The mystery of the great Sphinx that guards the cemetery and sacred area in Giza seems to be finally resolved. A very accurate study by the Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev (Institut Francais d’Archeologie Oriental in Cairo) confirms with a reasonable certainty what had been perceived and expressed without great consideration by the scientific milieu: it was Cheope, sovereign who reigned from 2551 BC to 2528 BC the greates builder in the Ancient Reign, who ordered to build the monument with the body of a lion and a human face. “In fact- Dobrev explains- the construction was probably obtained by an emerging in the rock present in the area of the stone quarries used for the building of some parts of Cheope’s pyramid. It’s certainly not a coincidence: it indicates a contemporary exploitation of the same litica source”. Other convincing elements emphasized by the transalpine archaeologist are stratigrafici studies; that allow an absolute dating of the Shinx, obtained by the comparison of dated layers; the position of the Sphinx and its orientation according to Cheope’s pyramid: “The monument should be at the beginning or in a determinate point of a sacred way, that leads directly to Cheope’s pyramid and the archaeologists’ last surveys have revealed it with certainty”, Dobrev announces; finally considerations of aesthetic nature on the hairstyle, on the width of the chin, the shape of the ears and the ceremonial beard confirm in an absolute way the intuitions by the experts in Paris. Dobrev’s hypothesis is completed with the reasonable supposition that Cheope has not assisted to the completing of the mythological statue and that it was completed by his son Gedefra: he was Chefren’s half-brother and owner of an incomplete pyramid in Abu Rawash, north of Giza; Gedefra would have completed the Sphinx to glorify his father Cheope and to legitimize his own role of successor (he governed Egypt from 2528 BC to 2520 BC).For over a century the face represented had been attributed to Chefren (sovereign, who reigned from 2520 BC to 2494 BC) according to supposed but not totally convincing resemblances with a statue of the pharaoh himself kept in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The impressive construction- 73 meters long, 6 meters wide and 20 meters high and today in restoration- remained for a long time in the sand; it was uncovered temporarily by the future pharaoh Tuthmosis IV (on the throne from 1398 BC to 1388 BC). We are informed about it from a stele found between the paws of the animal: the inscription says that Tuthmosis IV dreamed the god Sun-Ra_Hraktte, as he guaranteed his reign to him if he freed his statue from the sand: he did so and became a pharaoh. Later the mythological building was covered by the eolico sand, at least until 1817, when the archaeologist Giovanni Battista Caviglia cleared it. In 1925 even the trampled area all around it was visible and the systematic excavations of the archaeological context began of the always less mysterious construction: it seems that modern surveys have revealed, although not yet explained, the presence of 4 tunnels in its structure. Great damages have been provoked on it caused by its millennial existence: an Arab historian of XIV reveals that the nose had been damaged by canon shots by the Mammelucchi during the ottoman period, and the eolica erosion and the dampness from the near water layer have caused those traces of erosion, that led some pseudo-archaeologists’ fantasy to date the monument to a period precedent to the last glacial period (about 105000 years ago). But now new studies indicate Cheope as the builder of “Abu el Hol” (“The father of terror”) this way the Arabs call the sphinx) and displaced definitely the esoteric, who had odd theories.

by Aristide Malnati
Il sole24ore