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Secrets Lost in the sand?

Jürgen zimmerman

valley temple, from which the causeway leads to the mortuary temple, seems to be the best pre-
WAS KHAFRE’S VALLEY TEMPLE BUILT IN MULTIPLE ERAS?
served of all the sacred sites of the Old Kingdom. How can this be?
Th e prevailing theory is that the valley temple was built of massive limestone blocks clad with slabs
Secrets Lost in Sand of polished granite. Two gates, which some suggest featured huge cedar wood doors, led from the
landing. Both of these entrances open into a transverse hall, from which a central corri-dor leads to
In early ancient Egypt, places of worship were built with materials that did not last a particularly a large T-shaped pillared hall, with 16 columns consisting of granite monoliths that support the roof.
long time. But Egyptologists believe that in the Th ird Dynasty, builders began to copy some of the Th e holes in this theory are immediately obvious. Let’s imagine we are Pharaoh Khafre and have
original structures in stone, which is why one of the sacred stone buildings in Giza has survived commissioned a valley temple. Th e ground is undeveloped. A temple is to be built there that con-
for thousands of years and still stands as a magnifi cent portico at one end of the causeway from nects along the Sphinx to the mortuary temple in front of the pyramid. According to the offi -cial
the mortuary temple to the Great Pyramid [1]. But there is something not quite right about this theory, I would fi rst build a core masonry wall of limestone blocks. Indeed, there are lime-stone
stone sanctuary. Jürgen Zimmermann scrutinizes its function, construction method, and dating. walls several meters thick on the left and right, between the interior column area and the external
walls (Fig. 2).
JÜRGEN ZIMMERMANN As limestone is easy to work on, it was most likely smooth blocks of limestone that served as the core
masonry walls that were then clad with slabs of granite. Th e term “slab” is not a metric unit, but it
Anyone who has ever been to the Giza Plateau in Egypt to see the Sphinx will be familiar with probably means a sheathing stone no thicker than 10 centimeters. If that’s the case, our granite slabs
the valley temple. Visitors are channeled through it and out a narrow gate to eventually reach are really stone blocks—because the existing structure in front of the core masonry walls is between
the Sphinx. And as soon as a few busloads of tourists arrive, the temple “halls” become congest- 30 and 50 centimeters thick. Around the same time, Khafre built the Sphinx temple next door, also
ed—giving tourists plenty of time to examine its construction and its smooth columns and walls, using blocks of limestone. Today, thousands of years later, those limestone blocks—the ones not
and to compare them with the visibly weathered, much older wall remnants behind the smooth sheathed in slabs of granite—ought to be extremely weather-worn or have fallen into ruin. In the
granite walls. One begins to wonder how Khafre’s mummy was maneuvered through here on its thousands of years since they were built, they may have also been pro-tected by sand drift s—more or
way to the mortuary temple, considering the diffi culty tourists have nowadays trying to squeeze less the case with the Sphinx. Th e sand had to be removed from around the Sphinx on a number of
through the narrow gate (Fig. 1). Th e dignity of the deceased was surely compromised during his occasions, but it likely aff orded the Sphinx some protection over the millennia. One instance of sand
internment, as it were, when it got stuck in this narrow passageway. It appears that most tourists clearance is even documented on the Dream Stela of Th utmose IV (currently dated to approximately
are blind, or the valley temple halls would reverberate with obvious questions about the incon-sis- 1397–1387 BCE), which stands between the paws of the Sphinx. Th anks to the hardness of the valley
tencies in the condition of the stones. Something in the offi cial theory regarding the valley temple temple’s granite cladding, it endured the ages virtually unharmed—perhaps roughened up a little by
does not make sense. sandstorms, but otherwise un-changed.
Th e temple’s limestone core, however, is conspicuously weather-worn, despite the granite “slabs”
A Contradiction in Stone built in front of it, and features protrusions that jut into the granite (Fig. 3). In my opinion, it makes
According to the Lexikon der Ägyptologie (“Encyclopedia of Egyptology”) [2], a valley temple little sense to add protrusions to the soft limestone, which extend into the granite, because the hard
functioned as a landing and gateway to the pyramids and connects to them by a causeway. Th e granite would also have to be shaped. But the same weathering is evident behind the granite slabs—
structure under discussion here was built adjacent to the Sphinx temple by Pharaoh Khafre dur- or rather, granite blocks—as that found in the non-clad portions of the Sphinx temple, which is
ing the Fourth Dynasty (currently dated to approximately 2520–2494 BCE) [2]. However, the thought to have been carved out of bedrock and is approximately 2.5 meters below the actual terrace.
prevailing school of thought is that the Sphinx temple was never fi nished, as the lack of exterior According to Egyptologist Mark Lehner, the Sphinx temple consists of 24 rose granite columns that
granite cladding demonstrates (note: there isn’t any interior cladding either). Nevertheless, this form a colonnade and a walkway around a central courtyard, in contrast to the valley temple’s 16
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