archaeology

Introduction

The Great Sphinx of Giza belongs to the Giza necropolis west of Cairo. The site is a plateau containing the three great pyramids of Khufu, Khafra, and Menkaura, together with the Sphinx and a number of smaller pyramids, temples, and tombs.

The Giza structures were built by 4th Dynasty kings at the height of the Old Kingdom. (Scholars divide ancient Egyptian civilization into:

• the Predynastic (the ten centuries before 3050 BCE),
• the Archaic or Early Dynastic (3050-2575 BCE),
• the Old Kingdom (2575-2150 BCE),
• the Middle Kingdom (2040-1783 BCE),
• the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BCE),
• and the Late Dynastic (1070-332 BCE).

So-called intermediate periods followed the Old and Middle Kingdoms.)

The Sphinx is the oldest and longest stone sculpture from the Old Kingdom. During the eighteenth dynasty, it was called "Horus of the Horizon" and "Horus of the Necropolis", the sun god that stands above the horizon.

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The Age of Sphinx Controversy

Writer John Anthony West and Boston University geologist Robert Schoch contend that weathering of the Member II  layers indicates that the Sphinx was built between 5000 and 7000 BC.

A problem with the age of the Sphinx may be dated to the report of a photogrammetric survey conducted in 1979 by Dr. Mark Lehner, director of the American Research Center in Egypt in the 1980s, and Dr. K. Lal Gauri, director of the Stone Conservation Laboratory at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA. With the help of an archaeological photographer, Lehner and Gauri identified and recorded the exposed surface of the monument and the stone blocks that still faced it. Lehner’s 1980 report noted an anomaly about the main body on pp. 17-18:

"Except for the prominent boss on the chest, we have nowhere observed any kind of working marks on the core-body, either in the way of tool marks or of surfaces that would seem to have been left by rough quarrying activity. Neither have we found any profile on the core that would appear to be of finished sculpture. This might easily be explained by saying that the part of the core-body now showing - almost entirely of the very soft Bed 2 stone - has been eroded so badly that all such traces have disappeared. Even so, in the cross-sections showing through the successive layers of masonry added to the core, one would expect such traces to show under the earliest level of stonework had it been added soon after the core was formed, thereafter protecting the profile of the parent rock. But on the face and profile of the core in such cases (Figs. 3,4) [supplied in original report] there are no observable indications of parts of a finished profile or of working marks. Rather, the profile of the core seems in all cases to be one of severe erosion, leaving the softer yellowish bands and harder intermediate strata showing a profile of successive rolls and undulations. These considerations would seem to indicate that the core-body of the Sphinx was already severely eroded when the earliest level of large-block masonry was added to it."

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The Valletta Convention was originally signed at Valletta, in Malta, in January 1992. It is a Convention, not of the EU, but of the Council of Europe, a body that preceded the EU, but still exists to deal mainly with cultural affairs.

The Valletta convention to a considerable extent follows the earlier London Convention of 1961 and English Heritage, and particularly Geoffrey Wainwright, its principle negotiator, regards it as a triumph in that it inserted some of the principles of Developer Funding, (known as PPG 16) into the convention. However much, especially paragraphs 3 and 10, is highly controversial, and this analysis seeks to go through the Convention and to interpret what it actually says.

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By Robert Baird

As you read this book you will have to suspend the disbelief you feel when confronted with my assertions that for at least 5000 years man has been in close contact all over the world. If you have read my other books you will know I have made the case better than any and that there are lots of good scholars who agree with me.

Puma Puncu and Lake Titicaca may provide the proof as a recent research team finally checks out the spires of ancient buildings that fishermen have tied their boats to for millennia. Here high in the Andes we know there were astronomers who also were in Central America where the Earth Energy Grid allowed something fantastic to dovetail with other places including Giza. The Cosmic energy and earth energy in concert with their soulful energy was able to build psycho-spiritual attunements that have only recently been sublimated by most nations or our leaders. Yet these leaders are members of cults or Christian Mystery Schools like the Rosicrucians who use this occult knowledge against us.

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European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage (Revised)
Valetta, 16.1.1992

Preamble

The member States of the Council of Europe and the other States party to the European Cultural Convention signatory hereto, Considering that the aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve a greater unity between its members for the purpose, in particular, of safeguarding and realising the ideals and principles which are their common heritage; Having regard to the European Cultural Convention signed in Paris on 19 December 1954, in particular Articles 1 and 5 thereof; Having regard to the Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe signed in Granada on 3 October 1985; Having regard to the European Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property signed in Delphi on 23 June 1985; Having regard to the recommendations of the Parliamentary Assembly relating to archaeology and in particular Recommendations 848 (1978), 921 (1981) and 1072 (1988); Having regard to Recommendation No. R (89) 5 concerning the protection and enhancement of the archaeological heritage in the context of town and country planning operations; Recalling that the archaeological heritage is essential to a knowledge of the history of mankind; Acknowledging that the European archaeological heritage, which provides evidence of ancient history, is seriously threatened with deterioration because of the increasing number of major planning schemes, natural risks, clandestine or unscientific excavations and insufficient public awareness; Affirming that it is important to institute, where they do not yet exist, appropriate administrative and scientific supervision procedures, and that the need to protect the archaeological heritage should be reflected in town and country planning and cultural development policies; Stressing that responsibility for the protection of the archaeological heritage should rest not only with the State directly concerned but with all European countries, the aim being to reduce the risk of deterioration and promote conservation by encouraging exchanges of experts and the comparison of experiences; Noting the necessity to complete the principles set forth in the European Convention for the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage signed in London on 6 May 1969, as a result of evolution of planning policies in European countries, Have agreed as follows:

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Extraterrestrial Intervention, Prehistoric Technologies, and the Suppressed Origin of Civilization

edited by J. Douglas Kenyon. Bear and Co. [Forbidden History]
By Colin Wilson

This is a book that provoked waves of nostalgia in me, for a dozen years ago, when the tremors of the ‘forbidden history’ revolution were just beginning to upset the world of academic archaeology, I happened to be close to its seismic center. For all practical purposes, this consisted of two men: the subversive Egyptologist John Anthony West, and the Boston geologist Robert Schoch.

One day in the autumn of 1993, I received out of the blue a letter from John West, containing a magazine article describing how he had persuaded the police sketch artist Frank Domingo to go with him to Cairo with a view to studying the face of the Sphinx, and giving his opinion on whether it could be the pharaoh Chefren, the builder of the second pyramid. Domingo, said the article, had compared the face of the Sphinx with the bust of Chefren in the Cairo Museum, and concluded that the answer was no. The chin of the Sphinx is bigger than Chefren’s, and the angle from the ear to the mouth is quite different. And this, said the article, seemed to demonstrate Schoch’s conclusion that the weathering of the Sphinx was caused by rain, not by wind-blown sand, and that the monument is probably around five thousand years older than it is generally supposed to be.

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by Will Hart © 2002
Email: Wrtsearch1@aol.com
 
"The Brain Police" and "The Big Lie"

Any time you allege a conspiracy is afoot, especially in the field of science, you are treading on thin ice. We tend to be very sceptical about conspiracies–unless the Mafia or some Muslim radicals are behind the alleged plot. But the evidence is overwhelming and the irony is that much of it is in plain view.

The good news is that the players are obvious. Their game plan and even their play-by-play tactics are transparent, once you learn to spot them. However, it is not so easy to penetrate through the smokescreen of propaganda and disinformation to get to their underlying motives and goals. It would be convenient if we could point to a plumber’s unit and a boldface liar like Richard Nixon, but this is a more subtle operation.

The bad news: the conspiracy is global and there are many vested interest groups. A cursory investigation yields the usual suspects: scientists with a theoretical axe to grind, careers to further and the status quo to maintain. Their modus operandi is "The Big Lie"–and the bigger and more widely publicised, the better.

In 1870, agricultural land improvement outside Dorchester-on-Thames involved levelling the ramparts of the Iron Age oppidum at Dyke Hills. Colonel Lane-Fox, later the first Inspector of Ancient Monuments, wrote to the Saturday Review of 2nd July describing damage to the site: Hitherto the neighbouring ground has been grazed, and the harmless sheep is no foe to history; but it has lately occurred to the owner of the ground that a few shillings more of yearly profit might be gained by turning pasture land into arable; and to such a sordid motive as this, these precious antiquities are at this very moment being sacrificed.
Despite 120 years of heritage legislation, Dyke Hills, Oxfordshire is still under the plough. Photograph English Heritage.

This was one of the high profile cases that contributed to Sir John Lubbock’s National Monuments Preservation Bill in 1873, which eventually reached the statute book in 1882 as the first Ancient Monuments Act. Sadly, despite 120 years of increasingly effective ancient monument legislation in the UK, archaeological damage caused by cultivation remains a largely unresolved problem. In England, many thousands of archaeological sites – including nearly 3000 scheduled monuments – are still being ploughed. It is particularly ironic that Dyke Hills should remain one of these. This lack of progress stands in stark contrast to the immense gains of the 1980s and 1990s in mitigating damage by development, road-building and aggregate extraction.