RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX.

by Paul Jordan

This book tells the full story of the Great Sphinx of Giza as Egyptology has uncovered it. The Sphinx is one of the most striking monuments of the ancient Egyptians, and has attracted the attention of travellers, scientists, archaeologists and others for generations. Paul Jordan details the Sphinx's impact on the ancient world, on Arab writers, on Renaissance travellers, on the pioneers of Egyptology and on modern scholarship. He tells the story of the Sphinx's many bouts of excavation and restoration, and above all puts the Sphinx in the context of all that is known about ancient Egyptian history and religion. This book examines every aspect of the Sphinx, including a professional geologist's recent claims regarding its age, and provides an authoritative and highly readable overview of the issues and debates currently surrounding it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ancient History, History, Egyptology

Hardcover

First published February 1, 1998

About the author

I am an autistic celibate published author.

Reviews

[Donald Broussard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this while taking a history course on the Ancient Near East. This book came out in response to earlier books by John West, Graham Hancock, and geologist Dr. Robert Schoch dating the building of the Sphinx much earlier than 2500 BC. Professor Schoch based this idea on geological grounds, as he contended the main erosion of the Sphinx to be made by rain erosion from an earlier period [rain having stopped by the time of Chephren]. Paul Jordan's reply rests on archeological findings, including the architectural link of the Sphinx to the mortuary temple of Chephren. Egyptologists generally have embraced Jordan's case, while many geologists and climatologists back the science Schoch. Much of that debate has to do with figuring out the main sources of the erosion: rain (which would point to an earlier period when rainfall was more plentiful), wind (both sides agree there was some wind erosion), and so on.

Jordan argues that the Sphinx had to come from the time of Chephren [c. 2500 BC] since no civilization has been found earlier -- the kind of civilizations to which others such as Graham Hancock attribute the monument. Jordan was writing at the height of debate from this, and so his writing presumes the reader familiar with the issues. As he's on the side of the academic Egyptologists, his text is fairly academic itself. It's almost as if he prefers to leave the casual popular writing to Hancock and von Daniken.