Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-04-30

ROF. G. A. REISNER of Harvard
University set out on an eXpior-
ing expedition about ten years
~ ago and 1t will be remembered
that. returning to this country
few months since. he announced he had
found the remains of the palace of Jeze-
bel and Ahab. whose story was so freely
used to point a moral In our Sunday
school days This was a great deal. but
there was more to follow. A press dis
patch from Boston announced. this past
week. that Prof. Reisner had also solved
the riddle of the Sphinx
Everybody knows the Sphinx and
every body has heard it had a riddle. To
the public the fact that the creature has
at last a name and pedigree comes as a
surprise. To the archeologist. on the
but nothing startling.
\
There was, says Albert NJ. I.ythgoe,
curator of the Egyptian section of the
Metropolitan Museum Of Art. good rea-
son for thinking that things would turn
out just as they have. The connection
between the second pyramid at Gizel
not have been unusual to give the great
image the head of the king who built it.
Prof. Reisner has, however. cleared up
several points Authorities have differed
as to the date Of the carving Of the i'm
age; some put it earlier than the fourth
dynasty, in which the second pyramid
was erected, and more put 1t later. De-
cause the sphinxes appear more COM
monty in later times. Prof. Reisner has
unearthed the statue Of the builder OK
the third pyramid-also of the fourth
dynasty-and his headdress is exactly like
that of the Sphinx. This fashion of head
covering does not appear elsewhere, SO
the two works Of art evidently belong
to the same period. Hence. the Spninx Is
none other than Chephren, son OF that
Cheops who built himself the first and
greatest pyramid of the three huge
tombs.
The Sphinx of the desert takes the dis
covery of his secret with composure,
quite unlike his Greek predecessor who
had the original riddle. 1t was her GUS
tom to ask passersby what animal went
on four feet and on two and on three,
and her purpose was not to while away
time by pleasant guessing, but to deVour
those who failed to give the answer.
Edipus had the inspiration OF guessing
that the animal was man, who goes nrSt
|a-creeping, then walks erect and finally
totters with a stick. The Greek Sphinx
she found her one and only riodie
guessed. and persisted miserably: while
the Egyptian pays no attention at all 10
the ingenuity Of the Harvard professor,
rising sun and thinks, You may guess
who I am. but you can't guess what l
know'-which makes him more irritating
than ever.
**
"The Sphinx of Egypt" said Prof.
Reisner lis nothing but the body OF
lion with the head of a reigning king.
In this guise the king is represented
as guardian trampling down his
enemies and warding them off his ter
ritory. The motive occurs often.
1.-The great Sphinx is the guardian OF
the sacred precincts of the second
pyramid, placed beside the causeway
leading to the pyramid. The body is
the body Of lion. The head is the
head Of Chephren. the king who built
the second pyramid and carved the
Sphinx out of a knob of natural rock
Chephren the Sphinx fulfilled his OBJ
ject we'll. Even to the Arabs he is
known as 1.-The Father OF Terror" No
one has ever doubted that he was on
watch, not even those who knew moth
ing Of the fact that the Sphinx is al
guardian. Aker. the Waterman of the
underworld and guardian OF Ra. the
sun god, is frequently pictured as
sphinx, and Ra himself is q sphinx
sometimes when he goes forth to bat
tie with his enemies. Because Ra is as
ISOLATED with the idea it was natural
that the image of Chephren should
face the rising sun.
That the Sphinx should guard the
pyramid was also natural. Such images
al he 6n N
scription on one such sphinx reads:
Il protect the chapel of thy tomb. 1
guard thy sepulchral chamber, l ward
off the intruding stranger, cast down
thy foes to the ground and their arms
with them. / drive away the wicked
from the chapel of thy tomb, l destroy
thine adversaries in their lurking
place. blocking it that they may no
more come forth"
This calm assurance OF power and
ultimate victory has seemed to create
a soul for. the Great Sphinx. Nearly
five thousand years it has stood in the
shifting desert sands, and it always
has had way OF troubling peoples
conscience.
Between the paws there is little
shrine, set there by a Pharaoh who
ruled about thousand years after
Chephren. and who has dreamed after
seeing 1t, that the great god Ra re-
preached him for his neglect of the
image He set up the shrine and dug
away the sand. but the wind soon buried
the statue again. far over the paws.
Several times during the last century
1t was dug out again. but always the
sand comes back. Now it is half buried
again.
Mr.. Lythgoe explains that the Egyp-
tians built long covered causeways lead
ing from the valley to the temples in
the pyramids, where the people went to
worship the king. The causeway to the
second pyramid is more conspicuous
than those leading to- the others, and its
entrance is guarded by the Great Sphinx
1t was in the course of his excavations
around the t:.- pyramid that Prof.
Reisner added the last proof to the
strong suspicion that the Sphinx repre-
scented ChepIren. The statue, which
showed the headdress similar to the
pleated folds which hang from the
Sphinx's head, showed Mycerinus, the
builder of that pyramid, and probably
the nephew of Chephren. Prof Reisner
thus described the finding of the statue
from which such interesting conclusions
were deduced:
I'm the fourth or fifth dynasties. or
about 2S00-2600 B. c.. the creative period
Of Egyptian culture came to it's highest