Thank you so much. I've never quite understood why the Sphinx lends itself so readily to so much alt-history. In five patient minutes you explained away whole volumes of speculation.
@@PlatinumAltaria Of course, there is lots of money to be made in this field. An huge opportunity to cash in. Believers can be attracted easily and they will consume more and more of your product, if done right.
@@dnocturn84 Yep, they'll also buy all the ancient alien technology I have for sale here ... like ... um ... just a minute, I'm sure I'll find some real soon ...
Everything you say here I have read about or seen described in the last year or two. What I so admire with your videos is the ease with which you pull everything together into a coherent story. Thanks again
Sorry where did you read that from 12000 to 5500 years ago the land was submerged in water because there isn’t a single shred of evidence that agrees with that. If anything the evidence suggests the waters receded time and time again. You and miano must be the only people privy to this supposed research that’s taken place
we were just discussing this in a "fraudulent archaeology" FB group, but nobody had any real answers as to why the head was seemingly smaller and in better condition. But the different types of limestone and the fissures totally explain it. Thanks so much! Gonna share this video with the group. Can't wait to read that paper you guys are working on, too!
It’s a shame no one else believes that nonsense. For a start you’d have no clue how the fissure would develop in the rock and many carving experts have shown how you can use a fissure as part of the carving, how to avoid the fissure and how to continue carving without compromising the rock. Miano at it again giving his opinion and pretending it’s a fact. The whole video is just opinion dressed up as fact rather poor
Actualy it's the other way around. The head is regular size, but the body got a bit out of shape, after the introduction of fast food. However, it would be very rude to tell that to the Sphinx. So 🤫
WHY?!?! After a half-century plus lifetime spent watching damn near every mainstream pop-Egyptology documentary, (and more than a fair share of others on top of that) WHY is this the ONLY time I have ever heard it explained so simply, so undeniably, about the age, shape and design of the SPHINX?!?!
Egyptology definitely has an issue in communicating to the general public. It's not like this for Rome, I spent years believing "alternative" Egyptology before actually finding out what we actually know and what's been found out by Archaeology. So I sympathise with this comment
The reason it’s never been explained so simply is becaus the video is wrong about what we know. For a start the sphinx could have been built between 12000 and 5500 years as the research on the nile flood plain does not say for those 6500 years the area was submerged in water the research says the nile flooded and receded multiple times. The research also says they are unsure where exactly the water would have covered and that they believe the area was only flooded during particularly bad floods. There is nothing he states in that video that is considered a fact or can be used to give any form of conclusion on the age of the sphinx. The video is a shambles
@@hattershouse710 I don’t know about *better*, but between the three of them, I have rejected the popular Zahi Hawas Mafia docs in their entirety without looking back.
I love learning real information that's been accumulated from the hands of humble, careful scholars. This video's been needed on the internet for a long time. Thanks, you have an awesome channel that serves these scholars well.
dr miano isn't exactly honest all the time and spews a lot of conjecture. History for granite is the best informative channel regarding the pyramids specifically.
Thanks for this explanation, I'd seen the hypothesis that the head was originally a larger jackal or lion head and found it interesting, but figured it was one of those unsupportable hypotheses that shouldn't be taken too seriously. It's good to know that there are strong reasons to outright dismiss the possibility.
Glad to hear the paper you talked about with Dr Schneider on stream is coming along. Hope the plan to have him come back on to discuss Gobleki and the other Tepes is also still on the books!
Thanks Prof. Miano for a concise evaluation of conclusions reached in numerous long and technical videos and the even longer and more technical reports that the videos are based on. This answers some of the most often repeated questions about the sphinx clearly and with reference to facts rather than myths and wishes. For people with expertise, there are longer videos about wicking, erosion by wind, sand and dust, etc. Thanks again for your always interesting work.
There is nothing factual in claiming the sphinx couldn’t have been built 12000 -5500 years ago because the area was flooded when all the research shows how the area flooded and receded during that time frame. They aren’t even sure if the area itself was part of the flooding and receding from the Nile. It all starts with an opinion not a fact then develops into more waffle from there. The video was a shambles from start to finish
Thanks, Doc for the succinct overview of the likely facts. I've always thought that the builders and designers just did the best they could with what they had. When I see the sometimes colossal mistakes and missteps that are made in modern times I wonder if the Sphinx just wasn't perfect. It's still a whopper of a monument and we're still talking about it.
Dr. Miano: it's pronounced: "moo-KUT-tam," formation, the same as the high cliffs on the east side of modern Cairo today. I wish you would have visited them when you were there; you get an absolutely stunning view of Cairo at night time. Love your work, Alex
Compare it to Hatshetsup Sphinx whose face is also small in relation to the body, its how they proportioned a Sphinx, also much of the headress and beard are missing
If you look at a collection of the many Sphinxes that were made in ancient Egypt, small and large, you will also see, that they never followed a real standardized Sphinx shape. Sometimes heads are large, sometimes they are small. Sometimes their bodys are large, sometimes their bodies are small and short. And they art style itself also changes a lot over time. It doesn't really work to look at a specific Sphinx that you randomly pick and to compare it with the Sphinx at Giza and draw conclusions. Because your conclusions will always vary, depending on what Sphinx you pick for that comparison. There are too many of them in too many variations.
Some say that the erosion of the Sphinx enclosure show that it must have been carved prior to the pyramids. After they were built a quarry acted as a water basin, so that the Sphinx enclosure would not erode due to surface water anymore
It is not wrong size .......it is the correct size and you perceive the body to be larger only because it is missing the crown of the upper and lower Egypt (which most probably would have been made with wood and gilded with painted copper sheets) which used to adorn the Sphinx when it was originally carved (the reason there is a hole on the top of the Sphinx head and it was used as a anchor for this crown) and it also had a representation of the Royal feather fan which was planted on the back near the back legs ( also most probably would have been made with wood and gilded with copper sheets) and that is the reason there is a hole on the back (which has now been covered with metal door) along with the fault line which runs along the back of the Sphinx......also the adding of covering stones on the lower body ( to cover up the natural damages and erosion ) by ancients including Romans and recent restorations gives a impressions that body is bigger as compared to when it was carved.......... if you can visualize this picture with out any later modifications/ aberrations and with the original crown of upper and lower Egypt ,, then it would look absolutely PERFECT as a foreground to the Pyramid of Khaf-Ra..........................................
@@twonumber22Well let's think about it. "Ancients: usually means ancient people. We know people can and often do damage. Also people are part of nature thus anything we do ,including damage can rightly be considdered natural. After all a lion scratching a tree is also considdered natural.... So any damage done by ancient people must be damage by ancients.....
Thank you for these points! Im surprised to say this is the first time I've heard this explanation/theory! All to often nowadays alternative theories always state that mainstream is wrong/flawed/biased you name it lol but never do they describe any of these points, they stamp in the name "MAINSTREAM" and just say its wrong... I really do love the ancient civilisation idea but all of the data needs to be looked at and reinterpreted as more things are discovered and more people become educated in the field, effectively so a higher number of more educated opinions can weed out the bs and fantasies that become easily enticing to believe. Ancient fantasies are a lot easier to believe just based on our acceptance that knowledge & evidence is lost over time, and the necessity to trust (necessary if you believe any alt-history anyway) in the smaller set of people creating/ reporting these alternate histories. Which because of the smaller set of alternative historians makes it easier for them to create their narrative. P.s (didnt know where to fit it in lol) Ive always found the jackal head theory unlikely, im no stone mason/ structural engineer but the proportion just looks wrong from first glance, its not hard to see it would be too heavy for the neck, but lets play devils advocate and say it 'WAS' a jackal, well then what happened? They wouldnt have re-carved the original design because if it could work the jackal head is more aesthetic. So assume the jackal head broke, no does it seam likely that they would have enough undamaged stone to carve a human head + headdress. And this isnt even taking into account that a jackal head is more slender and wouldnt fit the width of the headdress(this is all assuming its like the example pic meaning a jackal with no headdress). idk i could rant and rant about my opinion but it just doesnt make sense physically lol
@@stridersmythe8860 From around 10,000 BCE until about 6100 BCE, there is almost no evidence of anyone living within the Egyptian area of the Nile River valley itself, because the valley was going through one of the wettest times in its history when enormous amounts of flood waters were pouring through the valley at times, sculpting out the Nile river valley in ways that hadn’t happened in thousands of years. It’s referred to in the geological record as the days of the “Wild Nile.” The eastern edges of the Giza plateau, known geologically as the Motokattam formation, the limestone formation the Great Sphinx is literally carved out of, was at this time under immense fast moving seasonally changing flood waters. That’s one of the main reasons why it is impossible for the Giza Sphinx to have existed 10,000 years ago. It and the southern wall of the enclosure it is carved from would have been destroyed by thousands of years of fast moving flood waters if it had existed back at this time. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379115001328 or lirias.kuleuven.be/1737097?limo=0 or ruclips.net/video/qw2yPRIhEso/видео.html The future Sahara desert at this time however, was still green with savanna conditions, large African animals and seasonal lakes. This is when the famous “cave of the swimmers” in the far western desert and the Nabta Playa stone circle would have been in use starting around 7500 BCE. There is evidence of people living in the Fayum oasis and the first signs of cattle herding appears to be happening. The acidification events such as the 8.2 kilo-year event is what led to a mix of different people moving into the Nile river valley and eventually to what we now call ancient Egypt. After the 8.2 kilo year event, there is the first evidence of large amounts of people moving into the Nile River Valley from the desert areas which now started their process of drying out. A large number of formerly nomadic cattle herding people who had been living and migrating from oasis to oasis in the seasonally green savanna like western and eastern oasis areas of what is now the Sahara desert, were suddenly moving into and onto the Nile river valley floodplain. The later 5.9 Kilo year event increased this trend and an even larger number of people moved into the Upper Nile river valley, leading to early cities like Nekhen, Thinis and Koptos. factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub364/item1962.html There is also an amazingly detailed 8 hour lecture series by an Egyptologist John C. Darnell. He covers the detailed record of evidence which shows the millennia of changes in tombs, tools, art, weapons, pottery and the emergence of a distinctive culture we think of today as ancient Egypt. It's called "Conflicts That Shaped Pharaonic Egypt."
The Nile valley was very different during the ice ages. It's possible that lakes formed at several times as sand dunes covered the flow of the river only to be washed away during later flooding periods. @@stridersmythe8860
Ahh I love this! I cannot wait for your paper to come out. It will be very useful as a reference. Also isn't there also evidence thst it was carved after Khafre's causway was built? There is an old drainage ditch that would have drained into the sphinx enclosure that was later filled in...
I always thought the proportions could be explained by available material and structural concerns, and that a bigger head would snap the neck. No need for a groundless recarve hypothesis.
Thr masonry around it was original amd there was much more including a wall that shielded the sphinx fron the rising river period but it has since been eroded and removed . It is actually from the first period and the masonry was made to protect ot from the rising riverand the wall that diverted water from the area only protected from currents of water, as water still seeped in to the area around the sphinx. It was continually rebuilt as needed during the first wet era and is indeed now only showing proof of the last bits of masonry after the last wet period when it was no longer needed. The sphinx has been protected many times during green periods and was even once housed under a structure for hundreds of years.
Can you do something on the mysterious internal cavities too? I don't think that there is something special in there and the low quality of the stone certainly forced the designers to keep it mostly solid with only little internal cavities. But there still is at least one cavity and it's surprisingly hard to find reliable information of it's size, shape and (probably rather boring) internal features.
If it's what I've heard about it's an easily accessible natural crevice/cave and a small room in size, and that yes it's unremarkable in that there's nothing left in it.
_"Sinkholes"_ So bear in mind that below the Giza plateau is groundwater. Fresh water being erosive to limestone can over time create the ubiquitous caves/tunnel systems one finds in areas of limestone bedrock and freshwater sources. There is a video here on YT which shows Egyptologists/hydrologists drilling beneath the Sphinx to subsequently hit groundwater ~4-5 meters below it. The Giza plateau rests atop the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System while the Nile runs to the east - and as the video alluded to the river used to run closer to the necropolis area millennia ago. So while the pyramids themselves rest atop high ground the Sphinx is located in the low area of the plateau making it closest to the groundwater beneath the surface. As an aside. As a result of said groundwater which is eroding the Sphinx even today the Egyptian government per a USAID grant several years ago contracted a US water systems company to install underground water pumps to lower the water table and divert it away from the necropolis area. Fresh water from rainfall + moisture from below = can over time create fissures and caverns beneath the surface of the limestone bedrock. Eventually as alluded to the ground itself can collapse creating sinkholes.
Great video...also all cats/lions aren't created equal..a long bodied lioness can make that pose...every cheetah is spot on... I have 4 house cats and only one of them often lays exsctly like that with a nearly identical profile.
Great piece of work. But you forgot to point out that, it could have been carved before 12600 years ago & that the Atlantians with their best alien friends had the sphinx levitate/float over the water & the flood plain for at least 7000 years.I mean the Aliens had that technology back then & the Sphinx would have made a beautiful mirror image reflecting over the water, with the pyramids in the background. I am pretty sure it was the 7000 years of levitation that broke the Sphinx's back.
He did adress this. And he said it's an impossible option, because the flood season / wet season between 12500 and 5500 years ago would have destroyed an earlier Sphinx. I believe it was thousands of years of massive energy generation, water pumping, sound waving and alien space ship landings, that broke the Sphinxs back.
In regards to the age of the Sphynx, suppose the river was not powerful enough to wash it away, if that could even be argued, you would think there'd be a lot of evidence of river mud/ plant materials still found in between and behind the casing stones. And since that's not the case, it's just another bullet into the "older than Egypt" nonsense, as if there wasn't already ample evidence
That was comedy gold when miano suggested it would be washed away. Given it’s bedrock and is still there did it just suddenly grow out of the ground after the flooding stopped. Mianos video was a shambles full of his own opinions dressed up as facts. Pretty pathetic
@@caodesignworks2407that’s because the video is a pile of opinions dressed up as facts. Sure apparently it couldn’t have been built 12000 to 5500 years ago because the land was submerged in water yet there isn’t a single shred of scientific evidence to back up Mianos claim. The research suggests that the area flooded and water receded time and time again and the research also says there are unsure what areas of land the water flooded. See some of us have a brain where as muppets like you lap it up because your brain dead. Name me one fact he correctly details in that video because if you actually knew what your talking about you would know there isnt a single one.
👍👍❤💯💯Awesome ! Thx again Dr. Miano. Yep ! 1 - If they wanted to put the face of a pharaoh on the supposed lion's head why didn't they just carve the face and leave the head ? like many other sphinxes specially the one of Djedefre. If they re-carved the entire head of the lion to make a pharaoh's head & ended up with a supposed distorted proportion, then why did they simply make the body smaller too ? Specially that they respected proportions so much. Obviously it was intentional. That's what I've been saying too. I'm glad that I found someone talking about this. & I hope the Lunatics Wake up from their deep hypnosis.
Limestone is the result of mud, coral and the shells of plankton-like creatures compressed together over tens of millions of years. Looking at samples from the Sphinx Temple and the Sphinx itself, Aigner and Lehner inventoried the different fossils making up the limestone.
When Michael Angelo crafted the David statue he spuriously made the head bigger so that when people looked up to admire the work the head would appear proportional.
Thank you, Dr. Miano for finally tossing all those damned aliens and their dumbass astronaut theorists to where the scarab beetles may roll them into little balls and parade them across the sky to the bemusement of the Gods!!😌🙏🫡😁
Nice video. I still think the sphinx was recarved later. Maybe to an egotistical ruler that wanted to be remembered and the sphinx made a best choice. However, couldve been other things too. Looking at all other statues i saw, the sphinx head was the most out of place to be the original to me. But we all could be wrong. We wasn't there when it was first built lol just my opinion
I agree, and I believe the Sphinx was built by Egyptians as we assume, so this doesn't have anything to do with some alternative history theories but I don't see any reason why we shouldn't at least consider that a way too small head could've really been the result of a later change. Just look at the first two and oldest Sphinxes in the video, especially the Hetepheres Sphinx, in my opinion you can clearly see on the top and back of the head that it was originally most likely a full lion with lion head and the human head got added later. Whether that happened with the Great Sphinx too who knows, but at least that would be one example of another Sphinx that could've been a regular lion at some point that got recarved. It's also worth mentioning that all other cases of smaller Sphinxes with a human head too were built after the assumed date the Great Sphinx with human head was made/when the human head was added since some people use "that's just how a sphinx looks, they always have a human head" as an argument, but I think it's plausible that every later version could just be based on the main big Sphinx that perhaps was the first to have a human head.
There is historical evidence to indicate the Sphinx was renovated several times in history. Such renovation given the nature of how the limestone bedrock it was carved from deteriorates lends to "some" possible recarving. Such however would likely be minor around the edges to smooth it out. Look at old B&W photos of it before it was excavated. Having been abandoned and neglected for centuries the Nemes shows deterioration around it's edges which used to have cracks and missing spots until it was smoothed out using concrete in the 1920's. So repairing the same in antiquity might have lent towards some minor recarving of damaged areas to once again smooth its' appearance out. A major recarving however = nothing to support that...
@Stu-my1zo it all starts with the nonsense that it couldn’t have been carved 12000 to 5500 years ago because the area was flooded. For a start it could have been carved long before 12000 years ago and there isn’t a shred of evidence to back up his opinion that he dresses up as fact. It then continues with more opinion dressed up as fact
Could you expand a little on your assertion that at this time the Nile was powerful enough to wash away the sphinx? What evidence do we have for this? TIA.
You mean the secret chamber where the magic spaceship of the gods is parked? The Sphinx has several holes in it, which were created either by ancient people as part of the structure, or by modern excavations. There is no mystery. There's also no secret underground parking garage.
@@BaMenace The hole in the top of its head is ancient, and may have been an anchoring point for its crown decoration. The hole behind the head is modern, it was excavated in 1837. I can't imagine anyone accusing the Sphinx of being "maintained", it's had pits dug in it and parts blown off, if it hadn't been reburied I doubt there'd be anything left of it by now.
@@PlatinumAltaria I'd have to look it up, but wasn't the Sphinx renovated by one of the later Pharaohs? What certainly seems to be true is that by the time the Giza pyramids were being neglected/looted, so was the Great Sphinx.
Hello - The Sphinx is GAN-HIN - Guardian of the Temple (of Lord Mikaal, one of the twelve Sons of GOD, the Solar Hierarchy who erected the Pyramids and the Sphinx with the power of THOUGHT), the head being a semblance of that Archangel who had His Temple there in Ellhonia, Drunhia (the capital of Egypt in those days) in that Age of Leo SIX MILLION YEARS AGO. It was carved out of a single block of white alabaster, painted black and later covered over for protection by a Pharaoh.
Boooooo booooring! No buzzkill theories for me, it was in fact built 50,000 years ago by the pleiadian gigaborean aryan elves when the region was an alpine winter wonderland and it was originally a stone dire wolf with sabre tooth tiger fangs
As much as I like listening to all arguments, the views I don't ever agree with are, "then they decided, they designed, or they realized" . This doesn't ever sit with me because it is just an assumption. I love thinking about what they could have possibly been thinking while constructing these monuments. Just would never base my opinion on it. The biggest piece of info from this video that I have not really heard discussed is that it's in the flood plains of the Nile therefore would have had to have been before or after the wet period. Does this account for how the river shifts it's flow? I've read it has changed from where it was and currently is.
The information he gives on the flood plains is his opinion nothing factual about it. For a start the research says the Nile flooded and receded multiple times and there aren’t certain if that area of the land was part of the consistent flood plain. If anything they think it only got flooded if it was a particular bad flooding from the Nile and not what they would call a typical flood.
How do you know for a fact that the Nile at that point in ancient history was sufficient in volume and duration of time to completely erode the massive sculpture?? Seems like some kind of data analytics I'd be interested in learning about. Thanks in advance.
The entire Sahara was dominated by huge lakes and rivers during that time. We can see where the water was based on the sediment that still exists in the area, including at Giza.
@@PlatinumAltaria Fossil evidence also suggest that the Sphinx itself was also, so..... How do know what the erosion rate and duration maintained and substrate erosion rate under those hypothetical situations? That would be the data requirement for ending debate based on the original comment. But I'm kinda drunk and uneducated so I don't know...
@@j.m.9703 No, there's no evidence that the Sphinx has been touched by water. Sand, yes, water no. The properties of sandstone are fairly easy to understand since humans have been working with it for thousands of years, it turns out if you put a porous stone in a river for 10,000 years it gets damaged. There is no reason to believe that the Sphinx is older than the rest of Egypt's monuments, since it's obviously in the same style and bears no connection to any of the artefacts from the Nile region dating back to the humid period.
This is a very compelling viewpoint and explanation, and I remember hearing this when you interviewed Robert. However it doesn't change the fact its just one interpretation of the evidence. It's a very solid interpretation, but still just one interpretation. Reader's Ideas are very compelling and comprehensive also, and IMO (as unpopular it will be seen on this channel) so is Schochs ideas. We may never really know who originally carved it.
Schochs also promotes that all pyramid like structures all over the globe were built by the same civilization...which is absurd. You might think his ideas are compelling but his ideas are also what should be alerting you it is bs.
Remember what it was carved from = limestone - which is naturally porous and which erodes in the presence of fresh water. So the odds of "flooding" as far as inundation of a prolonged nature is not very viable. Egypt does occasionally incur heavy rainfall which can trigger flash flooding. That is behind much of the damage to the tombs in the Valley of the Kings whereby water cascading down the valley walls triggers a torrent through the valley floor. Yet even then such water typically evaporates fairly quickly. So it is possible that the occasional heavy rainfall caused water to flow from the higher ground around the Sphinx towards it as it resides on the lower end of the plateau. One must still however account for enclosure walls around the causeways etc. which would act to breakup and shunt away such rainfall + the Sphinx pit itself which would act to slow the rush of water. So what we see is mostly due to the natural efflorescence which affects limestone caused by = groundwater. There is a video on YT of Egyptologists/hydrologists drilling beneath the Sphinx to hit groundwater ~4-5 meters down. There are aquifers under the plateau. So pressure dynamics 101. The ground heats while the pressure below ground is higher than above. Consequently moisture "upwells" through the porous limestone bedrock - becoming acidic as it goes - where upon evaporation on the surface salt crystals are formed. Think an asphalt road in winter. Moisture gets into cracks and freezes and that pressure breaks up the surface of the road to cause potholes. So the surface of the limestone is continually being impacted by moisture transit which denudes it causing it to flake away to the touch. This over time causes erosion of the Sphinx relative to the hardness - read density - of the layers it is carved from. Limestone forms in layers and thus some parts being "softer" than others erode more quickly yielding the uneven surface you see. Rainfall contributes to this - BUT - it is not responsible for everything we see. Even today absent such heavy rainfall the Sphinx continues to erode owing to efflorescence from groundwater.
Maybe they finished the head and later they looked at it and thought "wow... we really messed that one up." and had a re-do. I mean, artists and architects do that even today.
The desert formation from which the head was carved did survive the onrushing waters of the green Sahara Nile for 6500 years, although no one knows how much it changed and shrank during this time. I believe it is unreasonable to expect carved limestone features to survive such conditions The Sphinx quarry, if it were submerged in current for6.500 yrs, would almost certainly show river erosion and it does not. Erosion from rain inundations yes, but no river erosion such as I would expect. The quarry could've been protected by sediment, but the presence of the head above the river bottom would lead to excavation and erosion during flooding on the upcurrent side, perhaps also there would be hydrologic features such as potholing etc.
Interesting… can I ask 2 questions? -Why couldn’t it have been carved during a wetter period? (Is there a way to tell the rock has not been exposed to more rain or precipitation?) And -how do we know that the Nile would have washed away the body if it had been exposed earlier? Has someone done the calculations for that? I’m not implying support for theories of earlier dating. Just looking for more detail on those assertions. They sound logical. Looking forward to content on that casing being original!
I cant answer the first one, but for your second question, the erosion caused by moving water would have destroyed any manmade structures. As explained in the video, the poorer quality limestone would have easily been destroyed by water erosion
1 - there is zero archeological evidence to support a predynastic civilization capable of creating it = nada. Hence it could not have been carved millennia earlier. 2 - geological core sampling was done east of the necropolis - as much as possible since the suburbs of Cairo now encroach it. It showed whereby during the 2-3 months each year when the Nile would flood its banks that area to the east became a floodplain transforming into a shallow lake. Also the Nile used to run closer to Giza during the 4th Dynasty but has shifted its tract - as major rivers often do - westwards over the millennia to its present location. Hence the location just east of what is today Khafre's valley temple - adjacent the Sphinx = was once a harbor area stretching from the worker village just south of the temple northwards to the entrance of what used to be Khufu's causeway leading up to his mortuary temple which used to sit adjacent the ancillary pyramids on his pyramid's eastern face. The diary of Merer relates they built dikes and canals to connect the harbor area to the main Nile and channel water to it to allow for heavily laden barges to access the harbor. The Sphinx rests in a pit at the low point of the plateau. So that area would be subject to the annual flood - "a wadi" - hence the creation of a harbor nearby. Thus water cascading downhill from occasional rainfall + the Nile encroaching the area would have filled its pit and eroded its body. As an aside. If you look at the Sphinx location relative to everything around it then if it predated the pyramids it was in the way. It rests between the main quarry and the harbor which is the path of the natural incline leading up to the pyramid from that harbor area. So it would have been in the way of workers laboring around the harbor area moving blocks etc up to the pyramids.
@@firstlast5454 yeah I gathered that’s the assertion. I’m just curious as to how it was determined. It would seem to require the knowledge of how high the water level used to come up and how often. Are there erosion patterns or water marks at that level throughout the surrounding area? Or is it an assumption?
Here is the reason why it is an ox and Tamil civilisation keep the OX or Bull in front of temple as they respect and kept as idol worship of predecessor Shiva during the period of cattle heard rearing of human civilisation evolution, which is written in ancient Tamil scripts and spoken in literatures.
First of all, i love your Channel, thank you for all the work you put in here. But i have a maybe stupid question. Is it possible that the sphinx isnt even a lion at all? If i just look at the proportions, it reminds me more of an caracal or serval. As far as i have read; espacially the caracal was religiously significant in the ancient Egyptian culture, Sculptures are thought to have guarded the tombs of pharaohs, which fits the location. P.S. Sorry for my bad english
As alluded the lion in ancient Egypt represented "strength" and while nor worshipped as a God per se it was associated with their Gods. Sekhmet - daughter of Ra - is seen in Egyptian iconography in conjunction with lions. Other Pharaohs also employed lions in conjunction with themselves. Tutankhamun as an example had artifacts in his tomb which depicted lions. Amenhotep III created Sphinxes which like the Sphinx of Giza were clearly reflective of part lion/part man. There are other Sphinxes as well as already stated which also incorporated other animals. Criosphinxes' famously were part lion - part ram - reflecting Khnum = their God of the source of the Nile upon which Egypt depended. So "sphinx" by definition means part lion.
My gut feeling is that the body was originally just an uncarved hill with a head like rock at the end. When the nile flooded during the wet period it reminded the locals of the first mountain of creation rising from the ocean. When khufu ordered it to be made in to his image he also ordered to dig around the formation to create the lower body. To recreate the scene of creation they flooded it yearly by some means, creating the erosion on the west wall. Just a thought, who knows. But it fits everything odd thing that bothered me
Yeah. I agree. I honestly think It was just a "cool" idea. Maybe it was already a reverential natural totem pre unification, and someone inserted himself into the situation.
Yes my thoughts too , and would bet the sphinx enclosure was mostly carved out by a river eddy . But the erosion on the west wall looks more like rain run off that would happen after desertification set in . Which would not happen with the nile being there and all the foliage and root systems preventing that type of erosion. But my guess is there were more work projects done on it than Khafre (2600BC) and Thutmose (1480BC)
Where did your gut get its degree? The bedrock was almost certainly partly visible above the sand prior to carving, but obviously it wasn't completely exposed or else it would have already been eroded away. The Sphinx is not a benben, nor does it have any similar elements, nor do sphinxes have any connection to creation. There is no water erosion on the sphinx or anywhere else.
Where did i say it was completely exposed in the shape and size it is today? I merely said ' a hill with a head like rock on one end' And for know=it=alls like you i clearly stated that it's just a thought, without claiming certainty or evidence or a degree.
I'm not so sure that the Sphinx is actually disproportional. A real cat or a lion will have a head of roughly that size in relation to its body, just like the Sphinx. It isn't that far off, if people are honest. Its paws are too big, that's the only disproportional thing that there really is. I am aware, that most smaller Sphinx sculptures go for a larger head, when compared with the Giza Sphinx. That's propably were this idea about it being "disproportional" is coming from.
You're like a real life Daniel Jackson from StarGate SGI I. You even look similar. As always, thank you for teaching facts too us all! Not all that alien bunk. I enjoy the thought of aliens being out there but leave the mixing of Egypt and Aliens to shows like Stargate SG1
Also the collar around the neck is concrete. Images of sphinx like in napoleons time look so scrawny and i never knew the modern sphinx is the artistic license not the images where the headdress ends at the top of the neck, those are its true appearance
When I heard 'that' crowd say that the head was 'obviously' re-carved, it was laughable. While I am not sure of the date that it was carved, partly because of WHERE was the Nile at different dates, did it slowly or sorta quickly move eastward, away from where the sphinx is, it seems likely that it was carved in the Old Kingdom. Or shortly thereafter.
isn't the green sahara a relatively new concept? and couldn't any civilization during the green sahara have diverted the Nile to build the sphinx? They certainly did have Nile diversion projects later, since Herodotes describes a pyramid in the middle of a lake, which cannot be found today, and waterway surrounding the Khufu pyramid
*couldn't any civilization during the green sahara have diverted the Nile to build the sphinx?* We can tell where the Nile was. We don't need to guess.
The cladding blocks are made of limestone the same as the Sphinx body. Ergo if they could work and shape limestone to create cladding blocks = could then not then simply carve a Sphinx as well rather than messing about with "cast-offs".......... Think about what you say.
Thank you so much. I've never quite understood why the Sphinx lends itself so readily to so much alt-history. In five patient minutes you explained away whole volumes of speculation.
Some people are very invested in claiming someone other than the ancient Egyptians are responsible for all of Egypt's monuments.
@@PlatinumAltaria exactly, how else will you get braindead views/subscribers to get that $$$
@@PlatinumAltaria Of course, there is lots of money to be made in this field. An huge opportunity to cash in. Believers can be attracted easily and they will consume more and more of your product, if done right.
@@dnocturn84 Yep, they'll also buy all the ancient alien technology I have for sale here ... like ... um ... just a minute, I'm sure I'll find some real soon ...
erosion patterns on the enclosure walls and body of the sphynx.
Everything you say here I have read about or seen described in the last year or two. What I so admire with your videos is the ease with which you pull everything together into a coherent story. Thanks again
Sorry where did you read that from 12000 to 5500 years ago the land was submerged in water because there isn’t a single shred of evidence that agrees with that. If anything the evidence suggests the waters receded time and time again. You and miano must be the only people privy to this supposed research that’s taken place
This channel is awesome. Thanks for the relentless teaching and awesome production value.
we were just discussing this in a "fraudulent archaeology" FB group, but nobody had any real answers as to why the head was seemingly smaller and in better condition. But the different types of limestone and the fissures totally explain it. Thanks so much! Gonna share this video with the group. Can't wait to read that paper you guys are working on, too!
It’s a shame no one else believes that nonsense. For a start you’d have no clue how the fissure would develop in the rock and many carving experts have shown how you can use a fissure as part of the carving, how to avoid the fissure and how to continue carving without compromising the rock. Miano at it again giving his opinion and pretending it’s a fact. The whole video is just opinion dressed up as fact rather poor
Actualy it's the other way around. The head is regular size, but the body got a bit out of shape, after the introduction of fast food. However, it would be very rude to tell that to the Sphinx. So 🤫
Also it doesn't like the term "soft" limestone, and resents the implication that the lowest level is of "higher grade".
@@shaolin1derpalm yes indeed, very insensitive language
WHY?!?! After a half-century plus lifetime spent watching damn near every mainstream pop-Egyptology documentary, (and more than a fair share of others on top of that) WHY is this the ONLY time I have ever heard it explained so simply, so undeniably, about the age, shape and design of the SPHINX?!?!
Egyptology definitely has an issue in communicating to the general public.
It's not like this for Rome, I spent years believing "alternative" Egyptology before actually finding out what we actually know and what's been found out by Archaeology.
So I sympathise with this comment
The reason it’s never been explained so simply is becaus the video is wrong about what we know. For a start the sphinx could have been built between 12000 and 5500 years as the research on the nile flood plain does not say for those 6500 years the area was submerged in water the research says the nile flooded and receded multiple times. The research also says they are unsure where exactly the water would have covered and that they believe the area was only flooded during particularly bad floods. There is nothing he states in that video that is considered a fact or can be used to give any form of conclusion on the age of the sphinx. The video is a shambles
history foi granite and dedunking are better channels
@@hattershouse710 I don’t know about *better*, but between the three of them, I have rejected the popular Zahi Hawas Mafia docs in their entirety without looking back.
I love learning real information that's been accumulated from the hands of humble, careful scholars. This video's been needed on the internet for a long time. Thanks, you have an awesome channel that serves these scholars well.
ruclips.net/video/a4n80cYXrAs/видео.html
dr miano isn't exactly honest all the time and spews a lot of conjecture. History for granite is the best informative channel regarding the pyramids specifically.
as always, great logical explanation. thanks David.
Whenever I hear or read someone saying the sphynx's head is to small i always ask them to show me a live sphynx so i know the correct proportions.
Thanks for this explanation, I'd seen the hypothesis that the head was originally a larger jackal or lion head and found it interesting, but figured it was one of those unsupportable hypotheses that shouldn't be taken too seriously. It's good to know that there are strong reasons to outright dismiss the possibility.
Took me way too much effort to find an actual credible ancient Egypt channel amongst the garbage peddled on youtube.
Minute man is good as well
Sad reality
2 good ones for egyptian videos
History for GRANITE
LINES IN SAND
Both enthusiasts who take this seriously and make informative content
@@celsus7979HofG does way too much anti-academia strawmanning.
I think he is evolving his opinion. He seems reasonably open minded.
I think his content is worth watching.
Glad to hear the paper you talked about with Dr Schneider on stream is coming along. Hope the plan to have him come back on to discuss Gobleki and the other Tepes is also still on the books!
Facinating information about the sphinx. I'm looking forward to you sharing more about your upcoming paper.
thanks for the debunking of the paleobabble surrounding this statue!
Thanks Prof. Miano for a concise evaluation of conclusions reached in numerous long and technical videos and the even longer and more technical reports that the videos are based on. This answers some of the most often repeated questions about the sphinx clearly and with reference to facts rather than myths and wishes. For people with expertise, there are longer videos about wicking, erosion by wind, sand and dust, etc. Thanks again for your always interesting work.
There is nothing factual in claiming the sphinx couldn’t have been built 12000 -5500 years ago because the area was flooded when all the research shows how the area flooded and receded during that time frame. They aren’t even sure if the area itself was part of the flooding and receding from the Nile. It all starts with an opinion not a fact then develops into more waffle from there. The video was a shambles from start to finish
Thanks, Doc for the succinct overview of the likely facts. I've always thought that the builders and designers just did the best they could with what they had. When I see the sometimes colossal mistakes and missteps that are made in modern times I wonder if the Sphinx just wasn't perfect. It's still a whopper of a monument and we're still talking about it.
Great points!
Always a fun ride! Thank you. Your research is impeccable.
Thanks for a concise, reasonalable explanation of the age of the sphinx.
Top tier channel
Dr. Miano: it's pronounced: "moo-KUT-tam," formation, the same as the high cliffs on the east side of modern Cairo today. I wish you would have visited them when you were there; you get an absolutely stunning view of Cairo at night time.
Love your work,
Alex
Thanks for the correction
Miano for the win love your work keep it up!
I knocked my phone off the table .... hitting the play button😄 very happy to see an upload on the Sphinx. Tyvmuch Dr Miano❤
Compare it to Hatshetsup Sphinx whose face is also small in relation to the body, its how they proportioned a Sphinx, also much of the headress and beard are missing
If you look at a collection of the many Sphinxes that were made in ancient Egypt, small and large, you will also see, that they never followed a real standardized Sphinx shape. Sometimes heads are large, sometimes they are small. Sometimes their bodys are large, sometimes their bodies are small and short. And they art style itself also changes a lot over time. It doesn't really work to look at a specific Sphinx that you randomly pick and to compare it with the Sphinx at Giza and draw conclusions. Because your conclusions will always vary, depending on what Sphinx you pick for that comparison. There are too many of them in too many variations.
Some say that the erosion of the Sphinx enclosure show that it must have been carved prior to the pyramids. After they were built a quarry acted as a water basin, so that the Sphinx enclosure would not erode due to surface water anymore
I thought the sphinx was just a runt and that's why it looks so awkward
Thanks bro for such a complete and succinct explanation of the facts. Can you do a video covering the Labyrinth?
Done. Egypt's Lost Labyrinth
ruclips.net/video/dzvfiutSDsE/видео.html
If you look at the front view, you'll find perfect proportions between head and body.
Thanks again, Dr. Miano!
It is not wrong size .......it is the correct size and you perceive the body to be larger only because it is missing the crown of the upper and lower Egypt (which most probably would have been made with wood and gilded with painted copper sheets) which used to adorn the Sphinx when it was originally carved (the reason there is a hole on the top of the Sphinx head and it was used as a anchor for this crown) and it also had a representation of the Royal feather fan which was planted on the back near the back legs ( also most probably would have been made with wood and gilded with copper sheets) and that is the reason there is a hole on the back (which has now been covered with metal door) along with the fault line which runs along the back of the Sphinx......also the adding of covering stones on the lower body ( to cover up the natural damages and erosion ) by ancients including Romans and recent restorations gives a impressions that body is bigger as compared to when it was carved.......... if you can visualize this picture with out any later modifications/ aberrations and with the original crown of upper and lower Egypt ,, then it would look absolutely PERFECT as a foreground to the Pyramid of Khaf-Ra..........................................
the proportions seem small even without any additional adornments
@@radezzientertainment501 he said the adornments would rebalance the proportions by making the head look bigger.
@@abj136 the structure itself would be bigger but if the head is small im not sure how adding something on top would make the head itself look bigger
What does "natural damage by ancients" mean?
@@twonumber22Well let's think about it. "Ancients: usually means ancient people. We know people can and often do damage. Also people are part of nature thus anything we do ,including damage can rightly be considdered natural. After all a lion scratching a tree is also considdered natural.... So any damage done by ancient people must be damage by ancients.....
Maybe that weaker layer is the reason the beard eventually fell off?
Thank you, Matthew Broderick
(if) the head was bigger might not the neck also have been bigger to support it ?
Exactly my thoughts. I think it has been reworked.
Thank you for these points! Im surprised to say this is the first time I've heard this explanation/theory!
All to often nowadays alternative theories always state that mainstream is wrong/flawed/biased you name it lol but never do they describe any of these points, they stamp in the name "MAINSTREAM" and just say its wrong... I really do love the ancient civilisation idea but all of the data needs to be looked at and reinterpreted as more things are discovered and more people become educated in the field, effectively so a higher number of more educated opinions can weed out the bs and fantasies that become easily enticing to believe. Ancient fantasies are a lot easier to believe just based on our acceptance that knowledge & evidence is lost over time, and the necessity to trust (necessary if you believe any alt-history anyway) in the smaller set of people creating/ reporting these alternate histories. Which because of the smaller set of alternative historians makes it easier for them to create their narrative.
P.s (didnt know where to fit it in lol)
Ive always found the jackal head theory unlikely, im no stone mason/ structural engineer but the proportion just looks wrong from first glance, its not hard to see it would be too heavy for the neck, but lets play devils advocate and say it 'WAS' a jackal, well then what happened? They wouldnt have re-carved the original design because if it could work the jackal head is more aesthetic. So assume the jackal head broke, no does it seam likely that they would have enough undamaged stone to carve a human head + headdress. And this isnt even taking into account that a jackal head is more slender and wouldnt fit the width of the headdress(this is all assuming its like the example pic meaning a jackal with no headdress).
idk i could rant and rant about my opinion but it just doesnt make sense physically lol
Thank you again! The high flooding days of the "Wild Nile" would have definitely destroyed the Sphinx.
No , theres np proof of that.
@@stridersmythe8860
From around 10,000 BCE until about 6100 BCE, there is almost no evidence of anyone living within the Egyptian area of the Nile River valley itself, because the valley was going through one of the wettest times in its history when enormous amounts of flood waters were pouring through the valley at times, sculpting out the Nile river valley in ways that hadn’t happened in thousands of years. It’s referred to in the geological record as the days of the “Wild Nile.” The eastern edges of the Giza plateau, known geologically as the Motokattam formation, the limestone formation the Great Sphinx is literally carved out of, was at this time under immense fast moving seasonally changing flood waters. That’s one of the main reasons why it is impossible for the Giza Sphinx to have existed 10,000 years ago. It and the southern wall of the enclosure it is carved from would have been destroyed by thousands of years of fast moving flood waters if it had existed back at this time. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379115001328
or lirias.kuleuven.be/1737097?limo=0
or ruclips.net/video/qw2yPRIhEso/видео.html
The future Sahara desert at this time however, was still green with savanna conditions, large African animals and seasonal lakes. This is when the famous “cave of the swimmers” in the far western desert and the Nabta Playa stone circle would have been in use starting around 7500 BCE. There is evidence of people living in the Fayum oasis and the first signs of cattle herding appears to be happening.
The acidification events such as the 8.2 kilo-year event is what led to a mix of different people moving into the Nile river valley and eventually to what we now call ancient Egypt. After the 8.2 kilo year event, there is the first evidence of large amounts of people moving into the Nile River Valley from the desert areas which now started their process of drying out. A large number of formerly nomadic cattle herding people who had been living and migrating from oasis to oasis in the seasonally green savanna like western and eastern oasis areas of what is now the Sahara desert, were suddenly moving into and onto the Nile river valley floodplain. The later 5.9 Kilo year event increased this trend and an even larger number of people moved into the Upper Nile river valley, leading to early cities like Nekhen, Thinis and Koptos.
factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub364/item1962.html
There is also an amazingly detailed 8 hour lecture series by an Egyptologist John C. Darnell. He covers the detailed record of evidence which shows the millennia of changes in tombs, tools, art, weapons, pottery and the emergence of a distinctive culture we think of today as ancient Egypt.
It's called "Conflicts That Shaped Pharaonic Egypt."
@@stridersmythe8860
sites.utexas.edu/butzer/files/2017/07/Butzer-1979-PleistoceneHistoryLowerNubia.pdf
The Nile valley was very different during the ice ages. It's possible that lakes formed at several times as sand dunes covered the flow of the river only to be washed away during later flooding periods. @@stridersmythe8860
ruclips.net/video/a4n80cYXrAs/видео.html wrong
Ahh I love this! I cannot wait for your paper to come out. It will be very useful as a reference. Also isn't there also evidence thst it was carved after Khafre's causway was built? There is an old drainage ditch that would have drained into the sphinx enclosure that was later filled in...
I always thought the proportions could be explained by available material and structural concerns, and that a bigger head would snap the neck. No need for a groundless recarve hypothesis.
Rock types: The Piff, The Paff, and The Poff.
Thr masonry around it was original amd there was much more including a wall that shielded the sphinx fron the rising river period but it has since been eroded and removed . It is actually from the first period and the masonry was made to protect ot from the rising riverand the wall that diverted water from the area only protected from currents of water, as water still seeped in to the area around the sphinx. It was continually rebuilt as needed during the first wet era and is indeed now only showing proof of the last bits of masonry after the last wet period when it was no longer needed. The sphinx has been protected many times during green periods and was even once housed under a structure for hundreds of years.
Can you do something on the mysterious internal cavities too? I don't think that there is something special in there and the low quality of the stone certainly forced the designers to keep it mostly solid with only little internal cavities. But there still is at least one cavity and it's surprisingly hard to find reliable information of it's size, shape and (probably rather boring) internal features.
If it's what I've heard about it's an easily accessible natural crevice/cave and a small room in size, and that yes it's unremarkable in that there's nothing left in it.
_"Sinkholes"_ So bear in mind that below the Giza plateau is groundwater. Fresh water being erosive to limestone can over time create the ubiquitous caves/tunnel systems one finds in areas of limestone bedrock and freshwater sources. There is a video here on YT which shows Egyptologists/hydrologists drilling beneath the Sphinx to subsequently hit groundwater ~4-5 meters below it.
The Giza plateau rests atop the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System while the Nile runs to the east - and as the video alluded to the river used to run closer to the necropolis area millennia ago. So while the pyramids themselves rest atop high ground the Sphinx is located in the low area of the plateau making it closest to the groundwater beneath the surface.
As an aside. As a result of said groundwater which is eroding the Sphinx even today the Egyptian government per a USAID grant several years ago contracted a US water systems company to install underground water pumps to lower the water table and divert it away from the necropolis area. Fresh water from rainfall + moisture from below = can over time create fissures and caverns beneath the surface of the limestone bedrock. Eventually as alluded to the ground itself can collapse creating sinkholes.
Great video...also all cats/lions aren't created equal..a long bodied lioness can make that pose...every cheetah is spot on... I have 4 house cats and only one of them often lays exsctly like that with a nearly identical profile.
Incoming "it was carved before the green period, reeeeee!" people xD
Good and informative video as usual.
Great piece of work. But you forgot to point out that, it could have been carved before 12600 years ago & that the Atlantians with their best alien friends had the sphinx levitate/float over the water & the flood plain for at least 7000 years.I mean the Aliens had that technology back then & the Sphinx would have made a beautiful mirror image reflecting over the water, with the pyramids in the background. I am pretty sure it was the 7000 years of levitation that broke the Sphinx's back.
😆
He did adress this. And he said it's an impossible option, because the flood season / wet season between 12500 and 5500 years ago would have destroyed an earlier Sphinx.
I believe it was thousands of years of massive energy generation, water pumping, sound waving and alien space ship landings, that broke the Sphinxs back.
In regards to the age of the Sphynx, suppose the river was not powerful enough to wash it away, if that could even be argued, you would think there'd be a lot of evidence of river mud/ plant materials still found in between and behind the casing stones. And since that's not the case, it's just another bullet into the "older than Egypt" nonsense, as if there wasn't already ample evidence
That was comedy gold when miano suggested it would be washed away. Given it’s bedrock and is still there did it just suddenly grow out of the ground after the flooding stopped. Mianos video was a shambles full of his own opinions dressed up as facts. Pretty pathetic
@@Manbearpig4456 It's amazing how you apparently watched the video but did nothing to understand anything. Good job
@@caodesignworks2407that’s because the video is a pile of opinions dressed up as facts. Sure apparently it couldn’t have been built 12000 to 5500 years ago because the land was submerged in water yet there isn’t a single shred of scientific evidence to back up Mianos claim. The research suggests that the area flooded and water receded time and time again and the research also says there are unsure what areas of land the water flooded. See some of us have a brain where as muppets like you lap it up because your brain dead. Name me one fact he correctly details in that video because if you actually knew what your talking about you would know there isnt a single one.
Please post link to the paper when it is published.
👍👍❤💯💯Awesome ! Thx again Dr. Miano.
Yep ! 1 - If they wanted to put the face of a pharaoh on the supposed lion's head why didn't they just carve the face and leave the head ? like many other sphinxes specially the one of Djedefre.
If they re-carved the entire head of the lion to make a pharaoh's head & ended up with a supposed distorted proportion, then why did they simply make the body smaller too ? Specially that they respected proportions so much. Obviously it was intentional. That's what I've been saying too. I'm glad that I found someone talking about this.
& I hope the Lunatics Wake up from their deep hypnosis.
Limestone is the result of mud, coral and the shells of plankton-like creatures compressed together over tens of millions of years. Looking at samples from the Sphinx Temple and the Sphinx itself, Aigner and Lehner inventoried the different fossils making up the limestone.
I wanna read those papers PLEASE!
When Michael Angelo crafted the David statue he spuriously made the head bigger so that when people looked up to admire the work the head would appear proportional.
Thank you, Dr. Miano for finally tossing all those damned aliens and their dumbass astronaut theorists to where the scarab beetles may roll them into little balls and parade them across the sky to the bemusement of the Gods!!😌🙏🫡😁
Another great overview. Thanks
I've never seen a sphinx in real life, so I can't tell if it's too small.
Nice video. I still think the sphinx was recarved later. Maybe to an egotistical ruler that wanted to be remembered and the sphinx made a best choice. However, couldve been other things too. Looking at all other statues i saw, the sphinx head was the most out of place to be the original to me. But we all could be wrong. We wasn't there when it was first built lol just my opinion
I agree, and I believe the Sphinx was built by Egyptians as we assume, so this doesn't have anything to do with some alternative history theories but I don't see any reason why we shouldn't at least consider that a way too small head could've really been the result of a later change. Just look at the first two and oldest Sphinxes in the video, especially the Hetepheres Sphinx, in my opinion you can clearly see on the top and back of the head that it was originally most likely a full lion with lion head and the human head got added later. Whether that happened with the Great Sphinx too who knows, but at least that would be one example of another Sphinx that could've been a regular lion at some point that got recarved.
It's also worth mentioning that all other cases of smaller Sphinxes with a human head too were built after the assumed date the Great Sphinx with human head was made/when the human head was added since some people use "that's just how a sphinx looks, they always have a human head" as an argument, but I think it's plausible that every later version could just be based on the main big Sphinx that perhaps was the first to have a human head.
There is historical evidence to indicate the Sphinx was renovated several times in history. Such renovation given the nature of how the limestone bedrock it was carved from deteriorates lends to "some" possible recarving. Such however would likely be minor around the edges to smooth it out.
Look at old B&W photos of it before it was excavated. Having been abandoned and neglected for centuries the Nemes shows deterioration around it's edges which used to have cracks and missing spots until it was smoothed out using concrete in the 1920's.
So repairing the same in antiquity might have lent towards some minor recarving of damaged areas to once again smooth its' appearance out. A major recarving however = nothing to support that...
best ancient history channel by far
The best analysis yet of the sphinx - did u send a link to graham hancock and robert schoch?
GH takes any kind of academic discussion of his bonkers theories as a personal attack.
Yes please do so they can have a good laugh at Mianos opinions dressed up as facts
@Stu-my1zo it all starts with the nonsense that it couldn’t have been carved 12000 to 5500 years ago because the area was flooded. For a start it could have been carved long before 12000 years ago and there isn’t a shred of evidence to back up his opinion that he dresses up as fact. It then continues with more opinion dressed up as fact
Could you expand a little on your assertion that at this time the Nile was powerful enough to wash away the sphinx? What evidence do we have for this? TIA.
Perfect.
The sphinxes face has has so much maintenance in modern times... and the tunnels in its rear have yet to be explained.. nor the cavity under its paws
You mean the secret chamber where the magic spaceship of the gods is parked?
The Sphinx has several holes in it, which were created either by ancient people as part of the structure, or by modern excavations. There is no mystery. There's also no secret underground parking garage.
@@PlatinumAltaria next you'll say there no door behind the sphinxes ear.. nor in the top of its head shown in several videos
@@BaMenace The hole in the top of its head is ancient, and may have been an anchoring point for its crown decoration. The hole behind the head is modern, it was excavated in 1837.
I can't imagine anyone accusing the Sphinx of being "maintained", it's had pits dug in it and parts blown off, if it hadn't been reburied I doubt there'd be anything left of it by now.
@@PlatinumAltaria cool story bruh
@@PlatinumAltaria I'd have to look it up, but wasn't the Sphinx renovated by one of the later Pharaohs?
What certainly seems to be true is that by the time the Giza pyramids were being neglected/looted, so was the Great Sphinx.
Early civilizations loved chimeras. Horus is a great example.
Thank you.
Hello - The Sphinx is GAN-HIN - Guardian of the Temple (of Lord Mikaal, one of the twelve Sons of GOD, the Solar Hierarchy who erected the Pyramids and the Sphinx with the power of THOUGHT), the head being a semblance of that Archangel who had His Temple there in Ellhonia, Drunhia (the capital of Egypt in those days) in that Age of Leo SIX MILLION YEARS AGO. It was carved out of a single block of white alabaster, painted black and later covered over for protection by a Pharaoh.
great subject love the sphinx.
Boooooo booooring!
No buzzkill theories for me, it was in fact built 50,000 years ago by the pleiadian gigaborean aryan elves when the region was an alpine winter wonderland and it was originally a stone dire wolf with sabre tooth tiger fangs
As much as I like listening to all arguments, the views I don't ever agree with are, "then they decided, they designed, or they realized" . This doesn't ever sit with me because it is just an assumption. I love thinking about what they could have possibly been thinking while constructing these monuments. Just would never base my opinion on it. The biggest piece of info from this video that I have not really heard discussed is that it's in the flood plains of the Nile therefore would have had to have been before or after the wet period. Does this account for how the river shifts it's flow? I've read it has changed from where it was and currently is.
The information he gives on the flood plains is his opinion nothing factual about it. For a start the research says the Nile flooded and receded multiple times and there aren’t certain if that area of the land was part of the consistent flood plain. If anything they think it only got flooded if it was a particular bad flooding from the Nile and not what they would call a typical flood.
Fascinating.
How do you know for a fact that the Nile at that point in ancient history was sufficient in volume and duration of time to completely erode the massive sculpture?? Seems like some kind of data analytics I'd be interested in learning about.
Thanks in advance.
The entire Sahara was dominated by huge lakes and rivers during that time. We can see where the water was based on the sediment that still exists in the area, including at Giza.
@@PlatinumAltaria Fossil evidence also suggest that the Sphinx itself was also, so.....
How do know what the erosion rate and duration maintained and substrate erosion rate under those hypothetical situations?
That would be the data requirement for ending debate based on the original comment.
But I'm kinda drunk and uneducated so I don't know...
@@j.m.9703 No, there's no evidence that the Sphinx has been touched by water. Sand, yes, water no.
The properties of sandstone are fairly easy to understand since humans have been working with it for thousands of years, it turns out if you put a porous stone in a river for 10,000 years it gets damaged.
There is no reason to believe that the Sphinx is older than the rest of Egypt's monuments, since it's obviously in the same style and bears no connection to any of the artefacts from the Nile region dating back to the humid period.
You nailed it my friend, they dont know. Egyptology is interpretation, and then theory, anything else is tourism.
@@tonewopn8275 How is reading the literal writing on the wall "interpretation"?
for me they redid his head... it seems newer than his body...
Interesting, I always assumed the masonry was a modern addition.
This is a very compelling viewpoint and explanation, and I remember hearing this when you interviewed Robert. However it doesn't change the fact its just one interpretation of the evidence. It's a very solid interpretation, but still just one interpretation. Reader's Ideas are very compelling and comprehensive also, and IMO (as unpopular it will be seen on this channel) so is Schochs ideas. We may never really know who originally carved it.
Schochs also promotes that all pyramid like structures all over the globe were built by the same civilization...which is absurd. You might think his ideas are compelling but his ideas are also what should be alerting you it is bs.
Yeah it used to be a lion head like the one that’s my profile picture!
This is very interesting. What are your thoughts if any around possible water erosion around the bottom of the statue which would indicate flooding?
Remember what it was carved from = limestone - which is naturally porous and which erodes in the presence of fresh water. So the odds of "flooding" as far as inundation of a prolonged nature is not very viable. Egypt does occasionally incur heavy rainfall which can trigger flash flooding. That is behind much of the damage to the tombs in the Valley of the Kings whereby water cascading down the valley walls triggers a torrent through the valley floor. Yet even then such water typically evaporates fairly quickly.
So it is possible that the occasional heavy rainfall caused water to flow from the higher ground around the Sphinx towards it as it resides on the lower end of the plateau. One must still however account for enclosure walls around the causeways etc. which would act to breakup and shunt away such rainfall + the Sphinx pit itself which would act to slow the rush of water.
So what we see is mostly due to the natural efflorescence which affects limestone caused by = groundwater. There is a video on YT of Egyptologists/hydrologists drilling beneath the Sphinx to hit groundwater ~4-5 meters down. There are aquifers under the plateau. So pressure dynamics 101. The ground heats while the pressure below ground is higher than above. Consequently moisture "upwells" through the porous limestone bedrock - becoming acidic as it goes - where upon evaporation on the surface salt crystals are formed. Think an asphalt road in winter. Moisture gets into cracks and freezes and that pressure breaks up the surface of the road to cause potholes.
So the surface of the limestone is continually being impacted by moisture transit which denudes it causing it to flake away to the touch. This over time causes erosion of the Sphinx relative to the hardness - read density - of the layers it is carved from. Limestone forms in layers and thus some parts being "softer" than others erode more quickly yielding the uneven surface you see. Rainfall contributes to this - BUT - it is not responsible for everything we see. Even today absent such heavy rainfall the Sphinx continues to erode owing to efflorescence from groundwater.
Maybe they finished the head and later they looked at it and thought "wow... we really messed that one up." and had a re-do. I mean, artists and architects do that even today.
The desert formation from which the head was carved did survive the onrushing waters of the green Sahara Nile for 6500 years, although no one knows how much it changed and shrank during this time. I believe it is unreasonable to expect carved limestone features to survive such conditions
The Sphinx quarry, if it were submerged in current for6.500 yrs, would almost certainly show river erosion and it does not. Erosion from rain inundations yes, but no river erosion such as I would expect. The quarry could've been protected by sediment, but the presence of the head above the river bottom would lead to excavation and erosion during flooding on the upcurrent side, perhaps also there would be hydrologic features such as potholing etc.
Interesting… can I ask 2 questions? -Why couldn’t it have been carved during a wetter period? (Is there a way to tell the rock has not been exposed to more rain or precipitation?)
And
-how do we know that the Nile would have washed away the body if it had been exposed earlier? Has someone done the calculations for that?
I’m not implying support for theories of earlier dating. Just looking for more detail on those assertions. They sound logical.
Looking forward to content on that casing being original!
Asked similar questions on an earlier video on the pyramids. Interested in the answer to this as well
I cant answer the first one, but for your second question, the erosion caused by moving water would have destroyed any manmade structures. As explained in the video, the poorer quality limestone would have easily been destroyed by water erosion
1 - there is zero archeological evidence to support a predynastic civilization capable of creating it = nada. Hence it could not have been carved millennia earlier.
2 - geological core sampling was done east of the necropolis - as much as possible since the suburbs of Cairo now encroach it. It showed whereby during the 2-3 months each year when the Nile would flood its banks that area to the east became a floodplain transforming into a shallow lake. Also the Nile used to run closer to Giza during the 4th Dynasty but has shifted its tract - as major rivers often do - westwards over the millennia to its present location.
Hence the location just east of what is today Khafre's valley temple - adjacent the Sphinx = was once a harbor area stretching from the worker village just south of the temple northwards to the entrance of what used to be Khufu's causeway leading up to his mortuary temple which used to sit adjacent the ancillary pyramids on his pyramid's eastern face.
The diary of Merer relates they built dikes and canals to connect the harbor area to the main Nile and channel water to it to allow for heavily laden barges to access the harbor. The Sphinx rests in a pit at the low point of the plateau. So that area would be subject to the annual flood - "a wadi" - hence the creation of a harbor nearby. Thus water cascading downhill from occasional rainfall + the Nile encroaching the area would have filled its pit and eroded its body.
As an aside. If you look at the Sphinx location relative to everything around it then if it predated the pyramids it was in the way. It rests between the main quarry and the harbor which is the path of the natural incline leading up to the pyramid from that harbor area. So it would have been in the way of workers laboring around the harbor area moving blocks etc up to the pyramids.
@@firstlast5454 yeah I gathered that’s the assertion. I’m just curious as to how it was determined. It would seem to require the knowledge of how high the water level used to come up and how often. Are there erosion patterns or water marks at that level throughout the surrounding area? Or is it an assumption?
See the link provided in the references below the video. It shows you the water level of the Nile.
Here is the reason why it is an ox and Tamil civilisation keep the OX or Bull in front of temple as they respect and kept as idol worship of predecessor Shiva during the period of cattle heard rearing of human civilisation evolution, which is written in ancient Tamil scripts and spoken in literatures.
First of all, i love your Channel, thank you for all the work you put in here.
But i have a maybe stupid question.
Is it possible that the sphinx isnt even a lion at all?
If i just look at the proportions, it reminds me more of an caracal or serval.
As far as i have read; espacially the caracal was religiously significant in the ancient Egyptian culture,
Sculptures are thought to have guarded the tombs of pharaohs, which fits the location.
P.S. Sorry for my bad english
Well, we have many sphinx statues from Egyptian history, and it looks very much like them.
As alluded the lion in ancient Egypt represented "strength" and while nor worshipped as a God per se it was associated with their Gods. Sekhmet - daughter of Ra - is seen in Egyptian iconography in conjunction with lions. Other Pharaohs also employed lions in conjunction with themselves. Tutankhamun as an example had artifacts in his tomb which depicted lions. Amenhotep III created Sphinxes which like the Sphinx of Giza were clearly reflective of part lion/part man.
There are other Sphinxes as well as already stated which also incorporated other animals. Criosphinxes' famously were part lion - part ram - reflecting Khnum = their God of the source of the Nile upon which Egypt depended. So "sphinx" by definition means part lion.
hey david , Can you make a video on the mitanni people of syria and their relation with Sanskrit.
Definitely prefer Occam's Razor when it comes to explaining ancient artefacts over alien technologies pulled from a hat with a ta-da!
You the man!
Very good ...
Can you make video on Kailash temple?
My gut feeling is that the body was originally just an uncarved hill with a head like rock at the end.
When the nile flooded during the wet period it reminded the locals of the first mountain of creation rising from the ocean.
When khufu ordered it to be made in to his image he also ordered to dig around the formation to create the lower body.
To recreate the scene of creation they flooded it yearly by some means, creating the erosion on the west wall.
Just a thought, who knows.
But it fits everything odd thing that bothered me
Yeah. I agree. I honestly think It was just a "cool" idea. Maybe it was already a reverential natural totem pre unification, and someone inserted himself into the situation.
I bet we will never know all of it, unfortunately
Yes my thoughts too , and would bet the sphinx enclosure was mostly carved out by a river eddy . But the erosion on the west wall looks more like rain run off that would happen after desertification set in . Which would not happen with the nile being there and all the foliage and root systems preventing that type of erosion.
But my guess is there were more work projects done on it than Khafre (2600BC) and Thutmose (1480BC)
Where did your gut get its degree?
The bedrock was almost certainly partly visible above the sand prior to carving, but obviously it wasn't completely exposed or else it would have already been eroded away. The Sphinx is not a benben, nor does it have any similar elements, nor do sphinxes have any connection to creation. There is no water erosion on the sphinx or anywhere else.
Where did i say it was completely exposed in the shape and size it is today? I merely said ' a hill with a head like rock on one end'
And for know=it=alls like you i clearly stated that it's just a thought, without claiming certainty or evidence or a degree.
Sooo... not an alternative mega advanced society long before everyone else? That's nice to know
I'm not so sure that the Sphinx is actually disproportional. A real cat or a lion will have a head of roughly that size in relation to its body, just like the Sphinx. It isn't that far off, if people are honest. Its paws are too big, that's the only disproportional thing that there really is.
I am aware, that most smaller Sphinx sculptures go for a larger head, when compared with the Giza Sphinx. That's propably were this idea about it being "disproportional" is coming from.
Thanks for this informative video. I feel specially honored. 🤭
So much for the alleged ultra sonic high precision building of the ancient sculptures… 😅
You're like a real life Daniel Jackson from StarGate SGI I. You even look similar. As always, thank you for teaching facts too us all! Not all that alien bunk. I enjoy the thought of aliens being out there but leave the mixing of Egypt and Aliens to shows like Stargate SG1
Also the collar around the neck is concrete. Images of sphinx like in napoleons time look so scrawny and i never knew the modern sphinx is the artistic license not the images where the headdress ends at the top of the neck, those are its true appearance
Aha! The thumbnail image lacks the collar. So cool!
Leaving crumbs too small for the other sphinxes mouses
Is it just me or does the face actually look female?
The head would have looked bigger with the beard.
The sphinx isn't real, if it were, the head would be disproportionally large like the aliens that made it!!! (satire)
hello ' do you have an opinion on whether or not Nefertiti bust "in berlin" is a fake or not ?🤔
When I heard 'that' crowd say that the head was 'obviously' re-carved, it was laughable. While I am not sure of the date that it was carved, partly because of WHERE was the Nile at different dates, did it slowly or sorta quickly move eastward, away from where the sphinx is, it seems likely that it was carved in the Old Kingdom. Or shortly thereafter.
Just a thought human face originally but later King may have recarved it to his liknes ?
4:03
isn't the green sahara a relatively new concept?
and couldn't any civilization during the green sahara have diverted the Nile to build the sphinx? They certainly did have Nile diversion projects later, since Herodotes describes a pyramid in the middle of a lake, which cannot be found today, and waterway surrounding the Khufu pyramid
*couldn't any civilization during the green sahara have diverted the Nile to build the sphinx?*
We can tell where the Nile was. We don't need to guess.
Was this thumbnail supposed to be on one of your Tinder shorts?
You spoil the fun for many people! (No need to feel guilty though, they don’t watch your video’s….)
Is it possible that the sphinx could have been carved 12,000 yrs ago, and the masonry on the outside was an old kingdom attempt to restore it?
The cladding blocks are made of limestone the same as the Sphinx body. Ergo if they could work and shape limestone to create cladding blocks = could then not then simply carve a Sphinx as well rather than messing about with "cast-offs".......... Think about what you say.
@@varyolla435your response makes no sense what so ever.
also what would have been the timespan for the highest layer of limestone to form?