h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just wondering. Watched a program ages ago suggesting that the Sphynix was probably under water at some stage, just wondering whether anyone knows about this... by "know" I mean is there any evidence for it? Not an outright no as some might say.

I can't speak from personal knowledge it must have been before my time and I haven't read these yet:

http://www.egypt-tehuti.org/sphinx.html
(or buy the book)

http://falundafa-newengland.org/MA/science/pyramids.htm

or did you mean this one:
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/9810/29/cleopatra.sphinx/

photo here:
http://www.nmia.com/~sphinx/egyptian_sphinx.html

The Nile is a big river and used to flood every year (until the dams were built). This meant that it was constantly shifting its course. But it always stayed within the Nile Valley. The Sphinx is built outside the valley in a place the Egyptians knew would never be under water.

However there is some water erosion evident on the Sphinx.
This is because it has been there a very long time and it does occaisionally rain in the desert...some people have taken this erosion as an indication that Egypt was once a lush tropiucal rainforest but such people are a much better source of recreational drugs than knowledge.

It's likely that Giza was underwater at somepoint... but unless the Sphinx is several hundred million years old it's unlikely that it got damp because of this.

Rain fall should not be enough to account for the erosion though, not if it is only a few thousand years old. But perhaps it was in a lake once. Apparently Herodotus in his descriptions of Egypt says a lot about the pyramids, but never mentions the sphinx. Maybe because it was underwater.

Surely the erosion on the sphinx would be mostly caused by sand.

If it had ever of been underwater, it would of been physically impossible for the sphinx to vomit.

Ha!

The absence of Spinx vomit is proof positive that the Sphinx must have been underwater.

Sphinx vomit.
Sphinx vomit.
Sphinx vomit.

Found this site that gives various theories about the Sphinx

http://www.sis.gov.eg/sphinx/html/sphnx003.htm


I wonder if the erosion could be the result of sand that buried the Sphinx up to its neck for a good chunk of its exsistance.

Which reminds me, that
"Accounts for the hump on the camel,
and the Sphinx's inscrutable smile."

Being buried in sand, as opposed to being exposed to wind blown sand, would probably decrease, rather than increase erosion.

Erosion due to rainfall has a different pattern to that produced by windblown sand.

Egypt is known by other methods to have been wetter before about 5000 BCE.

The claim that the Sphinx has eroded in a manner typical of rainfall erosion would, if true, indicate that the sphinx is at least three thousand years older than the rest of the Giza complex, rather than being the same age as previously thought. Hence the controversy.

Noggin