Mysteries of the Great Sphinx: Edgar Cayce, Hidden Tunnels, SAR Scans, and one Angry Zahi Hawass | 461
Picture this: the gods have come and gone, dynasties have risen and face-planted, cities have popped up and crumbled, tourists have come, posed, and posted a million thirst traps on Instagram… but the Sphinx is still just sitting there like, “Yeah, I’ll wait.”Today we’re heading to Giza to talk about the world’s most famous stone cat with a people head: the Great Sphinx of Egypt. It’s massive, it’s mysterious, it’s eroding faster than our faith in humanity, and it sits at the crossroads of legit science, wild speculation, and whatever the hell Edgar Cayce was doing.We’re going to walk through what the Sphinx actually is, what we think we know about its history, how old it might be, why people keep insisting there’s a secret Atlantean library under its paws, what modern tech like ground-penetrating radar and fancy satellite scans are actually showing under the Giza plateau, and why so many folks see Dr. Zahi Hawass as the final boss of “Nothing To See Here, Move Along.”Strap on the sunscreen, adjust your tinfoil nemes, and get ready for Hysteria 51.Special thanks to this week’s research sources:Main References Mentioned in the EpisodeLehner, Mark.The Complete Pyramids: Solving the Ancient Mysteries.London: Thames & Hudson, 1997.Hawass, Zahi.The Secrets of the Sphinx: Restoration Past and Present.Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1998.Jordan, Paul.Riddles of the Sphinx.New York: New York University Press, 1998.Gauri, K. Lal, John J. Sinai, and Jayanta K. Bandyopadhyay.“Geologic Weathering and Its Implications on the Age of the Sphinx.”Geoarchaeology 10, no. 2 (1995): 119–133.Schoch, Robert M.Voices of the Rocks: A Scientist Looks at Catastrophes and Ancient Civilizations.New York: Harmony Books, 1999.Reader, Colin.“A Geomorphological Study of the Giza Necropolis, with Implications for the Development of the Site.”Archaeometry 43, no. 1 (2001): 149–159.Sharafeldin, S. M., K. S. Essa, M. A. S. Youssef, H. Karsli, Z. E. Diab, and N. Sayil.“Shallow Geophysical Techniques to Investigate the Groundwater Table at the Gre