Watchful eyes, thoughtful mind: egyptology

Showing posts with label egyptology. Show all posts

21 Jun 2009

Sunday Spotlight: Mystery of the Sphinx

The documentary on YouTube:

Author and lecturer, John Anthony West delivered a seismic shock to archaeology in the early 1990's when he and Boston University geologist Robert Schoch revealed that the Great Sphinx of Giza, Egypt, showed evidence of rainfall erosion. Such erosion could only mean that the Sphinx was carved during or before the rains that marked the transition of northern Africa from the last Ice Age to the present interglacial epoch, a transition that occurred in the millennia from 10,000 to 5000 BC. The Emmy award-winning documentary produced on this research, Mystery of the Sphinx, was released in 1993 and was a runaway success. I came across the same recently on YouTube and this blog entry is about some completely-radical-for-the-time facts that this documentary put forth and the active research that is still carried out regarding this theory today.

Few of the discoveries and contentions in the said documentary that I found particularly interesting and were very shocking to the archaeological community at the time are,

The Sphinx was built before Egypt became a desert, which would be 9,000 to 10,000 years ago.
All the monuments in Egypt show wind erosion except the Sphinx, the Sphinx enclosure and the temple, all of which show water erosion.
The water erosion is not caused by the floods of the Nile but by constant and intense rainfall.
The weathering is found beneath the granite repairs carried out, in the limestone from which the Sphinx is made. Thus it is not an erosion that has occurred in modern times.
Based on this observation, the 9,000 to 10,000 years old age of Sphinx is confirmed by Palaeoarchaeology.
The whole Sphinx was not carved out at the same time out of the limestone bedrock. The front of the Sphinx's body is older than the back.
Zahi Hawwas and Mark Lehner, both prominent Egyptologists, confidently state that the face of the Sphinx matches well with that of the pharaoh Khafre (the alleged commissioner of the Sphinx). James Romano, Curator of the Egyptian collection, Brooklyn Museum, mentions that statues made by Egyptians showed the features of the person very accurately, including facial defects. However, Detective Frank Domingo of NYPD found that Sphinx did not portray pharaoh Khafre at all. It has, in fact, features of an African person, possibly female.
Objects can be levitated using interfacing sound waves. In the region of interface, there are produced "sound wells" in which objects can be confined. The experiments at the time could only levitate small pebbles. (My note: For levitating huge stone blocks, the wavelength of the sound waves would have to be large and hence, frequency very low, i.e., infrasonic sound. Wikipedia gives some interesting facts about its effect of human behaviour, "Infrasound has been known to cause feelings of awe or fear in humans. Since it is not consciously perceived, it can make people feel vaguely that supernatural events are taking place.")
The face of the Sphinx is not proportional to the rest of the body but much smaller. Since the rest of the body was covered with sand for most of its lifetime, the face could have been carved and re-carved (my note: without any sense of proportion of the rest) over the millennia.
Pharaoh Khafre repaired the Sphinx, which was already ancient and degraded by his time, and did not commission its building.
This theory could also point at existence of Atlantis civilisation, civilisation on Mars and its connection with Earth.

What I also found interesting in this documentary is that there are a few instances where the prominent personalities being interviewed exemplify the typical thinking of archaeologists. And that precisely shows why theories as revolutionary as that of John Anthony West and Dr. Schoch get the kind of unwelcoming response that they get. James Romano, Curator of the Egyptian collection, Brooklyn Museum, says at one point, ".....if we take the alternative view, see what we are stuck with.....". So because we would have to make the effort of rebuilding the whole castle, lets just deny that we stumbled upon its foundations! He goes on to make a statement which epitomises the fundamental on which we base all branches of research today, "Culture evolves in a linear fashion." This is something I personally do not agree with and I'm excited to find that John Anthony West also believes in the "cyclic form" of life.

3 May 2009

Sunday spotlight: John Anthony West

I have written about his most appreciated and very courageous work on re-dating of the Sphinx in the past. But I thought I needed to write a separate blog entry about the person himself.

John Anthony West, a name that became famous (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint) after his daring documentary The mystery of the Sphinx, released in 1993. Collaborating with numerous experts from various branches of science (geologist Robert Schoch, paleoclimatologist John Kutzbach, detective Frank Domingo of NYPD and seismologist Thomas Dobecki, to name a few) he shocked the world with a well-researched and well-supported theory that would make us rewrite and rearrange our history. JAW describes himself as "rogue Egyptologist and a mystic in a sceptics clothing."

Today, after almost 15 years after his first appearance on the archaeological scene, and at age of 75, he remains an active researcher, author and guide. He has embraced the new-age communication modes such as blogging, YouTube broadcasting and having his own website. Through his blog, he promotes and broadcasts his own radio program, PhoenixFire. His YouTube channel (JAWSPHINX99) is not as updated but does give a glimpse of his varied activities. The most updated and informative by far is his website. He gives lectures, writes books, produces videos about the unusual research that he does in Egyptian symbolism. He also take small groups of interested people on guided tours of Egypt! Through his efforts, The Ancient Wisdom Foundation, a not for profit, educational foundation designed to help finance research into the big questions of lost knowledge and ancient civilizations, came into existence. The website also showcases his fellow Egyptologist and scientists who dare to question the established norms and are not afraid to rewrite the history of mankind.

I wish John Anthony West all the best in his journey forward and towards the truth, wherever it might be.

18 Apr 2009

Facial touch-up Egyptian style?

[Image source: USA Today On Deadline blog]

As if the tonnes of make up the models wear for photoshoots are not enough, the pictures are then digitally touched up to make the faces and bodies even more (unrealistically) perfect before they go onto the glossy pages of glam mags or billboards. But, looks like our obsession with perfect looks is not so modern after all. German scientists that used CT scan to study a 3,300 year old bust of queen Nefertiti have found a hidden face beneath the one visible to the observer. The findings are reported in the Radiology journal. They are not sure at this point about why the original face was not left untouched and why some changes were made in the angles of the eyelids, creases around the corners of the mouth and a slight bump on the ridge of the nose.

From the few books I have read about Egypt, Egyptology and archaeology, I seem to remember that Nefertiti was one of the few queens renowned for their looks. So then, was this a case of ancient touch-up sculpting? Was Nefertiti's face "modified" to conform to her reputation? Who knows, but its an interesting food for thought.