Mark Lehner

Mark Lehner is an American archaeologist with more than 30 years of experience excavating in Egypt. His approach, as director of Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA), is to conduct interdisciplinary archaeological investigation. Every excavated object is examined by specialists to create an overall picture of an archaeological site—from the buildings down to the pollen spores. His international team currently runs the Giza Plateau Mapping Project, excavating and mapping the ancient city of the builders of the Giza pyramid complex, which dates to the fourth dynasty of Egypt. He discovered that Pyramid G1-a, one of the subsidiary pyramids of the Great Pyramid, belonged to Hetepheres I; it was originally thought to belong to Queen Meritites I.

Education and career

Lehner first went to Egypt as a student in the 1970s. Intrigued by the mysteries of the 'Sleeping Prophet', Edgar Cayce, Lehner "found that [my] initial notions about the ancient civilization along the Nile could not stand up to the bedrock reality of the Giza Plateau". He turned to the scientific method of discovery in order to understand the culture better, returning some years later to complete a doctorate degree at Yale University. Lehner's 1991 dissertation was titled Archaeology of an image: The Great Sphinx of Giza.

Zahi Hawass

Zahi Hawass (Arabic: زاهي حواس‎; born May 28, 1947) is an Egyptian archaeologist, an Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs. He has also worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Western Desert, and the Upper Nile Valley.

Early life and education

Hawass was born in Damietta, Egypt. He originally intended to become a lawyer, but then studied Greek and Roman archaeology at Alexandria University, obtaining a B.Sc. degree. He then studied for a diploma in Egyptology at the University of Cairo, and proceeded to study, do research, and received a 1987 PhD from the Graduate Group in the Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World (AAMW) of the University of Pennsylvania, on The Funerary Establishments of Khufu, Khafra and Menkaura During the Old Kingdom." His studies there were as a Fulbright Fellow.

Career

Early career

After 1988, Hawass taught Egyptian archaeology, history and culture at the American University in Cairo, and the University of California, Los Angeles. Hawass has described his efforts as trying to help institute a systematic program for the preservation and restoration of historical monuments, while training Egyptians to improve their expertise on methods of excavation, retrieval and preservation.

Naked Science

Naked Science is an American documentary television series that premiered in 2004 on the National Geographic Channel and ran through November 2011. The program featured various subjects related to science and technology. Some of the views expressed might be considered fringe or pseudo-science, and some of the scientists may present opinions which have not been properly peer-reviewed or are not widely accepted within their scientific communities, in particular on topics such as Bermuda Triangle or Atlantis for example.

Episodes

DVD releases

Two seasons of the show have been released on DVD by Fremantle Home Entertainment.

Season one

The first season was released on three discs in 2007. Total running time is 624 minutes. <div class="div-col columns column-count column-count-# "Killer Asteroid"

Sphinx

The sphinx (Greek: Σφίγξ [sfiŋks], Boeotian: Φίξ [pʰiks], Arabic: أبو الهول‎ ʾabū l-hawl "father of dread",) is a mythical creature with, as a minimum, the head of a human and the body of a lion.

In Greek tradition, it has the head of a human, the haunches of a lion, and sometimes the wings of a bird. It is mythicised as treacherous and merciless. Those who cannot answer its riddle suffer a fate typical in such mythological stories, as they are killed and eaten by this ravenous monster. This deadly version of a sphinx appears in the myth and drama of Oedipus. Unlike the Greek sphinx, which was a woman, the Egyptian sphinx is typically shown as a man (an androsphinx). In addition, the Egyptian sphinx was viewed as benevolent, but having a ferocious strength similar to the malevolent Greek version and both were thought of as guardians often flanking the entrances to temples.

In European decorative art, the sphinx enjoyed a major revival during the Renaissance. Later, the sphinx image, something very similar to the original Ancient Egyptian concept, was exported into many other cultures, albeit often interpreted quite differently due to translations of descriptions of the originals and the evolution of the concept in relation to other cultural traditions.

Great Sphinx of Giza

The Great Sphinx of Giza (Arabic: أبو الهول‎ Abū al-Haul, English: The Terrifying One; literally: Father of Dread), commonly referred to as the Sphinx, is a limestone statue of a reclining or couchant sphinx (a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head) that stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The face of the Sphinx is generally believed to represent the face of the Pharaoh Khafra.

It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing 73.5 metres (241 ft) long, 19.3 metres (63 ft) wide, and 20.22 m (66.34 ft) high. It is the oldest known monumental sculpture, and is commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of the Pharaoh Khafra (c. 2558–2532 BC).

Construction

The Sphinx is a monolith carved down into the bedrock of the plateau which also served as the quarry for the pyramids and other monuments in the area. Because of its geological history, the nummulitic limestone of the area consists of layers of widely differing quality offering unequal resistance to erosion, mostly due to wind and windblown sand, which explains the uneven degradation of the body of the Sphinx. The floor of the Sphinx depression and lowest part of the body including the legs is solid, hard rock. Above this, the body of the lion up to its neck is a heterogeneous zone with friable layers that have suffered considerable disintegration. The layer in which the head was sculpted is also much harder.