UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES

Egyptologists and archeologists have a number of holy grails on their bucket lists – the tomb of Alexander the Great and that of Antony and Cleopatra are certainly at or near the top. A non-tomb Egyptian grail is the long rumored second Sphinx which many believe is positioned very near to the current one-and-only Great Sphinx of Giza. One would think that a statue of that size would easy to find but that hasn’t been the case, leading many to believe that ancient writings touting its existence are fakes. That hasn’t stopped sphinx-seekers like Reda Abdel Halim, who claims he’s known the location of the second sphinx since 1986 and is finally ready to reveal its location. Would this have anything to do with the fact that Reda Abdel Halim is currently the director of public relations for the Giza pyramids district at the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities?

“Dr. Reda Abdel Halim, Director of Public Relations at the Giza Pyramids, and the discoverer of the second Sphinx rock in the Giza pyramids area, said that this rock has existed for a long time in the tenth of King Khafre and perhaps before him, because some inscriptions found inside suggest that there is a connection between these The rock and between the ancient first Sphinx.”

(Google translation from Cairo Live)

Reda Abdel Halim announced his discovery to Cairo Live in late October and the news was met with skepticism throughout the Egyptology world, not to mention in his own department. Halim claimed he brought in a “property manager” in 1986 to measure the giant rock he found and its dimensions were 73 meters (246 feet) long, 20 meters (67 feet) high at the head, and the hands reach 15.5 meters (50.8 feet), which is … get ready … the same size as the Great Sphinx of Giza. Abdel Halim did not reveal the location, only to say it is in the area of the pyramids and he found it using research done by archeologists at Zagazig University.

“This is completely not true. The Sphinx is unique in Egypt and the world. … Any talk about discoveries of other similar statues is baseless and has only one purpose, which is creating media fanfare. Any claims about research on the Sphinx at the Zagazig University is also false. Studies and research must be published in a scientific journal so that we can respond with scientific evidence. Talks about a text that is said to have been inscribed on the Sphinx but got erased by the passage of the time mentioning the existence of another similar statue, are baseless.”

Renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, former Minister of Antiquities and an archaeologist who oversaw the pyramids area for nearly 20 years, told Al-Monitor Abdel Halim’s claims are completely false and he scoffed at the ‘evidence’ – a description that was once on the Great Sphinx but is now worn off. Nevin al-Arif, media advisor to the minister of tourism and antiquities, agreed with Hawass and revealed the identity of the statue Adel Halim claims is the second Sphinx.

“The statue in question was discovered a long time ago in the area and has nothing to do with the original Sphinx. It is nothing but a normal statue.”

However, the final nail in the sarcophagus was hammered by Mohammed Hamza, the former dean of the faculty of archeology at Cairo University, who said:

“The Giza pyramids area is an active zone in terms of archaeology and tourism. If there were another Sphinx, scientists would have discovered it earlier. This area is of paramount importance, whether in the past or nowadays. Had there been any other Sphinx statue, it would have been discovered two hundred years ago. Excavations and digging operations are nonstop there.”

The Giza pyramids area is one of the most studied, looted, probed, scanned and searched archeological sites in the world. And yet, professional and amateur Egyptologists and archeologists are like Fox Mulder – they want to believe there’s a second Sphinx … so much so that they’re willing to ignore that Abdel Halim claims to have known about what would be a ‘this changes everything’ discovery since 1986.

If the Sphinx could grin, it would be right now.

Within the last few years, new archaeological discoveries have continued to push back the timescales on when humans are believed to have initially arrived in the Americas.

Most recently, ichnofossils in the form of ancient footprints found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico suggest a human presence there as early as 23,000 years ago, in an area where it was once thought humans wouldn’t begin to arrive for another 10,000 years.

The history of American anthropology boasts a long record of disputes over when the earliest arrivals of humans began. Early in the 20^th century, many leading anthropologists would have looked no further than 3000-4000 years ago for the arrival of the first Americans, a view that would quickly change with the discoveries at sites like Folsom and Clovis in New Mexico, which established the reality of a human presence in American by the end of the last Ice Age.

Although the “Clovis First” model predominated American archaeology for decades after the discoveries in New Mexico early in the 20^th century, by the beginning of the 1970s it began to become clear that there was a potential for an even earlier human presence in the Americas. Sites like Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and Monte Verde in Chile seemed to offer indisputable evidence of human activities well in advance of Clovis. It begged the question: just how far back do the earliest human arrivals in the New World go?

Additional discoveries of “pre-Clovis” sites throughout parts of North and South America leading up to the 21^st century continued to increase awareness among archaeologists of earlier human arrivals than once would have been deemed acceptable. However, a few purported archaeological site discoveries were suggestive of something even more controversial, with implications far beyond just when and where the first humans arrived.

Excavations began at the Topper Site in Allendale County, South Carolina, in the early 1980s under the direction of Albert Goodyear, who would continue excavations there for the next several decades. An undeniable Clovis presence at the site was established, accompanied by what appeared to be earlier evidence of human tool use at the site (which, at the time of their discovery, would have been viewed as far more controversial than they are in light of recent pre-Clovis discoveries in America).

However, in 2004 the already compelling Topper site garnered additional attention for Goodyear’s announcement that the remains of carbonized plants, recovered from the site’s lowest excavated levels, appeared to have been radiocarbon dated to around 50,000 years ago. Intriguingly, Goodyear also said that evidence in the form of simple tools, along with chert (a sedimentary rock consisting almost entirely of silica) showing evidence of being struck for use in making such implements, was also found at this depth.

While many archaeologists disputed the discoveries, they raised a number of thought-provoking possibilities. While homo sapiens are believed to have begun leaving Africa between 70,000 and 100,000 years ago, the idea that they might have been in eastern North America 55,000 years ago would have been unprecedented. Nonetheless, Topper was not the only such site where evidence for an anomalously early human presence had been claimed. Even prior to excavations at Topper, the Calico Early Man Site in San Bernardino County, California, had seen publicity for the controversial claims about tools that were recovered there.

Famed archaeologist Louis Leakey, who participated in early excavations at the site, had been among those convinced that the tools found there might date back more than 100,000 years, although more recent estimates place the Calico artifacts much closer to around 20,000 years ago, consistent with discoveries like those at White Sands. Even Leaky’s wife Mary would later write that her former husband’s zeal for the antiquity of Calico had been “catastrophic to his professional career and was largely responsible for the parting of our ways.” Still others have argued that many of the purported “artifacts” from Calico are more likely the result of natural processes, as opposed to being produced by human hands.

Louis and Mary Leakey in 1962

(Smithsonian Institution/Flickr Commons).

Had the purported tools at Calico indeed been proven to extend back 100,000 years or more, they not only would have challenged our notion of when humans first arrived in the Americas, but also when they first left Africa. After all, it would seem inconceivable that around the same time humans were believed to have made their exit from Africa, evidence of tool usage would also appear in North America. Thus, only one of two possibilities would have seemed feasible: either early humans would have had to leave Africa earlier, or perhaps another variety of archaic hominin had made its way to the Americas first.

Of course, the questionable nature of Calico’s purported artifacts left little need for such considerations. However, it would not remain the only location in southern California where archaeological sites boasting extreme ages would turn up. In 2017, the Cerutti Mastodon site located nearby in San Diego County made headlines after researchers said they had recovered mastodon bones there, which appeared to bear evidence of human butchering in the form of markings on the bones dated to 130,700 years ago.

Much like Calico before it, the Cerutti Mastodon site was roundly dismissed by the majority of archaeologists on account of several factors, the main one involving the fact that no human remains, and only questionable artifact remains were recovered there. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that rather than some kind of early hominin, a megafaunal variety of capuchin monkey that existed in some parts of the Americas during the Pleistocene could have been responsible for the marks found on the mastodon bones in question! Still others suggest that the marks in question could have been produced by recent construction activities, rather than impacts with stone more than 130,000 years ago.

Obviously, many questions remain about these purported archaeological sites. To date, no evidence that has been presented offers undisputed proof of an anomalously early human presence in southern California, or anywhere elsewhere in the Americas. While most archaeologists are now warming up to the notion of arrivals 20,000 to 25,000 years ago, some estimates place arrivals as far back as around 40,000 years ago. These dates may not present evidence that causes us to question accepted notions about the earliest human migrations out of Africa—let alone whether homo sapiens were the first ones to arrive in the Americas. However, they do mark a notable shift in the attitudes of anthropologists, who in decades past had been far more resistant to accepting new evidence.

If time has shown us anything, it is that every few decades, new discoveries tend to emerge that cause us to have to rethink what we thought we knew. Our study of the ancient Americas is dynamic and ever-changing, and as new insights continue to emerge over time, perhaps at least one thing does remain predictable: when it comes to the ancient world, learn to expect the unexpected.