Chapter 9

SPHINX AND ESNEH

We begin with the initial chapter of Volume II. This second volume may be understood without having read the first; although, the research and reasoning leading to the proposals and conclusions presented in Volume I enable one to have a complete breadth of understanding in this present section. In the first volume of this work it was explained that the Great Pyramid and perhaps the Second were built by Enoch, and that these structures as well as the Sphinx were pre-Egyptian in origin. It is not being said that Enoch was or that he was not the foreman or carver of the Sphinx, but he was the teller of its meaning and of the prophecy written in the stars about which it speaks. Discussion identifying the Grecian period and cultural appellation of Hermes as a derivation from the biblical Enoch appears in the eighth chapter from Volume I entitled “Enoch”. From the Hermetic writings, which record the words of Enoch under the name of Hermes, we find in The Virgin of the World, “Therewith He [God] took the Zodiac and ordained the world in conformity with the vital movements, placing the animal signs after those of human form.” [1] And from Thrice Greatest Hermes it is said of the stars, “The stars are they which sail in heaven; the star-group, on the contrary, are fixed in heaven’s frame, and they are borne along together with the heaven―Twelve out of which we call the Zodiac,” and that the decans “are ranged the Six-and thirty Decans.” [2] Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, related that “They [those that proceeded from Seth] also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom, which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order.” [3] This understanding―that Enoch was considered by the ancient Hebrews, Persians, Egyptians, and Arabs as one of three originators of astronomy, the other two being Adam and Seth, was also held by and reiterated in linguist Francis Rolleston’s research and subsequent book Mazzaroth. [4]

The prevailing Egyptological understanding holds that the Sphinx was of IVth Dynasty invention and construction. They further maintain that it was built by and in the image of Khafra, one in the succession line from Pharaoh Khufu. It has most recently been proposed in a new publication, The Sphinx Mystery, that the nemes headdress of the Sphinx is a period match to that of the XIIth Dynasty. [5] This conclusion was drawn from the similarity of the Sphinx headdress to that appearing on a sculpted image identified to be that of Amenemhet II, a XIIth Dynasty pharaoh, who ruled from 1929 to 1879 B.C.―high chronology dating. This association makes evident that the head of the Sphinx had been altered. According to Egyptologist Dr. Rainer Stadelmann, former Director of the German Institute in Egypt, the initial introduction of the rounded ceremonial beard was during the New Kingdom. Such a beard proportionate to the head of the figure was found at the site, and so it is thought that the Sphinx was altered once again during the New Kingdom under the rule of Thutmose IV, whose reign began circa 1400 B.C. The beard is presently part of the British Museum’s Egyptian Collection. Incongruous period dating for both the headdress and beard make evident Egyptian alterations to the head of the Sphinx well after its original production.

The Sphinx was carved as one piece from the bedrock, the head of which, jutting above the median plane of the Giza Plateau, is an outcropping of that rock shelf. In that Khufu recorded his repair of a crack to the hind part of the nemes headdress, the original sculpting of the Sphinx was then prior to his reign from 2589 to 2566 B.C. According to Professor Salim Hassan’s examination of the site, this repair was said to have been in evidence, if not now, at least as late as 1948 A.D. [6] In that Khufu ruled during the IVth Dynasty, whereas the nemes headdress in the present sculpt of the Sphinx is identified to XIIth Dynasty origin and the beard to the New Kingdom, the evidence then indicates that the head of the Sphinx had been subject to minimally two modifications.

The Sphinx and the Zodiac at Esneh

According to British geologist, Colin Reader, for much of its history the head of the Sphinx had been exposed to the elements while the body lay buried, so the head should show the greater degradation, but does not. Reader concluded that the head had been reduced in size long after its initial sculpting. [7] As one looks at the Sphinx, it is at once recognized that the head and the body are markedly out of proportion―the head being fully 50 to 67 percent the size necessary for proper scale and compatibility with the body. This disparity is apparent in the photograph, “Sphinx,” and more so in the photographs on the back cover of this book.

Presuming that the proportions were anatomically correct in the original carving of the Sphinx supposes that the head had been recarved, and so reduced in size, but from what original image? A telling sign is found in the reading of a zodiac located in a temple at Esneh, Egypt, which pictures a sphinx positioned between the constellations of Virgo and Leo. This theme of woman and lion in the heavens echoes to an image and cosmology derivative of the Egyptian original―the sphinx of Greek mythology, which figure had a winged lioness’s body and the head of a woman. If at its original sculpting, as the later Greek semblance suggests, the head of the Sphinx at Giza had been female, could this help us in understanding its purpose and meaning?

The image of the lion in the constellation Leo is adjacent to, but facing away from that of the woman in the constellation Virgo. In Leo’s hip there is a star named Sarcum, which in Hebrew holds the meaning of “the joining.” The word “joining” is “to bring together,” implying “a meeting end-to-end.” The word “sphinx” is of Greek etymology, which translates literally as “strangler” from the root “sphingein” meaning “to bind tight,” and is as well said to mean “to bind closely together, or to be joined.” [8] The idea of the Sphinx joining Virgo and Leo is demonstrated in the Esneh Zodiac, where a sphinx is positioned between these two constellations as is illustrated in the drawing, “Esneh Zodiac in Spherical Form.” The meanings of Sarcum and Sphinx, particularly in light of their respective positioning in the heavens and on the Esneh Zodiac, directly and plainly speak of this joining at and transition between these two constellations. The riddle of the Sphinx, therefore, defines the ordering of the northern constellations―beginning with the woman’s head, symbolizing the figure of the woman in the constellation Virgo, and ending with the body of the lion, symbolizing the constellation Leo. Why does the sphinx of Greek mythology have wings? Because that which was to be joined was in the sky. The Sphinx is the key that reveals to us the true order of the zodiac―pointing to where we are to start and end the northern constellations―joining them at the transition between Virgo and Leo to form the circle of the heavens. Another significant symbolic circle is the representation of Enoch’s time of 365 years before God took him―a discussion from Volume I.

The zodiac inscribed on the ceiling of the Esneh Temple is oblong in form. It is usual in such depictions that the zodiac be divided, each half containing six of the twelve constellations, as shown in the plate, “Esneh Temple Bar Zodiac – View A.” Depicted in the top bar are the constellations of Leo, Cancer, Gemini, Taurus, Aries, and Pisces, and in the bottom half the constellations of Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, and Aquarius. In dynastic Egypt, zodiacs in this oblong or bar presentation were divided at or near the solstices; that is, with the exception of the Athribis zodiacs of the Roman period. The physical division of this Esneh Zodiac would then be at the summer solstice between Virgo and Leo. What then does this unique division of the zodiac at the summer solstice mean?

With the forward passage of time, their positioning transits the zodiac in a counterclockwise direction at a mean rate of 2,150 years per constellation. Presently, the summer solstice points to Gemini and is moving toward Taurus. The Esneh Zodiac depicts the summer solstice back in time, clockwise from its current position by almost three constellations, as it would have been positioned over 6,090 years ago. At the summer solstice of June 21-22, 4081 B.C.G., the summer solstice being the longest day of the year, the sun rose on the border division between the constellations of Virgo and Leo.

Chapter 9

SPHINX AND ESNEH

Pages

The Sphinx and the Zodiac at Esneh

Present Day Solstice and Equinox Positions