Page 404 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Chapter 47

Sphinx

‘Egyptologists,’ said John West, ‘are the last people in the world to
address any anomaly.’
Of course, there are many anomalies in Egypt. The one West was
referring to at that moment, however, was the anomaly of the Fourth
Dynasty pyramids: an anomaly because of what had happened during the
Third, Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. Zoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara (Third
Dynasty) was an imposing edifice, but it was built with relatively small,
manageable blocks that five or six men working together could carry, and
its internal chambers were structurally unsound. The pyramids of the
Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (although adorned inside with the beautiful
Pyramid Texts) were so poorly built and had collapsed so completely that
today most of them amount to little more than mounds of rubble. The
Fourth Dynasty pyramids at Giza, however, were wonderfully well made
and had endured the passage of thousands of years more or less intact.
It was this sequence of events, or rather its implications, that West felt
Egyptologists should have paid more attention to: ‘There’s a discrepancy
in the scenario that reads “building kind of rubbishy pyramids that are
structurally unsound, suddenly building absolutely unbelievable pyramids
that are structurally the most incredible things ever conceived of, and
then immediately afterwards going back to structurally unsound
pyramids.” It doesn’t make sense ... The parallel scenario in, say, the
auto-industry would be inventing and building the Model-T Ford, then
suddenly inventing and building the ’93 Porsche and making a few of
those, then forgetting how to do that and going back to building Model-T
Fords again ... Civilizations don’t work this way.’
‘So what are you saying?’ I asked. ‘Are you saying that the Fourth
Dynasty pyramids weren’t built by the Fourth Dynasty at all?’
‘My gut feeling is that they weren’t. They don’t look like the mastabas
in front of them. They don’t look like any other Fourth Dynasty stuff
either ... They don’t seem to fit in ...’
‘And nor does the Sphinx?’
‘And nor does the Sphinx. But the big difference is that we don’t have
to rely on gut feelings where the Sphinx is concerned. We can prove that
it was built long before the Fourth Dynasty ...’

John West

Santha and I had been fans of John Anthony West ever since we had first

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