The Great Sphinx

Over 4,500 years ago, the Great Sphinx was carved out of a quarry on the Giza Plateau. It has the body of a lion and the head of a man.

It is part of a larger complex with Temples and causeways containing the Giza Pyramids.

It is speculated the head bears the visage of Khafre, the ruler of Egypt who commissioned it. Legend is that Napoleon had a cannon shoot the nose off, but the reality is that it was missing by the time he got there, destroyed by Turks over a hundred years before.

This is how it is imagined to have originally looked.

Between the paws is the “dream stella”, which is inscribed with a story, that Thutmosis, if he cleared the sand from the Sphinx, would become king of Egypt.

Some have claimed that the Sphinx has been weathered by rain. This is open to debate, but climatologists have recently revealed it is possible that for its first 500 years, the weather was much wetter on the Giza Plateau.

While we think we know why the Sphinx was carved and the mighty Pyramids built, there are always possibilities. Especially for a fiction writer.

Area 51: The Sphinx: Dr. Lisa Duncan and Special Forces officer Mike Turcotte know better than anyone that no secret is safe for long—especially one that offers untold power. Case in point: no sooner does Turcotte’s elite Area 51 team uncover a dormant alien ship in earth orbit than a group of alien-human hybrids seizes it and uses its technology to commandeer a satellite array bristling with nuclear missiles. Now they’re demanding that humankind hand over the key to an ancient stash of alien technology…or watch an entire continent be reduced to atomic rubble. Doom seems certain, as the required key is believed lost to the ages—until an anthropologist discovers the first of many clues to its hiding place. As Duncan and Turcotte race to reach the key—and the powerful treasure it can unlock— ahead of their alien foes, the quest leads them deep into a deadly maze within the Great Sphinx of Giza. The prize? Nothing less than the legendary Ark of the Covenant.

A free slideshow on this topic and many others about interesting history, survival, writing and other topics is on my web site at www.bobmayer.com/workshops