Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 163, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1913 — “Temple in Sphinx” Found To Be Hoax [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

“Temple in Sphinx” Found To Be Hoax

OKT T is not often that the Bell rious science of archaeology J| is enlivened by a hoax, but 1 one of k daring kind has recently caused considerable annoyance to Egyptologists -sjSftT''' in general, and to one well- ) known scholar, Dr. E. Reissner, in particular. Some weeks ago there was printed «11 OTer the world an account of some ■astonishing discoveries made In regard to the famous Sphinx at Gizeh. It stated that Dr. Reifsner, who has for some years been working on behalf of the University Of Harvard, had made some most astonishing discoveries in the interior -of the great statue of the Sphinx, which for centuries has been the guardian of the royal necropolis at Gizeh. Had it not been for the unjustifiable use of the name of Dr. Reissner, who is well known aq an explorer and ■one of the great authorities on the prehistoric antiquities of Egypt, the account would have, been treated with the ridicule it deserved. According to the account published extensively in England and America Dr. Reissner bad discovered a large temple over 100 feet long within the body of the Sphinx, and, connected with this by a tunnel, a second nmall temple, some 60 feet long by 14 .’feet wide, in the head of the Sphinx. The larger temple was described as ■the tomb of Mena or Menes, the first •of the Pharaohs, and a drawing was given of an ebony tablet inscribed in Archaic characters which was said to have been found in the temple. The announcement of this startling discovery caused immediate Inquiry. The chief authorities at the Cairo museum. Prof. Sir Gaston Maspero and Captain Weigali, the inspector of antiquities for the Cairo district, both denied the slightest basis for the report. No attempt to explore the inferior of the Sphinx had been made, nor would any such explorations be Allowed, as the nature and character •of the monument are . already well Iknown. Moreover Dr. Reissner has not been working in the Cairo prov„tince this season, having been, as for -the last few years, in Nubia and the ! Sudan. The absence of Dr. Reissner (from Cairo was no doubt the reason •for the selection of his name in contnectlon with the hoax.

The true story of the Sphinx, which is vgry simple, remains, therefore, unchanged. The great limestone block out of which the colossal figure is hewn forms the eastern. termination of the limestone platform on which the pyramids are built No doubt in the remote prehistoric times the projecting rock had become weathered into the rude outline of the human head and face. There are many similar wind worn rocks to be seen on the banks of the Nile, and there is usually a superstitious sanctity attributed to them by Arabs, no doubt inherited from the old Egyptians. In early historic times, certainly before the. age of the pyramid builders, some 4,000 years before our era, the figure was improved by human hands, the headdress and beard being carved, while in later ages the whole was painted red, which gives it the appearance of sandstone. ' Portions of the serpent which adorned the forehead of the Sphinx and of the beard are to be seen in the British museum. The nature of the stone and painting are clearly to be seen. The Sphinx of Gizeh figures little in Egyptian literature, the chief reference to it being in the time of Thothmes IV, of the eighteenth dynasty, B. C. 1450. It was this monarch who built or restored the small temple between the fore paws. In the large tablet at the end of the temple Thothmes tells an interesting story. The king had been hunting in the district and, being tired at noonday, lay down to rest beneath the shadow of the Sphinx. During his siesta, the god Ra Heru Khuti (Harmachis), to whom the Sphinx was sacred, appeared to him in a dream and ordered him to clear away the sand which had then, as now, been wipd driven to such an extent as to bury the temple. This task Thothmes accomplished, but by the time of Rameses 11. the temple was again burled in the sand. In recent years it was cleared by M. Mariette but is now nearly buried by the desert dust again. A strange romance of the east lies hidden behind the history of a collection of Persian lustre tiles that will be on exhibition in London next wehk. In the Maidan Mosque, at Kazan, there once stood a great Mih-

rab, or praying niche, that was made by the most cunning artists of the thirteenth century. Fifty years ago the tiles, which were made by a prooess of which the secret has long, been lost, began to disappear. One by one they passed out of the mosque at irregular intervals. No one knew how they vanished or who took them, and when a guard was set to watch over the sacred treasure by night he was found is the morning strangled in front of the Mihrab. Far away, in Teheran, an Englishman, who was interested in Persian pottery, received occasionally" beautiful glazed tiles from a mysterious native who could not or would not tell him where they came from. He continued to buy ihese tiles for fifteen years; one day he discovered that some of them, when placed next to one another, had readable Kuflc a!nd Neshky inscriptions from the Koran. He began a great game of jigsaw with the tiles, and ultimately built up, with but few tiles missing, the famous lost Mihrab. The collection, which belongs to Mr. John Richard Preece, the Englishman in question, contains some other extraordinary relics,,including a part of the tomb of the Prophet Daniel, covered with crude carvings, and an Armenian altar piece of twelfth century workmanship, in which all the divine and human\ figures are splashed with blood. v One of the most valuable things in the exhibition is a carpet made for the Shah Abbas, who reigned from 158? to 1628 A. D. This carpet is thirtyone feet long by twelve feet wide, and its pattern reproduces the features of an old-time Persian pleasure garden. It is said to be insured-for £5,000.

Diagrammatic View of the Discover! as Reported to Have Been Found in the Sphinx and Which it Now Appears Was a Great Hoax.