Prof. Robert Temple's book "Sphinx Mystery"

The Sphinx Mystery

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  The first thing one notices about the Sphinx is that the head is far too small for it’s body which was not the sort of mistake the ancient Egyptians would have made. Secondly the body is in the shape of a dog and not that of a lion as tradition implies. Neither of these facts would be visible to observers of old, for prior to 1936, the Sphinx had spent the vast majority of it’s life covered up to the neck by sand. Indeed this Herculean clearance by Selim Hassan revealed to view the for the first time since the collapse of the , circa 2160 BC.
• The , immediately in front it, is even more elusive. Prior to it’s excavation it was not even known to exist, for it had not seen daylight for over 4,000 years. It is strikingly different from the next to it, bearing more  similarity to the royal mastabas of the 1^st Dynasty. This would give weight to  the argument for the Sphinx being older than the Pyramids.
• There is an incubation chamber hollowed out at rear of Sphinx (Sphinx) large enough for one person to sleep overnight in. Great healings have been reported supposedly from the goddess Isis. The rear chamber also goes upwards, probably to where the rump was separated from the rest of the body before being cemented in by Baraise in 1926. Difficult to see how far it goes now as wooden props impede a would be crawler. Was there a speaking tube to the mouth of the Sphinx?
• On the North side there was  a tunnel sealed of by Baraise in 1926. . Two of his workmen in old age said that it went down to the water table.
• Between the paws with a modern framed entrance is a tunnel leading downwards. This was blocked off by Henry Salt in 1816.
• Pliny, AD 23-79, claimed that King Amasis, 26^th Dynasty, 570-526 BC was buried under the Sphinx. There was a vertical shaft which archaeologists call an intruded grave. Shortly afterwards was conquered by the Persians when everything was plundered. In fact there were two such shafts on the back of the Sphinx, in one of which were discovered coffin boards. These shafts probably responsible for the splitting of the body at the haunches, which were filled with concrete by Baraise in 1926.
• That this shaft was later than the creation of the Sphinx is demonstrated by the fact that it was embellished with hieroglyphics which was not the practice of the 4^th dynasty.
• Sadly the filling of the shaft with concrete has prevented an identification from the hieroglyphics of whose tomb it was or carbon dating from the coffin boards.
• However the Arabs are reported to have told Mr Corviglia, who removed the sand for Henry Salt,
  • that the French under Napoleon, who also removed the sand, which took less than 2 decades to replace itself; that they (The French) had discovered a door in the breast of the sph which opened into it’s body and passed through it to the 2^nd pyramid.
  • In 1990 Thomas Dobecki using seismic equipment confirmed a rectangular cavity 30 feet by 40 feet under the right paw of the Sphinx. The same place as Edgar Cayce, the famous American seer, sensed in his trance during the 1920’s.
  • There is a short tunnel at front behind the head. This is short and has a dead end.
  • Herodotus 484-425 BC visited and much information comes from him. He describes Amasis’ tomb and describes how the Persian conqueror, Cambyses, had his mummy desecrated.
  • Altar made of granite in front of Sphinx is now in the .
  • There was before 1816 reports of a tunnel under the neck of the Sphinx going possibly to the pyramids which could have been used for the speaking of oracles. Small entrance probably blocked off by Salt.
  • In1482 a Dutch explorer was told by the people of a story of a man making sacrifices to the Sphinx and asking what would become of him. The Sphinx replied that he would become king if he would free the sculpture of sand. Incredibly, they still remembered this story, by word of mouth, for over 3000 years. The king was  Thutmosis lV who reigned 1425 – 1417 BC.
  • The truth of the Thutmosis story was only proved from the dream stele between the Sphinx paws after Champollion deciphered hieroglyphics in 1821.
  • The stele also shows  the sphinx with beard, attached by strap to holes drilled below the ear and headdress complete with uraeus and a collar.

        

  
  

• These people also had folklore of the Sphinx having it’s head cut down, though this was probably of an earlier origin. Possibly this occurred during the First Intermediate Period: (2160- 2050 BC) a time of lawlessness, when much desecration took place.
• One curious feature of the Sphinx head is the nemes or headdress. It was worn throughout history by pharaohs and it’s pattern changed from time to time. A match can be made only with pharaohs of the 12^th  dynasty. Borchardt, 19^th cent, was the first to see this, but was ridiculed because he used this argument to date the Sphinx, not to date a re-carving of the face. He chose Amenhemhet lll. Face is similar and the ears match. However the large eyes, fullness of face across the cheeks,  same ears, broad lips which do not meet at the corners but are embraced by a semicircular muscle at each side make his great grandfather Amenemhet ll (reigned 1876 – 1842 BC) the final choice. A large Sphinx of Amenemhet ll is in the Louvre, and the facial similarities with the one at are incredible

• That there are no records mentioning a Sphinx, which in itself seems strange. What beast could this be, en couchant, guarding the necropolis of ?
• The usual guardian of the necropolis in Egyptian tradition was the god Anubis, represented as a jackal/dog.
• Anubis (Jackal headed) the greatest god of dead and mummification of , largely replaced by Osiris in the Middle Kingdom. He was protector of the dead and their tombs and brought them to the afterlife.
• Opening of the mouth ceremony with heart weighing are later interpretations with Thoth, and the laws of the goddess Maat.
• Many Old Kingdom references to ‘Anubis who is upon his Hill,’ which was the plateau. Rostau was an area around the Sphinx and Anubis was ‘Lord of Rosteau.’ The joint claimant to this title was the underworld god Sokar who resided under the hill. After the 5^th Dynasty the title began to be associated with Osiris. Sokar and Osiris gradually became merged with the god Ptah being drawn into a sort of Trinity. Many ancient references to Anubis guarding the entrance and a recumbent Anubis beside a causeway. (Chephren’s) In 4^th Dynasty hieroglyphics there are many drawings of Anubis, always recumbent and always much larger than anything else. Anubis is also called lord of the necropolis ().
• A 5^th dynasty excavation near the sphinx mentions Anubis on his hill and there is a hieroglyph showing a couchant Anubis. An ancient text describes the couchant Anubis beside a causeway as indeed the sphinx is.
• Both the Sphinx and it’s pit show considerable signs of water erosion which must have taken place before they were covered in sand; i.e. during the .
• It is suggested by Robert Temple that originally the Sphinx pit was a moat filled with water and that the Sphinx itself in the likeness of Anubis was an island.
• The first objection to this would be that the pit was enclosed only on three sides and exposed on the east. So how could there be a moat?
• The course of the Nile has moved very far eastward, away from , since antiquity. The Nile in flood lapped at the entrance to the temples even in Victorian days and rose 26 feet higher during the time of the Middle Kingdom and the time we are considering is that of the . This would have provided plenty of water from the east in time of flood. There  is no entrance from the Sphinx temple to the Sphinx but a solid wall which would have formed the 4^th side of the moat. The only escape route for the water was the passageway between the two temples and here there is evidence of sluice gates to complete the enclosure. There was a drain leading down the Khafre causeway which would have conducted large quantities of rainwater to flow straight into the Sphinx moat. At some later period pieces of granite have been inserted at the end to block the flow.
• On the west wall of the moat there are vertical erosion fissures which could well have been caused by dredging the moat of sand; some of which fell back.
• It is suggested that in days the Sphinx formed an island sitting in a moat with it’s back and head sticking out of the water. Ancient texts refer to the body of Anubis at being concealed and from a pyramid text we are told. “Your arms are Atum, your  belly is Atum, your back is Atum, your shoulders are Atum, your face is Anubis.” Atum was the creator god of the Egyptians who emerged from the watery abyss and manifests himself as an island of fire in the midst of the water on the occasion of the first sunrise and emerges from the horizon. The Sphinx faces due east and bears the title of ‘Horus of the Horizon.’ The crouching guardian of the necropolis, Anubis, also represents Atum, and faced the sunrise of the first creation, manifesting himself as an island of fire in the midst of a lake. The moat was often referred to as the .
• It may be that the lake was used in some form of cleansing for the deceased. Many texts of which this is an example. “Cleanse the King, make the King bright in this your Jackal-Lake, O Jackal [directly addressing Anubis], in which you cleansed the gods.” The cleansing that probably took place in the lake probably involved only the four jars containing the entrails. This was carried out by a goddess called Kebehut who was the daughter of Anubis and who was a celestial serpent with the face of a jackal. We are told that Kebehut holds the four jars, removes the king’s heart and washes it in the lake. The other three jars were filled from the lake and the contents of each were washed in its own jar. It seems that purification at the was a necessary part of the ritual for the dead king during the .
• In AD 166 the Famous Greek historian, Arrian inscribed verse in Greek on the toe of the Sphinx to commemorate the restoration of retaining walls around the Sphinx. Needless to say it has since been covered over by ‘restoration stones.’ Three translations exist including one by Coleridge. It describes the Sphinx as an island made of rock and that the sand had been driven back from it’s pit.
• Some very strange ancient texts must be considered. Different from the Pyramid texts. These though originating in the Old Kingdom have been recycled as tomb paintings in the New Kingdom, when references to and Rosteau would have meant little to those who painted them.
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  Book of the Dead is an unfortunate name. It is merely a mishmash of afterlife spells found by the grave robbers. There are many variations and collections. The most important texts which refer to are 2 sections of the earliest book of the Underworld now known as The book of Am-Duat. It’s original title is Book of the Hidden Chamber. For most of the book the sun is travelling in his boat across the water at night through different gates in the underworld where he meets various gods and monsters. Each of the 12 regions of the underworld is called an ‘hour’ and are passed through in succession. 4^th and 5^th hours are different. So much so he has to leave his boat and travel across sand. This is the realm of the hawk headed god, Sokar and refer to hidden chambers.

The Goddess Neith wearing the Crown of the North could be symbolically referring to the Northern descending entrances of the 3 main pyramids at

• Osiris Shaft beneath Chephren Causeway, 150 feet beneath the surface. The central portion is an ‘’ containing a sarcophagus. It is surrounded by a canal carved out of the bedrock and filled with water.
• There is even water inside the Great Pyramid, for the ‘grotto’ of the ‘well’ shaft is continually wet, though there is no water lower down.

·         Efflux of Osiris seems to refer to blood and water as in Christ upon crucifixion. Osiris died and was resurrected through collecting his scattered parts. She fluttered as a ba or spirit over the erect phallus and became impregnated with her son Horus. Literally efflux is the fluid of decomposition oozing from a corpse. Comes from the Egyptian verb ‘redi’ which means to give, or that which is given just as the Nile gave it’s   flood to . Efflux from the earlier god Sokar were indeed the waters of the . Sokar, he who is upon his sand.

• . The Book of the Hidden Chamber refers to the sun god at night being towed in the underworld through the upper half of the secret circle of the god Sokar who is upon his sand and looketh not at the secret figure of the earth [The Great Pyramid] or as it also calls it the hidden palace.
• The Great Pyramid was constructed in such a way that it modelled a globe. (The Earth?) This can only be achieved by creating  a slope of 51° 51’ 54;” which was done. The ratio of twice the height of the pyramid to it’s base perimeter is equal to p or 22/7. This is the same ratio which exists between the radius and circumference of a circle.
• It has also been claimed that the Pyramid is a scale model of the Earth at a ratio of 1:43,200 to an accuracy in height of one to two millimetres. (from Pyramid Odyssey)
• In the winter solstice Chephren’s pyramid casts a shadow on the great pyramid at the same angle as the ascending and descending passageways or the golden angle.
• From the floor of the (directly in front of Sphinx and closed to visitors) to the apex of Chephren’s pyramid is the same golden angle. This is 26° 33’ 27” in a right angled triangle. Measured by an altimeter. The Hypotenuse of the golden triangle was known in as ‘Horus,’ as related by Plutarch. This  could explain why Horus was so often associated with the Sphinx. Also no other monument in was called “Horus-in-the-Horizon.”
• CRC suspects that the top of the original head of Anubis also made a golden angle with the top of Chephren’s pyramid.
• The Ancient  Egyptians appear to have had an obsession with golden triangles. The fact that a whole series of them appear on the plateau indicates that the Pyramids and Sphinx were constructed to a unified plan.

·         This all goes to prove that the complex was conceived as a unity and that the positions and sizes of the four monuments were rigidly controlled.

·         discusses Golden sections as “the extreme and mean ratio.” He goes on to say that a straight line is said to have been cut in an extreme and mean ratio when, as the whole line is to the greater segment, so is the greater to the less. From this we can see that we are dealing with proportions. Leonardo da Vinci and J.S.Bach were both interested in the subject. They also used the Fibonacci series where each number is the sum of the two previous ones.

0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89,…………

·         Anyone wishing to understand the ancient Egyptian mentality needs to get as far away as possible from the mind-sets of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. They were not people of the ‘book’ They did not go to war for religious beliefs. Just as Taoists’ main idea is the tao (the way) and the Buddhists’ main idea is enlightenment through buddhi, so the Egyptians main idea was Maat or Cosmic Order. They were opposites of Taoists in that unlike the fluidity of the tao, their Cosmic Order was structured and geometrical. They were highly formal in dress, with nothing casual allowed. Only the priests and the royal family attended the temples as the rest were illiterate.

·         Self expression in art hardly existed. They were essentially monotheistic, but their god had a thousand faces so one could blend into another and frequently did. The animal heads were highly symbolic. Just because Thoth was portrayed with an Ibis head, it did not mean that the Egyptian thought he actually had and Ibis head.

• No Egyptian truly believed that these angels had wings whereas many Christians actually         believed theirs had. However the Egyptians were very, very worried about death.
• Khat, was the body which had to be carefully mummified and preserved as it was needed to focus on those parts which would survive death.
• Ka, was the spiritual double which survived death. Needed to be near the Khat.
• Ba, was depicted as a human headed bird and was always flying around. Gods could have more than one.
• The lucky became an akh, which was a glorified spirit which survived in a sort of heaven. Before that could happen you had to be judged, and escape countless demons who wanted to destroy you.
• Snakes were everywhere. They still have cobras and sand vipers, which are difficult to see, both of which are deadly. After being decapitated the evil dead then had snakes crawling all over them in snake pits. There were friendly ones too. A massive snake, the Enveloper (Mehen) protected the sun god as he made his way through the netherworld every night. The most evil of all was a giant snake called Apep in Egyptian and Apophis in Greek. Besides being in the netherworld he also was in the sky. He was the ultimate enemy of Cosmic Order as his job was to destroy everything including the sun god’s boat. He equates to Satan.
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  There were even snakes with legs. Some snakes are symbolic, like the Nehep which stands on its tail and represents resurrection.

• Nut, goddess of the night. Each night she would swallow the sun into her mouth and he would be born through her vagina in the morning.

• Kepheri represents the rising sun. It is the scarab or dung beetle which pushes balls of dung larger than himself over the desert sand.
• , as the ultimate necropolis of is amass with golden angles of resurrection representing the transformation of the dead Osiris into his living son Horus, in the person of the rising sun. The Sphinx was fundamental to this as the guardian and watchdog of the necropolis. Anubis faces due east and every morning viewed the miraculous phenomenon that the Egyptians called Horus-in-the-Horizon.
• What was Horus-in-the-Horizon? They imagined a giant with his feet in hell and his head in heaven and called him Re-Osiris; also Khepri-Re-Atum.
• When they died all pharaohs became Osiris. One would think that there were a lot of Osiris’s in the netherworld, but that would be missing the point of Egyptian symbolism. Perhaps a better way of explaining it would be to say that each dead pharaoh became “one with Osiris.”

• In the tomb of  Rameses lX the Pharaoh is leaning. The golden angle appears at the top of the triangle. The vertical line is the base of the triangle and the pharaoh is the hypotenuse. (There are many such images and Robert Temple calls them hypotenusal pharaohs or Osirises.) Re-Osiris was also represented as a hypotenusal Osiris

• Some of the hieroglyphs are cryptographic. Each sign meaning something different to normal. Perhaps this was so the artists could not read what they were painting. Not all of it has yet been deciphered.
• Egyptians had no qualms about showing genitals and would certainly not have draped loincloth over the crucified Christ. To them an erect penis symbolised resurrection. The rising of the sun was viewed as a resurrection and was a model for every Egyptian to emulate.
• The sun as an Osiris came alive at dawn and transformed himself into a Horus and did so as a hypotenuse of a triangle formed by beams of light as they streamed over the horizon. The earth formed the base of the triangle represented by while Osiris was the vertical. The hypotenuse was Horus. That Osiris was the upright may be associated with his erect phallus.
• The Egyptians really did put squares on their triangles so that the sum of Isis and Osiris produced  or equalled their offspring Horus. This is a remarkable religious expression of a geometrical fact.
• Through their love and use of Geometry they worshipped a sacred religion, not built on superstition and fancy as it’s fundamentals are all true.  This is genuine  cosmic structure and it demonstrates real cosmic order. The number 1.618 which defines the golden section and which we know as p, exists not only here, but throughout the whole universe.
• The three pyramids were thought by some  to have been encased in gold. Each morning the sun would strike each in turn to herald a new dawn.
• In the , no longer able to build pyramids they continued the tradition by carving triangular obelisks to represent petrified beams of light and tipping them with gold.
• The astronomical ceiling  in the shows the rays of the sun in the form of little triangles, just as though the sun was actually spitting triangles and causing light to become frozen in stone.
• The light from the sun was conceived to be the sun speaking or his “word,” which has been carried over into Christianity. Anubis as the Sphinx welcomed the “word” of the sun at dawn. In copying the concept of the “Word” the Christians failed to realise that it was not meant to be audible but was in the form of light.
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         The earliest depiction of the Crucifixion  is a crude drawing from the Gnostics around the

         2^nd  century AD. It was found drawn on a wall in the in . It relates to both Anubis and  

         Christ.It shows Alexamenos, who drew it standing with his hand raised in adoration of the   

         crucified deity. The drawing of the foot bar was usual in the earliest examples.

      ·         But what is the meaning of the Crucifixion?

·         The crossbar is the major part of the upright, divided in Golden Section and the foot is the minor section. Together they equal the upright. The major and minor are in ratio (logos.)

·         Crucified on the cross is the Logos himself, Christ. The sacred figure is nailed by means of the divine proportion of Golden Section. The sacred figure of a god is nailed to the laws of Maat.

·         Just as Osiris was resurrected as Horus; “the Son of the Father” so Christ is resurrected as “the Son of his Father,” but first both must be crucified.. The earliest Christians, the Gnostics, wished to demonstrate that the symbolism of the crucifixion had its origins in .

·          Jeshua or Jesus the Nazarene spent much time in before returning to at the age of thirty. Nazarene was the name of a vegetarian sect who were opposed to the fanatical Sadducees and followed a mystical of Judaism. When Christianity became the Roman State Religion, the Church burnt all but four of the hundred or so Gospels they didn’t like (eg. Thomas and Philip) and edited the others to say “Jesus of Nazareth” in place of the “Nazarene.” The did not even exist until hundreds of years after the death of Jesus.

·         However, when religions become aligned with states and politics, persecution commences. This is also true of Judaism. During the lifetime of Jesus the Sadducees executed more than 6000 Pharisee rabbis whose, views differed from theirs.

·         Let us return to the . In Chamber C of  South Crypt No.1 there are mysterious figures each of which look like an  aubergine with a snake running through it, blooming from a lotus flower.

These strange shapes are really “serpent cells.” This emanates from the famous blue lotus

of the ancient Egyptians which is verging on extinction. The flower is of a pale

mauve-blue colour and though it has a beautiful fragrance, it’s scent is very faint..

• Close examination of the picture reveals that the men are not touching the cell.. It is supported by what is called a Djed pillar with upraised arms in the position of a ka, a kind of soul which is the double of the deceased.. On the wall facing the ka arms actually penetrate the cell. and directly support the serpent within. The at Denderah is dedicated to the goddess Hathor, so it would seem likely that it is she sat in the boat and supporting the serpent cell with her head. (Since she, her ka and the Djed are in the form of a hieroglyph, a cryptographic statement may be intended.
• The Djed in No. 1 Chambre forms the prow of the boat while the lotus bends backwards to form the stern, from which emanates the serpent cell on the north wall. The key to the serpent cells is that they display a series of golden angles of resurrection emanating from the lotus flower which gives off the perfume or more precisely the breath of resurrection.
• In the nineteenth century the British engineer, Robert Ballard observed that although not built in line the pyramid of Mycerinus super imposes itself upon that of Chephren at a geographical bearing which he considered to be completely random. To us, this is the Golden angle.