Hearted Youtube comments on World of Antiquity (@WorldofAntiquity) channel.
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First, I wish to thank Seyfzadeh for taking the time to comment on my research. I find this improves the quality of my work.
“Schneiker's idea that the Sphinx was made by rough pounding of naturally weak rock, rather than post-creation weathering is based on a fracture seen at the front of the Sphinx, actually not contested by the proponents of rain- and run-off erosion.”
No. My conclusion has absolutely nothing to do with any of the bedrock fractures that cross the Sphinx. I am specifically referring to the surface of the Sphinx body that has been misidentified as erosion by precipitation. The fractures he is referring to were eroded by acidic groundwater long before the Sphinx was carved. This erosion predates the Sphinx and definitely was not produced by precipitation.
There exists a continuing problem of erosion on the side walls of the Sphinx enclosure caused by wicking groundwater. To what extent this has affected the lowest sections of the Sphinx is difficult to say as it has been covered with small repair blocks.
I also suspect Seyfzadeh is speaking for himself, not for proponents of rain- and run-off erosion in general.
“This fissure is mentioned by Lehner in his thesis.”
I suspect Seyfzadeh is referring to the Major Fissure. This fracture, or cave as I call it, was formed as acidic groundwater dissolved the limestone over millions of years. Seyfzadeh is right that Lehner mentions it in his dissertation. Lehner believes the Major Fissure was not discovered until during the construction process. Saying that its discovery is what forced the builders to elongate the Sphinx body, thus making the head appear too small. The Major Fissure is what Anyextee mistakenly describes as a hidden entrance to the Sphinx.
If I understand Seyfzadeh correctly, he believes the erosion of the bedrock fractures occurred following construction of the Sphinx. And that the erosion was caused by precipitation, not acidic groundwater. That is inconsistent with all of the geologic evidence. For instance, Robert Schoch and Thomas Dobeclki identified a weathered limestone beneath the Sphinx as part of a seismic investigation. The presence of a weathered limestone beneath the Sphinx was later confirmed by Lehner in a series of borings constructed as part of a dewatering system installed to protect the Sphinx from wicking groundwater.
“What Schneiker is not showing you is the north and south side of the body where you can still see a whole row of vertical channels, more so on the south side than the north side in keeping with Reader’s model that run-off was more important than rain and that a rain catchment surface is needed to produce the run-off.”
I am not ignoring the fractures. Like Lehner, I am pointing to them, and the evidence contained within them. What Seyfzadeh is not telling you is the “vertical channels” are bedrock fractures. Fractures are produced by tectonic processes, then widened by acidic groundwater. Seyfzadeh needs to look at photographs of the north and south sides of the Sphinx taken prior to the 1920s. He would discover he is wrong about the fractures being more numerous on the south side. Not that this has anything to do with erosion by precipitation or the age of the Sphinx.
“I ask you, is the back of the Sphinx level? Take a look for yourself. Not to me, but I have not been up there to measure if it is.”
Yes, the Sphinx back is nearly level as it follows a geologic bedding plane. There is however, a 5 to 10 degree dip to the south-east at Giza. This dip is obvious to anyone who has ever walked uphill from the Sphinx to the Great Pyramid of Khufu. The dip can easily be seen in any photograph of the Sphinx taken looking towards the west. The geologic beds dip below ground near the Valley Temple, in the south-east corner of the Sphinx enclosure.
“How would Schneiker explain more channels south than north?”
As I already wrote, Seyfzadeh is wrong about there being more fractures on the south side of the Sphinx. I wonder if he is actually referring to the southern wall of the Sphinx enclosure, and not the Sphinx itself. If so he is correct that the southern wall has experienced a greater degree of erosion by salty wicking groundwater. This is because of the bedding that dips to the south-east placing the softer limestone closer to the water table on the south side of the Sphinx enclosure.
If however, the erosion of the Sphinx enclosure was caused by precipitation as Seyfzadeh believes, then the north wall should exhibit a higher degree of erosion than the south wall.
That is unless Seyfzadeh has found a way for water to flow up hill and enter the Sphinx enclosure from the south.
“Regarding Schneiker's idea that the rough-pounded statue was immediately dressed with hewn blocks, where are the oldest ones he proposes except on the lowermost courses?”
Now I am mystified. Seyfzadeh starts his comments by saying he agrees with me. Then questions whether the Sphinx was “immediately dressed with hewn blocks”. This is core to my theory. You cannot have one without the other. Unless he is suggesting the ancient Egyptians left the Sphinx with the rough cut body we see today.
Seyfzadeh is right about the oldest and largest blocks being preserved on the lower sections of the Sphinx. This is not surprising as the Sphinx was buried in sand for most of the past 4,500 years. Protecting the lower blocks from looting. That the blocks have not eroded away is further evidence they were not eroded by precipitation.
“The bulk of the blocks, i.e. the smaller ones, are not from the Old Kingdom. He thinks the blocks were looted. Well then why weren't the smaller ones, the ones easier to carry?”
Seyfzadeh is correct that the bulk of the smaller blocks do not date to the Old Kingdom. It is well documented that they were applied during a series of repairs beginning more than 1,000 years later. This process of repairing the Sphinx with smaller blocks has continued throughout much of the last century. The question is whether the original larger blocks were looted or badly eroded. To answer the question as to why the small blocks were not looted is easy, they have replaced the larger blocks that had been looted.
“Regarding Schneiker's idea that the face of the Great Sphinx is not exact....I encourage you to look at the face of (very young appearing) Khafre on a bust displayed at the Metropolitean Museum of Art.”
I encourage Seyfzadeh to look at the face of the Sphinx again. There is no question that the facial features were adjusted to match the bedding planes.
“I actually differ here from Frank Domingo's facial analysis because he used a model of face of Khafre that must have shown him as an older adult. That's a pretty close match including the still present facial fat pads. Regardless, the face of the Sphinx does not date the whole statue, nor does it falsify the idea of a remodeling job. I think that goes without saying.”
Well put, the face cannot be used to date construction of the Sphinx. Again I suggest Seyfzadeh is speaking for himself and not others such as Schoch and West for whom the face is paramount. Which is why they had Domingo analyze the face in the first place.
As far as a larger head, that is impossible. First because of the limited thickness of the geologic layer from which the head was carved. Second because of the bedrock fractures, “channels” as he calls them, that cross the Sphinx. It was the size of a fracture free natural block of limestone, that became the head. That block determined the overall scale of the Sphinx.
So it does not seem that Seyfzadeh agrees with me after all. For him to truly agree, he needs to agree that there is no erosion by precipitation, on the Sphinx.
I would love to debate Seyfzadeh or anyone who claims the Sphinx is older. I tried with Randall Carlson who agreed to “go toe to toe”, never to be heard from again.
Thanks,
Robert Adam Schneiker, Geologist / Geophysicist, MS, PG
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Looking through some of your comment threads, I see that fairly often you get criticized for being "too sarcastic" and the like. I think that from a persuasion standpoint you've got it just about right, but watching the clips (and in the past, some of the LAHT crowd's whole videos) I'm impressed with how well you're able to hold yourself back. ;) 1) These guys spend their whole videos sneering at "mainstream" "orthodox" archaeologists and historians and accusing them of being part of an evil cabal out to deliberately hide the truth from us. 2) Then, with nearly unlimited cockiness, they toss out their hypotheses as Proven Fact on the flimsiest of evidence ("Look! A picture of one circle surrounded by a bunch of other circles, but I can't be arsed to find out what the rest of the pictures are or what the text says!"), and from there they often climb out on an even thinner branch of wild speculation of the "so they must have had psionic power crystals!" variety. 3) They do this without even knowing what the "mainstream" "orthodox" archaeologists and historians think or why they think it. 4) Because the "mainstream" "orthodox" scholar they're actually sneering at is their high school history teacher, and the three-page chapter on the Sumerians (or Egyptians, Mayans, or whoever) in their school textbook, from which they were expected to extract a few names and dates to regurgitate for a test at the end of the week.
It would be one thing if these folks could fairly represent the mainstream position and the evidence used to get there, and still make compelling arguments for their own side. Heck, I wish they could, because who wouldn't want to discover a mysterious ancient lost civilization rich in astonishing capabilities and deep esoteric wisdom?
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As someone who felt completely duped by pseudoarchaeology after investing several years in posting their videos on my social media trying to spread the word and reading every book on it I could find, but when I watched my first video of your channel concerning UnchartedX, it only took about 5 minutes of your hour-long, steelman debunking of his video to feel deeply embarrassed that I had not realized this stuff on my own. I was intellectually honest enough to accept that you could easily debunk these arguments in multiple different ways that people like Graham Hancock carefully keep his audience away from for this very reason. After I watched your Randall Carlson video, It was so clear to me that people like Graham Hancock are charlatans because if I'm smart enough to understand that the counter-evidence is much more convincing than what they present within 5 minutes, then I know someone who has written several books on the matter knows that the survival of primitive stone tools and archaeology surviving this cataclysm, but not this highly advanced civilization is devastating to his claims, he just tries to make damn well sure his audience would never seek out that counter-evidence on their own by attempting to destroy their trust in the real archaeologists. they try to cut their audience off from all the counter-evidence that must have been presented to them before, but they keep it from their audience and tell their audience to not trust the only people actually trying to fact-check them. The fact that he wants to specifically overlook the step of peer review which is the step of the research process that attempts to control against the individual confirmation bias of any one researcher and tells you what parts of your theory are not working or unfalsifiable if you're starting with your conclusion and a multitude of other things he does so much so he's invested in convincing his audience that the establishment uses peer review to silence the TRUTH. Without peer review, a theory is nothing more than an enthusiastic promise from a possibly trustworthy source that things are the way they say. That's not even science. We all know what that is. It's cult-like behavior. Hancock says all of this, but then takes the highest order of offense if anyone ever accuses him of pseudoarchaeology. I mean the projection is outrageous all throughout Hancockian philosophy! So I began spreading your videos everywhere I had previously spread these pseudoarchaeology videos. And I challenge people with increasingly provocative language when I post your videos in the comments section of UnchartedX, Brien Forrester, Graham Hancock, and others. Almost NO ONE has engaged them after posting them in dozens of groups and the very few that accepted the challenge immediately started looking for conversation stoppers so they wouldn't have to address any of the devastating points in the videos. It's almost always because they feel triggered and claim you're mocking their beliefs. I can honestly say I was triggered the first time I watched your videos as well, but instead of turning it off and making excuses, I needed to know what else you were going to say because I actually want to know what I'm wrong about out of intellectual integrity. I see their excuses as clear copouts to let themselves off the hook. It's actually kinda sad, I feel for them because I was in the same place after being indoctrinated for so many years. That's why I'm desperately trying to show them the same thing that absolutely led to a sea change of my entire outlook, but Hancockian indoctrination is good at producing intellectually dishonest projection in virtually all of his adherents, including me when I was hoodwinked by his pseudoarchaeology and his dishonest tactic to preserve his investment by protecting his customers from the information that would destroy his credibility with many of them. Well, I'd like to think so, but after posting your videos in so many places only to get crickets in return is concerning. How do I convince them to watch your videos longer than it takes for them to find their conversation stopper? (Usually, they pretend that all you're doing is mocking them, which doesn't address anything. none of them have, zero.) I try to explain to them that conversation stoppers are almost always used by the person with the inferior argument as a sort of ideological damage control. It's just a way to excuse themselves from addressing these incredibly problematic points.
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