A Monument To Who or What?

Among the great mysteries of the ancient world stands the Sphinx, a massive figure that appears to show the body of a lion with the chipped face of a human.

Shadowed by the Great Pyramid of Giza, contemporary historians like to link both structures to the Fourth Dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khafre, who reigned somewhere between 2650 and 2480 B.C.

Based upon the location of the great megaliths, and the fact that there appears to be a burial chamber within the Great Pyramid, Egyptian historians have theorized that King Khafre used slave workers to cut about 2.3 million stone blocks, weighing from three to fifteen tons each, and push them up a long and slanted mile-long ramp before fitting them perfectly in place. But it is estimated that to accomplish such a miraculous feat, the workers would have to set a block every two and a half minutes during the 66 years Khafre lived and reigned.

The accepted historical theory also suggests that the Great Sphinx also was erected by Egyptian craftsmen, to honor Khafra, and its purpose was to appear as a symbol of royal power and guardian of the pyramid.

The sphinx appears to have been carved from a large block of limestone. It stands 66 feet high and 240 feet long. It has suffered extreme erosion over the years and has gone through various restorations. The first known restoration was ordered by Pharaoh Tuthmosis IV in about 1,400 B.C. The face, which was reportedly blown off with dynamite by Napoleon’s army, also has been replaced. Many believe it has no resemblance to the original face.

There is a sense, supported by evidence at the site, that the sphinx is very ancient. Some believe its age exceeds that of the Great Pyramids. French mathematician Schwaller de Lubicz’s book, Sacred Science, notes that the horizontal weathering patterns along the body of the sphinx suggests water damage rather than wind and sandstorm erosion. And this suggests that the area may have been flooded at some distant time in the past.

Geologist Dr. Robert Schoch of Boston University, supported Lubicz’s water damage theory when he examined the sphinx in 1991. Schoch said he believed the erosion was the result of torrential rains that fell on the stone statue. This also is an event that has never been recorded in the known history of the area.

Then in 1993, Egyptian researcher and author Robert Bauval worked with writer Graham Hancock in developing what they called a “time-marker” theory that the Sphinx, which gazes easterly to the horizon, was looking at the lion constellation, which rose at dawn on the day of the spring equinox at that exact place about 10,500 BC. Hancock later expanded this theory in his book, Fingerprints of the Gods.

So what kind of evidence of human occupation have archaeologists and geologists dug up from so long ago? On the record, this was about the end of the last great ice age, there was a retreat of the glaciers, the planet was warming and there were signs of agriculture along the Mediterranean Sea. There appears to have been mass extinctions of many animal and possibly humanoid species just prior to this period.

So what kind of great civilization could have suddenly appeared with the capability of erecting such giant cut stone monuments? This remains the great unsolved question of the ages. And it makes the theories of Zechiria Sitchin, David Icke, Erich von Daniken and others plausible. They argue that Homo sapiens either were aliens who came from other worlds, or were created by DNA intervention by alien visitors.