Various Sources
1913
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NOTE |
In 1913, the global media were abuzz with stories that an American archaeologist had found secret temples and chambers within the Great Sphinx. George Andrew Reisner, Jr., the supposed excavator, had indeed worked in Egypt in the early twentieth century. Although he was excavating in Egypt in 1913, where he was training O. G. S. Crawford, he was not digging in the Sphinx as many sensational newspapers articles in the first quarter of 1913 claimed. The stories were, on the surface, ridiculous, positing chambers larger than the Sphinx itself. (The head is 10 ft. by 14 ft., while the chamber inside it was supposedly 60 ft. long!)
The following compiles the earliest I can find, a January 13, 1913 Baltimore Sun piece, which is the apparent source, and the more famous March 22, 1913 illustrated Sphere newspaper summary, known for its spectacular but fanciful artistic representation. Both pieces were widely copied, summarized, and reprinted in newspapers as far afield as Australia. Reisner's name to give credence to a false story that derives from medieval Arabic legends about hidden chambers within the Sphinx, eighteenth-century European travelers’ tales of the same, and nineteenth-century speculation about a network of tunnels below Giza, ultimately from a passage in Pliny claiming the statue to hold the tomb of Amarais (Natural History 36.17). I have prefaced my reprint of the hoax with a debunking that Theosophist Annie Besant produced for The Theosophist magazine after the affair had died down, and I conclude with the full letter from Reisner himself refuting the allegations in the American press. |
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THE SPHINX
By ANNIE BESANT The picture of the supposed interior of the Sphinx, which we present to our readers by the courtesy of the Times of India and the Sphere is one which does credit to the imagination of its artist. The statements about it first appeared in an American ‘Sunday Edition,’ but were apparently well substantiated.
I have, however, received a letter from a member who spent the winter in Egypt, and who read the accounts which appeared in the London press. He and his friends could find “no signs of excavations at the Sphinx, though Professor Reisner was excavating about a mile away, on the other side of the Pyramids.” Still they thought there must be some truth underlying the precise statements made, until shortly before they left Cairo. Then they found the following decisive contradiction in an Egyptian newspaper:
This is certainly decisive, and places the story among the many hoaxes perpetrated on a confiding public.
Source: The Theosophist, July 1913 
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THE BALTIMORE SUN, JANUARY 13, 1913.
SPHINX YIELDS SECRETS
Egyptologist Explores Interior, Finding Temple of Sun and Ancient City of Gold.
[Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.]
Boston, Mass., Jan. 12.—That he has discovered the secrets of the sphinx was made known by the authorities of Harvard Semitic Museum and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts by Professor G. A. Reisner, Harvard Egyptologist.
Inside the sphinx he found a temple dedicated to the sun. The structure is older than any of the pyramids, and its date is somewhere around 6000 B. C., the most ancient in Egyptian history. The tomb of Mena, the king who made himself a god and who fashioned the sphinx, is also within it. There are tunnels leading off into caverns which have not yet been penetrated, for the work has only been going on six months.
The sphinx is carved out of the natural rock, but within are the caves and buildings of a city of gold which was, perhaps, once open to the air.
At present the excavations are confined to the chamber in the head. This chamber is sixty feet long and fourteen wide. It is connected by tunnels with the temple of the sun, which rests within the paws of the sphinx.
Such relics as the “crux ansata,” the looped cross, symbol of the sun, are found by the hundreds. Several of these are of gold and have wires for tiny bells which, when sounded by the priests, summoned up ghosts.
Inside the sphinx are also tiny pyramids, although the sphinx was built long before the Great Pyramids.
A pyramid in those times was a sun-dial, according to Professor Reisner, and the sphinx was a sun god. The Pyramid of Cheops is an absolutely accurate time keeper.
According to Professor Reisner, Egypt of today is one vast city, the edge of which has been scratched and the interior of which will probably never be disclosed.
Professor Reisner hopes to discover among the relics of the sphinx the secret of the Egyptian priests whose magic is believed to have been marvelous.
Pictures of the insides of the head are being made and will be shown at Harvard and the Lowell institute courses next winter.
Professor Reisner says he is having unusual difficulties in his work, for the Arabs who are assisting him refuse absolutely to sleep in the chamber. They say there are devils there and that the man who sleeps there will die.
Inside the sphinx he found a temple dedicated to the sun. The structure is older than any of the pyramids, and its date is somewhere around 6000 B. C., the most ancient in Egyptian history. The tomb of Mena, the king who made himself a god and who fashioned the sphinx, is also within it. There are tunnels leading off into caverns which have not yet been penetrated, for the work has only been going on six months.
The sphinx is carved out of the natural rock, but within are the caves and buildings of a city of gold which was, perhaps, once open to the air.
At present the excavations are confined to the chamber in the head. This chamber is sixty feet long and fourteen wide. It is connected by tunnels with the temple of the sun, which rests within the paws of the sphinx.
Such relics as the “crux ansata,” the looped cross, symbol of the sun, are found by the hundreds. Several of these are of gold and have wires for tiny bells which, when sounded by the priests, summoned up ghosts.
Inside the sphinx are also tiny pyramids, although the sphinx was built long before the Great Pyramids.
A pyramid in those times was a sun-dial, according to Professor Reisner, and the sphinx was a sun god. The Pyramid of Cheops is an absolutely accurate time keeper.
According to Professor Reisner, Egypt of today is one vast city, the edge of which has been scratched and the interior of which will probably never be disclosed.
Professor Reisner hopes to discover among the relics of the sphinx the secret of the Egyptian priests whose magic is believed to have been marvelous.
Pictures of the insides of the head are being made and will be shown at Harvard and the Lowell institute courses next winter.
Professor Reisner says he is having unusual difficulties in his work, for the Arabs who are assisting him refuse absolutely to sleep in the chamber. They say there are devils there and that the man who sleeps there will die.
THE SPHERE, MARCH 22, 1913.
Remarkable Discoveries Within the Sphinx.
The Temple Within its Hollow Head: Professor G. A. Reisner’s Interesting Discoveries
DRAWN FOR “THE SPHERE” BY G. BRON
DIAGRAMMATIC VIEW OF THE DISCOVERIES RECENTLY MADE OF HIDDEN TEMPLES WITHIN THE SPHINX
Repeated reports are coming from Egypt of the extreme interest which is being evoked by the remarkable discoveries now being made by Professor G. A. Reisner, Egyptologist, of Harvard University. He is unveiling a series of hidden temples within the natural rock of which the Sphinx is formed. The drawing above is only approximate in its details as the measured drawings now being made by the explorer are not yet available. The temples and stairways are, however, shown in their relative positions. Not only is the head of the Sphinx occupied by two small chambers, one superimposed above the other, but the actual body of the Sphinx is also occupied by a larger pillar-lined temple with passages leading off in several directions. The actual tomb of Menes, the great but mysterious founder of remote Egypt, is also supposed to be within the Sphinx. The most remarkable discoveries may be looked for at any time.
RECORDS OF THE PAST, MARCH–APRIL 1913.
AN ABSURD SPHINX STORY DENIED.—A most remarkable story regarding the discovery by Dr. G. A. Reisner of Harvard University, of a series of temples in the head and body of the Sphinx appeared some time ago in both English and American papers—and even in one archeological magazine. In some unaccountable way a reporter imagined that the Egyptian temple Dr. Reisner is excavating near the pyramid of Mycerinus and which he described in the Cosmopolitan Magazine last year, was inside the head of the Sphinx. Elaborate drawings and diagrams of this were reproduced and a most amusing—to one not personally interested—account attributed to Dr. Reisner was reported.
Such mis-information is very trying to an archeologist, especially when he is so completely out of communication with the world that his denial is hopelessly behind in the race. The following letter from Dr. Reisner to the Boston Transcript is worth reprinting:
Such mis-information is very trying to an archeologist, especially when he is so completely out of communication with the world that his denial is hopelessly behind in the race. The following letter from Dr. Reisner to the Boston Transcript is worth reprinting:
To the Editor of the Transcript:
Will you kindly permit me to make a statement in regard to the annoying fiction of excavations at the Sphinx, published in January by certain American and English papers? I left Cairo on February 3, and since February 8 have been working here on the northern border of Dongola—by a curious paradox the part most distant from Egypt. This district, the Kerma basin, is being laid under water according to one of those wise plans by which the English are developing the resources of the Sudan. The ancient remains consist of two enormous mud-brick structures and a cemetery, described by Lepsius in 1844, all of which are threatened by the irrigation scheme. With the friendly encouragement of the Sudan Government, I am making an effort to save the historical material. The work is extremely interesting; but the place is a bit lonely. One lives a strictly daylight life. Practically the only diversions, aside from the work, are produced by the dust storms from the Batn-el-Hagar, and the swarms of annoying insects called nimitti.
Owing to doubt as to my movements, my American mail of the first half of January has only just reached me. The reading of the newspaper clippings containing the absurd Sphinx story has made my other discomforts seem insignificant. I suppose’ the tale is now beyond recall, but I would like the friends of the university and the Museum of Fine Arts to know the truth about the matter. The Sphinx is not in our concession. I never excavated in or at the Sphinx; I never intended to excavate in or at the Sphinx, and have no intention of doing so. I cannot imagine the origin of this absurd story.
GEORGE A. REISNER.
Kerma, Dongola Province
