What’s Under the Sphinx? 3 Secrets and Discoveries

What's Under The Sphinx?

The Hall of Records, a legendary library said to have been built by the survivors of Atlantis, is rumored to lie in Egypt, just beneath the Sphinx. The Sphinx, carved 1,200 years before the rule of King Tut, is currently classified as a “monolith,” or a solid piece of rock that's been carved into shape, devoid of any tombs or tunnels. Countless explorers and archaeologists, however, paint a different story, and to find out more we'll need to dig a little deeper.

Professor Selim Hassan was one of the most accomplished and influential Egyptologists in recent history. In his journal The Sphinx: Its History in Light of Recent Excavations, he details prior excavations of the Sphinx and the discoveries they uncovered. One of the first archaeologists to begin excavations on the Sphinx was Auguste Mariette (founder of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities), who believed in “a hidden chamber concealed in or under the Sphinx” (The Sphinx).

During the first renovation of the Sphinx in 1420 B.C., Pharaoh Thothmes IV cleared the sand from the monument and erected mud-brick walls to prevent further burial. The second renovation was undertaken by Rameses II, who detailed in a letter, “I have heard that thou hast taken eight laborers… Thou shalt deliver them to draw stone for the Sphinx in Memphis.” Here Hassan notes the rare instance of quarrying fresh stone rather than stealing it from nearby pyramids, as was common in the New Kingdom. After this generous act of restraint, Rameses proceeds to steal the granite casing of the Second Pyramid to build his temple of Ptah.

Rameses' architect, named May, also left his signature (“The Director of the Works of the House of Ra, May”), as well as two stelae dedicated to the Sphinx, inside the temple. These stelae, or stone tablets, were later discovered by Hassan and will become important later on, as they hold clues as to what may lie beneath the Sphinx. Lastly, “the stone, which Rameses had ordered to be quarried for the Sphinx, was perhaps used for the first casing of the paws, which had suffered from erosion.” Hassan lists no renovation or preservation activities in the Saitic Period (663 – 525 B.C.), noting it was “strange, considering the esteem in which ancient monuments were held at that time,” but assumes the walls were still holding back the sand fairly well.

Herodotus, a Greek explorer often referred to as the First Historian, visited Egypt in 525 B.C. and noted little of the Sphinx, aside from confirming Rameses' work, stating, “and for restoration he caused to be brought from the stone-quarries which are opposite Memphis.” Herodotus also mentions the construction of the causeway, a path connecting the Sphinx and the Second Pyramid, stating, “and for the underground he caused to be made as sepulchral chambers for himself in an island, having conducted thither a channel from the Nile,” which he believed housed the body of Cheops, Greek for the Pharaoh Khafre.

In the Greco-Roman and Roman Periods, the “ugly, outer casing of its paws,” in Hassan's words, was made, the pavement of the Sphinx Court was restored, and the retaining wall was reinforced by men such as Marcus Aurelius and Septimus Severus. The Sphinx then became a popular pilgrimage site until it slowly faded from attention and became buried once again. In 1679, Johan Micael Vansleben noted a tunnel in the back of the Sphinx. In 1733, Charles Thompson wrote, “We could not get up to the top of the head, but those that have done it report, that there is a round hole, by which a full-grown person may descend into it.” In 1798, the final notable explorer (aside from Alexander the Great, of course), Napoleon Bonaparte, happened upon the Sphinx. On this, Hassan writes, “Napoleon's expedition was supposed to have made a considerable excavation in front of the Sphinx and had discovered a door just at the very moment when they were compelled to suspend their operations.” Napoleon's men also made note of a large hole in the head of the Sphinx, 10 feet deep and filled with sand.

The first “modern” explorer and archaeologist, Captain Giovani Caviglia, began excavations in 1816, fueled in part by rumors of a chamber beneath the Sphinx. “He experienced great difficulty, as well as danger to the lives of his workers and himself, by reason of the loose sand which constantly threatened to pour into the trench and bury them all. But by means of planks of wood, he was able to hold back the sand sufficiently to enable him to reach down to the base of the statue.” In attempting to measure the Sphinx, Hassan states, “it was such a constant source of peril to all concerned, Caviglia decided to abandon operations for the time being.” He later returned with “between sixty to one hundred workmen” to discover fragments of a beard, a limestone stela of Rameses II, and a temple between the paws, as well as several stone lions. By the end of Caviglia's work, he had unearthed the monument down to the chest.

“In the year 1853, Mariette [August Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities] began to examine the Sphinx… One of his theories was that the Sphinx was a natural phenomenon of Nature and that all that the sculptor had done was to slightly touch up the features, which he admits was skillfully done! Mariette also shared the general opinion that there is a hidden chamber concealed in or under the Sphinx.” During excavations, “some of the local inhabitants, who claimed to have been present [during Napoleon's expedition], told Mariette that they had seen this door, which they said led into the body of the Sphinx. Others went one better and said that it led up to the Second Pyramid!”

Enter Gaston Maspero in 1880, the archaeologist seemingly held in the highest esteem by Professor Selim Hassan himself. His interest in the Sphinx was first to provide the “spectacle of the Sphinx revealed” to the Antiquities Department and tourists. “The second reason was, as he put it: ‘The Sphinx has not yet told us all his secrets', and he recalls how Pliny, (23 B.C.) on the testimony of an Alexandrian historian, was of the opinion that it contained the tomb of King Harmakhis. The Arab writers were also convinced that the Sphinx covered a subterranean chamber, which they expected to find full of treasure. Maspero argued that perhaps one might recognize a grain of truth in the tradition related by Pliny and the Arab writers.” Whereas Mariette “…denied the fact that the Sphinx rests upon a pedestal, in the manner in which it is often shown upon the stelae,” Maspero believed that, as depicted in both the “Dream Stela” and the Rameses II stela found by Mariette, the Sphinx rested on a massive perch, under which a tomb or Hall awaited.

Hassan clarifies, “The monuments upon which the Great Sphinx is figured show the statue couchant upon a pedestal as high as the statue itself, and sometimes decorated with the panelling so beloved by the architects of the Old Kingdom… The Egyptian artists did not change the form and attributes of their gods from mere caprice, and if the Sphinx was represented as couchant upon a pedestal, it very probably was so. If we admit the existence of a pedestal, the story related by Pliny would not be impossible, and the tomb might exist, not in the body of the Sphinx itself, but in the rectangular mass upon which it is couched.” Hassan continues, voicing his and Maspero's speculation. “…if the Sphinx itself was repeatedly buried by the sand, how much more rapid would be the burial of its pedestal? Perhaps it had not been visible since the time of Khafra. It had certainly been forgotten by the time of Thothmes IV, and he did not descend lower than the level of the paws. …if it had a pedestal in which tombs were cut, they must have been buried at such a remote time, perhaps before the erection of the Pyramids, that some of them might have escaped pillage.” Maspero then struggled to obtain funding, with the intention “to experiment with the trenches in order to see if the pedestal existed or not,” adding that the excavation “would give all Europe the chance of sharing in the honour of the discovery. …If one encounters only the rock,” he stated, “this hypothesis is false, and one is limited to bringing to light one of the most astonishing works of Antiquity. If, on the contrary, one encounters sand at a depth of about 8 or 10 meters below the level of the paws, the pedestal exists, and who knows what one may hope to find.”

“The locals “refused, and still do refuse, to believe that the excavations were carried on merely for the sake of Science.” They believed Maspero's Company was searching for the Cup of Solomon, a cup that, when filled with liquid swirling from right to left, was a sign of prosperity, but swirling left to right was an omen of calamity. “It was not explained how the Cup of Solomon came to be hidden under the Sphinx! Anyhow, the Afreets (demons) were playing a bad joke on poor Maspero, for he never found this mysterious and most useful cup!”

In January 1886, shortly after beginning work on the first trench, Maspero unearthed yet another stela in front of the Sphinx. “Though it has suffered greatly from the violence of man and the elements, the decoration on the stela is still visible, though the majority of the inscriptions are lost. The scene represents, on the left side, Rameses II in an attitude of adoration before the god Harmakhis… The Sphinx is seen couchant upon a pedestal, the height of which equals the size of the statue. The text itself tells us that Rameses, after having cleared away the sand, erected a tablet in front of the monument, probably the one of which the pieces were found by Caviglia. He built before the Sphinx a ‘temple' of which the stones still remain, the description of which allows us to identify it with the building discovered by Mariette and studied by M. Chassinat… Maspero's excavation did not go down deeper than the top of the paws; he had to make an artificial trench to discover the pedestal. To prove the existence of this great mass of rock below the Sphinx, he should have gone down to its foundations.” Hassan notes that Maspero had reached “a layer of fine gravel and sand” and his workers began “speaking of an ancient mine of gold dust which they had discovered.” As the locals continually interfered with their progress, he was forced to abandon his work.

Finally, in 1925, we arrive at Professor Hassan, who leads an expedition to “provide scientific evidence to determine the origin and age of the Sphinx, if possible.” He describes his work as “the culmination of the efforts of many eminent Egyptologists and archaeologists. …To the Honourable Antiquities Service, we owe the rare opportunity of continuing the most significant researches upon the Great Sphinx that have yet been made.” After clearing away the sand accumulated from Napoleon's day, Hassan began investigating the Sphinx from every possible angle. “A thorough examination of the paws and body, while it did not reveal the existence of any tomb-chambers, left no doubt that the entire monument is of the greatest antiquity.” He then refers to Maspero's stela, stating, “On the upper portion of the stela, the bas-relief shows the god Harmakhis, in front of whom Rameses is represented, on the left side, adoring the Sphinx, with the scarab on his head; on the right side the god is seated on a throne, and Rameses, in an attitude of adoration, stands before him. Between these two representations of Rameses is the figure of the Sphinx, couchant, upon a pedestal with the hieroglyphic inscriptions reading “Mighty Harmakhis.” Hassan states, “When we began the great task of clearing away the sand which had accumulated around the Great Sphinx, we naturally had to consider the safety of our workmen… we had to undertake a preliminary clearing of the northern side, where there was no danger of the sand being disturbed and falling back on them. It was therefore necessary to cut away a portion of the plateau and carry this away to the rear of the monument. …I have examined the natural rock, and can state definitely that the Sphinx was a natural mass of rock before the sculptors began to fashion it into a lion with a man's head.” In the end, Hassan and his men had fully excavated the Sphinx once more, but like the previous explorers, the ground beneath the Sphinx was still left largely untouched.

Although there was no strong evidence suggesting the existence of an underground chamber, there were several clues as to where one might be. The Sphinx and the nearby pyramids are known to be aligned with the stars, and it's quite possible this alignment hints towards a central location. The most famous of these alignments was discovered by Robert Bauval, the founder of the Orion Correlation Theory. “The correlation is exact with a discrepancy of 1/10th of a degree. Such a precise correlation is statistically impossible to occur by chance. It is more than probable that the Pyramids were indeed intended as a stellar representation of Orion's belt.” Furthermore, John Anthony West (author of Serpent in the Sky) noticed how water had eroded the Sphinx, and suggested the monument must have been built when Egypt was more humid, around 10,000 B.C. Lastly, in 1993, an architect named Dr. Rick Brown (founder of the Orion Theory) and Dr. Zahi Hawass (Egyptian archaeologist and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs) began conducting sound-wave tests near the monument. They found several rectangular chambers approximately 20 feet beneath the Sphinx's paws. Although the chamber under the Sphinx had not been confirmed, the theory did lend credibility to the possibility.

The Hall of Records is, of course, one of the most famous myths associated with the Sphinx. In his book, The Edgar Cayce Handbook for Creating Your Future, Mark Thurston writes, “Edgar Cayce spoke of a chamber beneath the Great Sphinx and its right paw, a hall that contained ‘records of Atlantis.' Though Cayce never actually visited the site, his description of a hidden chamber beneath the Sphinx is the most well-known and often cited.” However, Professor Hassan dismisses this myth, writing, “The interior of the Sphinx has always been a mystery. The ancient Arabs believed that it contained a hidden library of secret wisdom. But this is merely a legend.”