Was the Giza Sphinx a recumbent lion?

Alice C. Linsley


Robert M. Schoch makes a good argument here for the Sphinx at Giza to be about 2000 years older than generally held by Egyptologists. He reconstructs the outline of the Sphinx and shows that it was a lion resting with its face to the east.

I agree that the Giza Sphinx older than 2200 BC. It must date to the time of the Horite priesthood of Nekhen (Sudan), about 4000-5000 BC. Twin lions facing east and west were one of their religious motifs.

Another sphinx was recently discovered west of Dan Baki in Zinder Province in Niger. I was the first to provide an English report on this here.

I suspect that this sphinx, which Dr. Garba describes as having the shape of a lion, faces west. The two sphinxes perhaps flanked a well watered Sahara on the east and west. This was common imagery among the ancient Horites.

Between the lions is the solar symbol of the Creator. In a fascinating conversation with Laouali Yahaya, an administrator from Niger, I learned that the Niger sphinx is at a place called Ta-nout, which means "belongs to Nout." Nojut is an ancient Egyptian term for sky.

The lion and serpent connection

The totem of David’s Bethlehem clan was the lion which appears to have connections to the clan of Nahash. Nahash is the Hebrew word for serpent. Nahash was the father of Shobi, Abigail and Zeruiah, the mother of Joab and Abishai (II Sam. 17:25). David had a sister named Abigail and a wife named Abigail. These may have been the same person. It was the Horite custom to take a half-sister for the first wife and a cousin wife shortly before ascending to the throne. Bethlehem was a Horite settlement where such customs would have been observed. I Chronicles 4:4 lists Hur (Hor) as the "father of Bethlehem."

The close association between the lion totem and the serpent totem suggest that Abigail might have been a patrilineal cousin and the “daughter of Nahash” (II Sam. 17:25). It this is the case, taking Abigail as his wife signaled David's intention to rule.


Related reading: Orientations of Nilo-Saharan Monuments; Solar Imagery of the Proto-Gospel; Using Totems to Trace Ancestry; The Horite Marriage and Ascendancy Pattern; The Afro-Asiatic Dominion