Page 406 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

While working on Serpent, West was struck by the possible significance of
this remark and decided to follow it up: ‘I realized that if I could prove
Schwaller’s offhand observation empirically, this would be ironclad
evidence for the existence of a previously unidentified high civilization of
distant antiquity.’
‘Why?’
‘Once you’ve established that water was the agent that eroded the
Sphinx the answer is almost childishly simple. It can be explained to
anybody who reads the National Enquirer or the News of the World. It’s
almost moronically simple ... The Sphinx is supposed to have been built
by Khafre around 2500 BC, but since the beginning of dynastic times—say
3000 BC onwards—there just hasn’t been enough rain on the Giza plateau
to have caused the very extensive erosion that we see all over the
Sphinx’s body. You really have to go back to before 10,000 BC to find a
wet enough climate in Egypt to account for weathering of this type and
on this scale. It therefore follows that the Sphinx must have been built
before 10,000 BC and since it’s a massive, sophisticated work of art it also
follows that it must have been built by a high civilization.’
‘But John,’ Santha asked, ‘how can you be so sure that the weathering
was caused by rain water? Couldn’t the desert winds have done the job
just as well? After all even orthodox Egyptologists admit that the Sphinx
has existed for nearly 5000 years. Isn’t that long enough for these effects
to have been caused by wind erosion?’
‘Naturally that was one of the first possibilities that I had to exclude.
Only if I could show that wind-borne abrasive sand couldn’t possibly have
brought the Sphinx to its present condition would there be any point in
looking further into the implications of water erosion.’

Robert Schoch’s geology: Unriddling the Sphinx

A key issue turned out to be the deep trench that the monument was
surrounded by on all sides: ‘Because the Sphinx is set in a hollow,’ West
explained, ‘sand piles up to its neck within a few decades if it’s left
untended ... It has been left untended often during historical times. In
fact through a combination of textual references and historical
extrapolations it’s possible to prove that during the 4500 years that have
elapsed since it was ostensibly built by Khafre it’s been buried to its neck
for as much as 3300 years. That means that in all this time there has
3

3 West’s detailed evidence is set out in Serpent in the Sky, pp. 184-20. Concerning the
covering of the Sphinx by sand he arrives at the following table:
Sphinx buried
Chephren-Tuthmosis IV c. 1300 years 1000 years
Thuthmosis IV-Ptolemies c. 1100 years 800 years
Ptolemies-Christianity c. 600 years 0 years
Christianity-Present day c. 1700 years 1500 years

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