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00:08The pharaohs of ancient Egypt would astound the world with their incredible monuments.
00:13We know who built the vast pyramids at Giza and how they constructed forests of stone.
00:19But the most famous of all their creations remains a mystery.
00:26The Sphinx.
00:30Four and a half thousand years ago, in the old kingdom of ancient Egypt, a pharaoh ordered the building of
00:36an extraordinary monument.
00:38His craftsmen set to work on the Giza plateau outside today's Cairo.
00:44They were to create a statue which would become the strangest icon on earth.
00:50The story of this remarkable pharaoh was lost through the slip of a pen in the 1930s, when an archaeologist
00:57simply wrote him out of history.
00:58But the statue this pharaoh created has survived.
01:03Today it stands beside the greatest of the pyramids, making the Giza plateau the most famous landmark in Egypt.
01:12At 20 metres high and 80 metres long, the Sphinx remains the largest single stone statue in the world.
01:20It is also the biggest mystery.
01:24Now, Egyptologist Vassal Dobrev believes he has found the answers.
01:29His research has taken him 20 years.
01:33After he moved to Cairo, the Sphinx became his life.
01:36He was immediately enchanted by its strange shape.
01:40I got fascinated by this combination of an animal body and a human face.
01:49The Sphinx is one of the most studied monuments.
01:52Yet Vassal wasn't convinced by any of the accepted archaeological explanations as to who created it or whose face it
01:59bears.
02:00It is incredible. The most important image of Egypt, the Sphinx, and we just cannot say who it was with
02:08certainty.
02:09And then I said to myself, there is something to do here. It's an open door.
02:15So Vassal set out to re-examine the evidence.
02:18He picked his way across the Giza plateau.
02:21Here lie the tombs of the pharaohs and their families.
02:26Archaeologists have labelled every one of them, making this one of the most studied sites on Earth.
02:31But despite their findings, Vassal has managed to unearth new evidence which could overturn accepted history and lead him to
02:39the Sphinx's creator.
02:42But the clues haven't always been easy to follow.
02:47False trails and dead ends hide the footsteps of the past.
02:52Over 4,000 years of history have created blind alleys.
02:57And the archaeology around the Sphinx has become a labyrinth of conflicting ideas.
03:03Vassal's journey begins with the earliest recorded mention of the Sphinx.
03:08It's found on a curious stone tablet known as the Dreamstella, which lies between its paws.
03:16It was inscribed, and it was to play a major role in creating the Sphinx's dark mythology.
03:23It tells the story of a young prince called Thutmose, who went hunting on the Giza plateau.
03:34By this time, the power in Egypt had long since moved away from Giza.
03:39The once glorious Sphinx had been left exposed to the ravages of the desert, and had become buried up to
03:45its neck in sand.
03:47According to the Stella, Prince Thutmose rested beneath the stone giant to shelter from the midday sun.
03:54He fell asleep and had a dream, in which he claimed that the Sphinx spoke to him, telling him that
04:01if he cleared away the sand from its paws, he would become king.
04:06The Stella claims that he did as the Sphinx requested, and removed the sand.
04:12But in reality, this was a golden opportunity for Thutmose to be remembered alongside the great statue, and to glorify
04:19his name forever.
04:21So he concocted the whole story upon the Stella.
04:25Vassil is quite sure its function was self-promotion.
04:28The text starts with a date. It mentions the first year of the reign of Thutmose IV.
04:35So, for us, the message is clear. This is pure propaganda. He is already a king, and then describes the
04:43story.
04:43Although this account was pure fiction, the tablet also mentioned the name of another pharaoh, Khafre.
04:51Ever since his name was first deciphered, archaeologists have believed that Khafre was the creator of the Sphinx.
04:58And the first impression, and the first thing that was noticed, that behind the Sphinx, you see the pyramid of
05:06Khafre.
05:06And quite naturally, the idea came that if the Sphinx was built on almost the same line with the pyramid
05:13of Khafre, it has to be Khafre.
05:16Khafre was one of the greatest builders at Giza.
05:19His pyramid stands near his father's great pyramid, and is just as large.
05:25In addition, Khafre built two temples, and their remains are sited immediately in front of the Sphinx.
05:32So the idea was clear, like everybody, I thought. The Sphinx has to be Khafre.
05:39But when Vassal studied the layout, he could see that Khafre's causeway connecting his pyramid to his temple was built
05:46round the Sphinx.
05:48I have noticed very quickly that Khafre avoided the Sphinx with his causeway. It is quite clear when he built
05:56his monument, the Sphinx was already here.
06:00This was enough for Vassal to doubt that Khafre had built the Sphinx. He also doubted that it actually represented
06:07Khafre.
06:08If it had to represent Khafre, we have a problem. Because on all the statues of Khafre, he is represented
06:16with a beard.
06:17So why should his biggest statue be without a beard? It doesn't fit.
06:24So it is a main argument to say that when people try to put the face of Khafre next to
06:31the Sphinx's face, it doesn't work.
06:33I mean, it just doesn't fit. The characteristics are different.
06:39So Khafre, the pharaoh historians have always believed built the Sphinx, was eliminated from Vassal's investigation.
06:47Now, he was about to discover that a new solution was staring him in the face.
06:53But to find it, he was going to have to think like an ancient Egyptian.
06:57And if he was right, he could turn history on its head.
07:06Vassal Dobrev's search to find the creator of the Sphinx has led him to eliminate Khafre, the pharaoh believed by
07:13many to have built it.
07:15Now, Vassal is revisiting the Giza Plateau to look at the other possibilities.
07:21Could it be that the Sphinx belonged to Khafre's father Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid?
07:28Khufu is one of the most infamous pharaohs.
07:31He was the first pharaoh to build at Giza.
07:33His Great Pyramid remains the largest stone structure of all time and is a wonder of the ancient world.
07:40So if Khufu wielded such power, why couldn't he have built the Sphinx as well?
07:45I tried to imagine what it was like to see the Sphinx as an ancient Egyptian.
07:51And a completely different geography of the site appears.
07:58Today, when we visit the Sphinx, we approach it from the east, coming from Cairo.
08:04So when we visit the Sphinx, we see it face on and behind naturally comes the pyramid of Khufu.
08:12So they seem belonging one to the other.
08:16But I tried to imagine how it would have been at the time of the pharaohs.
08:22Did they approach from here?
08:24And most probably they were coming from the south, over there.
08:29This was because the Giza plateau was once very different.
08:33There was a vast network of waterways.
08:36Just 100 yards below the Sphinx stood a harbour connected to canals.
08:41They were created to bring in stone for the building of the Great Pyramid.
08:45At this time, the other pyramids hadn't yet been built.
08:48One of the canals went to the Old Kingdom capital, later called Memphis, which lay to the south.
08:54So it was from this direction that the kings of the Old Kingdom would approach Giza.
08:59When we approach the Sphinx from the south, we don't see it face on.
09:05We see it in profile.
09:08And the pyramid behind it is not anymore the pyramid of Khufu, but it is the pyramid of Khufu.
09:15And profile was how the ancient Egyptians saw their world.
09:20Their hieroglyphics and even their portraits were all twisted into profile.
09:25Here we have a panel from the third dynasty, Old Kingdom.
09:30The artist sculpts the face in profile while his shoulders are in frontal view.
09:38And we also see the feet are depicted in profile view.
09:44We don't know whether the Sphinx was conceived of in profile, but viewed from this angle, it certainly complements Khufu's
09:52pyramid.
09:53But does the Sphinx bear Khufu's face?
09:56This is the only known statue of him, a small reminder of the pharaoh who built the biggest pyramid of
10:02all.
10:03Despite the difference of scale, there do appear to be similarities.
10:07Khufu's face on the small statue, for example, we see his chin he has, very square chin. The Sphinx has
10:14the same feature.
10:16It is a characteristic feature of Khufu.
10:20It's hard to make an accurate comparison, because the Sphinx has been so badly damaged.
10:27The face actually didn't look at all as it was at the beginning, because it is heavily destroyed. The nose
10:35is missing, the eyes are touched, the mouth is destroyed, the ears are half destroyed.
10:40The destruction began after Thutmose cleared away the sand. The Sphinx was then left for another thousand years, and became
10:49covered once again.
10:52But it was such a provocative image, it could never escape attention.
10:59It was when the Greeks arrived in Egypt that the real damage began.
11:04Inspired by the stone giant, they named it the Sphinx, and came up with their own mythological beast.
11:10Their Sphinx was an evil female creature, and from that moment, the Egyptian original became confused with the Greek creation.
11:18For the Sphinx, this would spell disaster, by Western myth that it was seen as a pagan symbol, and an
11:26Arab sheikh set out to deface it.
11:28But he only succeeded in breaking away its nose.
11:32It was as if the all-seeing Sphinx had secret powers after all.
11:37This attracted treasure hunters in search of secret chambers.
11:41Their misguided attempts only added to the damage.
11:45But the Sphinx would survive them all.
11:49When you cannot destroy an image, you start to fear it.
11:52So that's why they have called him Abu al-Hol, Father the Terror.
11:56And from that moment, legends start to surround the Sphinx.
12:03By the 20th century, showing scant respect for ancient monuments, British soldiers were using the Sphinx for target practice.
12:15Besides being damaged, the Sphinx had also been heavily restored.
12:20It's now hard to imagine that it was ever carved from one piece of natural rock,
12:24and equally hard to work out what is original and what is not.
12:30Theorists in search of fantasy and secret chambers are still attracted by random shafts like this.
12:36Which were in fact often cut by tomb builders, little knowing that beneath the sand lay the Sphinx's body.
12:45The most confusing find made here has been the remains of a giant stone beard.
12:51Vassal has already established that Khufu was never depicted with one.
12:55So if this beard is genuine, it could present his theory with a serious problem.
13:03Fragments of this beard survive in the Cairo Museum.
13:07Having fitted the pieces together, Vassal doubts that they were carved at the same time as the Sphinx.
13:13This is what we call the divine beard, with a characteristic zig-zag pattern.
13:19These are just a few fragments of a huge beard found at the side of the Sphinx.
13:24But the question is, did the Sphinx always have a beard, or was it added later?
13:31If the Sphinx's beard had been carved in one piece from the same rock as its face, the beard would
13:37have damaged the chin when it broke away.
13:40But there are no signs of such a break.
13:45All Sphinxes, which once did have beards, show signs of a rough fracture.
13:50This is a Sphinx with a beard originally, because the beard was cut together with the chin out of the
13:57same stone.
13:59So when you cut it off, you see the traces.
14:02In the great Sphinx of Giza, if there was a beard from the original statue, you would have seen the
14:09traces of the beard.
14:11This leads Vassal to conclude that the Sphinx's beard was a later addition.
14:16His investigation hasn't unearthed a single beard from the time of the Sphinx to match the pattern.
14:23He's only been able to match the Zeta period, the New Kingdom, a thousand years after the Sphinx was built.
14:32But this is where Vassal has found new evidence.
14:36Until now, this small statue was the only commonly acknowledged representation of Khufu.
14:42But through extensive research, Vassal discovered other depictions of Khufu that have never been closely studied.
14:49They add further weight to his argument.
14:53Out of the seven, eight images known of the face of Khufu, not a single one has a beard.
14:59And the Sphinx doesn't have a beard.
15:01So there are great chances that it represents Khufu.
15:06Vassal's last clue which points to Khufu is the Nemes, the striped headdress with a distinctive pattern.
15:14The Nemes of the Sphinx is pleated.
15:18Two small pleats and one large, repeated one after the other.
15:22This type of Nemes was used for at least one statue of Khufu.
15:28After more than two decades of painstaking research, the profile view, the facial features, the lack of a beard and
15:35the markings on the Nemes have all convinced Vassal that the Sphinx represents the pharaoh Khufu.
15:42But extraordinarily, he doesn't believe that Khufu built it.
15:51Instead, he claims it was created by a pharaoh we know very little about.
15:56A pharaoh who was written out of history.
16:00His name was Jedefre, the son of Khufu.
16:05Until now, no Egyptologist has ever suggested that he built the Sphinx.
16:10I am proposing, well, this is actually I think it's the first time it has been proposed, that the Sphinx
16:17has been built after the death of Khufu by his son, Jedefre.
16:22That succeeded him immediately.
16:25Vassal believes that Jedefre inherited a broken nation.
16:29His solution was to build the most powerful image ever known.
16:33Its unrelenting gaze would help restore control and royal power after the reign of his father.
16:45Khufu's funeral marked the end of an era.
16:48A powerful and ruthless pharaoh, Khufu constructed the largest pyramid of all time, a wonder of the ancient world.
16:57For Jedefre, this was a hard act to follow.
17:01And it wasn't made any easier by his father's reputation.
17:05The Great Pyramid took over 20 years of back-breaking labor to complete.
17:09And this followed the exhausting building projects of Khufu's own father.
17:16Maybe after more than half a century of building, the morale of the country was broken.
17:22Finishing the pyramid of Khufu was the hardest job that the Egyptians have ever done.
17:27We can imagine that, at the end, there could have been quite a lot of people that didn't like the
17:33king anymore.
17:36But despite these problems, Jedefre went on to become a visionary pharaoh.
17:42Vassil has discovered that Jedefre's influence would transform the Giza plateau.
17:47But the story of his remarkable reign has always been overlooked.
17:51Until now.
17:54It was believed that under the dark cloud of a family rift, Jedefre moved away from Giza, turning his back
18:01upon his family.
18:02But Vassil's research shows otherwise.
18:07I have pieced together some evidence that shows clearly that the presence of Jedefre and Giza was quite important.
18:15And this evidence was known, but unfortunately not really interpreted.
18:23The reason was that in the 1930s, respected archaeologist George Reisner published his masterwork on the Giza plateau.
18:30He made unsubstantiated claims about the life of Giza plateau that masqueraded as facts.
18:38But Vassil is confident he can now set the record straight.
18:42George Reisner was an American archaeologist who excavated the Giza plateau, and his archaeological methods became a standard.
18:52And when he arrived to the reign of Jedefre, he, in fact, created a story around the reign of Jedefre.
19:03Reisner wrote that Jedefre came from a Libyan branch of the family and wasn't the true heir.
19:08He believed that the title belonged to his older brother, Kawab.
19:13Reisner thought that Jedefre had tried to murder Kawab in order to take the throne.
19:19We have absolutely no evidence to support this, but it was written in a very famous book.
19:25And slowly, slowly, it became the rule.
19:28Jedefre the bad one, Kawab the poor one.
19:35Reisner turned this family saga into history.
19:38He cast Jedefre as the plotter and schemer.
19:42Reisner claimed that when the moment was right, he murdered his older brother, Kawab, to take the throne.
19:49And this explained why Jedefre hadn't built his tomb at Giza, because he had fallen out with his family after
19:56the murder of his brother.
20:04But beside Khufu's great pyramid lies the royal cemetery, a labyrinth of tombs.
20:10And here, Vassal's investigation takes us to the evidence to show that Reisner was wrong.
20:17This is the best image that we have of Prince Kawab, a son of Khufu, and consequently, Jedefre's brother.
20:25This is the man who was allegedly murdered by Jedefre.
20:30But inside this tomb, we have evidence that disproves this.
20:35And here it is. This is a list of the estates donating offerings to Kawab's daughter.
20:43And one of them bears the cartouche of Jedefre.
20:49If Jedefre was really the murder of her father, why would his name be here?
20:58Vassal now begins to explore Jedefre's reign, and what he really did.
21:02He discovers that Jedefre was a visionary builder, who, far from abandoning his family, set out to strengthen it and
21:09to reclaim the support of the nation.
21:13One of his extraordinary structures is high up at Abu Roash, six miles from Giza.
21:19This site ensured his monument stood even higher than his father's pyramid.
21:24But building it didn't break the back of the country.
21:30Abu Roash, one of Egypt's highest natural sites, almost at the same level as the top of the Great Pyramid.
21:41Until now, archaeologists have thought that this was a pyramid.
21:46But Vassal is the first to suggest that Jedefre, son of the sun god, actually built a solar temple.
21:53Because of the location, the top of the monument would have been closer to the sun than almost anywhere else
21:59in Egypt.
22:01Inside, its design was inventive.
22:04For the first time, the structure didn't require hauling heavy stones uphill.
22:09This monument here in Abu Roash has been cut in the mountain, an enormous ramp going down.
22:17Instead of hauling up these heavy granite stones, Jedefre brought the stones down.
22:26Jedefre's ramp was so effective that later pharaohs adopted the design.
22:33After Khufu's pyramid, all the monuments, all the pyramids will have their chambers under, in the rock.
22:42But if this was Jedefre's temple, where was his pyramid tomb?
22:48It set Vassal's mind ticking.
22:50He re-examined some graffiti discovered at a site called Zaujat el-Ariane.
22:57And Vassal came across the name of Jedefre, written during the second year of his reign.
23:04Vassal is the first to suggest that this was the site of Jedefre's pyramid.
23:11The surviving lower courses are as large as those of his father's great pyramid.
23:16Howard Hawkes filmed them for his Hollywood epic.
23:22But wasn't Jedefre turning his back on his family at Giza, just like George Reisner thought?
23:30In fact, Jedefre is quite a traditional king.
23:33He did exactly what his grandfather did and his father.
23:37He built a monument on a new site, as they did.
23:42Far from abandoning Giza, Jedefre then returned there to build the greatest of all his monuments, the Sphinx.
23:50But in an age before iron tools, how was the world's largest single stone sculpture actually built?
24:04No one will ever know who first thought of carving the Sphinx.
24:09But with its creation, Jedefre would transform the Giza Plateau.
24:18No stones would need to be quarried, no ramps constructed, no gangs would be needed to pull sledges.
24:25Instead, the raw stone was right there.
24:29One piece of limestone growing out of the bedrock would be transformed into the giant statue.
24:37The site had already been heavily quarried.
24:40Khufu had taken away stones to build the great pyramid and left a large piece of rock standing straight up
24:46in a flat basin.
24:48For Jedefre, this was an opportunity to create something exceptional.
24:53This was the first big statue. We are in a period of big things. They just have built the biggest
25:00pyramid and they built the biggest statue.
25:03The two biggest monuments of Egypt are there, one next to the other.
25:15But the Sphinx wasn't going to be merely self-aggrandizement on a large scale.
25:20What makes it so exceptional is that the statue had a difficult task to perform.
25:26Never in the history of sculpture has a single statue had to achieve so much.
25:34The reason was that pharaohs believed that they lived on forever after death.
25:39But this continuing life was only possible if their support on earth remained strong.
25:45Jedefre was all too aware that his father's power had weakened towards the end of his life.
25:50Even during Khufu's reign, his mother's tomb had been raided.
25:54And this had been the very worst thing that could have happened.
25:57It made a mockery of everything they believed in.
26:01If there is no respect, there is chaos. Everything will collapse.
26:04This is the main idea of ancient Egypt, the life after death.
26:11So the future of the ancient Egyptian civilization now lay in Jedefre's hands.
26:17He had to ensure that his father's power was reinstated at Giza to safeguard his own support on earth.
26:23How important is that Giza to the author's lives?
26:25Creating such an important, such an enormous image of Khufu, the god, the dead king, will improve his image and
26:36also will improve the image of the new king.
26:40So, I think that this could be an explanation why the Sphinx was built.
26:49Gedefray needed to create an image that would strike awe into all who saw it.
26:54The result was not only big, but supremely powerful.
26:58Its impact remains unsurpassed to this day.
27:05Vassal has invited Glyn Williams, head of sculpture at the Royal College of Art, to
27:10help him understand how it was carved.
27:14This is the first time he has seen the Sphinx.
27:19It's a beautiful, beautiful, simple, enormous size.
27:24I don't think I've ever seen anything this sort of size as a single object.
27:29So I'm knocked sideways.
27:32I could stay here all day and just do it.
27:35I mean, it's a wonderful experience.
27:39Saying it's lovely would be so inadequate.
27:41I mean, in fact, most words are inadequate for it.
27:44I mean, all one can do is feast your eyes on it.
27:47In order to try and understand the skills of the ancient Egyptians, Vassal has given Glyn
27:53a square metre block of the same limestone to carve the Sphinx's face.
27:57It's incredible.
27:59It looks soft and chalky.
28:03And it looks, it's amazing.
28:07Let's have a, let's try, just to see what, what it's like.
28:13Let's just take a, a, oh yes.
28:17That's really, uh, soft.
28:20Beautiful.
28:21Oh, yes.
28:23Have that done by tea time.
28:39Like the ancient Egyptian craftsman, Glyn has to mark the outline to figure out which sections of stone to cut
28:46away.
28:48In carving, you have to think in reverse.
28:51You have to take away all the stuff that's not there.
28:53The nose has to be left, a piece of stone left for the forehead, a piece of stone left for
28:58the chin.
28:58It's like emptying a, a bath of water around an object.
29:03As the water goes out, it leaves the prominent bits up.
29:07Before he started carving, Glyn made a small model to work from.
29:12I find it very useful to have a maquette which you can simply put some basic measurements on
29:19and knock off the bits of stone that you know you don't want.
29:22I don't know whether the Egyptians would have done something similar.
29:24It's, it's likely they may have done, particularly working on a scale like this.
29:33No sculpture of this scale had ever been attempted before.
29:38And unlike other statues where stone was specially chosen, here the masons had to use what lay in front of
29:43them.
29:44There was no room for error.
29:47It would be a daunting challenge today.
29:49But in the old kingdom of ancient Egypt, the stone masons didn't even have iron tools.
29:54So how did they do it?
29:58Dennis Stocks has made a study of ancient Egyptian tools and has recreated them.
30:04These are copper chisels that would have been used to cut out the great sphinx.
30:10This one is a thicker chisel, but it still has a sharp edge to it,
30:16which will remain like that even after a lot of work cutting out the stone.
30:23The copper chisels were continually resharpened in a production line,
30:28so that the stone masons were constantly supplied.
30:32Copper tools were simply hammered on each edge until they were sharp.
30:45The ancient Egyptians were highly experienced organisers.
30:50Although the sphinx was the largest stone statue ever made,
30:54it required far fewer workers than pyramids.
30:59Well, one could imagine the state itself being a huge machine which controlled workers at every level,
31:08starting off with Pharaoh himself and then passing his instructions down to the Grand Vizier,
31:14then to other viziers below, who then instructed foremen and then incorporated draft workers.
31:20There were people having to shovel all the debris away, all the shards of limestone that were showering down onto
31:27the site.
31:28Then the scaffolding had to be put in position.
31:31People using cord in order to lash those together.
31:34Having roughed it out, the master draftsman now can see places that now need more refinement.
31:46We've got in here and the soft piece of stone that I was beginning to test out yesterday is about
31:54four inches here.
31:57And beyond that four inches we've got really good limestone, but it's hard, it's harder.
32:02So my notion that I would be finished in no time at all has gone out of the window.
32:08It does show that this supposed soft limestone is in fact good quality, outdoor type of sculpture stone.
32:18There is a possibility, if one isn't careful, that the soft stone comes away from the hard stone,
32:23that there will be some sort of shelling happening at the join of the soft to the hard stone.
32:29So we've got to be careful with that, we don't want to lose bits of the face.
32:34The workmen never knew if there were weaknesses hidden in the rock.
32:38Tragedy could strike at any moment.
32:40As they worked downwards, the quality of the limestone deteriorated.
32:45And as they carved the hindquarters, they encountered a fissure.
32:58This may explain why the sphinx is so elongated.
33:03Perhaps they carved on past the problem in order to get back to good rock and complete the rear of
33:09the sphinx.
33:13Vassal has investigated this theory with geologist Colin Reeder.
33:18The main fissure runs right along the floor of the enclosure,
33:22and through the pores and the rear part of the body of the sphinx.
33:26People have suggested that it was the presence of this fissure cutting through the limestone
33:30that affected the proportions of the sphinx.
33:35The site of the sphinx is known to have been the remains of Khufu's quarry,
33:40left over from when he built his great pyramid four and a half thousand years ago.
33:44But because mythology is so intoxicating,
33:47some geologists have claimed that the sphinx dates back as early as 30,000 years ago,
33:53long before any known civilization on Earth.
33:56The evidence for their wild claim was that the rocks would have needed 30,000 years to become so eroded.
34:04But Colin Reeder disagrees.
34:07He believes that 4,000 years would have been easily long enough.
34:10These heavily eroded rocks, these rocks with a rounded appearance,
34:14they don't need 36,000 or even 10,000 years worth of rainfall to explain these features.
34:20Water running off the plateau is just one of many factors here
34:23that could easily weather these rocks in just a few thousand years.
34:27You've got abrasion by sand in the higher parts.
34:31Chemical weathering is going to be quite an active agent here.
34:34The effects of runoff, periodic runoff.
34:36All these processes would have combined to produce this scale of weathering.
34:43Vassil is satisfied by the geological evidence.
34:47There is nothing it is offered up that deflects his belief
34:50that the Sphinx was built during the reign of Jed Efrae,
34:53around 4,500 years ago.
34:56He believes that he built it to display his power
34:59as the son of the most revered god, the sun god Ra.
35:06From the beginning of his reign, Jed Efrae searched for stability.
35:10Because what does his name mean?
35:13Jed Efrae means, I am the son of Rae.
35:17And this is extremely strong.
35:19From an ideological point of view, the idea was set up.
35:24Now we need to show, to act.
35:28And maybe the first act of this theoretical idea was building the Sphinx.
35:36As the first pharaoh to call himself the son of the sun god,
35:40the Sphinx was Jed Efrae's ultimate symbol of power.
35:43The lion symbolized the sun.
35:46The Sphinx also represented his father Khufu as a god.
35:51Only when pharaohs died did they become divine.
35:54Because of this, Vassil is convinced that Khufu
35:57could never have built the Sphinx for himself.
35:59The fusion of these ideas in the form of the Sphinx
36:02would ensure Jed Efrae's success in this world and the next.
36:12While the Sphinx restored Khufu's power on Earth,
36:16Vassil claims that Jed Efrae also planned to help his father in the afterlife.
36:21To do this, Jed Efrae came up with another extraordinary invention.
36:26He ordered the construction of two enormous boats.
36:31Vassil believes they are unique in Egyptian history,
36:35because they were never assembled.
36:36Their parts were laid out like a giant kit.
36:40Then Jed Efrae had two deep pits dug beside his father's great pyramid.
36:45And into these, the boats were lowered.
36:48The fact that Jed Efrae built these boat pits and put the boats in pieces
36:57shows that he wanted to help his father, his dead father, in the afterlife.
37:07All the parts rife.
37:09Khufu would be able to sail on the Celestial Nile with Ra, the Sun God.
37:17After four and a half thousand years, the boat components have survived.
37:22One of the boats is in perfect condition and has been assembled.
37:29After Jed Efrae buried the boat parts, the pits were covered.
37:33Then the Great Pyramid's enclosure wall was completed, covering the hidden pits.
37:40The boats were so well hidden that they weren't found until 1955.
37:46Archaeologists discovered them beneath 42 stone blocks, each weighing 20 tonnes.
37:53These were covered in writing, which Vassil has studied.
37:56We have on the stones that cover the boat pits dates and the names of Jed Efrae.
38:05And one of the dates is speaking about the 11th year of the reign of Jed Efrae.
38:12And most people overlooked this evidence.
38:15Amongst the graffiti was found this symbol of three falcons, which Jed Efrae adopted as his crest.
38:21It's significant because it underlines Jed Efrae's loyalty to his family lineage.
38:26His father Khufu had two falcons, and his father before him one falcon.
38:33While the boats would protect Khufu in the afterlife, it was the Sphinx that would look after him on Earth.
38:39But to Vassil it seemed unlikely that the Egyptians would have attempted to build a Sphinx for the very first
38:44time on such a scale.
38:46So he began to investigate whether there had been Sphinxes before.
38:52We could not trace when the idea of a Sphinx started, but what we know is that during the reign
38:57of Jed Efrae, Sphinxes existed.
39:00Jed Efrae had a liking for sculpture, and the royal workshops were kept busy during his reign.
39:06Up until Jed Efrae, old kingdom sculpture had been built on a small scale.
39:11It was designed for royal tombs. Often it was only displayed in special rooms.
39:20Statues were usually seated.
39:22Sculptors paid little attention to their backs, since they were almost always set against the wall.
39:29Vassil has discovered that Jed Efrae was fascinated by stone.
39:34He has found the quarry where Jed Efrae, as the son of the Sun God, would collect the rare diorite
39:40rock prized for its golden glow.
39:43And this has led Vassil to a sculpture which shows that the Great Sphinx may not have been the first.
39:55Beside Jed Efrae's solar temple at Abu Roash, a remarkable find was made.
40:01From diorite stone, may well be the very first Sphinx.
40:06At the back where it's broken, Vassil believes that it was once attached to an animal body.
40:14And another Sphinx has been discovered, this time female, possibly of Jed Efrae's wife.
40:19It's a beautiful piece.
40:21It is.
40:22It's the first time I see it.
40:24Really?
40:25Yes.
40:26Very little is known about this Sphinx, and it creates great debate amongst Egyptologists.
40:32But it's a further indication that Sphinxes were being made during Jed Efrae's reign.
40:38They might even have been prototypes for the Great Sphinx itself, where the carving reaches perfection.
40:46Glyn Williams has discovered that their sculpting skills were highly advanced.
40:49There are beautiful transitions in the actual carving of the Sphinx's head between one form, the way it runs into
40:58another, is absolutely beautiful.
41:00It's ever so sophisticated.
41:03It's one of the best bits of transitional form-making that I've seen.
41:12Jed Efrae's craftsmen might have cut Sphinxes on a small scale, but a sculpture of this size presented a whole
41:20new set of problems.
41:36Just the logistics of that size, dealing with scaffolding, a lot of people working, which would have slowed down the
41:43process.
41:43Where you have to make sure that the symmetry really worked, and the form here on this side is exactly
41:50the same movement and swelling as the form on that side.
41:54Everything works in accordance.
41:56And then you've got the very accurate and big decorative stripes, which would have taken some cutting on a large
42:04scale.
42:04And then, of course, it was coloured.
42:09Today, we see the Sphinx in plain stone.
42:12But in ancient Egypt, all statues were painted.
42:15To their eyes, it would have looked very different.
42:25The face was red, definitely.
42:28The Nemez was painted with colours.
42:33I can imagine that, actually, this could look like quite a kitschy image.
42:37But our harmony was not the same like the Egyptian harmony.
42:42The Sphinx might have had dark green or olive green eyes.
42:45The whole face was a reddish-brown, and the Nemez had blue and gold stripes.
42:58This striking image would become a landmark in ancient Egyptian history.
43:06The Sphinx brought such strong and powerful ideas that stayed for eternity, and Jedifrey gave to Giza a new face.
43:20When Jedifrey became pharaoh, he faced an enormous challenge.
43:26He knew that he'd inherited a weak and disillusioned country from his father.
43:30But his innovative reign would lay the foundations of the future.
43:41When Jedifrey died, his pyramid and temple were left unfinished.
43:46But his hidden boat pits survived.
43:49And his great Sphinx ensured that his family would prosper at Giza for generations to come.
43:58His half-brother, Khafre, succeeded him as pharaoh.
44:02Khafre stayed at Giza and built his pyramid behind the Sphinx.
44:07And not only he did this, but he increased, he added a temple, he added elements to make it more
44:16powerful.
44:18And royal power at Giza was so strengthened that Khafre's son would build his own pyramid on the plateau,
44:24completing the unmistakable trio of pyramids we recognize as Giza.
44:30Yet it was Jedifrey, the pharaoh who made all this possible.
44:34The pharaoh once believed to have turned his back on Giza, who created the most extraordinary monument of all.
44:41When you take the evidence and piece it all together, it appears that Jedifrey, far from being insignificant king,
44:49he appears to be a mastermind of the Giza plateau.
44:53As more archaeological finds come to light, perhaps one day Vassal's research will allow Jedifrey to attain his true place
45:00in history,
45:01and be remembered as the pharaoh who created the Sphinx, the greatest statue on Earth.
45:13America's Finest next on 5, the CSI team get involved when a woman appears to have drowned in the desert.
45:19That's at 10 after the Miami investigators do their stuff, next.
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