Identity of Sphinx discovered?
Riddle of the Sphinx. After much pondering... is this Playgirl-Princess Nefertiabet, ("beautiful one of the east"... sphinx faces east) daughter of Khufu? The ears seem to match. In addition although we only have one picture of Nefertiabet, the profile, we see that the jaw of her father matches the Sphinx' face' jaw, though the sphinx be not he!
Let us look at the evidence. According to Herodotus' legend, Khufu hated the Egyptian gods and closed down all the temples. This gave him one motive to destroy the image of the Anubis-sphinx and convert it. Motive number two would be to replace the face with that of his daughter.
He was after all in charge of Giza for quite a long time and revamped the entire site as his life's work. According to the Inventory Stela, a temple existed before Khufu, which he 'repaired.' According to the Stela, and this may become the topic for a new video: "After this, the inscription claims that the Isis temple was already at its place before the pyramids had been erected and that the temple was discovered by Khufu east of the great pyramid at the "house of Harmakhis" (i.e. the Sphinx temple). Then it claims that Khufu first "built the temple of Isis anew" and then built a pyramid for the "king's daughter Henutsen". Finally, the goddess Isis is praised and again entitled as "mistress of the pyramids." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invento... A note that Henutsen was khufu's wife according to another interpretation.
Building the Temple of Isis anew... would this not imply that this was the re-carving of the sphinx in the face of a beautiful woman... his daughter perhaps? Is this in fact where her infamous reputation as a prostitute derives? Isis is praised as mistress of the pyramids... how about Nefertiabet?
According to Herodotus, the daughter of Khufu was pressed into becoming a prostitute by Khufu to pay for the pyramid. This sounds like a bunch of garbage that the lowest of the low would pass around, jealous words regarding his daughter's important role in the Giza complex. According to another legend, she was actively involved at Giza and what must have started as a bad joke, that she charged her clients a block of stone each, was finally passed down to Herodotus!
This to me sounds like it was inspired by the mad jealousy of others seeing her visage... carved into the sphinx! Is this how Khufu renewed the temple?
We also discuss a few others. It isn't Hatshepsut. It isn't Hetepheres, also of the 4th dynasty. It isn't Nofret. It isn't Sobeknefru, who had incredibly beauty. Nor is it any of the Cleopatras who did not really possess any likeness. The huge eyes remind me of Ptolemy X who did in fact mess with ancient artefacts, paying his mercenaries with gold from Alexander's melted sarcophagus, a move which got him deposed. The eyes and nose of the sphinx are heavily damaged to deface the monument of someone who would have been living.
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