Date: Mon, 27 May 1996 23:19:26 -0400
To: Athena Discuss 
Subject: Re: Schoch deception/Sphinx

Bernard R Ortiz-de-Montellano wrote:
(( cuts ))
> But, first. I wasted a lot of time arguing about hunter-gatherers because
> Thomas gave us an erroneous argument in the beginning. Schoch/West argue
> that the Sphinx was built *between 5000-7000 B.C* not 10,000 B.C. (Hawass
> and Lehner 1994: 45). Perhaps, Schoch wrote B.P. (before present) and
> Thomas misinterpreted as B.C. In a way, this makes rebuttal easier because,
> we DO have positive evidence of what people were doing 5-7000 B. C. in the
> Nile Valley. There are archaeological traces of small villages in the area.
> The question for Schoch then becomes how is it possible that there are
> clear archaeological remains of small villages, there are no traces of a
> much more advanced civilization in this time period and place?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Still, I'm afraid.
 
(( cuts ))
> The Member I and II rock are also transected by many fractures or joints,
> eroded by *subsurface water* [Lehner emphasis] to form fissures. 

This is of course an interesting competing hypothesis to that offered
by Schoch.  Much better approach than offering non-data in rebuttal.
Unfortunately, I am in no learned position to comment as to the relative
likelihoods of these competing hypotheses, but I can offer a
common-sense reaction, which is: to my mind, subsurface water erosion
would look a lot different from erosion due to rainfall--think about
it for a second--and the evidence pointed to by Schoch looked like
what he claimed it was: rainwater erosion.

(( cuts ))
> In some of the Schoch-West photographs we see West standing inside the
> opening of one of the larger fissures in the walls of the Sphinx ditch. He
> would have us believe that it is a major piece of evidence for rainwater
> erosion that occurred after the Sphinx was created. We are apparently
> supposed to believe that the other joints are also surface features created
> by torrents of rainwater running over the sides of the Sphinx and into its
> ditch. In *Mystery* there is a graphic of the Sphinx layers entirely
> unblemished by any vertical fissures. Rainwater then pours over the edge of
> the rock wall and gouges out vertical gullies suggesting how the fissures
> were created. In fact the joints existed in the rock long before the
> ancient quarrymen ever fashioned the Sphinx and its ditch."
> ****

Maybe so, but this does not defeat the Schoch-West claim.  Falling water
finds the path of least resistance, so of course if fissures were already
there, the rainfall would erode them further.  Subsurface water erosion,
on the other hand, I would expect, purely as a common-sense matter,
to act in a way similar to termites, which leave the outer form largely 
unchanged, while eating away from underneath.  It is the outer form
that Schoch points to in claiming rain-water erosion.

>  Why should any Egyptologist give credence to Schoch-West when they are
> clearly deceptive in their arguments. Hawass and Lehner go on to refute the
> rest of Schoch-West's arguments on the basis of geologic facts.

I see no deception, and the quotes that you have given do not support
such a charge.

>  "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," but lying and deception
> disqualify the contention from being taken seriously.

I'm glad that finally you see the logic of what I have been saying.
Lying and deception raise suspicion, as we find with those who have
propagated what Bernal calls the Aryan model.  Ultimately though, unless 
there is out-and-out fabrication (remember Piltdown man?) the data
will speak for themselves.  Here, I do not think that Schoch and
company have gone about manufacturing fissures to make the sphinx look like
it has been subject to rainfall weathering.  It is still there for all
to see, and if there is any deception I'm sure it would rather quickly 
be exposed.  But what you have so far quoted simply does not substantiate 
a charge of deception.

I do, however, wonder, don Bernardo, where lies your bias in the matter, 
since you are so quick to grasp at straws.  You will of course protest
that you have no bias, that you are merely a seeker after truth, but I 
will not believe you.  I too am a seeker after truth, and I believe
implicitly that the truth will set us all free.  I truly do not care
whether the sphinx was built in 3000, 5000, 7000 or 10000 BC. But I 
freely admit an afrocentric bias, because a threshold showing, and then 
some, has already been made by the afrocentrists, as to their key 
contentions regarding the race of the ancient Egyptians, and their
influence on classical learning and scholarship.  I have also been
to Egypt and Greece, and I believe the evidence of my 
senses, which better support the afrocentrists than the Aryan model
which by and large constitutes the received theory that we are all
supposed to believe.  In any case, none of this applies to Schoch/West
per se, and the narrow question of the age of the sphinx, but I can
see where the receivists would want to hold the line, both against the
afrocentrists, and against Schoch/West, because to do otherwise
would require a fundamental rethinking of cherished received theory,
flawed as it is.

> Bernard Ortiz de Montellano
> bortiz@cms.cc.wayne.edu

Regards,

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