Author(s)

Manu Seyfzadeh, Robert M. Schoch

Institute for the Study of the Origins of Civilization, College of General Studies, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.

In search of textual references to a monumental lion at Giza predating the Old Kingdom, we focused our investigation on the earliest use of three ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs depicting the frontal and caudal halves of a lion and a fissure-like symbol. These symbols first appear in Egypt’s proto- and early dynastic era and form part of Egypt’s earliest known set of written language symbols. During the First Dynasty, these symbols were both carved into ivory tags and painted onto jars to designate the quality of oil shipped as grave goods to both royal and private tombs. The same iconography and symbols appear in the creation story recorded on the frieze and upper register of the Edfu Temple’s enclosure wall, where the frontal and caudal animal parts are used to name two of seven personified creation words, the so-called d3jsw¹, uttered during the act of creating the world from the primordial flood Mehit-wrt by Ptah. Here, we show that the appearance of such unusual icons in such different contexts can be explained by a prominent physical feature (a geological fissure) affecting the appearance of the Great Sphinx, thus demonstrating that the original monument including this feature existed before these hieroglyphs were invented. We have previously argued that the Great Sphinx was remodeled from the much older monumental lioness Mehit. Here, we provide further evidence that this monument existed in the form of a lion or lioness at least seven centuries before the time of Khafre (circa 2500 B.C.E.) challenging the conventional model which attributes the original creation of the Great Sphinx to this Old Kingdom ruler.

Great Sphinx, Giza, Lioness, Mehit, Buto-Maadi, Sumer, Edfu, JAW Sign

Seyfzadeh, M. and Schoch, R. (2019) Major Geological Fissure through Prehistoric Lion Monument at Giza Inspired Split Lion Hieroglyphs and Ancient Egypt’s Creation Myth. Archaeological Discovery, 7, 211-256. doi: 10.4236/ad.2019.74011.