Sphinx

Summary. The portion of the Mokattam Formation exposed at the Sphinx has been divided from bottom upwards into three members namely, the Rosetau Member, the Setepet Member and the Akhet Member. The Rosetau Member is a bioherm; the Setepet Member consists of six, rhythmically deposited beds and the Akhet Member is marly below and a rather pure limestone above from which the head of the Sphinx has been carved. A geological map of the Sphinx based on the recognition of these three members has been presented. Petrographically, these limestones are packed biomicrites with variable quantities of silt, clays and hematite and the evaporites halite and gypsum. Structurally, the strata dip southward as against the regional northwards dip of all tertiary strata in the Nile Valley. The joints trending orthogonally in a NE and NW direction cause dislodgment of large blocks of limestone of the Sphinx core.

INTRODUCTION When geologist Robert Schoch and pyramid-power proponent John Anthony West first proposed their radical

James Harrell replies to Schoch’s critiques of his arguments against the West-Schoch idea that water created the erosion in the Sphinx enclosure.

The area of the Sphinx is one of the few in the Giza necropolis where the stratigraphic history of the necropolis can still be observed. Moreover, it is a site in which several major periods of Egyptian History intersect in both architectural and depositional stratification.

George Johnson on Robert Schoch and James Harrell From “Readers’ Forum”: KMT Vol. 5, No.

ARCE Newsletter, no. 114 (Spring 1981), pp. 35- 47. Reproduced by permission of the American

From KMT Vol. 5, No. 3, Fall 1994, pp 40-8. Reproduced with permission. Prompted by

From KMT Vol. 5, No. 2, Summer 1994, pp 70-4.Reproduced with permission. In the 1992

Geoarchaeologist Alex Bordeau examines Colin Reader’s argument for an older Sphinx.