Was the Sphinx Really Anubis?

Self-styled historian, Robert Temple has released a book that seeks to prove that the Sphinx is in fact the re-carved remains of an earlier statue of Anubis.

The Sphinx’s body is strange. His back is straight, and he has no rising massive chest and mane as a lion must have. It is the body of a dog, and the Sphinx was originally a statue of a crouching dog, image of the god Anubis, who was the guardian of the sacred necropolis. By recognising the Sphinx as Anubis, I have been able to find all the ancient texts and representations from the Old Kingdom period referring to him. There are several representations of the giant Sphinx carved on the walls of tombs of the children of the Pharaoh Cheops at Giza, just at the foot of the Great Pyramid.

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[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/79709be85eae.jpg[/atsimg]

He explains that face and ears of the Egyptian 'Jackal God' were destroyed and that a later Pharaoh had the remains recarved in his own image. The Pharaoh he suggests is that of Amenemhet II, a Middle Kingdom ruler.

It's not the first time people have claimed the Sphinx's head isn't original. The proportions of the head in relation to the body appear to be out of synch, although many AE images show human bodies with smaller animal heads (Horus being one example.)

This image illustrates that the head does appear disproportionate...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/646ea2f1865a.jpg[/atsimg]

In addition, he provides photographic evidence of ancient sluice gate traces to demonstrate that, during the Old Kingdom, the Sphinx as Anubis sat surrounded by a moat filled with water - called Jackal Lake in the ancient Pyramid Texts - where religious ceremonies were held. He, also, provides evidence that the exact size and position of the Sphinx were geometrically determined in relation to the pyramids of Cheops and Chephren and that it was part of a pharaonic resurrection cult.

Source

Thinking out loud, I wonder if Anubis head could have been carved out of that limestone? The erosion that others cite as evidence that it's 12 000ya can also demonstrate how soft the stone is. Others in this section (past threads) have referred to different strata of the limestone having different hardnesses. If we look at the picture above, I wonder if the stone could support such a long overhang? Wouldn't it break under it's own weight?

I'll admit I'm not a big fan of Temple and all his hidden passages, Dogon aliens and whatnot The premise is interesting though.

What do you think BS or new findings?

i dont know; whatever it was it didnt have a pharoah's head i dont think. that must have been recarved.

i heard the arabs used to call it abu al hor - the father of terror? probably either a lion, or maybe anubis (guardian of secrets sort of fits).. or who knows; but the body was a step pyramid type thing wasnt it?

is a bit hard to see how they could have carved a dogs head of that size out of the rock, but it depends how big the original rock was i spose.

there's all the celestial alignments with leo /the lion symbology that ive read about.

but anubis is quite an interesting idea. whatever it was tho, i think it must have looked scary, for the arabs to give it that name (if its true). dont know if anubis is scary enough to deserve that name..

From what I've read it used to be a lion.
Why a lion? To show in what age it was build.

Originally being a statue of Annubis is definately plausable. I think it was Graham Hancock who showed equally plausable evidence to suggest the statue could have originally have been that of a lion.

Unfortunately, since the age of this statue is widely disputed it may well have had many identities throughout its existence. We may never really know.

Isn't the 'lion theory' only based on the fact that a 'lions head' would be of exactly the right proportions to fit the body, based on the surviving features which would govern the size of the head (neck etc)...

I'd say its plausible but by no means solid at all - could be any head really. Anubis would be possible - but with that big outcrop for the snout, wouldn't it just fall off without some kind of rebar inside?

Maybe that's what happened and then they had to stick another head on it? Not being able to lift new stones that high, they then had to work with what was left - hence the stupidly small out of proportion monstrosity?

I always find the head of the spynx odd. The Egyptians were perfectionists to whom proportion etc were well known. I can't see this as being a monument they were especially proud of?

That said, maybe this was something of a failed experiment - like the numerous bent pyramids around Egypt that they managed to screw up...

Maybe they were just working with cowboy builders trying to fleece them. Some things never change...

Star'd Kadinsky


Anubis head wansn't placed on a sphynx lioness body so we would need to determine if this is a jackal body or lioness.
Anubis was more often portrayed animal head with human body or a full jackal with tail dropped backwards down the side of a funerary container, or flat flush, not curling upwards.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/dc2b07b6c2a2.jpg[/atsimg]

The body of the sphynx at the Giza complex doesn't really look to me like the anubis jackal body. And the head is usually back a bit compared to his generated sphynx image.
Carving it out of sandstone that size may have made the dog body more difficult granted .

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/866dbdd3bbb0.jpg[/atsimg]




ANUBIS /SPHYNX BODY TRAITS:
The clincher for me is the giza sphynx has a lioness tail that curls up as it was always portrayed curling up.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/460ec78e359a.jpg[/atsimg]

TRADITION:
Sphynx were on lioness bodies whether human headed like Hatchepsuts sphynx or the rows of ram headed sphynxes at the temple entrance in Thebes, or Falcon head on lioness body etc.

Justification for being at GIZA:
Sphynxs' were temple guardians so they had purpose for being at Giza, but also Anubis was for mummification or guardian of the dead so its correlation to the Giza site could have been related to funerary rights and the tombs there.

So, yes it could be a Jackal, but I'm sticking with a lioness bodied sphynx.





[edit on 16-4-2009 by zazzafrazz]

a reply to: Kandinsky

Thinking out loud, I wonder if Anubis head could have been carved out of that limestone? The erosion that others cite as evidence that it's 12 000ya can also demonstrate how soft the stone is. Others in this section (past threads) have referred to different strata of the limestone having different hardnesses. If we look at the picture above, I wonder if the stone could support such a long overhang? Wouldn't it break under it's own weight?

Not if there was something propping it up, or keeping it in place.



Just found this thread while something else put me onto this theory, it's interesting. I'd argue that even if the Jackal idea is wrong, certainly the original face is something else.

...that, and the giant hole in its head (which was filled in LOL) was obviously serving an important function at some time in history. Most likely, 1-a secret entrance into the caves/tunnels underneath (which was found in obscure books by Temple by eye witness accounts) or 2-as a place of rebar or reinforcing for the overhanging rock, or perhaps both.



Now comes the question of why would the establishment go to such great lengths to cover up a mystery...and to that I say, 'to them, it isn't a mystery.'

a reply to: boncho

See Wikipedia...

In 1931, engineers of the Egyptian government repaired the head of the Sphinx because part of its headdress had fallen off in 1926 due to erosion, which had also cut deeply into its neck.

source

In addition, you can tell it's an early modern repair because of the discoloration and the choice of material.

originally posted by: mortje
From what I've read it used to be a lion.
Why a lion? To show in what age it was build.

Great idea, but Hancock and Bauval both neglected to mention that the precession of the equinox wasn't noticed by anyone until 127BCE
So that requires the builders of the Leo sphinx to travel forward a few thousand years in time, to find out about precession and then go back and finish the statue

a reply to: Kandinsky

Body of a lion? What's wrong with
Simple lions head? The simple answer?

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: Kandinsky

Body of a lion? What's wrong with
Simple lions head? The simple answer?

Not consistent with the iconography of the time (or the times before that.)

a reply to: Byrd

So there is some iconography this sphinx is consistent with Byrd?
I mean the size alone?

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: Byrd

So there is some iconography this sphinx is consistent with Byrd?
I mean the size alone?

Yes. There are other sphinx statues (smaller) of pharaohs. Throughout Egyptian history, one of the images of "Pharaoh triumphant" was the non-winged sphinx (usually trampling enemies or offering things to the gods.) The earliest one I know of is 2nd dynasty, 200 years before Khufu.

The earliest commissioned lions statues associated with pharaohs (and as guardians, not as the pharaoh) I know of are Thutmoses (New Kingdom, 1000 years later.) There are undoubtedly earlier ones but I can't think of any ATM.

a reply to: Byrd

Always dependable Byrd.

....I really doubt that an actual Mokattam III member outcrop of that size was there for an Anubis head at all..

a reply to: Kandinsky

I always figured that the sphinx was Shu. I figure that Tefnut and Shu were actually human beings, flesh and blood.

Tefnut was a fleshy human Queen, or Aset Tefnut. Shu was also a human Pharoah. That's why all imagery of Shu portrays him as a sphinx.

I figure through ancestor worship, they were deified, turned into deities even though once human.

And Khafre was simply a caretaker of the pyramid and sphinx who did repairs and put up a plaque.

That's my guess on the sphinx.

originally posted by: MapMistress
a reply to: Kandinsky

I always figured that the sphinx was Shu. I figure that Tefnut and Shu were actually human beings, flesh and blood.

Tefnut was a fleshy human Queen, or Aset Tefnut. Shu was also a human Pharoah. That's why all imagery of Shu portrays him as a sphinx.

I figure through ancestor worship, they were deified, turned into deities even though once human.

And Khafre was simply a caretaker of the pyramid and sphinx who did repairs and put up a plaque.

That's my guess on the sphinx.

These kind of theories should have died when the carbon dating results came back, but some people didn't get the memo


i.e. Khafre was caretaker of a pyramid which has been scientifically dated to the dynasty he was alive in...
So unless he completely took it apart and put it back together and then ensured that the carbon sample results were deliberately faked to make it look like it was built in the fourth dynasty, by somehow foreseeing a technology that wouldn't exist for another 4500 or so years

You might as well just say "Aliens"...

originally posted by: Marduk
These kind of theories should have died when the carbon dating results came back, but some people didn't get the memo

i.e. Khafre was caretaker of a pyramid which has been scientifically dated to the dynasty he was alive in...
So unless he completely took it apart and put it back together and then ensured that the carbon sample results were deliberately faked to make it look like it was built in the fourth dynasty, by somehow foreseeing a technology that wouldn't exist for another 4500 or so years

You might as well just say "Aliens"...

What have aliens got to do with this? Sounds like psychobabble to me. I don't believe in aliens at all so why did you accuse me of such nonsense?

I was referring to carbon dating. It was carbon dating of the wooden beams for Giza 1, Giza 2, and Giza 3 done by the Southern Methodist University in their Texas lab that dated Giza 2 to roughly 2553 B.C.E. and Giza 3 to 2505 B.C.E. Giza 1's wooden beams are 300 years older though or carbon date to c. 2850 B.C.E.

Being that was the case, if Khufu was Khafre's brother then they had to be caretakers at a later date as it encompasses a 300 year difference between the wooden beams of Giza 1 and Giza 2.

And although there has been carbon dating on the wooden beams in the base construction of each pyramid, there has NEVER NEVER NEVER been a carbon date on Khafre's nor Khufu's stela. Nor will there be as those stela are STONE and you can't carbon date stone.

There's really no way to be certain in Khufu and Khafre etched their stone stelas when the pyramids were made or if they etched their stone stelas 500 years after those pyramids were already standing.

Are you able to provide a "carbon date " of Khufu's stone stela or Khafre's stone stela???

No. Because you can't carbon date stone stelas.

originally posted by: MapMistress
a reply to: Kandinsky

I always figured that the sphinx was Shu.

That's not a particularly workable hypothesis, I'm afraid. Shu's the deity of air and his emblem is the ostrich feather. The only time he's depicted as non-human is when he takes on the role of a defender and then he is simply shown as a lion-headed male deity.

Not the other way around.

Tefnut was a fleshy human Queen, or Aset Tefnut. Shu was also a human Pharoah. That's why all imagery of Shu portrays him as a sphinx.

He is never portrayed as a sphinx. You can see him here, holding Nut separated from Geb. His name is written beside him and he's fully human www.museumofmythology.com...

And Khafre was simply a caretaker of the pyramid and sphinx who did repairs and put up a plaque.

Also unworkable, given the evidence from the cemetery around the pyramids and from other evidence. The tombs of the overseers show that more than a simple "repair" was going on, as does the size of the worker's village, harbor, and documentary evidence like the recent ship's log found in the silted-over harbor there at the pyramid plateau. You don't need 50,000 workers living on the plateau for over 50 years to do a simple repair and carving job and to stack up some walls and put up some temples.

originally posted by: MapMistress


I was referring to carbon dating. It was carbon dating of the wooden beams for Giza 1, Giza 2, and Giza 3 done by the Southern Methodist University in their Texas lab that dated Giza 2 to roughly 2553 B.C.E. and Giza 3 to 2505 B.C.E. Giza 1's wooden beams are 300 years older though or carbon date to c. 2850 B.C.E.

.

I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about, what wooden beams ?