Tag: Mark lehner

The Sphinx is sexy? New video by Marina Orlova highlights the ancient monument

What do you get when you combine the Sphinx with cleavage? You get a video that looks something like this (Watch the Video).

YouTube phenomenon Marina Orlova, a former teacher who presents facts with a slightly risqu twist, gives a lesson on the famous monument.

According to her bio she holds two degrees in philology (that’s historical linguistics), has just under 400,000 YouTube subscribers and yes she did teach high school, back in Russia. She uses the tag line intelligence is sexy.

To be fair to her, the video is informative and while her attire is – eye-catching – it isnt by any means pornographic.

A few facts on the Sphinx, some mentioned in her video and some which I have thrown in.

ONE The Sphinx was carved into the natural bedrock at the base of a causeway in Khafres pyramid complex.
TWOIts widely believed that the Sphinx was built by the pharaoh Khafre, who succeeded Djedefre as the leader of Egypt. As such it would have been built around 2500 BC.
THREEArchaeologist Michel Baud points out that its odd that Khafre chose to build his pyramid complex at Giza. Khafre was the son of Khufu and Baud notes that normally children built their pyramid in a different place than their parents.
FOUR No texts, which date from the time the Sphinx was built, survive to present day. This fact makes it hard to determine why a monument of this size was built.
FIVEMark Lehner points out that during the New Kingdom (more than 1,000 years after the Sphinx was constructed)Egyptiansregarded itas the image of the sun god, whether it was originally built with that intent is unknown.

Video: Hot For Words – Great Sphinx in Egypt

SIX The Sphinx has the body of a lion but the head of a pharaoh (in this case probably Khafre). Lions were commonly used as symbols of royalty throughout the Middle East, indeed the Assyrians display it prominently in their hunting scenes.
SEVENThe monument towers about 20 meters high. As Mark Lehner notes, the Egyptians would not build statues on this scale, again,for another 1,200 years.
EIGHTWhy the nose is missing is a bit of a mystery as Heritage Keys Prad Patel notes it may have beendamaged at some point in the 18th century. Thereis also textual evidencewhich suggests that it was destroyed in the 14th century for religious reasons.
NINE An incomplete temple was built in front of the Sphinxs paws.It may have been dedicated to the monument.
TENRestoration work on the Sphinxhas taken place at various timesover the past 3,500 years. The most recent work is being led by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. They are drilling under the Sphinx, to keep its paws dry (watchMark Lehner explain in thisvideo).

Without Evidence: Atlantis Theories, Slightly More Left of Centre

Plato has a lot to answer for when he wrote about Atlantis. Its been the inspiration behind TV series and Hollywood films; some even made for reasonable entertainment (think Captain Nemo and Man from Atlantis), and some, well sank (think Kevin Costner in Waterworld). Even James Bond, in The Spy who Loved Me, had an Atlantis element. He saved the earth from arch-villain Karl Stromberg, a powerful shipping magnate whose scheme for world domination was to blow up the land leaving the chosen few living safely beneath the ocean.

Atlantis has it all; an ancient thriving city with ambiguous plans to be a super power which disappeared somewhere into the ocean – perfect fodder for the imaginative theorist.

1. Atlantean Crystals

The renowned psychic Edgar Cayce first mentioned Atlantis in a reading in 1923. He proposed Atlantis was an ancient, now-submerged, highly-evolved civilization with ships and aircraft powered by a mysterious form of energy crystal.

This crystal was an Atlantean power crystal which gathered solar, lunar, stellar, atmospheric and Earth energies as well as unknown elemental forces. Cayce believed the Atlanteans used the crystal initially to rejuvenate their bodies and so had a youthful appearance despite being several hundred years old. He said the energy was also used to power crafts and vehicles which could travel on land, in the sky and under the sea at the speed of sound.

In the early 1970s this theory became popular again, when a naturopathic practitioner from Arizona allegedly found a mysterious crystal in a pyramid when he was separated from friends whilst diving from the edge of a submarine drop-off called The Tongue of the Ocean.

Although he hadnt a torch Dr Ray Brown entered the pyramid as apparently it was well-lit, though there was no direct light source. Inside he found a metallic rod with a red gem and a crystal sphere in a pair of metal bronze-coloured life-sized hands.

As Brown departed, he felt a presence and heard a voice telling him never to return. Dr Brown didnt tell authorities about the find or his experience until 1975 when he exhibited the crystal for the first time.

2. Location, location, location

Edgar Cayce also saw the location of Atlantis, with suggestions varying from the Pyrenees and Morocco to the Yucatan, in Mexico. However he suggested the Bahamas might be the best place to look:

There are some protruding portions… that must have at one time or another been a portion of this great continent. The British West Indies, or the Bahamas, are a portion of same that may be seen in the present. If the geological survey would be made in some of these especially, or notably in Bimini and in the Gulf Stream through this vicinity, these may be even yet determined.

Meanwhile, when the writer Graham Hancock put forward the theory that an unknown advanced civilization had existed on Antarctica, some suggested it was actually the lost city of Atlantis. Another suggestion for Atlantis location is the Celtic Shelf, the continental shelf surrounding much of England.

3. The Egypt connection

In one of Cayces readings, he said the civilization of Atlantis had entrusted their knowledge and technology to the ancient Egyptians, and even predicted that parts of Atlantis would rise in 1969. One of todays experts on the Giza pyramids, Mark Lehner started his Egyptology career as a follower of Edgar Cayce. Lehner first went to Egypt in the 1970s in search of the Atlantian Hall of Records which Cayce believed was buried beneath the right paw of the Sphinx.

Lehner converted to more traditional Egyptology after his initial journey to Egypt and went on to study in the American University in Cairo. He is now involved with projects such as the Giza Mapping Project.

4. The Nazi Quest

The Nazis pretty much touched base with every ancient legend/civilisation in their quest to find the origins of the Aryan race, and dominate the world with supernatural powers. And Atlantis was no exception.

Himmler was a member of the Thule society, named after the mythical land of Hyperborea-Thule. Some of the devotees believed Thule was the remnants of Atlantis. In 1935 the Ahnenerbe Forschungs und Lehrgemeinschaft (Ancestral Heritage Research and Teaching Society) was formed by Himmler tasked with providing scientific, anthropological and archaeological evidence to support the theories of the Thule Society and in so doing determine the origins of the Aryan race.

The science fiction writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton referred to the Thule in his novel The Coming Race, and inferred would-be world conquerors would receive a psychokinetic power called vril.

The Thule Society believed the mythical land of Thule lay between Greenland and Iceland. However one follower, Karl Haushofer, was convinced that the key to the harnessing of the power of vril lay in Tibet and in 1938 the Nazis led an expedition to study its inhabitants and explore the theory further.

(Author’s note:I think there’s a fifth Indiana Jones film in there somewhere.)

5. Atlantis in space

This list wouldn’t be complete without an alien theory, and the writer Alan Alford makes the case for Atlantis not being of earthly origins. Going back to its Egyptian roots, Alford claims Platos Atlantis was a political allegory or possibly an allegory for the creation of the universe.

He has suggested that Atlantis was in fact a metaphor for the primeval underworld, and was destroyed by a planet which blew up in some ancient era.

He writes: “This example of Atlantis, illustrates how the implications of an exploded planet cult in ancient Egypt extend well beyond the boundaries of Egyptology itself, leading to a radical reappraisal of the so-called ‘gods,’ which came down from heaven to Earth. The identification of these gods (the Anunnaki, the Nephilim, the Builder Gods of Edfu, for example) as meteoric planetary fragments inevitably begs the question whether God, the son of God and the angels of God are echoes of this ancient and profound inter-planetary creation cult.”

I am sure there’s far more theories out there – .But I wonder what Plato would think of all these?

For a more serious look at ‘Atlantis:The Evidence’, catch historian Bettany Hughes tonight on BBC Two in the Timewatch Special.

Tombs of the Pyramid Builders Discovered in Giza, Egypt

There is exciting news breaking right now in Egypt. An archaeological team led by Dr. Zahi Hawass has discovered several new tombs that belong to the workers who built the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre.

This is the first time to uncover tombs like the ones that were found during the 1990s, which belong to the late 4th and 5th Dynasties (2649-2374 BC), said Dr. Hawass in the press release.

When we think of Giza we tend to think of the Giza Pyramids. However, while the pyramids were under construction, there was an extensive city to the south that supported the workers. It included houses, bakeries, magazines and a hypostyle hall (See the video below, in which Mark Lehner descibes his work researching this area).

This system of support for the workers also included burials for those who died at Giza. These tombs were built beside the kings pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves. If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their kings, said Dr. Hawass.

The idea of theGiza Pyramidsbeing built by slaves is a myth it has never had any basis in archaeological fact.

One of tombs uncovered belongs to a man named Idu. The release says that it is a rectangular structure with a mud brick outside casing that is covered with plaster. It has several burial shafts, each cased with white limestone there are niches in front of each shaft.

Thepress releaseparaphrases Adel Okasha, the supervisor of the excavation, as saying that the upper part of the tomb had a vaulted shape which symbolizes, the eternal hill from which the human creation began, according to the Memphis religious tradition. This is strong evidence that the tomb dates to the early 4th dynasty. This shape is also similar to those of tombs located beside Snefrus pyramid in Dahshur.

More tombs, containing coffins, were found to the west of Idus resting place. Another tombhas beenfound to the south that is built of mud brick and has several burial shafts each of which contains a skeleton and pottery sherds.

21 Buffalo and 23 Sheep a Day

One statement in the release that really caught my eye, is that evidence uncovered also revealed that the families in the Delta and Upper Egypt sent 21 buffalo and 23 sheep to the plateau every day to feed the workers.

It isobviously no surprise that people would send food on a regular basis.It’s alsono surprisethat the foodwould be rich in protein -sincethat’s somethingthat you needif youre going to be doing heavy manual labour.

What does surprise me is the detail provided in the release. Im curious to know how Egyptologists were able to work this out so exactly.

Have there been written records found that provide such precise detail? Do we also have detailed info on the rations for grain and vegetables? If so can we tell if this diet ever changed?

This is very fascinating stuff as the diet of the workers would be important for a project like this. After all, you cant build the pyramids with a severely malnourished workforce!

Im going to finish up with another quote from the release. Hawass pointed out that the families who sent these were not paying their taxes to the Egyptian government, but rather they were sharing in one of Egypts national projects.

Video: Mark Lehner’s Search for the Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt

Laser Scanning gets Underway at Sphinx and Pyramids of Giza

Dr Zahi Hawass and a huge team of experts have just finished laser scanning the Great Sphinx, and now the Pyramids of Giza are being surveyed using the latest laser technology. Dr Hawass, who reports on the project in his blog, has employed the services of the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences at the Mubarak Institute for the project, which saw Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara subjected to the same techniques in June by a Japanese group. The team hope to get the most accurate representation of the wonders to date, as Egypt attempts to model the pyramids and sphinx in a number of ultra-modern ways, such as Heritage Key’s very own King Tut Virtual.

A similar project was first undertaken between 1979 and 1983, as a German Archaeological Institute team headed by renowned Egyptologist Mark Lehner made a photogrammetric map of the sphinx, alongside detailed drawings. This groundbreaking work allowed the monument to be mapped precisely enough to begin a series of complicated restoration and conservation schemes, which have led to its current good state of health. The pyramid project, which has mapped the outside of the structures to within 5cm, has only lasted one month. The work has involved overhead planes and a 45m-high fire truck ladder. Dr Hawass and his team plan to survey the inner chambers and shafts of each pyramid next. Hawass hope that the important heritage sites of Luxor will also be paid a visit in the coming months. This includes, of course, the tomb of Tutankhamun – which has been mooted for closure in light of the toll tourism is taking on its hallowed walls.