A thorough analysis of Ancient Egyptian history and examination of archaeological evidence indicate that there were two sphinxes on the Pyramids Plateau, an Egyptian researcher argues.Egyptologist Bassam El Shammaa believes that the famed half-lion, half-man statue was an Egyptian deity that was erected next to another sphinx, which has since vanished without a trace. This contradicts what many have believed for centuries — that a single colossal statue functioned as a guard to the Pyramids.The idea of two sphinxes is more in line with ancient Egyptian beliefs, which were mainlybased on duality, the researcher said.
He cited Ancient Egyptian records and mythology saying that lightening had destroyed part of the Sphinx.
This may have been a reference to the second sphinx which was eliminated after a curse by the chief Egyptian deity.
El Shammaa explained: “The
pyramid texts recovered at Saqqara, especially from the Wanis Pyramid,
contain descriptions of the ancient Egyptian conception of how the
universe was created. Basically, this concept underlined the belief in
duality.”
He added: “Utterance No.
600 says that Atum — the ‘complete one’ and creator god in ancient
Egyptian mythology — created his son Shu and daughter Tefnut, shaping
them as a lion and a lioness and placing each one on an extreme tip of
the universe.
“Shu wasto take the solar
disc between his jaws and hand it to his sister Tefnut who in turn
would capture it between her jaws and by so doing they would achieve
the full cycle of the sun.”
While that cycle
represented sunrise and sunset and the journey from life to death, it
also accounted for the presence of two sphinxes.
“Whenever we have to deal
with the solar cult, we should speak of one lion and one lioness facing
each other, posing parallel to each other or sitting in a back-to-back
position.
“The double avenue of the
ram-headed sphinxes fronting the first Karnak pylon and its counterpart
of human-headed sphinxes at the Temple of Luxor emphasize this duality,
alongside other indications like the double crowns of Upper and Lower
Egypt, Isis, Osiris, Habtoor and Horus,” elaborated ElShammaa.......
Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: Archaeologists in Egypt say they have discovered what might be the oldest human footprint ever found. The outline was found imprinted in mud, which has since turned to stone, at Siwa oasis in the western desert. "This could go back about two million years," antiquities council chief Zahi Hawass was quoted by Reuters as saying. However Khaled Saad, director of pre-history at the council, said it could beolder still, and pre-date Ethiopia's 3m-year-old skeleton, Lucy.
Lucy, discovered in 1974 in Hadar, Ethiopia, is an extinct Australopithecus afarensis hominid estimated to be 3.2 million years old. Creatures of her kind are assumed to have left the feet impressions recorded in volcanic ash at Laetoli in Tanzania. These prints have been dated to 3.6 million years ago. The oldest footprints (and handprints) known to be associated with Homo (human) species are recorded in volcanic rocks at Roccamonfina in Italy. These are about 350,000 years old.Commenting on the new discovery - which has yet to be reviewed by independent scientists - Mr Hawass said: "It could be the most important discovery in Egypt." Until now the earliest evidence of human activity found in Egypt, most famous for the era of the pharaohs, dates from about 200,000 years ago.
Archaeologists have found what they said could be the world’s oldest human footprint in Egypt’s western desert, the country’s antiquities chief said Monday. “This could go back about 2 million years,” said Zahi Hawass, the secretarygeneral of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.
“It could be the most important discovery in Egypt.”Archaeologists found the footprint, imprinted on mud and then hardened into rock, while exploring a prehistoric site in Siwa, a desert oasis. Scientists are using carbon tests on plants found in the rock to determine its exact age, Hawass said.Khaled Saad, the director of prehistory at the council, said that based on the age of the rock where thefootprint was found, it could date back even further than the renowned 3-million year-old fossil Lucy, the partial skeleton of an early hominid found in Ethiopia in 1974.
Most archaeological interest in Egypt is focused on the time of the pharaohs.
Previously, the earliest human archaeological evidence from Egypt dated back around 200,000 years, Saad said.
Sadly
weathered by time, their faces damaged by shot from the soldiers of
Napoleon's army who used them for target practice, the Colossi of
Memnon are two gigantic seated statues which once guarded the entrance
of the huge mortuary temple of Amenhotep III, who ruled Egypt from 1386
to 1349 BC.
The statues, which are of
very hard sandstone, were originally more than 20 metres high, the feet
alone three metres long. Today they are so dilapidated that their
artistic merit lies in their imposing appearance, rising so
majestically above the fields of wheat and sugar cane. They have been a
tourist attraction for thousands of years, and busloads oftravellers
to the necropolis usually stop beside them to take photographs.
In 1989 it was observed
that the colossi were tilting markedly to the south, and an
archaeological survey was rapidly carried out in collaboration with the
Faculty of Geology of Cairo University to assess how serious the
situation was. Were the statues in danger of collapse? Would they tilt
at an increasing angle until they vied with the Leaning Tower of Pisa
for news interest? That winter UNESCO added the mortuary temple of
Amenhotep III to its list of the world's 100 most endangered monuments.
In the 1989-90 season Rainer Stadelmann, director of the German Institute of Archaeology, made a photogrammatic survey of the colossi, much like the one carried out some years ago at the Sphinx in Giza. It revealed that the statues were, happily, in noimmediate danger of collapse. However, excavating the area around the statues in order to determine the condition of the soil necessitated digging through three metres of Nile silt. This had been deposited since the earliest survey made in 1832 by Gardner Wilkinson of Kom Al-Hettan -- the site of the mortuary temple -- and the plan drawn up by Lepsius in 1884-85. As the latest technological equipment probed the ruins it was discovered, much to the surprise of the experts, that this largest of all temples on the Theban necropolis, its massive pylons, columns and walls of enormous scale, were built on no more than a bed of sand. It appeared that Amenhotep III's monument, designed to perpetuate his cult forever, may not have succumbed to violent seismic activity as had earlier been supposed. Rather, it may have been destroyed by a particularly high flood. If so, it was nota......
All our articles are sorted under categories and topics, making it easier to cross reference different subjects. Below are all the different categories the articles are sorted under alphabetically.
38(36/2) 
Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: Archaeologists in Egypt say they have discovered what might be the oldest human footprint ever found. The outline was found imprinted in mud, which has since turned to stone, at Siwa oasis in the western desert. "This could go back about two million years," antiquities council chief Zahi Hawass was quoted by Reuters as saying. However Khaled Saad, director of pre-history at the council, said it could beolder still, and pre-date Ethiopia's 3m-year-old skeleton, Lucy. 
View: 
