<HTML>I'm risking the wrath of Colin (ducking) to throw the cat amongst the pigeons and posting the reply of Schoch to "Khufu knew the Sphinx" (available on my <a href="[
www.users.directonline.net];, which can be seen in the body of Schoch's reply to "Giza:The Truth".
Mike.
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Another geologist, Colin Reader, has also pursued a meticulous study of weathering and erosion (degradation) features on the body of the Sphinx and in the Sphinx enclosure. This he has combined with a detailed analysis of the ancient hydrology of the Giza Plateau. Although as of this writing, his research has apparently not been formally published in journal or book form, Reader has been circulating his work as an illustrated paper entitled “Khufu Knew the Sphinx” (the copy I received from him is dated July 1998). Like Coxill, Reader points out the problems and weaknesses in the arguments of my opponents. Reader notes (quoted from the summary of his paper; no page number), that there is “a marked increase in the intensity of the degradation [that is, weathering and erosion] towards the west [western end] of the Sphinx enclosure.” Reader continues, “In my opinion, the only mechanism that can fully explain this increase in intensity is the action of rainfall run-off discharging into the Sphinx enclosure from the higher plateau in the north and west . . . However, large quarries worked during the reign of Khufu [a predecessor of Khafre, the “traditional” builder of the Sphinx] and located immediately up-slope, will have prevented any significant run-off reaching the Sphinx.” Thus Reader concludes (page 11 of his paper) that “When considered in terms of the hydrology of the site, the distribution of degradation within the Sphinx enclosure indicates that the excavation of the Sphinx pre-dates Khufu’s early Fourth Dynasty development at Giza.” Interestingly, Reader also concludes that the so-called “Khafre’s” causeway (running from the area of the Sphinx , Sphinx Temple, and Khafre Valley Temple up to the Mortuary Temple on the eastern side of the Khafre pyramid), part of “Khafre’s” Mortuary Temple (which Reader refers to as the “Proto-mortuary temple”), and the Sphinx Temple predate the reign of Khufu.
As I have discussed in my book, VOICES OF THE ROCKS (published in the United States by Harmony/Crown, 1999, and due out in early 2000 in the UK), I have come out strongly in favor of not only an older Sphinx, but also a contemporaneous (thus older) Sphinx Temple (at least the limestone core being older than the Fourth Dynasty). Independently of Reader, John Anthony West and I have also concluded that part of “Khafre’s” Mortuary Temple predates Khafre. Reader has now come to the same conclusion concerning “Khafre’s” Mortuary Temple. I am pleased to see his confirmation.
One should note that Reader clearly accepts the Sphinx Temple as predating Khufu, and if it is correct that the Valley Temple was constructed from limestone blocks that came out of the Sphinx enclosure at a higher level than the blocks that were used to build the Sphinx Temple (as clearly stated by Lawton and Ogilvie-Herald in their book on page 329; I believe they are correct here), then the Valley Temple must also be pre-Khufu (as West and I have hypothesized and advocated all along).
Reader tentatively dates the “excavation of the Sphinx” and the construction of the Sphinx Temple, Proto-Mortuary Temple, and “Khafre’s” causeway to “sometime in the latter half of the Early Dynastic Period [page 11]” (that is, circa 2800 to 2600 B.C. or so) on the basis of “the known use of stone in ancient Egyptian architecture [page 8].” I believe that Reader’s estimated date for the excavation of the earliest portions of the Sphinx is later than the evidence indicates. I would make three general points:
1) In my opinion, the nature and degree of weathering and erosion (degradation) on the Sphinx and in the Sphinx enclosure is much different than what would be expected if the Sphinx had not been carved until 2800 B.C., or even 3000 B.C. Also, mudbrick mastabas on the Saqqara Plateau, dated to circa 2800 B.C., show no evidence of significant rain weathering, indicating just how dry the climate has been for the last 5,000 years. I continue to believe that the erosional features on the Sphinx and in the Sphinx enclosure indicate a much earlier date than 3000 or 2800 B.C. It strains credulity to believe that the amount, type, and degree of precipitation-induced erosion seen in the Sphinx enclosure was produced in only a few centuries.
2) In his July 1998 paper Reader never addresses the seismic work that we pursued around the Sphinx, which is in part the basis I used to calibrate a crude estimate for the age of the earliest excavations in the Sphinx enclosure. In my opinion, the date estimate based on our seismic work is compatible with the type and amount of erosion and weathering seen in the Sphinx enclosure, and also nicely correlates with the known paleoclimatic history of the Giza Plateau.
3) I do not find dating the Sphinx on the basis of “the known use of stone in ancient Egyptian architecture” convincing. I would point out that massive stonework erections were being carried out millennia earlier than circa 2800 B.C. in other parts of the Mediterranean (for instance, at Jericho in Palestine). Even in Egypt, it is now acknowledged that megalithic structures were being erected at Nabta (west of Abu Simbel in Upper Egypt; discussed in the text of my book, VOICES) by the fifth millennium B.C. and the predynastic “Libyan palette” (circa 3100-3000 B.C.), now housed in the Cairo Museum, records fortified cities (which may well have included architectural stonework) along the western edge of the Nile delta at a very early date. I find it quite conceivable that architectural stonework was being pursued at Giza prior to 2800 or 3000 B.C.
Reader suggests that the head of the Sphinx may have originally been a prominent rock outlier that was first carved into some type of head (perhaps initially a lion, Reader suggests - - likewise, J. A. West and I hypothesized that the Sphinx may have originally been a lion in the 1993 video “The Mystery of the Sphinx”) and later recarved. Independently, I have come to similar conclusions relative to the head of the Sphinx once having been a prominent rock outlier, and I have stated so publicly. In my 1992 KMT paper I point out that while Farouk El-Baz’s yardang (natural wind-shaped hill) hypothesis for the Sphinx as a whole is untenable, the head may have originally been a yardang (which would mean that it was some kind of rock outlier), but it is too heavily modified by carving and recarving to know for certain.
As far as I am concerned, Reader is one more geologist who has corroborated my basic observations and conclusions. The oldest portions of the Sphinx date back to a period well before circa 2500 B.C.</HTML>
