Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1886 — Revealing the Sphinx. [ARTICLE]

Revealing the Sphinx.

It will be good new* for antiquaries to learn that at last an effort is being made to disinter the Sphinx. For ages visitors to Egypt have been amazed at this stupendous effort of the sculptors who flourished before the gnomon of Cheops was built. Yet, while city after city has been disinterred almost within sight of the monument to the Kingly Borus, this magnificent memorial of a vanished race has been permuted to get heaped deepest and deeper with the desert sand, in spite of the prayer inscribed on the slab of Thothmes which begs the peoples that are to come to keep the statue clear of the drift, which even then was threatening to overwhelm it. Some forty feet of the figure is still above the surface; but all save the head and neck are covered, and we only know what lies beneath from the description of travelers like Salt and Caviglia, who examined it before the sands had submerged the body of the figure. Even then, nearly seventy years ago, it was only by great labor that the excavators could manage to make out the details they have supplied, and, in spite of their efforts the desert sand was constantly encroaching on the cleared space. Since that date nothing has been done. Every year has added to the accumulations, and so steadily has the work of interment been going on that visitors, after an absence of twmnty or thirty years, notice a sensible change in the amount of debris piled up around the Sphinx. Indeed, if something is not done the chances are that before long the monument, which divides with the Pyramids themselves the interest of every intelligent traveler, will be entirely swallowed up. This has been the fate of many similar architectural remains in its close proximity. It is difficult to say for certain when the Sphinx was sculptured. But it is, we believe, now generally admitted that the idea of shaping a great rock into the semblance of Horus, surmounted with the regal “pschent,” the tall conical crown and wide flowing wig over the brow of the threatening basilisk, and from the chin the royal beard, was carried out during the era of Ata and Seneferu, Pharaohs in whose reign thelove of architecture was a ruling passion. The ancient Egyptians loved to have everything on a great scale. They erected huge pyramids and carved their records on obelisks which, under northern skies, are still the wonder of the quarry-m»n. Hence, when they saw a huge ridge of limestone projecting from the platform at the foot of the Libyan Mountains, and bearing a rude resemblance- to a reclining quadruped, the temptation to give it human form must have been irresistible to a people who seem«d to have lived chisel in hand. The figure of a lion with the head of a man was the form it was destined to take. These sphinxes, as they came to be called, were not the creatures of the Egyptian imagination, for as symbols of fierce and intelligence they are found in Assyria and Babylonia, and their figures are not uncommon in Phot niciam works of art. No wonder that the- Arabs knew this mighty monster m Aboo’l Hoi (the b ather of Terrors-),. as that the Greeks, to whom its symbolism was a mystery, named it the Sphinx.. Its face is thirty feet long and four.tesu broad, and was at one time glazed, with sacret pigment, while its body is one- hundred and forty feet in length, and the outstretched paws, no longer to’ be seen, fifty feet long. Between the paws was erected a temple thirty-five- feet long, while in front of the giant’s-breast was a small sanctuary, entered by a door-way divided into passages-by a reclining lion. At the far end of theisanctuary was the tablet of Thothmes- IY-, and bn either side other tablets- cowered with sculptured bas-reliefs and hieroglyphics, while in the court of the temple was an altar, which, withi amoe fragments of the Sphinx, is now in the British Museum. Here for ages troops of priests officiated. Upon tJb® stately flight of steps, so arranged! that the lordly proportions of the Sphinx might be seen to advantage, endless troops of worshipers ascended, on- prostrated themselves as the smoko of the burned sacrifice curled over the then fertile valley. Though the- slabs with the dream of Thothmes and prayer of the Sphinx to keep his statue- clear of the sand which has since- then overwhelmed it, are no longer there, the outline of the temple and the- flight of steps will bee exposed to view;. The dead wall, with, the mounds of shifting sand pilad against it, wi11,,, a® we have said, form at most prosaic onatwork to this noble monument, and must conceal from the visitor that front view which, as in thecase of Stonehenge, is to many most, striking. Bnt the Opportunity o£ seeing the entire figure and of obseeving the majesti© face as the sculptor intended it t® be seen from below,, not from in front, and on the samo level* will be ample compensation for what must necessarily be lost. —Lorulcm Daily Telegram,.