Residues of red pigment have been found on the face of the Sphinx, which means at some point, Egypt's great statue was painted red.
Credit: Getty
No human endeavour has sparked such controversy as the 4,500-year-old statue that lies a mere stroll from the great pyramids of Giza in Egypt. A huge, ancient lion sporting a human head seemingly guards over something on the rocky, desert plateau - but over what, no one can say.
For thousands of years the Sphinx has teased visitors with its secrets - its name, its purpose, its history. And it was a twisting path that led an American archaeologist, Mark Lehner, to solve the riddles of the Sphinx and become one of the world's leading Egyptologists. Back in 1971, Lehner was just a typical bored college student at the University of North Dakota, who was "looking for something, a meaningful involvement."
He became an enthusiast for the late clairvoyant Edgar Cayce - who, in a trance, had seen refugees from the lost city of Atlantis bury their secrets in a hall of records under the Sphinx. In an attempt to ease the restlessness of his youth, Lehner dropped out of school and sought out Cayce's son, Hugh Lynn, the head of a holistic medicine and paranormal research foundation his father had started in Virginia.
When the foundation sponsored a group tour of the Giza plateau, on the western outskirts of Cairo, Lehner tagged along. "It was hot and dusty and not very majestic," he remembers. He also failed to see any evidence of the fabled library of Atlantis.
Still, he returned to Egypt, finishing his undergraduate education at the American University in Cairo. He soon grew sceptical about Cayce's visions, but instead became hooked on Egyptology.
He developed an ambitious plan to map the entire Sphinx; he was granted a bit of research money and set up a tiny office between the Sphinx's colossal paws. For five years, he subsisted on Nescafé and cheese sandwiches while he examined the statue. He remembers "climbing all over the Sphinx like the Lilliputians on Gulliver, and mapping it stone by stone."
The result was a uniquely detailed picture of the statue's worn, patched surface, which had been subjected to at least five restoration efforts since 1400 BC. The project earned him a doctorate in Egyptology from Yale University.
In 1977, he joined Stanford Research Institute scientists in using state-of-the-art remote-sensing equipment to analyse the bedrock under the Sphinx. They found only the cracks and fissures expected. Working closely with a young Egyptian archaeologist named Zahi Hawass, Lehner also explored and mapped a passage in the Sphinx's rump, concluding that treasure hunters had likely dug it after the statue was built.
Recognised today as one of the world's leading Sphinx authorities, Lehner has conducted field research at Giza during most of the 37 years since his first visit. (Hawass, his friend and frequent collaborator, is now the secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and controls access to the Sphinx, the pyramids and other government-owned sites and artefacts.)
He has helped confirm what others had speculated - that some parts of the Giza complex, the Sphinx included, make up a vast sacred machine designed to harness the power of the Sun to sustain the Earthly and divine order. And it's curious, in light of his early wanderings, that he finally did discover a Lost City.
