Researchers turn to erosion in exploring the role natural elements had in building an architectural wonder.
© Pavel Muravev/Getty ImagesCourant researchers have determined how Sphinx-like shapes are formed.
Historians and archaeologists have, over centuries, explored the mysteries behind the Great Sphinx of Giza: What did it originally look like? What was it designed to represent? What was its original name? But less attention has been paid to a foundational, and controversial, question: What was the terrain the Ancient Egyptians came across when they began to build this instantly recognizable structure — and did these natural surroundings have a hand in its formation?
To address these questions, which have been raised on occasion by others, a team of New York University
scientists replicated conditions that existed 4,500 years ago — when the Sphinx was built — to show how wind moved against rock formations in possibly first shaping one of the most recognizable statues in the world."Our findings offer a possible 'origin story' for how Sphinx-like formations can come about from erosion," explains Leif Ristroph, an associate professor at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the senior author of the study, which has been accepted for publication in the journal
Physical Review Fluids. "Our laboratory experiments showed that surprisingly Sphinx-like shapes can, in fact, come from materials being eroded by fast flows."
© atdigit/Getty ImagesYardangs in Egypt's White Desert.
The work centered on replicating yardangs — unusual rock formations found in deserts resulting from wind-blown dust and sand — and exploring how the Great Sphinx could have originated as a yardang that was subsequently detailed by humans into the form of the widely recognized statue.
To do so, Ristroph and his colleagues in NYU's
Applied Mathematics Laboratory took mounds of soft clay with harder, less erodible material embedded inside — mimicking the terrain in northeastern Egypt, where the Great Sphinx sits.
They then washed these formations with a fast-flowing stream of water — to replicate wind — that carved and reshaped them, eventually reaching a Sphinx-like formation. The harder or more resistant material became the "head" of the lion and many other features — such as an undercut "neck," "paws" laid out in front on the ground, and arched "back" — developed.
© Image courtesy of NYU's Applied Mathematics Laboratory.A lab Sphinx is carved through an experiment that replicates the wind moving against once-shapeless mounds of clay, with harder material becoming the “head” of the lion and other features—such as an undercut “neck,” “paws” laid out in front on the ground, and arched “back”—developing.
"Our results provide a simple origin theory for how Sphinx-like formations can come about from erosion," observes Ristroph. "There are, in fact, yardangs in existence today that look like seated or lying animals, lending support to our conclusions."
"The work may also be useful to geologists as it reveals factors that affect rock formations — namely, that they are not homogeneous or uniform in composition," he adds. "The unexpected shapes come from how the flows are diverted around the harder or less-erodible parts."
The paper's other authors are Samuel Boury, a postdoctoral researcher at the time of the study, and Scott Weady, an NYU doctoral student at the time of the study.
The work was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DMS-2206573).
Reader Comments
With sarcasm, "Yes, slaves built the pyramids dragging 100 ton blocks across the desert. Yes, Egyptian carvers used copper tools to carve granite statues and within granite vases. Yes, those primitive Egyptians could calculate the positions of the stars and orient the pyramids and lay out the foundations." It belongs in a fairy tale told to children.
What is the reality? Technology that we don't understand, or only the military understands.
Albeit I am open to the possibility that they (plagues & comets) might just coincide, i.e. both having the same cause.
In the back of my mind I seem to think that there is an occult belief that flies come from Venus
I did some digging and found this about Beelzebub
Which leads me to the next point, which is related to Beelzebub (which is in German colloquially used for "devil"). I think Velikovsky's issue here is to regard the bible as reliable description and source. As if the Khazars never existed, and never were an influencial (and corrosive) force in Europe ...
The Khazars converted to Judaism in the 8th century, so not sure what they had to do with the bible
For a long time I have objected to the inclusion of the Old Testament as part of the Christian bible, the part we are mainly taught when young. Why are followers of Christ brain-washed with the books of the Hebrews?
Maybe to deceive Christians and keep them ignorant of the Talmud
And can you prove that ?
The body of the lion (fire), the wings of the eagle (air), the face of a man (water), the limbs of a bull (earth).
Was the Sphinx formed by Nature?... Or Nature formed by the Sphinx?
Modern science only looks at matter through the eyes of matter... From the eyes of spirit, everything is made from spirit.