Uncovering Secrets of the Sphinx- American archaeologist Mark Lehner

Subject:	Uncovering Secrets of the Sphinx- American archaeologist Mark Lehner
Date:	Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:00:50 -0800 (PST)

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Uncovering-Secrets-of-the=
-Sphinx.html#ixzz0dANs39lQ

"Recognized today as one of the world=E2=80=99s leading Egyptologists and
Sphinx authorities, Lehner has conducted field research at Giza during
most of the 37 years since his first visit. (Hawass, his friend and
frequent collaborator, is the secretary general of the Egyptian
Supreme Council of Antiquities and controls access to the Sphinx, the
pyramids and other government-owned sites and artifacts.) Applying his
archaeological sleuthing to the surrounding two-square-mile Giza
plateau with its pyramids, temples, quarries and thousands of tombs,
Lehner helped confirm what others had speculated=E2=80=94that some parts of
the Giza complex, the Sphinx included, make up a vast sacred machine
designed to harness the power of the sun to sustain the earthly and
divine order. And while he long ago gave up on the fabled library of
Atlantis, it=E2=80=99s curious, in light of his early wanderings, that he
finally did discover a Lost City."

"The Sahara has not always been a wilderness of sand dunes. German
climatologists Rudolph Kuper and Stefan Kr=C3=B6pelin, analyzing the
radiocarbon dates of archaeological sites, recently concluded that the
region=E2=80=99s prevailing climate pattern=E2=80=88changed around 8,500 B.=
C., with
the monsoon rains that covered the tropics moving north. The desert
sands sprouted rolling grasslands punctuated by verdant valleys,
prompting people to begin settling the region in 7,000 B.C. Kuper and
Kr=C3=B6pelin say this green Sahara came to an end between 3,500 B.C. and
1,500 B.C., when the monsoon belt returned to the tropics and the
desert reemerged. That date range is 500 years later than prevailing
theories had suggested."

David Christainsen
Newton, Mass. USA