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T h e S p h i n x , A p r i l . 1926
with "inscribed upon the public scroll." Perhaps every one who knows anything about it at all, knows that Egypt is the home of the Sphinx, that it is situated at Gizeh, the famous pyramid center to the south of Cairo near the site of ancient Memphis; and that it is one of the oldest and most majestic monuments in the world. Everyone knows, too, perhaps, that it is a great stone mass on the west side of the Nile, facing the East; that it stands in front of the second largest of the Great Pyramids; and that it is so shaped that its base represents the body of a lion and its head that of a man. It is a question,; however, if there are as many who are familiar with the exact dimensions of its gigantic form, or who know that this monumental and majestic figure was carved in the main out of a single and unmoved piece of stone. With the assumption that these doubts and others not expressed are justified, we append herewith the following facts concerning the character and history of our emblem. The body proper is one hundred and fifty feet long. but with its paws, a third as long, added, its total length is two hundred feet. The bead, the largest ever sculptured in the round, is fourteen feet wide and thirty feet high. From the base to the top of the head i> a distance of seventy feet. In the more distant ages the bead and face oi the Sphinx wore an aspect which was in some respects quite different from what it is at the present tune. Its head had originally a beard several feet long attached to its chin and a crown with the royal and divine uraeus or serpent upon its brow, but both oi these have now disappeared. Its face was considerably damaged through an effort made by the fanatical Mohammedans to destroy it in the Fourteenth Century, and it was still further disfigured by cannon shot aimed at it by the Mamelukes when they conquered
Egypt from the Arabs. Earthquakes, weathering and constant etchings by the desert sands 1 lown aga nst it for ten- of centuries have also contributed their part in transforming its countenance. But notwithstanding all of these more or less destroying forces, the face of the Sphinx still retains many of those arresting ethnic traits which have attracted special attention to it since the mosl ancient times. For it is a fact that the face, in spite- of its mutilations, even today impresses upon ths beholder its unquestionable Negro physiognomy. Faces like it may still be seen by the hundreds among the Neg! living around the headwaters of the Nile. The fact that its face is that of a Negro, together with its great age its niomimentality and its majesty, places the questions,—who built the Sphinx, when and w hy>—among the most interesting and most puzzling probiems ever attacked by the science of archaeology. Is it possible that the Sphinx is the creation of some mighty Negro titan who dominated the world about him when civilization was young? Popular tradition concerning the negative position oi the Negro in antiquity to the contrary notwithstanding—this seems to be the true answer. For it is a fact that every passing vear brings forth a mass of evidence which is more and more convincing archaeologists that the Negroes of Central Africa plaved a greater part in the building of the Civilizations of Ancient Egypt than we have hitherto been wont to think. Many year that brilliant student of ancient African C ivilization, Ladv Flora Shaw I.ugard. foreshadowed this in writi n g ' "When the history of Negroland comes to be written in detail, it may be found that the Kingdoms lying towards the eastern end of the Sudan were the home of the races who inspired, rather than the home of the races who received the traditions of civilization associated for us with the name of ancient Egypt. The distinguished English Egyptologist, Randall MacIver had no doubt just such evidence in mind when he wrote (1000), "The more we learn of Nubia and the Sudan the more evident does it appear that much
of what is most characteristic in tin- predynastic culture of Egypt is due to the intercourse with the interior of Africa and to the immediate influence of the permanent Negro element which has been in the population of Southern Egypt from remotest t.nu-s to our own day." A more or less similar position was taken by the veteran Egyptologist, Sir Flinders Petrie, when lie wrote: "It is remarkable how renewed vitality has always come to Egypt out of the South. The First Dynasty appears to have moved up from Punt [Ahyss:niaj. i he rhird Dynasty, which led to the Fourth [the one to which the Sphinx is thought by most authorities to belong], shows a strong Ethiopean face in Sa Nekht. The Twelfth we can now trace to a Galla [a tribe in Central Africa | origin, which stamped .1 with its features, i IK- Eighteenth was a Be ghtened by marrying a Libyan princess. lb.- TwenlJ filth was from distant nieroe (ancient capital of the Negro Kingdom of Kash|. Each of the great stages of Egyptian history seems to owe its new energy to a southern conquest." But enough of this digression; let us return to the immediate question before us—the builder and age of the Sphinx. While, as the preceding facts indicate, there are good reasons for believing thai some ancient Ethiopean titan built the Sphinx, yet the very ablest authorities on the subject have not yet been able to a,;i\e on ;b.' question, who he was, or when he lived. As was stated in a preceding paragraph, the Sphinx stands in front of the second largest of the three Great Pyramids at Gizeh. Many of the foremosl Egyptologists amongst them the veteran Harvard Archaeologist G. A. Reisner [my old teacher | are of the opinion that Khafra, the third king of the Fourth Dynasty and the builder of this pyramid, was also responsible for the creation of the Sphinx. In Dr. Reisner's opin on this monument was built, therefore, alou! 3,S69 years before Christ; the features of the Sphinx being, he also thinks, those of this king. The earliest l-.gyj, .: n record referring to the Sphinx that has so far been recovered seems to support this view. This is a huge red granite tablet, fourteen feet high, which was discovered between the paws of the Sphinx by Cavigla in 1817. It was placed there during the Eighteenth Dynasty, about 1,420 years before Christ. by die Thothmes IV. (according to some authorities, the grandfather of Tutankhamen) iii the first year of his reign, flic tablet tells how Thothmes, in response to a pica made to him in a dream by Harmachia, one of the oldest Ethiopian-Egyptian gods, had c l e a n ! away the accumulated sand which had then almost 1 uried the Sphinx. In the thirteenth line of the inscription there appears a reference which connnects Khafra in a vague way with the monument. It may be said that ibis view, holding Khafra to be the builder of the Sphinx, represents the opinion of mosi Oi the authorities at the present time. There are other authorities, however, who think that the Sphinx was built by some mighty king who had preceded Khafra by many hundred years. Some oi these, among them distinguished Egyptologists like Brugsoh Bey, M. de Rouge, Dr. Birch, and Sir i-i. A W. Buige, think that there are reasons for believing that the Sphinx was built by some of the kings oi the very earliest dynasties—perhaps even in predynastic times. In their opinion it is not a monument of Khafra but a representation of the old Ethiopian god, Harmachis, whose followers, emigrating from the Sudan, established the civilization of the First Dynasty. There are also a few antiquarians, among them the veteran Egyptologist, Flinders Petrie, and Dr. H. R. Hall of the British Museum, who are of the opinion that the monument was erected after the Fourth Dynasty had passed away. The former thinks that it was proba ly built some time between the Sixth and Twelfth Dynasties. One of bis chief reasons! for this view is that there is in the middle of the back of the Sphinx an old shaft-grave which was not