Featuring Mark Lehner, Zahi Hawass, Rick Brown, Gunter Dreyer, Richard Redding, Rainer Stadelman, and Fathi Mohamed.

Riddles of the Sphinx primarily features Dr. Mark Lehner, but we also have significant face time with ancient tools specialist Rick Brown and informative snippets with Gunter Dryer, Richard Redding, Rainer Stadelman, and the obligatory sequences with Zahi Hawass.  It was written and produced by Gary Glassman of Providence Pictures for the PBS series NOVA (Original air date—January 19, 2010).

As the title suggests, the program addresses several timeless riddles of the Great Sphinx, namely, who built it, why, and how?

Who Built the Great Sphinx?

The question of who built the Great Sphinx is tackled by Rainer Stadelman, who makes the case for Pharaoh Khufu, and Mark Lehner, who makes a pretty convincing argument for Khufu’s son, Khafre.  Lehner points to the Sphinx’s location on the Giza Plateau.  Granted, it is located between the pyramids of both Khufu and Khafre, but Lehner explains that at the equinox the sun is aligned with the Sphinx, the Sphinx Temple, and Khafre’s Pyramid, which seems to associate these three monuments together.

Rainer Stadelman makes a much simpler, but nonetheless potent, argument:  the face of the Sphinx looks a lot more like Khufu than Khafre.  Incidentally, Em Hotep looks at this question in the article “The Great Sphinx: What We Know, What We Think We Know, What We Will Never Know”.  I have to admit, I didn’t get any further than Drs. Lehner and Stadelman in settling the question of who built the Sphinx, which isn’t too surprising!  But the face does seem to look an awful lot like Khufu.

One possibility the video does not address is that Khafre built the Sphinx, but may have attached his father’s face to it.  Some see this as a bit of a stretch, and Lehner’s geographic argument is pretty tight.  But there are geographic reasons for associating the Great Sphinx with Khufu as well, which are detailed in the Em Hotep article.

Why Was the Great Sphinx Built?

To explore why the Great Sphinx was built, the video first looks at what it represents.  We start with a trip to Abydos with Dr. Gunter Dreyer of the German Archaeological Institute.  Excavations of the tomb of Aha, the second pharaoh of the First Dynasty, revealed that along with human servants, lions were sacrificed and buried with the king.  This shows that even in the earliest days of Egyptian history, lions were associated with the monarch.

The video states that these leonean sacrifices are the first clue to the meaning of the Sphinx’s form.  The lion was a symbol of pharaonic power, but the Great Sphinx was also a god.  The Egyptians often depicted their gods as human/animal hybrids, but typically with human bodies and animal heads.  But the sphinx has the body of a lion, to represent power and ferocity, and the head of a man, to represent intelligence and good judgment.

Riddles of the Sphinx goes on to explain that by the Eighteenth Dynasty, after a thousand years of obscurity and neglect, the Sphinx was back in style.  After being rescued and restored by Pharaoh Thutmose IV the Sphinx becomes associated with the god Horemakhet (the video says Horus Akhet—same god), who is the personification of “Horus on the Horizon.”  The horizon is the gateway to the afterlife, and thus, the Sphinx is the guardian—and gatekeeper—of the afterlife.

Building on Lehner’s theory of who constructed the Sphinx, the video concludes that the reason for its construction was to assure Khafre’s passage into the afterlife.  Just as the sun aligns on the horizon with the Sphinx, its temple, and Khafre’s Pyramid during the equinox, the time of both rebirth and harvest, so the Sphinx as Horus on the Horizon guides the deceased Pharaoh into the hereafter.

But this is where I think the video glosses over some other possibilities.  A thousand years is a long time.  Egypt experienced a lot of development, along with a couple of Dark Ages, in the gulf between the Fourth Dynasty, when the Sphinx was presumably built, and the Eighteenth Dynasty, when it was clearly associated with Horemakhet. I don’t think the video makes a convincing case for the Eighteenth Dynasty interpretation of the Sphinx being a revival of the original beliefs and practices surrounding the Great Sphinx.

The Fourth Dynasty is silent with regard to the Great Sphinx.  There are no textual or graphic representations of what it meant or how it was revered within the Sphinx Temple, the pyramids, or on the Sphinx itself.  What we know comes from the time of Amenhotep IV, and may be more of a contemporary interpretation than an ancient revival. After all, everything Amenhotep IV knew of the Sphinx he learned in a mystical vision.

As with who built the Sphinx, the video does not really settle the question of why it was built either.

How Was the Great Sphinx Built?

The question of how the Great Sphinx was built takes up a generous portion of the video and is some of the most enjoyable viewing.  Operating on the philosophy that experience is the best teacher, the subjects of the video divide into two teams who attempt to reproduce various aspects of the building process. 

On one team we have Egyptologist Dr. Richard Redding of the University of Michigan working with local sculptor and stonemason, Fathi Mohamed.  Team One sets about sculpting a miniature sphinx from the same limestone that was used to construct the head of the original, which happens to also be the hardest layer of the strata from which the Sphinx was carved.  Redding and Mohamed use modern steel hand tools in their project.

On the other team, Mark Lehner joins Rick Brown, a specialist in ancient tools, who reproduces the pounders and copper chisels that would have been used by the original stonecutters.  For their project, Lehner decides to attempt to reproduce a scaled-down model of the Great Sphinx’s missing nose using only the tools employed by the Fourth Dynasty builders.  This idea turned out to be better on the strategic level than on the tactical level.  Implementation had… mixed results.

Right off the bat Mohamed and Redding discover that the hard limestone is bending their steel tools.  As for Lehner and Brown, their copper chisels are faring much more badly.  They find they can only get a few dozen strikes out of each chisel before it is fouled beyond use.  They discover very quickly that the process of reheating and reshaping the chisels back at the forge is at least as labor intensive as the actual stonecutting itself.

One of the unexpected joys of watching Riddles of the Sphinx was how surprisingly musical the hammering and pounding were.  Not the chisels so much, but the sound of the harder stone pounders striking the limestone was actually very resonate and pleasing to the ear.  Striking varying densities of stone would produce different tones, so one can only imagine what a symphony the workers must have produced.  It is something you have to hear to understand, and is one of the several reasons I recommend you check out this video for yourself.

The effects of the limestone on the tools themselves, however, was decidedly less pleasant, and by the end of the video Lehner and Brown are forced to resort to a pneumatic chisel and a circular saw designed to cut stone.  But even using modern power tools they find that the methods for cutting the stone are the same.  Parallel cuts are made in the stone, and then a chisel is used to remove the material between the cuts.

This method of carving away the limestone by making cuts and then chiseling away the material between is actually very similar to how the layers of surrounding strata were cleared from the Sphinx enclosure.  The video explains that the ancient workers started out by cutting a horseshoe-shaped trench around what would become the Sphinx enclosure.  Then parallel lines were cut into the plateau and blocks were cut away from the material between.

In working this way the stonecutters carved through the strata, downward and inward, until a large central block was isolated, from which the Great Sphinx itself was then carved.  The blocks that were removed in the process were carted off for other projects such as temple and pyramid building.  In fact, by matching layers of strata, Lehner seems to have demonstrated that the blocks which make up the Sphinx Temple were quarried from around the Sphinx itself.

Although we may not know who made the Sphinx or why, we have a pretty good idea of how.  And even though Lehner and Brown had to abandon their ancient-style tools, they were able to complete enough work with them to calculate how long the project would have taken.

They counted an average of about 200 strikes with the stone pounders per five minutes, and given a constant supply of replacement chisels, a worker could remove one cubic foot of stone in about 40 hours.  Lehner projects that it thus took about 1 million man-hours to carve the Great Sphinx, or three years for 100 men.  But that is only counting the stonecutters.  There were also the smiths who reworked the spent chisels, the people who gathered fire wood for the forges, the runners carrying tools, etc.  As we shall see in the in-progress Pyramid City series, entire towns emerged around these construction projects.

Redding and Mohamed were also successful in completing their miniature sphinx, but given that Lehner and Brown also ended up resorting to modern tools, I am not really sure of what Redding and Mohamed contributed to the program. 

Riddles Upon Riddles

There are other riddles addressed in the video as well.  For example, Dr. Zahi Hawass addresses another question people often ask about the Sphinx—If it was carved from one massive block, straight out of the living stone of the Giza Plateau, then why are there so many smaller blocks visible?  The answer is simple:  thousands of years of repair work by various cultures.  In addition to the original project by Thutmose IV, the Sphinx has undergone renovations right up to modern days.

Part of the problem in modern times is the pollution and vibrations caused by tourists, traffic, and near-by construction.  But the main destructive force, and one which has been in progress since the Sphinx was first built, is the process of rising ground water forcing residual salt up into the limestone.  The salt then dries and crystallizes, which is literally pushing the grains of limestone apart from within.

The effect is devastating.  In one particularly wince-worthy scene, Mark Lehner pulls a flake of limestone the size of his hand from the surface of the Sphinx and literally crumbles it to dust.  The effect of viewing this is akin to hearing fingernails on a chalkboard, but Lehner gets his point across—the Great Sphinx is in great peril.

(Author’s Rant:  If Albert Zink and Carsten Pusch can drill holes into royal mummies, and Mark Lehner can tear chunks from the Great Sphinx and crush them in his bare hands, then why is Jean-Pierre Houdin not allowed to, in effect, take high tech photographs of the Great Pyramid?  Is someone afraid that Houdin’s work might drill holes in, or crumble to dust, something more personal?  Hmmmm?)  

Riddles of the Sphinx, which I had the privilege of viewing in high definition, is beautifully filmed and edited.  In addition to the above-mentioned musical stones, there are many scenes which make its viewing well worth your time.  In one scene, for instance, we see Zahi Hawass walking down the back of the Sphinx toward its head.  This is an angle of the Sphinx we normally do not see, and it drives home how long and narrow the structure is.  The odd shape of the Sphinx—its long body and disproportionately small head—has spawned its own series of queries and riddles.

I highly encourage you, Gentle Reader, to check out Riddles of the Sphinx for yourself.  I am not convinced with all of the answers it proposes, but sometimes the fun is in not yet knowing.  I tend to enjoy journeys more than arrivals, myself.

Transcripts of the video are available here.

See Also

• The Great Sphinx: What We Know, What We Think We Know, What We Will Never Know

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

Drawing “Stone-cutters finishing the dressing of limestone blocks” Drawn by Faucher-Gudin (Maspero, Gaston. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria. Vol. II, Part A. London: Grolier Society) courtesy of Project Gutenberg.

If we can take physical samples from some of the most important and fragile “artifacts” in all of Egypt—royal mummies—then why can’t we allow Jean Pierre to conduct completely non-invasive work which may unravel one of humankind’s most abiding riddles:  How was the Great Pyramid built?

After receiving a copy of Khufu’s Pyramid Revealed, Jean-Pierre’s follow-up and supplement to his and Bob Brier’s bestselling book, The Secret of the Great Pyramid, Mr. Rose found himself wondering why M. Houdin’s work has hit a snag at the administrative level.  Jean-Pierre’s request to have his internal ramp theory tested and opened to peer review has met with a suspicious amount of bureaucratic leg-dragging.

Mr. Rose correctly points out that all Jean-Pierre is requesting is an opportunity to spend about eighteen hours using infrared thermographic and similar technologies to test his theories.  The equipment would not come into actual physical contact with the pyramid—it wouldn’t need to.

It does seem as if a double standard is being applied in light of the cautious—but admittedly more intrusive—work recently completed on Eighteenth Dynasty royal mummies, including that of Tutankhamun.  “But surely, if we are comfortable with sampling the royal mummies for DNA, it should be possible to structure this research in a way that meets the permit criteria,” Mr. Rose suggests (Source:  Beyond Stone & Bone:  “Time for the Great Pyramid?”). 

Whether it ultimately proves to be correct or not, Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work is rock solid and based on science where he is a proven expert.  In addition to Bob “Mr. Mummy” Brier, Mark Rose adds his voice to Egyptologists of the caliber of Dieter Arnold and Rainer Stadelman in support of allowing Jean-Pierre to put his theories to the test.

Jean-Pierre Houdin signing autographs for Magdy El-Ghandour, Director of Foreign Missions for the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and Taha Abdallah, Dean of Shorouk University (Photo courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin)

The answer to Mr. Rose’s question is a resounding yes:  it is indeed time for the Great Pyramid. 

Dr. Hawass, tear down this wall!

See Also

• Hemienu to Houdin: Building A Great Pyramid – Introduction
• Hemienu to Houdin Part One: How Do You Prefer Your Ramp, Straight or With a Twist?
• Jean-Pierre Houdin’s Work With the Great Pyramid of Khufu Subject of New Documentary

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

Photograph of Jean-Pierre Houdin used by permission.  All rights reserved.

Dr. Bob Brier, co-author with Jean-Pierre Houdin of “The Secret of the Great Pyramid”, will be delivering a free lecture, open to the public, at Poughkeepsie, NY, on January 27, 2010.

Dr. Bob “The Mummy” Brier, one of the top experts on Egyptian mummies in the world, will be speaking on January 27, 2010, at the Vassar Brothers Institute’s 2010 Science in Your Life lecture series.  Dr. Brier will be the first of three lecturers at the event, which will be held in the Our Lady of Lourdes High School Auditorium in Poughkeepsie, NY.  The subject of Dr. Brier’s lecture will be “The Secret of the Great Pyramid,” based on the book of the same name, and admission is free and open to the public.

Having established himself as the top guy on mummies, Dr. Brier has been branching out into Egyptian architecture in recent years.  In his lecture at Poughkeepsie Dr. Brier will be discussing the work of French architect, Jean-Pierre Houdin, whose work we are currently covering in a series here at Em Hotep, Hemienu to Houdin.  According to the source article (Poughkeepsiejournal.com:  “Save the Date for Science Lectures”), Dr. Brier states of M. Houdin’s work:

“After five years [of work], he came out with this radical new theory [about the Great Pyramid] that looks like its right. All the other theories of how it was built, we knew didn’t work; this one seems to work. It’s really a remarkable story. After he visited me in New York and I saw what he had I basically took a year off from the university just to help him. I wrote a book with him called ‘Secret of the Great Pyramid’.”

Dr. Brier has recently returned from a tour of Egypt, and Em Hotep will keep you informed of his lectures here in the States.  With regard to our own series on Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work, Hemienu to Houdin, I apologize for the delay—holidays intervened!  But I am back on track with it and I can absolutely promise that Part 2 will be online before Dr. Brier’s January 27 lecture.  Part 2 will cover the construction of the Great Pyramid up to the fiftieth course, which is where construction of the King’s Chamber begins. 

Topics of Part 2 will include the building materials of the Great Pyramid, the external and internal ramps, construction methods, and how the ramps were built.  Sources for the article will include not only Dr. Brier’s and M. Houdin’s book, but also personal correspondence with Jean-Pierre and a book about the subject that is not yet available in the U.S.  In fact, I have the only copy this side of the Atlantic!  Curious?  More details to come!

Part 3 of Hemienu to Houdin will cover the construction of the King’s Chamber and the remainder of the pyramid.  You will be surprised to see how the pyramid itself was transformed into a machine for the building of the King’s Chamber.  After that we will have a lengthy discussion with M. Houdin with possible hints about what he is working on now.  Stay tuned for details!

Meanwhile, if you haven’t picked it up yet, Dr. Brier’s and M. Houdin’s book, The Secret of the Great Pyramid, is available worldwide in various languages.  Here is a link to the English language paperback version to get you started.  And if you are anywhere near Poughkeepsie, please do yourself a favor and go see Dr. Brier’s lecture.  Jean-Pierre Houdin’s work continues to build momentum—go see for yourself why.

 Copyright by Keith Payne, 2010.  All rights reserved.

Photo “brier_headshot.jpg” courtesy of the C.W. Post Campus, Long Island University.  Graphic “pyramid to king’s chamber.png” courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes, all rights reserved.

According to the AFP newswire, one of the tombs is the largest yet discovered at Saqqara.  As Zahi Hawass put it, “It took me two hours to look around it” (Source: AFP: “Huge tomb found at Egypt’s Saqqara pyramid”).  Although there is no mention of a pyramid in the story, the story’s title probably refers to the pyramid complex of Djoser, which is often considered synonymous with Saqqara, although there are a number of other pyramids at the site.  It is unclear at this point if the tombs are in any way related to Djoser’s step pyramid.

The larger tomb has a primary chamber described as “vast” with alcoves branching off.  One of the alcoves contained pottery and human skeletons, but no human mummies were discovered in the tomb.  There were mummified falcons, however, in another alcove.  Yet another alcove contained a 23-foot-deep well.

All that we know about the second tomb is that it contained pottery.  The looting of both tombs, according to one source (Earth Times:  “2,500-year-old tomb unearthed in Egypt”), occurred sometime in the Fifth Century AD. 

Details are few at this point, there being no posting as of this date at Zahi Hawass’ Official Website, and the discovery was apparently made by Egyptian archaeologists, so the full story will be released on the Supreme Council of Antiquities’ schedule.

Saqqara has been the location of a number of wonderful discoveries in recent years, including a pyramid believed to belong to Queen Sesheshet, mother of Pharaoh Teti, the first king if the Sixth Dynasty, and the Old Kingdom  tombs of the courtiers lya-Maat and Thinh. 

Update

For some pictures check out Discovery News:  “Largest Saqqara Tomb Discovered“.  Also, it would seem that the word “well” above, as in 23-foot-deep well, was a mistranslation.  It is at this point simply a hole, which of course isn’t simple at all, since it doesn’t seem to be a tomb shaft, so what is it?

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2009.  All rights reserved.

The photos “Camels at Saqqara” and “Guards are forbidden” by Keith Payne, copyright 2009, all rights reserved.

But with all the jars now opened, work on KV63 is far from over and the most exciting discoveries are certainly yet to come.

Dr. Schaden had three major goals for the 2009 season:  finish mapping the KV63 complex, open and examine the sixteen jars that remained sealed, and get as far as possible into the process of removing the resin from the coffins (Source: Schaden, Otto J.  “KV63 Season 2009.”  KMT vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 18-29).  On March 17, 2009, Dr. Schaden announced that the mapping had been completed.  With the opening of the remaining jars, that leaves the coffins.

Of course, treatment and analysis of the coffins is just one part, albeit a major one, of the work ahead.  We still have no idea of what purpose KV63 originally served.  It was probably intended to be a tomb, but for who?  It appears to be constructed in a style consistent with Eighteenth Dynasty tombs.  Was it temporary storage for the mummy of someone we may have heard of? The removal of the resin from the coffins could reveal clues as to who they were made for, which may tell us something about KV63.

The journal entry states that in addition to the work on the coffins, Dr. Schaden’s team will begin more specialized studies of some of the other artifacts in early 2010.  There is also a section on the symposium held to mark the opening of the Carter House back in November, and some additional projections about 2010.    You can read Dr. Schaden’s journal and follow the team’s progress at the official KV-63 website.

There is an article in the works for Em Hotep! which will serve as a reference point for future discoveries, stories, and announcements about KV63.  The reference article will begin with Dr. Schaden’s serendipitous discovery and will bring the reader up to the current season.  If you have been following the story of KV63 as it unfolded, then the coming reference article may not have much news for you, but if you don’t know KV63 from R2D2, then expect a full account here in early January!

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2009.  All rights reserved.

The documentary is in French, but there are numerous segments with Jean-Pierre and Bob Brier that are in English, and the 3D animations, of which there are many, are just fantastic.  A good bit of Khéops Révélé can be viewed at this link to France 5.  I am not certain if it is the documentary in full, but there is plenty there worth viewing.  In addition to Khéops Révélé there are interactive 3D animations, driven by Dassault Systemes, with English versions.  But even the French segments of the documentary are so well produced that you will have very little trouble following the story.

As support for Houdin’s work continues to gain momentum it is hoped that pressure will continue to build for allowing him to put his theories to the test.  Thus far Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities has resisted proposals for even the least invasive forms of analysis, such as infrared thermography.  General Secretary Zahi Hawass’ opinion has vacillated from open-minded support to dismissive.  Increased media attention, support from the professional community, and growing public attention will hopefully force an endgame to what is looking more and more like a case of suppression of a well-founded but contrary theory. 

The next installment of Hemienu to Houdin, Em Hotep!’s exclusive in-depth series exploring Jean-Pierre’s work, is nearing the rough-draft stage.  In Part Two we will be looking in detail at the internal ramp theory and Jean-Pierre’s solution to the perplexing problem of navigating those 2.5 ton blocks, on sleds, around sharp right angle turns.  Here is a hint:  Herodotus had part of the story.  Keep checking back with Em Hotep! for the rest!

Related Stories:

Hemienu to Houdin: Building A Great Pyramid – Introduction

Hemienu to Houdin Part One: How Do You Prefer Your Ramp, Straight or With a Twist?

New Theory on the Great Pyramid

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2009.  All rights reserved.

Graphic of the internal ramp inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu courtesy of Dassault Systemes.

It would seem we have found the infamous Curse of King Tut, and it is us…

The Supreme Council of Antiquities has entered into a partnership with the Getty Conservation Institute to implement some much-needed restoration and preservation work on the tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62).  According to an Associated Press article, King Tut’s tomb set for 5 year renovation project, the venture was prompted by brown moisture spots on the walls, damage which has been exacerbated by the humidity from the thousands of visitors that crowd into the rather confined space every month.

Humidity from visitors threatens to ruin the painted walls of King Tut’s tomb (Photo by Hajor)

The Getty Conservation Institute has a long history of collaborating with the SCA in the preservation of everything from tombs to the mummies they contain.  According to an article by France 24, King Tut’s tomb to get a facelift, the paintings which adorn the tomb’s walls will receive special attention.  “I am happy that Getty will look at the tomb and preserve its beautiful scenes,” stated Dr. Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of the SCA (Source).

Dr. Hawass has made site preservation and conservation a priority and his recent appointment as Vice Minister of Culture will only help further that goal.  Dr. Hawass has announced he also intends to continue his post at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, which he had previously planned to vacate in accordance with Egyptian law.  His term was set to expire in the spring of 2010.

As an aside, the AP article cites the 2005 CT scan done of Tutankhamun’s mummy, stating “The results ruled out that Tut was violently murdered — but stopped short of definitively concluding how he died around 1323 B.C.” (Source).  Dr. Hawass promised an audience at Butler University’s Clowes Hall on August 7, 2009, that the exact cause of Tut’s death would be revealed “in one month.”

Amateur and professional Egyptologists alike patiently await further news.

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2009.  All rights reserved.

Photographs “Egypt.KV62.01.jpg” by Hajor, and “Tomb of Tutankhamun sign.jpg” by Joshdboz are provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons  and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of those files under the conditions that you appropriately attribute them, and that you distribute them only under a license identical to this one. Official license 

 

We will also look at how the Great Sphinx’s significance in both religion and politics has changed over the many centuries of its known lifetime. From the ancient days of early Egypt, when little is really said about the Sphinx and its existence seems to be taken for granted, to the height of Egyptian culture, when the Sphinx was synonymous with the great solar deities and had the power to legitimize a king’s reign, the more we learn about the Sphinx, the more we know about Egypt.

What is an Egyptian Sphinx?

Most of the sphinxes in Egypt are statues with the body of a lion and the head of a royal person, such as a pharaoh or a queen. There are several levels to this symbolism. Most obvious is the combination of the power and ferocity of the lion combined with the intelligence and judgment of a human. On a deeper level, the lion is a cross-cultural symbol of royalty and is associated with the sun, which in its many forms, is the primary deity throughout most of ancient Egypt’s history. So the royal sphinxes of Egypt may be thought of as a symbol of the power and wisdom of the king, as well as his association with the eternal life-giving sun.

When most people think of a sphinx, they tend to envision the Great Sphinx of Giza, and not without good reason. The Great Sphinx is second only to the pyramids as a symbol of Egypt, and is among the largest, oldest, and most impressive monuments ever created. But sphinxes were fairly common in ancient Egypt, and a number of very remarkable examples have been recovered by archaeologists. They are usually associated with a particular temple or tomb where they stood as guardians.

The Sphinx of Queen Hatshepsut (Photo by Keith Payne)

The Greek Sphinx, Sphiggein (Photo by Rosemanios)

The word sphinx has two possible derivations. It is commonly thought of as having its roots in the Greek word sphiggein, which means “to draw tight,” and is often translated as “the strangler.” This name originally applied to a creature from Greek mythology, a winged lion with the head of a woman who set upon visitors to the ancient city of Thebes. Before gaining access to the city the unfortunate traveler had to answer a riddle, and if they failed, they were strangled to death.

More recently it has been speculated that the word sphinx is a mistranslation of an ancient Egyptian phrase. Susan Wise Bauer has suggested in The History of the Ancient World that the original may have been shesep ankh, which means “living image.”

A British Egyptologist and linguist named Alan Gardiner took this a step further with shesep ankh Atum, which means “the living image of [the sun god] Atum.” In Word and Image in Ancient Egypt , Sergei Ignatov points out that the word shesep specifically refers to a type of statuary “in which [the] spiritual essence of a human or deity is instilled.” Thus, a sphinx is a statue constructed to receive the essence of the person or being it represents.

The sphinx is thought to be an invention of the Fourth Dynasty, a period of ancient Egyptian history characterized by social stability, religious sophistication, and centralized political power. Many of Egypt’s greatest monuments were constructed during this period, including all three of the Giza Pyramids and, according to conventional Egyptology, the Great Sphinx itself.

The head from King Djedefre’s Sphinx (Photo by Neithsabes)

Of the two earliest sphinxes recovered so far, there is some disagreement as to which may be the oldest. According to many, the sphinx of Djedefre is the oldest known sphinx. Djedefre was one of Khufu’s sons who ruled Egypt for a few years prior to his more well-known brother, Khafre. However, some think that the sphinx of Queen Hetepheres II may predate that of Djedefre.

The Sphinx of Queen Hetepheres II (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

Hetepheres II was a daughter of Khufu who married her brother, Djedefre, so it is very likely that their sphinxes were created within a few years of each other.

Arguing for Hetepheres II’s sphinx being first is the fact that before being married to Djedefre she was married to Kawab, the original heir to Khufu who died before assuming the throne. Thus, as the future queen her sphinx may have been constructed prior to Djedefre, who was not originally in line for the throne. Without a contemporary account detailing when each sphinx was made it is unlikely this question will ever be resolved.

Sphinxes are a particularly common sight around the temple complexes of Luxor and Karnak. More than 2,000 sphinxes bearing the head of the Thirtieth Dynasty King Nekhtnebef I originally lined the causeway connecting the Luxor and Karnak complexes, many of which still remain. Although most sphinxes have human heads, this is not always the case. The approach to the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak is lined on each side with 20 ram-headed sphinxes erected by the Nineteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Ramesses II.

The Approach to the Great Temple of Amun located at Karnak, with its row of criosphinxes (Photo by Keith Payne)

Also called criosphinxes, these ram-headed sentinels guard the way to the First Pylon of Karnak, which marks the entrance to the Great Temple of Amun. An additional 52 criosphinxes are located in the courtyard within, with 19 situated along the northern colonnade and 33 along the south. A symbol of the god whose temple they protect, each ram-headed sphinx holds a statue of Ramesses II in Osiris form between their paws.

One of Karnak’s ram-headed criosphinxes, Ramesses II in Osiris form held protectively between his paws (Photo by Keith Payne)

Sphinxes were made of a variety of materials, most often limestone or granite, but other materials were used as well. A sphinx thought to depict Ptolemy XII, the father of famed Cleopatra VII, is made of diorite, a common material for royal statuary. The colossal sphinx that once guarded the Temple of Ptah at Mit Rahina was carved from a single 90-ton piece of alabaster.

The Alabaster Sphinx, guardian of the Temple of Ptah at Mit Rahina (Photo by Keith Payne)

At an impressive 26 feet long and 13 feet high, the Alabaster Sphinx is indeed quite large, but is a distant second to the largest sphinx in Egypt.

The Great Sphinx of Giza

The Great Sphinx of Giza is the oldest sculpted monument known, and at 240 feet long and 66 feet high it is certainly one of the largest. It is believed to date from between 2589 to 2532 BC, having been created sometime during the reigns of Khufu, Djedefre, or Khafre, although there are arguments for an earlier date. While most Egyptologists believe the Great Sphinx is strictly a creation of the early Fourth Dynasty, there are persistent and not altogether unreasonable theories that it may predate the pyramids, and may have even been why Khufu built his pyramid at Giza.

The Great Sphinx of Giza crouches behind the ruins of the Old Kingdom Sphinx Temple and before the Pyramid of Khafre (Photo by Keith Payne)

Located near Khafre’s valley temple, the Great Sphinx was sculpted from a limestone monolith that was first defined by a horseshoe-shaped trench that formed the borders of the Sphinx enclosure. Although the enclosure seems to have been planned around the monolith that was carved into the Sphinx, it also seems to be a byproduct of the quarrying which produced some of the surrounding temples and which contributed to the pyramids themselves. This is offered as an argument against an earlier dating of the Sphinx.

Over thousands of years the Great Sphinx has suffered indignities from man and nature alike. There is evidence that at some point the Sphinx’s head was used for target practice. The notorious air pollution of modern Cairo likewise exacts a constant toll. But the most damage has been caused by the corrosive effects of wind and water. The combination of groundwater and torrential rains, along with windborne sand and grit, have eroded the Sphinx and worn deep scars into its surface. Ironically, the accumulation of the very sand that has blasted away at the Sphinx may also be responsible for its protection.

The Great Sphinx, circa 1880 (‘Le Sphinx Armachis, Caire’ by Henri Bechard, courtesy of the National Media Museum)

Because the Sphinx enclosure forms a trough that is considerably lower than the surface of the plateau, sand tends to accumulate pretty easily around the Sphinx. The Sphinx has been buried and restored numerous times throughout history, with the most famous restoration having been that of Pharaoh Thutmose IV, who we will discuss in more detail below. The most recent major restoration was conducted by the French engineer Emile Baraize between 1925 and 1936, although restoration and conservation efforts continue to this day. The Great Sphinx is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which helps fund its maintenance. The most imminent modern peril is the rising of the water tables, a problem that is threatening structures all over Egypt.

Why Does the Head Look So Odd?

Many questions and speculations, ranging from far-flung to undeniably valid, involve the Sphinx’s head. Even in the company of other human-headed lions, there is just something out of place about the head of the Great Sphinx. It just doesn’t seem to really belong to the body on which it rests!

The most obvious difference is its condition. The head of the Sphinx, bullet wounds and missing nose aside, is clearly in much better shape than the rest of its body. While the face and the headdress are smooth, the rest of the body is worn down to the point where the varying levels of strata are clearly visible, with channels of erosion making much of the body look like a natural mesa.

The head of the Great Sphinx, which is carved from a harder layer of limestone than the body, shows much less erosion, but is that the only reason for its smoother appearance? (Photo by Keith Payne)

Part of this can be explained by the nature of the limestone itself. The limestone where the Sphinx is located grows softer and more porous the deeper you dig, with the head having been formed from the hard top layer that was used for exterior casing stones in the surrounding monuments. The body is cut from the lower quality layers making it more vulnerable to the elements. This is one explanation for the head being in better condition than the body, but there are other questions as well.

Shown from profile, the Sphinx’s head appears disproportionately tiny compared to the rest of its body (Photo by Keith Payne)

Another inconsistency between the head and the body is the size. The Sphinx’s head is proportionately much smaller than the rest of its body, which prior to erosion would have been even larger than it is now. A number of explanations for the unusually small head have been offered. One idea is that the builders ran out of usable stone and had to shape the head smaller than originally planned. This doesn’t seem to make sense, as the quality of the stone would have been apparent before the rest of the body was shaped. Why didn’t they scale the body down to match the head?

According to another theory, the Sphinx’s head seems disproportionately small in profile because it was actually intended to be viewed from the front. The smaller size is intended to produce a dramatic effect when properly viewed. By creating a tapered appearance from the front, the small head makes the Great Sphinx appear larger and more imposing when viewed from that perspective. But there are a couple of problems with this explanation as well.

First, when viewed from a distance this effect is lost. To get the tapering effect one has to be standing close enough to the Sphinx to be looking up, and both the head and the body must be visible. However, the body of the Sphinx is largely obscured from this perspective by the Temple of the Sphinx, which is located in front of the Sphinx itself. While the tapering effect can be somewhat observed from the temple that lies to the northeast, and certainly from the chapel that was built between its paws, both of these structures date from the Eighteenth Dynasty, more than a thousand years after the head is believed to have been sculpted.

The Great Sphinx as viewed from the ruins of the Old Kingdom Sphinx Temple (Photo by Keith Payne)

The second problem with this theory is that there are legitimate questions about whether the Great Sphinx was intended to be viewed from the front or the side. This is no trivial question, and is tied to who the face on the Sphinx was intended to represent. We will be discussing this in detail later in the article. But if it does so happen that the Sphinx was intended to be viewed in profile rather than from the front, then this brings us back to the question of why it is so small, which in turn brings us back to the question of its age.

One of the more controversial explanations for the small head posits that its current shape is not the original, and that the monument predates the Fourth Dynasty. According to this theory, the original head may have been simply the head of a lion, which would have been proportionate to the rest of the body, and that the human head is the result of modifications dating from the Fourth Dynasty. A more recent date for the current shape of the head may also help explain its finer condition than the rest of the body. These alterations may have been the result of a pharaoh, most likely Khufu or Khafre, usurping the colossal lion for their own purposes.

Alternately, the change may have been the result of a genuine effort to restore an earlier monument where the head had been damaged to the point where it was already out of proportion to the body. Rather than attempt to recreate a lion’s head, which would have been carved even smaller than the current human head in order to shape the snout, perhaps a decision was made to turn the lion into a royal sphinx. As we saw in the first section, the sphinx was already a statuary form in the Fourth Dynasty.

To piece together possible answers to these dilemmas we first have to formulate a reasonable theory about who the face represents, and that requires a better understanding of the lay of the land. To see the Great Sphinx in context we need an idea of what structures surround it, when they were built, and by whom.

The Great Sphinx Complex

Although we often think of the structures of the Giza Plateau in terms of individual monuments, temples, and tombs, it would be more accurate to think of the entire region from Saqqara in the south to the Giza Plateau in the north as one large necropolis made up of distinct but integrated complexes. Pyramids, for example, are but the centerpiece of mortuary complexes consisting of temples, monuments, family cemeteries, sometimes complete microcosmic models of the entire kingdom, all within an enclosure wall. Pyramid and tomb complexes combine to represent dynasties, and some areas serve to connect entire periods of Egypt’s long history.

The complex of the Great Sphinx is laid out in such a way that allows us to see how the Sphinx was viewed in the context of different epochs. Some of these periods are better understood than others due to more complete records and more easily interpreted archaeological discoveries. The role of the Great Sphinx as a god during the New Kingdom Period, for example, is well attested to. Less obvious is what the Sphinx represented to the Old Kingdom, where we have what was apparently a major temple dedicated to its service, but not a single tomb attributed to one of its priests.

The Old Kingdom Temple

The Old Kingdom Temple is situated directly in front of the Great Sphinx, although there is no direct passage leading from the temple to the Sphinx. The core of the Sphinx Temple was constructed of the same porous limestone as the body of the Sphinx and bears the same signs of erosion, which seems to indicate that they were both constructed at around the same time. The inside of the temple was originally lined with superior Tura limestone and pink granite imported from Aswan. The floor was paved with fine alabaster, and the temple’s overall construction closely resembles that of the valley and mortuary temples of Khafre.

The outside of the temple was partially faced with granite and it appears that it was originally intended to be entirely covered, leading to speculation that it may have never been completed, or possibly never even used. This, while a mystery by its own right, would at least explain why no priests’ tombs have been located, and why no Old Kingdom records of the temple’s use have been found. Most of its internal granite and finer limestone were stripped away long ago, exposing the soft core to erosion. There are no surviving inscriptions, if there ever were any.

The eastern wall of the Old Kingdom Temple of the Sphinx, which lies just to the east of the Sphinx itself (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

The Old Kingdom Sphinx Temple was built with a north-south orientation with two entrances—each with its own chapel—on the eastern face. The entrances and their chapels may have represented Upper and Lower Egypt. The temple proper, which has east, west, and central sanctuaries, is thought to have been associated with the sun god as he made his daily transition. In the morning the Sphinx and his temple would face Khepri, the rising sun. At noon they would be under Re at his zenith. In the evening the Sphinx in its enclosure and the temple before it would lie in the shadows cast by Atum at his setting.

The Solar Temples of Re built by the kings of the Fifth Dynasty appear to have been modeled after the Sphinx Temple. There was a center court that was open to the sky, and the face of the Sphinx was visible to devotees. The court was ringed with rectangular columns, and there are indentations in the floor before these columns that suggest statuary would have once lined the court. Covered sanctuaries are located in the east and west sections of the temple, within their own colonnades.

Indentations in the alabaster floor of the Sphinx Temple where cult statues would have once stood (Photo by Daniel Mayer)

The similarities between the Old Kingdom Sphinx Temple and Khafre’s adjacent valley temple cannot be denied. The core masonry of Khafre’s valley temple appears to be made of the same limestone as the Sphinx Temple and the body of the Sphinx itself. Like the Sphinx Temple, the valley temple was dressed with higher quality limestone and pink Aswan granite, and has similar rectangular pillars unadorned with inscriptions. The floors of both temples were paved with alabaster and even posses the same square indentations for cult statues. (For more read Khafre’s Valley Temple.)

A good case is made for Khafre being the pharaoh who had the Great Sphinx and its Old Kingdom Temple constructed. But there are other contenders, and before we can fully consider all the evidence we need to leap forward a millennium to the next major phase of construction—and reconstruction—in the complex of the Great Sphinx.

The Dream of Thutmose IV

The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt is full of intrigue, high drama, and famous pharaohs. Hatshepsut, Akhenaton, Tutankhamun.. Their stories have filled books and made careers. Amidst these larger than life personalities we have Thutmose IV, a pharaoh who was probably not intended to be king, but who wrote his own romance and crafted his story with the skill of a Hollywood promoter.

Thutmose IV (Photo by Siren)

Once upon a time, as the story goes, a young prince named Thutmose IV, son of Amenhotep II, was hunting on the Giza Plateau. Finding himself tired and in need of a nap, the prince sought shelter in the shade of the head of the Great Sphinx, which had become buried up to its neck in the drifting sand. As he dozed, the sun god Horemakhet came to Thutmose and promised him that if he would clear away the accumulated sand and restore the Sphinx to his former glory, then he would become the next pharaoh. This was good news indeed for, while he may have been a royal prince, Thutmose was not next in line to become king.

A reproduction of the Dream Stela of Thutmose IV, the original remains in the votive chapel between the Great Sphinx’s paws (Photo by Capt. Mondo)

Thutmose IV did his part by clearing out the Sphinx enclosure and making various repairs and restorations, including a small open chapel between the Great Sphinx’s paws, and a large memorial stela that detailed the dream and the pact formed between the prince and Horemakhet. For his part, Horemakhet kept his promise and Thutmose IV became the next pharaoh after Amenhotep II.  

The Great Sphinx as Horemakhet, Validator of Thutmose IV

By the Eighteenth Dynasty the Great Sphinx had become associated with the sun god Horemakhet, which means “Horus in the horizon.” At least as early as the time of Thutmose I the area around the Sphinx was a hive of activity. Royalty and commoners alike made pilgrimages from all over Egypt to pay homage at the pyramid complexes of Khufu and Khafre and to make offerings to Horemakhet.

In the first year of his reign Amenhotep II constructed a temple dedicated to Horemakhet just to the north of the Old Kingdom temple on a small bluff overlooking the Sphinx enclosure. Although this was the primary New Kingdom temple dedicated to the Great Sphinx as Horemakhet, Amenhotep II built numerous terraces, chapels, and related facilities around the Sphinx dedicated to the sun god as well as the cults of royal ancestors. It might be fair to say that Thutmose IV’s clearing of the enclosure and restoration work on the Sphinx was an extension and continuation of the building projects already instituted by his father.

The Great Sphinx as viewed from behind the New Kingdom Temple of Horemakhet built by Amenhotep II during the Eighteenth Dynasty (Photo by Francesco Gasparetti)

When viewed in the context of his political circumstances, Thutmose IV’s civic improvements, and indeed, the story on the Dream Stela itself, seem to have more to do with propaganda than piety. Thutmose was not the heir apparent, and the destruction of memorial stelae erected by his brothers in their father’s Sphinx temple suggests his ascension was not without conflict. Evoking not only the blessing of Horemakhet, but a prophetic covenant with the sun god of the Sphinx would have helped legitimize his reign in the eyes of the people.

Thutmose IV’s construction program may have served as a grand diversion from the political turmoil associated with his ascension to the throne. But whatever the Dream Stela may or may not tell us of Thutmose IV’s rise to power, it is thought by some to contain a clue as to who built the Great Sphinx.

Who Built the Sphinx?

Egyptologists traditionally attribute the construction of the Great Sphinx to Pharaoh Khafre. Along with the above cited similarities between the Old Kingdom Sphinx Temple and the valley temple of Khafre, the Sphinx’s location in relation to Khafre’s pyramid complex is taken by some to suggest the Sphinx was intended to be a part of that complex. The valley temple and the Sphinx Temple are parallel to each other, with Khafre’s causeway angling past the Sphinx to his mortuary temple. The Great Sphinx’s location in front of Khafre’s Pyramid as it rises from the high point of the plateau certainly seems to have been planned for maximum effect.

The Dream Stela is considered significant to this question because part of Khafre’s name seems to be written on it, although the section is damaged, so we can’t be 100% certain. And even if it is Khafre’s name, it does not appear in a context that suggests the Sphinx’s construction is being attributed to him. It would seem that the evidence of the Dream Stela is inconclusive at best.

In addition, another tablet called the Amenhotep II Stela has been recovered from the Sphinx enclosure that dates from the same time, but lists both Khafre and Khufu, also without attributing the Sphinx to either of them. This raises the question of whether Khufu’s name may also have originally appeared on the Dream Stela in the section near Khafre’s name that has been damaged. Having these kings mentioned on a couple of stelae so clearly associated with the Sphinx without attributing the Sphinx’s construction to either of them seems odd, as if its existence during their time was a given.

Yet another argument in support of the Sphinx having been built by Khafre comes from Dr. Zahi Hawass. Hawass suggests that a drainage ditch leading from Khafre’s causeway empties into the Sphinx enclosure, something the builders would never have done if the Sphinx had already been there. Thus, the Sphinx must have been built after the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre.

But geologist Colin Reader has pointed out that the proposed drainage ditch does not actually extend all the way to the enclosure, falling some 35 meters short, and excavations have failed to indicate any evidence that the ditch ever extended beyond that point (source: Khufu Knew the Sphinx). Reader proposes that the “ditch” may actually be a boundary marker, citing more likely catchment areas for water runoff.

Rainer Stadelman, formerly of the German Archaeological Institute, has offered several reasons for thinking the Great Sphinx predates Khafre. One observation he made is that the earliest New Kingdom depictions of the Sphinx seem to associate it with Khufu’s Pyramid rather than Khafre’s. Stadelman also points to the fact that the Sphinx enclosure was quarried by Khufu’s builders as well as Khafre’s. Why would they have left the limestone outcropping from which the Sphinx is carved for Khafre to develop rather than either excavating it for building materials or creating the Sphinx themselves? Bear in mind that the section of hard limestone from the top layer that was left in place for the head suggests that a monolithic sculpture was planned from the very beginning of quarrying in the area.

The front-on view from the east, seems to associate the Sphinx with Khafre’s Pyramid complex (Photo by Keith Payne)

And let us now return the question of which angle is the Great Sphinx to be viewed from. As mentioned before, if viewed from the front (the east) then the Pyramid of Khafre does indeed frame the Sphinx in a most impressive manner. But Egyptian art, from hieroglyphics to frescos, depicts its subjects in profile. When the Great Sphinx is approached from the south, the direction of the ancient city of Memphis rather than from the much later city of Cairo, it appears in profile with Khufu’s Pyramid behind it. The presence of the Sphinx’s tail on the south side further seems to indicate that its builder intended it to be viewed from that perspective.

The profile view from the south, which shows the most detail, including the tail, seems to associate the Sphinx with Khufu’s Pyramid complex (Photo by Hedwig Storch)

This also brings us full circle to the question of the Sphinx’s smallish head, made all the more conspicuous when viewed in profile. Is it possible that the Great Sphinx was indeed originally a regal lion, a solar god from the Early Dynastic Period, possibly the First or Second Dynasty? Rather than having been constructed by Khafre or Khufu, perhaps its presence was the reason Khufu broke with tradition and built his pyramid at Giza rather than the southern part of the necropolis. And perhaps his desire for his pyramid to appear behind the Sphinx in profile may have led to his decision to build his pyramid where he did, rather than the higher, seemingly more ideal location used later by his son, Khafre.

So whose face appears on the Great Sphinx, and why did it replace the original head? The reason is uncertain and may have been, as suggested previously, due to damage rendered to the head that made restoring it as a lion impossible without throwing it even more out of proportion. But it has been suggested by some (and rejected by others) that the broad, flat face and the square chin seem to favor Khufu more than Khafre.

The Great Sphinx’s Beard – An Eighteenth Dynasty addition, or an Old Kingdom artifact that was updated (Photo by Jon Bodsworth)

It has also been pointed out that, unlike both the Sphinx and Khufu, Khafre was always depicted with a beard. A beard for the Great Sphinx has been discovered, but its style is more indicative of the Eighteenth Dynasty, leading some to believe that it is an attachable beard created for the Sphinx sometime around the reign of Thutmose IV. However, Dr. Zahi Hawass and Dr. Mark Lehner have found evidence suggesting the beard comes from the same layer of strata as the head, and that rather than having been created in the Eighteenth Dynasty, it was coifed (re-sculpted) to match the prevailing style. But then again, the bearded statues of Khafre all have the beard attached solidly from the chin to the neck, whereas the Sphinx’s beard appears to be detachable. Etc!

These arguments could be hashed and rehashed until we wear a hole in the floor as deep as the Sphinx enclosure. The simple truth is we do not know, and will likely never know, who built the Sphinx, when it was built, what it originally may or may not have looked like, and whose face now adorns it, sans a nose. But we will never stop trying to figure it out, nor should we.

Modern Conservation Efforts

Rising water tables is a problem that is popping up all over Egypt, and the appearance of pools of standing water around the Old Kingdom Sphinx Temple and southeast of the Sphinx enclosure made it obvious that radical measures were called for. In 2008 Cairo University’s Engineering Center for Archaeology and Environment drilled four holes beneath the Sphinx that enabled them to lower cameras and other equipment into Giza’s subterranean world.

They discovered that the ground water had risen to just over fifty feet above sea level. The decision was made to place eight pumping stations around the Sphinx complex, which remove about 7,000 cubic meters of water every day. The pools of water have mostly disappeared, and Cairo University, the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and geologists, Egyptologists, and scientists of all walks continue to search for a more permanent solution than pumping out the ground water as it seeps in.

The Great Sphinx and its related complex continue to draw thousands of visitors every day from all corners of the Earth. It is one of the world’s perennial sources of ancient information, mystical inspiration, and curious speculation. Like many of Egypt’s treasures, its ability to tease with occasional revelations while still maintaining a storehouse of unanswered mysteries is what holds our attention century after century.

The Great Sphinx will always withhold some of his secrets for himself (Photo by Keith Payne)

See Also

• Riddles of the Sphinx:  Video Review 

Additional Online Resources

Egyptian Monuments

The Sphinx, by Su Bayfield

Talking Pyramids

Riddle of the Sphinx, by Vincent Brown

Photo of the Week – Sphinx, by Vincent Brown

Tour Egypt

The Great Sphinx of Giza- an Introduction, by Allen Wilson

The Old and New Kingdom Sphinx Temples at Giza, by Allen Wilson

Heritage Key

Drilling Under the Sphinx: A Heritage Key Video About Keeping Your Paws Dry, by Keith Payne

Zahi Hawass’ Blog

Sphinx Scientific Update Report, by Zahi Hawass

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2009. All rights reserved.

Photographs “Sphinx MET 11.185.jpg,” by Rosemanios, “Louvre 032007 19” by Neithsabes (Sebi), “Le Sphinx Armachis, Caire” from National Media Museum, “Giza_Plateau_-_Great_Sphinx_temple-_area_where_ statues_used_to_be” by Daniel Mayer, “ThoutmôsisIVLouvre” by Siren, “ReproductionOfDreamSteleOfThutmoseIV RosicrucianEgyptianMuseum” by Capt. Mondo, “Giza sfinge e piramidi” by Francesco Gasparetti, courtesy of Gaspa, “Great Sphinx of Giza 0912” by Hedwig Storch are provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of those files under the conditions that you appropriately attribute them, and that you distribute them only under a license identical to this one. Official license Photographs “07_sphinx_front,” “Beard_of_the_sphinx,” and “Sphinx of Hetepheres II – fourth dynasty of Egypt” are provided courtesy of Jon Bodsworth.

But a French architect by the name of Jean-Pierre Houdin may be changing that.  He has put forth the first comprehensive explanation of how the Great Pyramid was built that stands the tests of physics and common sense, and his work continues to gain support from prominent architects, engineers, and Egyptologists. 

Jean-Pierre has kindly agreed to work with Em Hotep! to put his theory into terms that are accessible to those of us who may not be professional architects or engineers, but who may be amateur and professional Egyptologists of varying degrees.  In Part One we take a close look at the evolution of ramp theories, how they work and fail to work, and what was involved with building the only remaining Wonder of the Ancient World.

Hemienu—the architect and builder of the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Photo by Einsamer Schütze)

In the Introduction to Hemienu to Houdin:  Building a Great Pyramid we met the primary characters of our story.  Hemienu, who was vizier and Master of Works for Pharaoh Khufu, and who designed, planned, and built the Great Pyramid.  Henri Houdin, a French engineer who became enthralled with Khufu’s Pyramid and took up the task of reverse engineering its construction.  And the protagonist of our tale, Jean-Pierre Houdin, Henri’s architect son and heir to the Great Work of figuring out how Hemienu accomplished one of the greatest architectural and engineering feats of human history.

We traced out a short biography of these three master builders and examined how the times they lived in, the circumstances of history, and even their family lives drove them toward their respective quests.  We were also introduced to some of the shortcomings of the many theories that have been offered by others regarding how the Great Pyramid was constructed, and touched on insights that set this father and son team on the trail of Hemienu’s secrets.   

I also proposed an outline and timetable for how I wanted to approach this project, namely, that this series of articles would be posted over the course of several weeks, and that Part One would get into the specifics of Jean-Pierre’s internal ramp, and Part Two would look at how he proposes the interior architecture of Khufu’s Pyramid was planned and carried out.  Now, more than a month later, it is obvious that the timetable is out the window, and for that I apologize.

But after much correspondence with M. Houdin, I have decided that this subject deserves more than just a rush-through.  There are numerous short introductions available online and in print that can give you the basics of Jean-Pierre’s work, and for the full treatment you really must read his and Bob Brier’s book, The Secret of the Great Pyramid, which has just become available in paperback.  As for Em Hotep!, my goal is to provide news and reference articles about Egyptology for “the Curious Layperson and the Budding Scholar,” and that means being both comprehensive and comprehendible. 

So Part One:  How Do You Prefer Your Ramp? is going to be a detailed look at the primary theories that have preceded Jean-Pierre and exactly why they simply cannot work.  This will lay a good foundation for Part Two, which will deal with Jean-Pierre’s innovations on the various ramp theories, and as you will soon see, foundations are very important with this topic!

The entrance to Khufu’s Pyramid, with the Thieves’ Entrance in the lower right corner. The people entering the Thieves’ Entrance give an indication of the size of the blocks involved. Note the large blocks and beams of the Main Entrance—there are larger blocks deeper within and much higher up. (Photo by Keith Payne)

The first section of this article will deal with the straight ramp theories, which really serve as a sort of negative benchmark against which all others are measured.  This may sound a bit harsh, but an understanding of what these theories attempt to accomplish and why they fail is vital to following their evolution and how each theory moves us closer to the answer.  In order to make 100% certain I got this rather important aspect of our discussion right, the first section takes the form of a dialogue with Jean-Pierre.

The next section will take a look at external spiraling ramp theories.  These theories suggest that the Great Pyramid was constructed by use of a ramp that corkscrews up the outside surface.  They resolve a number of the problems that make the straight ramp theories impossible, but leave several major issues unresolved, and come with their own set of issues.

The third section will take a closer look at Henri Houdin’s eureka moment—Hemienu constructed the Great Pyramid by building from the inside out, and he accomplished this by using internal ramps.  Henri’s epiphany resolved nearly all of the remaining problems with the previous theories, but as his son realized, a couple of snags remained. 

The External Straight Ramp:  A Dialogue with Jean-Pierre Houdin

Egyptologist Ludwig Borchardt

The straight ramp theory was first worked out by Ludwig Borchardt and completed by Jean-Philippe Lauer.  The basic idea was that a straight ramp constructed of mudbrick and filler would be used to haul the blocks into place.  As each level of the pyramid is completed, work on the pyramid stops so the ramp can be built up to the next level.  The base had to be fairly wide, about 50 meters, so that its top surface would still be both wide enough and stable enough as it rises.  Keep in mind that as the pyramid grows narrower, so must the ramp.

As the ramp reaches the 35 meter level, where construction on the King’s Chamber begins, Lauer believed his and Borchardt’s ramp would be short enough and shallow enough in terms of its slope to enable men to pull the large blocks, some of them weighing in excess of 60 tons, up to the construction site of the King’s Chamber where machines using sacks of sand for counterweights and smaller ramps cut into the core masonry to maneuver the huge blocks and stone beams into place.

For the top of the pyramid, Lauer’s ramp would increase in gradient as the width decreased.  He believed that blocks weighing a ton could still be moved to a height of 112 meters on a 14 degree incline, and that the last stretch could be as steep as 18 degrees to reach the final 146 meters.  Lauer postulates that to compensate for the very steep gradients smaller blocks would be used to complete the pyramid.

Egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer

A couple of problems present themselves right away with the Borchardt-Lauer ramp.  First, contrary to Lauer’s assumption, the blocks do not grow progressively smaller higher up the pyramid.  The thickness of layers continues to alternate pretty much from the bottom to the top, and blocks weighing as much as 2.5 tons are used at least as high as 90 meters. 

Then there is the pyramidion.  The pyramidion was the capstone of the pyramid, a sort of small solid pyramid itself.  Constructed of limestone and covered in electrum, the pyramidion would have weighed at the very least 5.5 tons, and possibly as much as fifteen tons!  Plus, although the top layers of stone are now missing, as is the pyramidion itself, they would have been especially thick to support the pyramidion.  Several layers of smaller blocks would have been crushed over time.  It is simply implausible that a 5.5-15 ton pyramidion, plus its supporting masonry, could have been moved up an 18 percent incline.

Jean-Pierre:   In fact human strength falls very quickly above 10% grade.  You must keep an optimum ratio of force-to-grade: 7-8% grade is the highest figure to consider.

So forget the gradually increasing incline.  To build the pyramid using a straight ramp you have to maintain a 7-8% grade from bottom to top.  In The Secret of the Great Pyramid, Jean-Pierre Houdin and Bob Brier talk about the straight ramp being a mile long.  But in order for the ramp to reach the top of the pyramid, about 146 meters, while maintaining a 7-8% grade, it seems the ramp would have to be even longer.

Jean-Pierre:  Discussions of a straight external ramp always talk about reaching the summit.  That is wrong.  No ramp can go above the 130-135 meter level—the ramp would be wider than the pyramid.  So to reach a level of 130-135 meters at a 7% grade, a frontal ramp has to be 1,860 meters long, about 1.15 miles.  To build the same ramp with an 8% grade it would be 1,625 meters long, about one mile, which is why I always talk about a mile long ramp.

This means that, in order to maintain a manageable 8% slope, the straight external ramp has to be about a mile long, and comes about eleven meters (about 36 feet) short of the estimated apex of the pyramid.  So, where could Hemienu have built such a ramp? 

The terrain has a lot to say about that.  The Great Pyramid was built on a bluff, and there is a steep drop to the north, so no ramp there.  To the east and west there are cemeteries contemporary with the pyramid, so no ramps there either.  That leaves the south, which is far from ideal for such a construction. 

Jean Pierre:  Absolutely.  A single frontal ramp has to be perpendicular to the south face of the pyramid which puts it cutting through the quarry before filling the wadi on the other side!  The topography speaks for itself.

So the ramp would not only overshoot the quarry, it would have to account for the rise and fall of the terrain, which would mean filling in the wadi, a sort of canyon made by a dry river bed, which would add even more material and labor to the ramp project.  Keep in mind that the further you have to build the ramp downward to account for the dip created by the wadi the wider the base has to be in that section.

The Straight Ramp—Ninth Wonder of the Ancient World? Not only would it have been as large a project as the pyramid itself, where did it go? (Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes)

Everywhere you look in the Great Pyramid you see signs not only of Hemienu’s architectural genius, but of the economy of his methods.  Nothing is wasted in terms of time or materials.  A ramp that requires the workers to drag the blocks in the opposite direction of the pyramid before mounting the ramp just doesn’t seem to make sense.

The volume of material and man-hours required in making such a ramp raise their own set of questions.  Building a mile-long ramp that reaches 135 meters on its high end would require a huge amount of material and labor even if it was built on a flat surface, which it wasn’t.  And where did all the millions of tons of stone go? 

When you account for the terrain you are talking about a project similar in scope to the pyramid itself, just to build the ramp.  Even allowing for filler material, a significant portion of such a ramp would have to be solid masonry.  Remember, some of the blocks it would have to support weighed more than sixty tons.  Think about it.  If the ramp was, say, two-thirds the mass of the pyramid, then where would you dispose of two-thirds of the Great Pyramid, without a trace?

Another nagging problem with all external ramp theories, from Lauer onward, is the notion of stopping work on the pyramid while constructing the next layer of the ramp.  Hemienu built the Great Pyramid in about 21-23 years.  This task simply could not be accomplished in the time frame if practically all work on the pyramid had to stop every time the ramp had to be raised another level. 

Jean-Pierre:  Nor was it.  Up to now, “rampists” have always talked about a ramp being raised and lengthened as the pyramid rises, which means that you have to stop the construction to enlarge the ramp. My theory, which you will see does include an external ramp along with an internal ramp, is the first to describe an external ramp that is being built as the pyramid rises.

 The ramp was built at its maximum length, about a quarter of a mile, but with two parts, or lanes, built horizontally, layer by layer, following a 7-8% slope.  While one lane is used to pull the blocks, the other is raised by 2 layers to be ready for the next step.  The ramp is always rising with the pyramid and so there is no need for work on the pyramid to stop.

Lastly, with regard to the “rampists” theories, there is the issue of logistics.  The higher you go, the less workspace you have on both the ramp and the top surface of the pyramid.  And the logistics involved with moving the 60 ton blocks to the top of the King’s Chamber and maneuvering them into place..

Jean Pierre:  On a 7% grade ramp, 600 men are needed to pull a 60 ton block.  Can you imagine 600 guys?  With six hauling lines, that gives a 100 meter-long line for each..  It is impossible to coordinate such numbers.  And at the 60+ meters level you have only 50 meters of work space left on the north side to work around the King’s Chamber.

A single straight mile-long ramp just seems to create more problems than it solves.  Not only would it have required as much work and material as the pyramid itself, there is no evidence for such a huge ramp.  Where did it go?  And how was the pyramid completed in time if work had to stop in order to build up the ramp at each level.  Jean-Pierre’s two-lane ramp works fine up to the level of the King’s Chamber, but what about twice that height, about 135 meters?  The ramp would be far too narrow at that height.

Perhaps a straight ramp may have worked on other pyramids, but Hemienu wasn’t building just any pyramid.  He knew he was facing multiple challenges that would require complex answers, all of which had to be worked out before hand.

The External Spiraling Ramp:  The Corkscrew Solution

For several very good reasons the long, straight ramp theory doesn’t seem to work.  One can imagine that Hemienu might have figured this out pretty quickly.  A fast survey of the landscape, lining up the only feasible approach for the ramp to the pyramid’s south face, calculating the amount of material it would take to keep the grade constant even as the ramp spans the wadi, the ratio of the width of the base to the width of the top, the length of the ramp—It would have been obvious from the outset to Hemienu that the long single ramp wouldn’t work.

It was probably an early lunch for Hemienu and his crew after a morning walk around the building site, checking surveying points, taking mental notes.  As the architect and his crew sat around the table sipping karkade and brainstorming while the servants cleared the tableware, someone might have proposed what seemed to be the perfect solution.

“Think about a length of papyrus,” he might have said.  “Stretched out it would cover this entire table, and spill over each end.  But if you roll it up, it can fit into your robe.  What if we fold the ramp to fit into the usable terrain and onto the surface of the pyramid itself?”

Hemienu would have pondered this idea.  With his chin resting in his palm, he probably considered the advantages.  What problems would a spiraling ramp address?

Advantages

Several advantages of a spiraling ramp are immediately apparent.  Terrain is no longer an issue, as the terrain would be the pyramid itself.  Using the surface of the pyramid to support the ramp would mean a constant 7-8% grade could be easily maintained and the supporting surface would be a constant—no wadi to span and no 50-meter wide base to support a ramp 135 meters high.  As it winds up the pyramid, the ramp itself would maintain a fairly regular height, except at the top, where it would actually grow shorter.  This would also reduce the amount of material and man-hours required to build the ramp.

Hemienu’s assistant would have been pleased with his epiphany.  The problem of the ramp, which was turning into as large a project as the pyramid itself, had been solved.  Perhaps Vizier Hemienu, Master of Works for Pharaoh Khufu, would honor him with a memorial stela praising his genius?  But his exaltation would have been short lived.  

“What about the blocks for the King’s Chamber?” the Master Architect would have asked.  “How do we navigate those, or any of the other blocks, for that matter, around the corners of your folded papyrus?”

The Spiraling Collapse of the Corkscrew Theory

Hemienu would have seen right away that for all its advantages, and there were admittedly several, there were also some flaws with the spiraling ramp, and they were deal breakers.  The most obvious, and perhaps most vexing, would be how to handle the corners.  The most common blocks used in the building of the pyramid weighed 1.5 to 2.5 tons and were moved on a type of sled.  Wheels would not work because they would have sunk in the sand, and besides, there is no evidence of the wheel in use in Egypt this early.  So turning the sled 90 degrees to face the next course of the ramp at the corners was an issue—simply spinning it on its rails would have destroyed the sleds.

There is also the issue of time.  Keep in mind that every time you stop the production line to reorient a sled at the corner, the entire chain below you has to stop as well.  Hemienu is believed to have completed the pyramid in about 21-23 years, which means that a block was being put into place during every minute of construction.  How were the workers moving the sleds around in less than one minute on the tight corners of the corkscrew ramp?  

Even if the problem of orienting the standard blocks at the corners of an external winding ramp was solved, there was still the problem of the huge blocks used to construct the King’ Chamber.  The largest of these slabs weighed in excess of 60 tons and were over eight meters (a little over 26 feet) in length. 

If you can picture trying to maneuver such a block around a corner, even if there was someplace where the workmen could stand while pushing/pulling (which there would not be), at around 45 degrees into the turn the full weight of these blocks would be balanced entirely on the corner of the ramp.  Given that the corner of the ramp, obviously, would be built on the corner of the pyramid, we are talking about a tiny segment of the ramp pressed between a wedge below (the edge of the pyramid) and 60 tons of weight from above!  This isn’t a model for supporting a weight, it’s a model for splitting something in half!

Another issue Hemienu would have realized was that you just wouldn’t be able to build a winding ramp against the surface of the pyramid that would be stable enough.  Again, ignoring the problem of the 60 ton blocks, if you were to build a ramp wide enough and sturdy enough to move the average block up the pyramid, then the external ramp would obscure the corners of the pyramid, and that is another big problem.

The Narrow External Spiral Ramp—while the sight lines remain visible in this model, there is simply no way to secure such a ramp to the surface of the pyramid with any stability. (Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes)

In order to ensure that the four corners of the pyramid were rising at the same constant angle, Hemienu would have needed to take regular measurements.  If the slope of one side of the pyramid was off by as much as a fraction of a degree, then the shape of the entire pyramid would be off and the four edges would not meet at a single point at the top.   In order to make these exact measurements the corners and edges of the pyramid had to be visible, and a sturdy ramp corkscrewing around the pyramid would make this impossible. 

The Wide External Spiral Ramp—this is how a stable external ramp would have appeared, but there is no way to survey the sides of the pyramid and control its shape during construction. (Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin and Dassault Systèmes)

It seems that for every problem the external corkscrew ramp solves, another is uncovered.  You can’t build a ramp that allows the corners to be surveyed that will also be stable enough to bear the load of the blocks.  Such a ramp would entail trying to build a pyramid consisting of four perfectly equal triangles, with exactly the same slope on each side, without being able to survey the slopes and angles as construction proceeds.   If you build a ramp narrow enough to allow the measurements to be made, then it will be too unstable for the 1.5 to 2.5 ton blocks.  Keep in mind that at any given time there will be multiple blocks on each stretch of the ramp.

The external corkscrew ramp could not work, not for the standard blocks, and certainly not for the huge blocks required for building the King’s Chamber, or for that matter, the Queen’s Chamber.  Of course, other models have been offered—multiple ramps, zigzagging ramps, and some ramps that seem to have leapt from an M. C. Escher drawing.  But down through the ages the long single ramp and the external spiral ramp have stood the test of time.

And failed the tests of physics and engineering.

The Internal Spiraling Ramp:  Now We’re Getting Somewhere!

As we learned in the Introduction, the question of how the Great Pyramid was built caught the attention of an engineer named Henri Houdin back in 1999 after he viewed a television program called The Mystery of the Pyramid.  Henri was one of the many French youth who inherited a post-WWII France, with all of the reconstruction that went with it.  Soon after receiving his Ph. D. from École des Arts et Metiers, 24-year-old Henri found himself in charge of rebuilding the Conflans Bridge outside of Paris (Brier and Houdin, pp. 2, 38).  The year was 1947, and a long and impressive career lay before young Henri.

In 1999, Henri was retired, but far from tired.  He needed something to occupy his mind, which was as sharp and hungry for activity as ever.  He approached the problem of Khufu’s Pyramid the same way he approached any other engineering problem he had ever taken on—How do I build this? 

The advantages of the spiraling ramp still held true.  A workable ramp that would maintain a 7-8% grade would have to be around a mile long, and the only way to do that with the terrain where Hemienu built the Great Pyramid was by wrapping the ramp around the pyramid itself.  Multiple straight ramps would not work because the only side where a straight ramp could be built was on the southern side, and the terrain there only allowed for one ramp to approach the pyramid.

Making use of the artificial terrain of the pyramid itself would have the benefit of a regular surface free of obstacles, if there was only some way to construct a sturdy enough ramp that would also leave the site lines visible for surveying.  So how would the engineer Henri Houdin build this?

Henri’s epiphany came as he pondered how he would deliver the building materials to the worksites.  In this sense, the worksites are different from the construction site.  The construction site was the entire project, but the construction site was made up of many worksites that were all over the structure, and many of which were in constant movement as the pyramid rose.  Henri’s epiphany was that if he were to build the pyramid using the tools available at the time he would build it from the inside out, and the ramp would likewise be located on the inside.

An internal ramp would retain all of the benefits of the corkscrew ramp while solving many of the problems.  The pyramid would not only be the building surface, it would be the ramp itself.  The sight lines would remain visible because the ramp would be concealed within the pyramid.  This meant that there would be no need to trade off between visibility and stability, which became doubly moot because the ramp would be as sturdy as the pyramid itself.

This solution also was in keeping with the economy Hemienu expressed throughout the rest of the pyramid.  There was no wasted material—the material would already be in place.  No wasted man-hours because virtually every block put in place for the ramp would have been required in the construction of the pyramid anyway.  And there would be no need to explain why there are no ruins of the ramp, or how its materials were disposed of.  The ramp is still there, within the core of the pyramid.

Henri Houdin’s first drawing of this ramp looks even more like a corkscrew than the external corkscrew model did.  The external spiral ramp models follow the contour of the pyramid and are square in shape, with right-angle turns at the corners.  Henri’s first model was a curving spiral that started on the eastern corner of the southern face and curled its way up at an 8% grade. 

Henri revised his model to include four separate ramps, one entering on each face of the pyramid.  Each of these ramps would reach a different level of the pyramid, but also allowed for multiple ramps to be in use at different levels.  For instance, at the lowest levels, where most of the work took place and most of the material had to be transported, there would be four ramps in use at the same time.  As each ramp reached its maximum height, and thus usability, the pyramid also became smaller requiring less material and labor.

The idea of building the pyramid from the inside out by using four spiraling internal ramps answered more problems than any model proposed so far.  Perhaps most importantly Henri had put the train on the right track by moving the works inside.  Building the pyramid layer by layer by use of an external ramp alone might make good sense to a layperson, but an engineer knows that the inner structures within the core of the pyramid would not only have to come first, but would dictate how the rest of the pyramid would have to be constructed. 

Henri had shared his ideas with his architect son, Jean-Pierre, who had taken up the task with a relish of his own.  But Jean-Pierre Houdin brought the skills of a seasoned architect to the table, and he saw problems even the engineer had missed.  Obviously the ramp would have to be inside the pyramid, that much had been settled.  But the circular spiral simply couldn’t work.

The 1.5 to 2.5 ton blocks had to be pulled by teams of men, and this cannot be done from around a curve.  The men would have to be standing in a straight line in order to effectively pull the lines connected to the sleds, and the constant curve would place uneven pressure on the sleds that would lead to a rapid breakdown.

Henri’s model also left the problem of the large 60+ ton blocks unresolved.  Even ignoring the weight, the length of these blocks would preclude them from fitting into the circular internal ramps.  Jean-Pierre knew that he was back to a square spiraling ramp, which brought him back to the question of how to navigate the right angles.  There was really only one answer—the sleds would have to be lifted and turned 90 degrees at each corner.  Easier said than done.

And what about the masonry of the King’s Chamber?  No internal ramp could manage that.  Henri had set the train on the right track, but now it was up to Jean-Pierre to move it forward.  A straight ramp, perhaps one that was an internal/external combination, could reach the King’s Chamber worksite with a 7-8% grade, and would still be short enough to fit into the terrain.  But would it be long enough to accommodate enough men to pull the 60+ ton blocks?  Probably not.  And even if the blocks could be hauled to the worksite, how would they be maneuvered into place?

Jean-Pierre Houdin signs copies of his first book about The Great Pyramid for Magdy El-Ghandour, Director for the foreign missions at the Supreme Council of Antiquities and Taha Abdallah, Dean of Shorouk University. (Photo courtesy of Jean-Pierre Houdin)

Jean-Pierre knew that the solution had to involve both an internal and an external ramp, and both straight and spiraling ramps, but how?  How were the blocks turned at the corners?  How were the giant slabs of the King’s Chamber pulled up the straight ramp and fitted into place with such precision? 

In Hemienu to Houdin:  Part Two we will get into the details of Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory starting with his own ramp theory, and how it answers all of the above questions, and more.

Photograph ”Statue-of-Hemiun.jpg” by Einsamer Schütze is provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons  and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of those files under the conditions that you appropriately attribute them, and that you distribute them only under a license identical to this one. Official license.

Copyright by Keith Payne, 2009.  All rights reserved.

The search for the famous queen of the Ptolemaic Dynasty has been tightening around Alexandria in recent years, and this year’s dig season could bring us even closer.  Also, Dr. Hawass confirms an item from our October checklist!

Source Article-  Ria Novosti:  “Egyptian archaeologists to search for Cleopatra”

It is the quintessential story of star-crossed lovers.  Long before there was Romeo and Juliet, there was Mark Antony and Cleopatra.  Whether you prefer saucy Claudette Colbert in the 1934 Cecil B. Demille classic, divaesque Liz Taylor in the 1963 epic, or the uber-hot Lyndsey Marshal of HBO’s Rome, Cleopatra is the very image of the woman for whom you would give it all up. 

As for Zahi Hawass, he gives us another October promise.  According to Ria Novosti, the search will begin in earnest in mid-October, so while there is no promise of results, we do have one more reason to welcome the mild winds of October.

We also have a reaffirmation for our check list, A Banner Month for Egyptology.  “Hawass also said that Egyptian authorities would next week demand a Nefertiti bust from a Berlin museum as Cairo has proof the artifact was taken out of the country illegally,” says Ria Novosti.

If you are participating in an October betting pool, you might want to put Nefertiti’s bust close to the top.  As for what the Germans will do, that is another matter altogether.  So far they have dug in for a long fight, and  with Dr. Hawass set to retire next year, time may be on  their side.  But regardless of the outcome, they will always have the bust of Cleopatra.

Photographs ”DSC093719.JPG” by E. Michael Smith, and “Stamps of Germany (Berlin) 1984, MiNr 708.jpg” by Nightflyer, are provided courtesy of Wikimedia Commons  and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of those files under the conditions that you appropriately attribute them, and that you distribute them only under a license identical to this one. Official license 

ALL OTHER photographs and text are copyright by Keith Payne, 2009, all rights reserved.