in the Valley
Temple walls were quarried right out of the Sphinx enclosure?’
‘Yes, no doubt about it. Geologically they’re from the identical member
of rock. They were quarried out, moved over to the site of the Temple—
God knows how—and erected into forty-foot-high walls—again God
knows how. I’m talking about the huge limestone core blocks, not the
granite facing. I think that the granite was added much later, quite
possibly by Khafre. But if you look at the limestone core blocks you’ll see
that they bear the marks of exactly the same kind of precipitationinduced weathering that are found on the Sphinx. So the Sphinx and the
core structure of the Valley Temple were made at the same time by the
same people—whoever they may have been.’
‘And do you think that those people and the later dynastic Egyptians
were connected to each other in some way? In Serpent in the Sky you
suggested that a legacy must have been passed on.’
‘It’s still just a suggestion. All that I know for sure on the basis of our
work on the Sphinx is that a very, very high, sophisticated civilization
capable of undertaking construction projects on a grand scale was
present in Egypt in the very distant past. Then there was a lot of rain.
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Then, thousands of years later, in the same place, pharaonic civilization
popped up already fully formed, apparently out of nowhere, with all its
knowledge complete. That much we can be certain of. But whether or not
the knowledge that Ancient Egypt possessed was the same as the
knowledge that produced the Sphinx I really can’t say.’
‘How about this,’ I speculated: ‘The civilization that produced the
Sphinx wasn’t based here, at least not originally ... It wasn’t in Egypt. It
put the Sphinx here as some sort of a marker or outpost ...’
‘Perfectly possible. Could be that the Sphinx for that civilization was
like, let’s say, what Abu Simbel [in Nubia] was for dynastic Egypt.’
‘Then that civilization came to an end, was extinguished by some sort
of massive catastrophe, and that’s when the legacy of high knowledge
was handed on ... Because they had the Sphinx here they knew about
Egypt, they knew this place, they knew this country, they had a
connection here. Maybe people survived the ending of that civilization.
Maybe they came here. ... Does that work for you?’
‘Well, it’s a possibility. Again, going back into the mythologies and
legends of the world, many of them tell of such a catastrophe and of the
few people—the Noah story that’s prevalent through endless
civilizations—who somehow or other retained and passed on knowledge.
The big problem with all this, from my point of view, is the transmission
process: how exactly the knowledge does get handed on during the
thousands and thousands of years between the construction of the
Sphinx and the flowering of dynastic Egypt. Theoretically you’re sort of
stuck—aren’t you?—with this vast period in which the knowledge has to
be transmitted. This is not easy to slough off. On the other hand we do
know that those legends we’re referring to were passed on word for word
over countless generations. And in fact oral transmission is a much surer
means of transmission than written transmission, because the language
may change but as long as whoever’s telling the story tells it true in
whatever the language of the time is ... it surfaces some 5000 years later
in its original form. So maybe there are ways—in secret societies and
religious cults, or through mythology, for example—that the knowledge
could have been preserved and passed on before flowering again. The
point, I think, with problems as complex and important as these, is
simply not to dismiss any possibilities, no matter how outrageous they
may at first seem, without investigating them very, very thoroughly ...’
Second opinion
John West was in Luxor, leading a study group on Egypt’s sacred sites.
Early the next day he and his students went south to Aswan and Abu
Simbel. Santha and I journeyed north again, back towards Giza and the
mysteries of the Sphinx and the pyramids. We were to meet there with
the archaeo-astronomer Robert Bauval. As we shall see, his stellar
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correlations provided startling independent corroboration for the
geological evidence of Giza’s vast antiquity.
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Chapter 48
Earth Measurers
Follow these instructions carefully:
Draw two parallel straight lines vertically down a sheet of paper, about
seven inches long and a bit under three inches apart. Draw a third line,
also vertical, also parallel and of equal length, exactly mid-way between
the first two. Write the letter ‘S’—for ‘South’—at the top end of your
diagram (the end farthest away from you), and the letter ‘N’ for ‘North’ at
the bottom end. Add the letters ‘E’ for ‘East’ and ‘W for ‘West’ in their
appropriate positions at either side of the diagram, to your left for East
and to your right for West.
What you are looking at are the outlines of a geometrical map of Egypt
incorporating a perspective very different from our own (where ‘North’ is
always equated with ‘Up’). This map where ‘Up’ is ‘South’ seems to have
been worked out an enormously long time ago by cartographers with a
scientific understanding of the shape and size of our planet.
To complete the map you should now mark a dot on the central of the
three parallel lines about an inch to the south of (‘up’ from) the northern
end of the diagram. Then draw two more lines diagonally down from this
point, respectively to the north-east and north-west, until they reach the
northern ends of the two outermost parallel lines. Finally link those
parallel lines directly with horizontal lines running east to west at the
northern and southern ends of the diagram.
The s
hape produced is a meridional rectangle (oriented north-south).
This rectangle is seven inches long by just under three inches wide and
has a triangle demarcated at its northern (lower) end. The triangle
represents the Nile Delta and the dot at the apex of the triangle
represents the apex of the Delta—a point on the ground at 30° 06’ north
and 31° 14’ east, very close to the location of the Great Pyramid.
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Map showing the geometric conception of Egypt, with the Great
Pyramid at the apex of the Nile delta. The Egyptians traditionally
thought of south as ‘up’.
Geodetic marker
Whatever else it may be, it has long been understood by mathematicians
and geographers that the Great Pyramid serves the function of a geodetic
marker (geodetics being the branch of science concerned with
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determining the exact position of geographical points and the shape and
size of the earth1). This realization first dawned in the late eighteenth
century when the armies of revolutionary France, led by Napoleon
Bonaparte, invaded Egypt. Bonaparte, who had cultivated a deep interest
in the enigmas of the pyramids, brought with him a large number of
scholars, 175 in all, including several ‘greybeards’ gathered from various
universities who were reputed to have acquired ‘a profound knowledge of
Egyptian antiquities’, and, more usefully, a group of mathematicians,
cartographers and surveyors.2
One of the tasks the savants were set, after the conquest was
completed, was to draw up detailed maps of Egypt. In the process of
doing this they discovered that the Great Pyramid was perfectly aligned to
true north—and of course to the south, east and west as well, as we saw
in Part VI. This meant that the mysterious structure made an excellent
reference and triangulation point, and a decision was therefore taken to
use the meridian passing through its apex as the base-line for all other
measurements and orientations. The team then proceeded to produce the
first accurate maps of Egypt drawn up in the modern age. When they had
finished, they were intrigued to note that the Great Pyramid’s meridian
sliced the Nile Delta region into two equal halves. They also found that if