<HTML>Colin
Thanks for this. I have also been trying to reconcile all these positions outlined in the post above, taken from Michael Layne's notes.
Using Occams' Razor, the position would seem to be best explained in terms of 4th Dynasty restoration work, but clearly this isn't the prevailing view at present :-)
While you're about :-) We've been also trying to establish the weathering on the Sphinx Temple. I'm referring to Lehner's 1994 KMT paper. Was there a two stage build here in your view, with limestone casing stones being placed after initial contruction (weathering being present under them)? Lehner includes the Sphinx Temple as one of three (the other two being the Khafre Valley Temple and the Menkaure Mortuary Temple.
He writes:
"But the style of using such huge core-blocks is nearly exclusive to the Khafre temple, <b>the Sphinx Temple</b> and to the Menkaure Mortuary Temple [...] Even today the simultaneous work on core and casing is clear for any reasonable person to see in the north corridor of the Menkaure Mortuary Temple [...] Can we really doubt that the masons cut back the limestone core to fit the hard granite blocks, as opposed to shaping each granite block to fit the limestone, which is what Schoch suggests for the Khafre Valley Temple?.."
But what of the Sphinx Temple?
It doesn't seem to feature much with either Lehner or Hawass. What is your view on this? Why doesn't it feature? Is it poor evidence?
Is it your view that the Debehen tomb facade shows 'the exact same layers' as those of Member II in the Sphinx ditch? (from Lehner's KMT paper 1994) Was it this evidence that was investigated by the BBC Timewatch show do you know? Is this argument still current, or have these layers been established?
Sorry to ask so many questions - especially if the answers should be readily available, I just can't seem to establish them definitively.
Thank you - and sorry ~lol~
Claire</HTML>
