"Two Sphinxes" on the Dream Stele at Giza? (Just looking at the pictures)

The Dream Stele is a rectangular monument carved from granite, standing about 3.6 metres high and weighing roughly 15 tons. It was erected around 1401 BC (a thousand years or so after the Spinx itselff was carved) to commemorate a divine dream. It originally served as the rear wall of a small open-air chapel constructed in the 18th dynasty by Thutmose IV between the paws of the Sphinx as part of the New Kingdom revitalisation of the Giza site in the New Kingdom (esp. Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV). Evidence suggests that the monument was repurposed from an earlier structure: it appears to be a reused door lintel from the entrance to Khafre’s mortuary temple (the pivot sockets on its reverse correspond to those found at the temple’s threshold), which is important evidence that the temple was already in ruins by the time it was erected.

The stele was rediscovered in 1818 during excavations carried out by Giovanni Battista Caviglia as part of efforts to clear the sand from around the Sphinx. Initially the inscription was intact, but after the stone had been covered by sand again and re-excavated in 1925, the surface of the stone after rapid heating and drying in its newly exposed (and damp) state, flaked off. Probably it had been weakened by wicking of saline groundwater into the lower end of the stone and the crystallisation of salts within micro-cracks (caused by the pounding technique used to shape it).

On the preserved upper part, the lunette contains a depiction of Thutmose IV (cartouches visible) on both the left and right sides presenting offerings and libations to the Sphinx. The Sphinx itself is shown elevated on a high pedestal, in the form of the facade of a temple or shrine, with a door represented at its base (This feature has encouraged speculation that a hidden chamber or passageway might exist beneath the Sphinx).

Top of the Dream Stele, note spalling of granite

The inscription of the offering scene on the left is:

The King of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Lord of the Two Lands, Menkheperure Thutmosis, the appearance of appearances, bestowed with life. Greeting (the god Reharakte) with a Nemset vase (spoken by the Sphinx) “I give strength to the Lord of the Two Lands, Thutmosis, the appearance of appearances”.

In the middle

(spoken by the Sphinx) “I make (it so) that Menkheperure appears on the throne of Geb, and Thutmosis, the appearance of appearances, in the position of Atum“.

On the right

The King of Upper and Lower Egypt, the lord of the Two Lands, Menkheperure Thutmosis, the appearance of appearances, bestowed with life. Making an offering of incense and a libation. Horemakhet (says) “I give strength to the Lord of the Two Lands, Thutmosis, the appearance of appearances”.

In the actual text is given the reason why Thutmose IV was so keen on legitimating himself in relation to this decrepit old complex next to the infilled Valley Temple of Khafre. He's riding across the desert with his mates and then turns back towards the river (to get a boat ride home?):

[...] Then the hour came to give rest to his followers, at the limbs of Horem-akhet [Horus in the Horizon, the name of the Sphinx], beside Sokar in Ra-Setjaw [gateway to the Underworld at Giza], Renutet in Northern Djeme, Mut the mistress of the Northern Wall and the mistress of the Southern Wall, Sekhmet who presides over her Kha, Set, the son of Heka, the Holy Place of the First Time [Zep Tepi] (of creation), near the Lords or Kheraha, the divine road of the gods towards the West of Iunu (Heliopolis). Now then, the great statue of Khepri was lying in this place, great of power and powerful of majesty, the shadow of Re resting upon it. The estates of Hwt-Ka-Ptah (the temple of Ptah – Memphis) and all the neighbouring cities come to it, their arms raised in adoration before him, carrying many offerings for his Ka.

In this text, it seems that the Sphinx is identified as a divine manifestation of the sun god in his various forms, including Horemakhet-Khepri-Re-Atum. In this passage it is centred in a mystic quadrangle of sites from the Temple of Ptah at Memphis, the Gateway to the Underworld at Giza, opposite Kheraha [believed to be at 'Babylon' in Fustat] - the divine road of the gods to the sacred site at Heliopolis on an island in the opening to the eastern Delta.

All this however is the preamble to the principle point.

A number of pseudoarchaeologists (wannabe egyptologists) have proposed that the PICTURE above on the stele "looks like" (ahem) a pointer to there once having been TWO sphinxes at Giza. There they are, they say, two of them. Obvious.

Basically you'll not get far in Egyptology without a knowledge of the glyphs. I don't read them myself - but at a glance even a non-adept can see a very obvious (one would have thought) feature of the inscriptions in the lunette. One reads right to left, the other left to right [you can tell by the way the signs face!]* They cannot be a depiction of a single scene, the two halves of the picture represent two aspects of the same royal action. Duh.

Double duh, because the rest of the inscription is totally clear that there was only one Horem-akhet, one great statue of Khepri to which pilgrimages came. Tuthmose became pharoah by restoring just the one, no mention of a second one.

The "picture" is misleading the glyph-illiterate pseudo archaeologists. Its not a good idea to "read" a text by only looking at the pictures.

* With my antiquities-market-watching hat on, you'd be surprised by the number of fakers [and by the same token, collectors] who've not worked out how to tell which way the signs are facing and thus cannot detect texts erroneously compiled with them going in both directions in the same pseudo-passage, which is a dead giveaway (like the use of non-existent signs).

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