The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1900-03-23
THE GREAT SUN GOD.
EGYPT'S MOST ANCIENT MONUMENT,
THE STATELY SPHINX.

'E'S OINICLr OFOINNs
The Biggest Idol the Egyptians Ever
Reared Tor Worship and Its Con-
slant Battle With the SmOthering
Sands of the Desert.
Five or six thousand years ago, writes
Emma j. Arnold in st. Nicholas, the lit
tie country of Egypt, whose whole terri
tory, desert and all, is only about twice
the size Of the state Of Illinois, was yet
the greatest kingdom on the earth. That
certainly was more than 5000 years be-
fore Christopher Columbus sailed across
the Atlantic ocean and discovered Amer
lea. Egypt had large population even
then. Thousands, perhaps millions, of
people swarmed along the banks OF the
river Nile and rowed their little boats in
and out of the network of canals which
led the waters of the sacred river be-
tween the cultivated fields. The reli-
gion Of these people was what we call
''polytheism"-that is, the worship Of
many gods. The Egyptians, like all pa
gan nations, made images of their gods
and built temples where they might be
worshiped. 1t was the business of the
priests to carry on this worship, and a
very profitable business they made it
too.
When the Egyptians saw how beauti-
full and bright the sun was and how at
his rising each morning the ugly, black
darkness disappeared, they thought that
he, too, must be n god, and so they wor-
SHIPPED him among the rest. Some among
the Egyptians thought that the sun god
died every night when he set in the west
and came to life again the next morning;
others believed that he spent the night
hours fighting against evil spirits and
horrible monsters who tried to kill him.
But he always conquered them, and the
next morning there he was in the east
again and rose anew, as bright and beau
tiful as ever, to give light and warmth to
the earth.
The Egyptians had many names for
their sun god, among these one for the
rising sun, one for the midday sun and
one for the sun when he set in the west.
The rising sun god was called uor-em-
akhu, which means in English "Horus-
on-the-horizon." The very biggest idol
they ever made was to represent this sun
god. 1t is what we call the great
sphinx Of Gizeh." No one knows who
made this sphinx or when it was made,
but in all likelihood it was already there
in the desert more than G,000 years ago,
when the first king of Egypt whom we
know anything about ruled over the coun-
try.
The Egyptian people thought they could
not have any better place to bury their
dead than near the image Of their beauti-
full sun god. So, year after year, the
kings and the princes and the mobiles
nadia THAR in Tho Iocort land
And it is thus, in the midst of great
cemetery. that you would find the sphinx.
il you should go now to look at him.
Now, the burial ground in which the
sphinx is was the cemetery of Memphis,
and it stretched for 40 miles along the
river Nile. In it there were over GO
pyramids, which are the big tombs built
by the kings. The mobiles and the princes
also built very large tombs, the walls of
which are covered with colored pictures,
very beautiful to look at.
Egypt does not have snow and hail and
rain as we do; hence its sand keeps ex-
ceedingly dry and powdery. Often there
are terrific gales of wind, and then the
sand Is whirled along through the air in
such quantities that it is worse for people
to be out in than a rainstorm or a snow
storm. Each gust Of wind carries along
just rs much sand as it can support, and,
when anything obstructs the path of the
wind, then and there the sand is dropped
md falls again to the ground. The sphinx
was covered with sand in the year 1918,
when an Englishman named Caviglia I'M
dertook the task of digging him out. He
had heard many interesting. stories about
the great sphinx. In q book written by
the celebrated Roman. Pliny, it was stat
ed that king was buried under it.
Caviglia desired to find the tomb Of
this king, SO he engaged large number
of laborers-men to dig and women and
children to carry off the sand in baskets
on their heads. They dug over a space
of more than a hundred feet, carrying
away the sand for days, and finally what
do you think they found? Right under
the chin of the monstrous idol, Mt the end
of the long passage between its paws,
they found n little temple. The back
wall of this temple was one huge block Of
red granite, covered all over with pic
lures and writing.
In 1896 an American, Colonel Raum of
San Francisco, made another attempt to
uncover the sphinx and find the buried
king. With the help of hundred Arabs,
men and boys, he dug out the rubbish
from a hole about 40 feet deep, which
had been cut down into the solid rock of
the lions body ages ago. The bottom Of
this hole was blocked up with stones.
The Egyptian government would not al
low him to remove them, so he was
obliged to stop just at the very spot
where Is probably the entrance to an
ancient tomb. He cleaned out the little
temple and found in it piece of the
stone beard. which had broken off and
been buried for centuries. And more in
teresting still it was to find a part of the
royal crown This stone crown was 81
gantic. 1t was 10 feet across and about
Is or 20 feet high and fitted into hole
In the head by n stem seven feet long.
When the writing upon the stone which
Mr.. Caviglia found was finally deciphcr-
ed. It was learned from it that King Te-
hutimes " had built this little temple in
the first year of his reign, more than
5000 years ago! Upon the stone he had
engraved in big hieroglyphics the whole
story of his hunting expedition, his dream
In the shadow of the chin and the COM
mand of the god. And Of course he must
have cleared away the sand. else he could
not have set up the stone. But the sand
soon drifted back again, and ever since,
though 1t has been several times dug out,
the sphinx lie always being covered up
by the drifting sands, and perhaps some
day It will be overwhelmed and disappear
altogether.
This Is the story of the great sun god
Hor-en-akhu, which we call the sphinx, !
and IL some day you go to Egypt you can
ace II for vourself-that is IL IL Is not /