by
Damien F. Mackey
Controversial author Robert Temple’s suggestion that the Great Sphinx of
Giza may actually be a ‘Middle’ Kingdom product would come as no surprise to
those (such as this writer) who consider that Egypt’s ‘Old’ and ‘Middle’
kingdoms were contemporaneous.
In the context of the historical
Moses, as a baby, I have argued in:
that the cruel pharaoh who
ordered the execution of the Hebrew children was an Old and Middle kingdom composite
ruler. And so I wrote:
According
to my:
the
“new king” of Exodus 1:8 was a combination of Khufu (4th dynasty);
Teti (6th dynasty) – Old Kingdom – and Amenemhet I; Amenemhet II (12th
dynasty) – Middle Kingdom.
One
could say that four heads are better than one!
….
Robert Temple thinks that the Giza
Sphinx was based on (the last named of these), Amenemhet II.
We read about it in Matt Patterson’s
“The Sphinx Decoded?”, beginning with Temple’s radical theory that the Sphinx
was modelled, not along the lines of a lion figure, but of a jackal dog.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/the_sphinx_decoded.html
"The first time I went to
Egypt and saw the Sphinx with my own eyes, I was deeply shocked," writes
Robert Temple, Ph.D in his recent book (with Olivia Temple), The Sphinx
Mystery, for "the Sphinx did not look at all like a lion."
Everyone knows that the Great
Sphinx, ensconced for millennia on the Giza plateau near modern-day Cairo, is a
lion with a man's head; specifically the head of the Pharaoh Chephren, thought
by archaeologists to have built the Sphinx during Egypt's Old Kingdom, roughly
the mid-third millennium B.C.
But Robert Temple, try as he
might, could see no lion: For one thing, the back of the monument, the spine
(as it were) of the animal, is flat. It neither rises nor falls along its
length, in striking contrast to the many representations of lions from Ancient
Egyptian art which commonly portrayed the animal with a mane, broad shoulders,
and muscular, sloping back.
Nevertheless, the notion that
the Sphinx is a lion is a very old one, dating even to Egypt of the New Kingdom
… when the Pharaoh Thutmosis IV excavated and restored the already-ancient
monument. Later restorations made during the Roman and modern eras cemented
this notion, when the badly damaged paws of the beast were reconstructed in the
image of a lion's. (Few modern tourists, or even knowledgeable amateur
Egyptologists, are aware that the leonine forepaws are not original with the
monument; in fact, we have no idea what the paws looked like when the Sphinx
was first carved.)
So if not a lion, then, what
is the Sphinx? Robert Temple has hit upon an ingenious theory that seems at
once both shocking and obvious: The Great Sphinx of Giza was originally carved
in the shape of a gigantic Jackal.
The god Anubis, often
represented as a jackal or wild dog (the precise breed is unknown and may be
extinct), was guardian of the dead in Ancient Egyptian cosmography, with
special provenance over cemeteries and necropoleis. Temple recollects: "As
I looked at the Sphinx that first time, noting the straight back of the creature...I
was struck by the fact that I appeared to be staring at a dog."
The more he thought about it,
the more sense it made - Anubis, guardian of the dead, looming over this most
famous and ancient of cemeteries.
Mackey’s comment: Now to
Temple’s identification of the pharaoh whose face he thinks that the Sphinx wears.
(The dates given below for the 12th dynasty are not the ones that I
would accept):
But Temple doesn't stop with
this suggestion alone, as radical as it is; he is also sure that he has
discovered the true identity of the king whose visage graces the Sphinx. As it
turns out, not only does Temple not see a lion in the Great Sphinx, he doesn't
see the face of Chephren either.
Whose Face?
It has long been noted that
the head of the Sphinx is diminutive in relation to the gargantuan, recumbent
body, leading some rogue researchers -- to the consternation of the
Egyptological establishment -- to speculate that the head was originally a
lion's, and that the Pharaoh Chephren, rather than constructing the monument
himself, instead merely re-carved the head in his own image (such usurpations
of already-existing monuments was quite common in Ancient Egypt).
Temple agrees that the head
was originally an animal, though of course he thinks it was a jackal and not a
lion. But he suspects that the re-carving of the Sphinx's head came long after
Chephren's time. For one, the iconography of the sphinx as a human-headed beast
was a comparatively late one in Egyptian art. Temple writes:
"The human-headed sphinx
as a motif in Egyptian art is really something that became popular in the
Middle Kingdom only after about 2,000 B.C. and was not a motif of the Old
Kingdom...."
Temple therefore reasons that
the head of the very-old, Anubis monument was re-carved in the Middle Kingdom
to represent a Middle Kingdom Pharaoh. But by whom? Temple found a clue in an
article published in an obscure journal in 1897 by the German Egyptologist
Ludwig Borchardt, an article which Temple has translated and made available as
an appendix in his book.
Borchardt conducted a careful
analysis of the paint stripes emanating from the back of the eyes of the Sphinx
and the pleating patterns visible on its headdress, or nemes. Egyptian eye
makeup and royal headwear were, like all such trappings, subject to fashionable
trends. Borchardt asked: In which dynasty were the accoutrements seen on the
Sphinx in pharaonic fashion? (Borchardt was fortunate in that, in his day, the
Sphinx was still buried up to the neck in sand, allowing for a closer scrutiny
of the head than is possible now that the Sphinx stands a full seven stories
from the floor of the cleared Sphinx pit.)
After a careful examination of
the stripe pattern running down the sides of the Sphinx nemes, Borchardt
concluded:
"The grouped stripes on
the King's bonnet are only found during the 12th Dynasty, perhaps only under
[Pharaoh] Amenemhet III, because those pieces which are precisely dated and
which have such an arrangement of stripes are all from his time."
Robert Temple is a great
admirer of Borchardt and his calm, reasoned analysis, and credits the German
with the identification of the correct dynasty in which the Sphinx had its
jackal head carved down into the likeness of a pharaoh. Temple, however, parts
with Borchardt as to the exact identity of the pharaoh responsible.
To be sure, Amenemhet III was
an inveterate builder whose many and massive construction projects -- many of
which still survive -- were renowned in antiquity. And this particular 12th
Dynasty pharaoh certainly had an affinity for sphinxes -- many such statues
survive bearing his unmistakable countenance. Nevertheless, Temple is convinced
that an earlier king of the 12th Dynasty, Amenemhet II, is responsible for the
face we see on the Great Sphinx today.
Amenemhet II, who reigned
circa 1876-1842 B.C., was the third pharaoh of the 12th Dynasty, and was likely
Amenemhet III's great-grandfather. This Amenemhet, like his later namesake, was
fond of sphinxes; in fact, an exquisite sphinx statue bearing the face of
Amenemhet II can be found in the Louvre in Paris.
During the course of his
research, Temple came across an analysis of this large Louvre statue by one Dr.
Biri Fay titled The Louvre Sphinx and Royal Sculpture from the Reign of
Amenemhet II. Dr. Fay's book contains many photos of the statue which show
quite clearly that the distinctive striped nemes pattern visible on the Great
Sphinx at Giza, and which Borchardt had shown conclusively were in fashion
during Amenemhet III's reign, were also in use earlier in the 12th Dynasty. In
fact, the Louvre statue of Amenemhet II bears both the identical headdress and
eye makeup of the larger, and supposedly earlier, Giza monument.
Curiously, Fay herself noticed
the astonishing similarities between the two sculptures, right down to facial
structure. She writes:
"Although a stylistic
comparison of the Giza and Louvre sphinxes must be restricted to their heads,
similarities are profound. Both faces are broad and full...each nemes is wide
across the wings, set low on the forehead....and shallow at the crown....The
pleating pattern found on the nemes of the Louvre sphinx - a fine triple-stripe
executed in rounded, raised relief, with a wide stripe and a narrow stripe on
each side - is rare in the Old Kingdom [when the Great Sphinx is supposed tom
have been carved], but the treatment is similar on the Giza Sphinx...The eyes
of both sphinxes are strikingly similar, with horizontal lower-eye rims and
semi-circular upper rims...."
Fay's explanation for the
unmistakable correlation between the two statues? "Amenemhet II used the
Giza sphinx as a model for his own sphinx."
Temple applauds Fay's
analysis, but is stunned by the ultimate failure of her imagination. He thinks
it ludicrous to imagine that a Pharaoh -- among the most egomaniacal species of
man ever to have existed -- would have gone out of the way to immortalize someone
else's face on his own statue. Much more likely, Temple concludes, was that
Amenemhet II commissioned both works (just the head, of course, in the case of
the Great Sphinx), and both in his own image.
How Old?
If Temple makes a convincing
case for the date of the current head of the Sphinx, what about the body?
Whether originally conceived as a lion or Anubis, who first carved this
glorious colossus, and when?
Egyptologists say Chephren,
for whom the case is strong, though circumstantial. Chephren, the fourth king
of the 4th Dynasty, is thought to have been the son or brother of Cheops, whom
antiquity has credited as the architect of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Chephren
is also thought have constructed a pyramid, which like his predecessor's still
stands on the Giza plateau. A long limestone causeway shoots down the plateau
from this pyramid, culminating in a cluster of megaliths which includes the
Sphinx and two strange temples, at least one of which - the temple situated
directly in front of the Sphinx - was apparently constructed from giant
limestone blocks quarried out of the Sphinx enclosure itself, leading
archaeologists to believe the two monuments were constructed in tandem.
The problem is that there is
no evidence that this temple was actually built by Chephren, as it contains no
identifying inscriptions or artifacts of any kind. The second temple, however,
directly to the south of the Sphinx and known as the Valley Temple, was found
to contain a magnificent diorite statue of Chephren, and fragments of what may
have been hundreds of others. In addition, the roof of this Valley Temple opens
up onto the causeway that proceeds up the plateau to the pyramid attributed to
Chephren.
It is the Sphinx's place among
this mortuary complex of Chephren that has led archaeologists to assume that
it, too, was built by the Old Kingdom Pharaoh. ….
[End of quote]
According to a combination of my
“Pharaohs Khufu ...” article and this following one:
Khafre, Pepi (I-II),
Sesostris I to III: Six Faces, One Ruler
pharaoh Chephren (Khafre) was at
least a contemporary of Amenemhet II.
And, moreover:
Egypt’s Old and Middle
Kingdoms Far Closer in Time than Conventionally Thought
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