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Was the Sphinx once a lion?
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Sir Alan Gardiner's E and F Sections
The consensus among Egyptologists is that the pharaoh Khephren had the famous Sphinx built during the days of the Old Kingdom, and it always had this pharaoh’s head on the body of the lion. Long ago it had a beard and a nose, but it has since lost them.
A few years ago, a geologist named Colin Reader suggested that Khephren did not really build the Sphinx, but only modified a pre-existing monument. Reader looked at signs of erosion on the Sphinx and concluded that these must have been made by water, namely rainfall. Since it rarely rains in Egypt, that would have to mean that the body of the Sphinx dated from a much earlier period than even the Old Kingdom pharaohs – before 2,000 BCE. Plus, the head seemed out of proportion on this monument and too small. Reader proposed a pre-dynastic monument that was all lion. It would have had a big lion’s head, one that Khephren later had adapted to suit himself.
Most Egyptologists have not been persuaded and, truth be told, neither have most geologists. This hypothesis popped up again on an otherwise excellent website in a manner that a linguist might comment on, which brings it to the attention of this Word Geek. The website is as follows:
http://www.atlantisquest.com/Predynastic.html
The title of the otherwise informative article is “Predynastic Egypt: The Archeological Story,” its author being R. Cedric Leonard.
It so happens that a number of very early kings of Egypt left inscribed labels at the sacred city of Abydos in Egypt. Leonard shows pictures of small segments from three of these, one from King Aha-Menes, one from King Narmer, and one from King Djet. These are all earlier than pharaoh Khephren by quite a bit, a fact that the author considers very significant. He wants his readers to focus on one particular symbol among the hieroglyphs on each of these labels, a glyph which he describes as “a large lion half-buried, with only paws and a large head visible.” It is true that on each label there is a glyph that is comprised of the front end of a lion, being the head with its mane, plus the shoulder and front paw, seen from the side. Leonard goes on to say, “In all of these inscriptions only the ‘foreparts’ (head, shoulders, and paws) are shown, as if the posterior was for some reason not visible.” In other words, this author takes the appearance of this symbol as evidence for the hypothesis of a lion-headed proto-Sphinx, one with a back end covered by sand.
I have no competence in geology, but I’m afraid Leonard’s enthusiasm for the geologist’s hypothesis has gotten the better of him, as far as the linguist evidence is concerned. In the standard list of Egyptian hieroglyphs which Sir Alan Gardiner published back in 1927, that front end of a lion is one of many “parts of mammals” classified in section F. It is F4, to be specific, and the Egyptians were drawing only the front end of the beastie because that glyph meant “front” (h3t, with a dot under the “h”). It has nothing to do with depicting monuments or with monuments being half-covered with sand.
How do I know? Because, although these particular labels don’t show it, the ancient Egyptians had another glyph that was the back end of a lion. That was F22, phwy, meaning “end” (again with the dot under the “h”). Surely Leonard wouldn’t suggest that some other Egyptians saw the same sphinx, but with its head covered with sand that time!
They had a third glyph that was just the front end of a ram (F8). Still another was the front end of a bubalis (a type of antelope, F6). Then there’s F9, which is nothing but a feline head (maybe a leopard this time, but maybe a lioness). Those ancient folks just happened to love drawing bits and pieces of critters, from the look of this series. A cow’s ear was the word for “ear.” For a reason known only to the Egyptians, a cow’s heart and windpipe was the word for “good” (or so Gardiner says – it looks like a banjo to me).
Getting back to the lion, they also had a glyph that was a whole lion, a beastie standing up on all fours, seen from the side. This was in the E section, “Mammals.” It is E22, a determinative stuck at the end of the word after spelling out the sounds of m3i, “lion.” They had still one more lion glyph and that was the whole lion again, but this time lying down with his footsies curled under him. That was E23, found in the other word for “lion,” rw, the symbol that later transformed to become the “l” after Alexander the Great took over and left a general in charge who had that letter in his name. Thus, when Ptolemy and Cleopatra left their names in cartouches on the Rosetta Stone, Champollion read the “l” in both as this lazy lion.
From all that, we can safely conclude that early kings in Egypt were not writing the front half of a lion because they saw a giant monument out there in the desert that was a lion and its back end was covered in sand, preventing them from depicting that back end. We know they did draw that back end some of the time – when they wanted to write “end.”
Now, what was this front part written for, in all those kings’ labels? I don’t have access to enough of the inscriptions to tell for sure. But the most popular word for royalty to write that used this front-part-of-lion symbol was probably h3ty-‘ (often spelled with front-of-lion over a skinny arm) because it meant “prince.” Yes, they were quite fond of that word.
Just think – if they had drawn partial-beasts because the other part was covered in sand, we should expect to find some giant hippo head out there in the Egyptian desert, sticking out of the sand, with the rest of the hippo buried (F3). We would also expect to see a disembodied leg of an ox, hoof attached. No ox should be attached to it, though. Just that leg should be standing out there in the desert somewhere (F25). That’s not to mention the oddity of the cow’s ear I mentioned earlier (F21). I’d hate to run across a giant, stone, cow’s ear out in the desert. I think that would be disturbing.
Worst of all, though, would be finding F52. That symbol turns up in Pyramid texts and I’m positive nobody made any stone monuments of that. It’s a glyph of a cow pat. I’ll let you guess what it meant.
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