Page 410 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

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. So this is a very ancient
15
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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