Ancient Egypt

Currently Playing: Powerful Pharaoh Buried Inside The Sphinx Secret Chamber?

Special thanks to Jon F. White aka @Crecganford for reading out the quote from Pliny at the beginning of this video. Go check out his amazing channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Crecganford Natural History is an encyclopaedic collection of 37 books, written by Pliny of the Elder in the first century AD. It compiles information from a number of ancient authors and gives us a fantastic insight into world knowledge in this bygone era of history. Of course, Ancient Egypt didn’t escape the attention of Pliny, and in this video, I’m taking a look at his claims in Book 36, Chapter 17, that in Roman times, the local people believed the Sphinx was the tomb of a King Harmais. Most scholars take these claims with a pinch of salt, but as I showed in my last video, there is a rock-cut chamber at the bottom of the shaft in the back of the Sphinx, and when it was excavated in the 19th century, wooden boards were found inside. Furthermore, archaeologist Auguste Mariette burned these wooden boards, and they gave off a strong smell of resin, leading him to believe that the wood came from a sarcophagus. So, should we be taking Pliny’s claims more seriously? Does he tell us the occupant of the Sphinx burial chamber? And if so, who was King Harmais? Well, let’s find out. All images are taken from the below sources, as well as Google Images and Google Earth, for educational purposes only. Please Subscribe to Ancient Architects, Like the video, and please leave a comment below. Thank you. Contents: 0:00 The Legend of the King in the Sphinx 2:51 Was King Harmais an Egyptian god? 5:14 Was King Harmais an Historic Pharaoh? 6:16 Was it King Amasis II? 7:57 Herodotus on the Burial Place of Amasis 9:54 Supporting Evidence for a Giza Burial 10:12 Queen Nakhtubasterau Buried at Giza 11:23 Prince Ahmose Buried at Giza 13:11 Amasis II Honoured the Old Kingdom 13:36 Why Not Buried at the Capital City of Sais? 15:22 Concluding Remarks Sources: 3D Sphinx views by Kevin Eslinger: https://www.youtube.com/@ESLINGERART Words of Pliny: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D36%3Achapter%3D17 Howard Vyse, Book III: https://archive.org/details/isbn_9785873847167/page/n205/mode/2up?q=amasis Johann Wansleben: https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_the-present-state-of-egy_wansleben-johann-michae_1678/page/88/mode/2up?q=pliny Giza Tomb G 9550: https://gizamedia.rc.fas.harvard.edu/images/MFA-images/Giza/GizaImage/full/library/porter-moss_III_giza.pdf Lepsius on Amasis: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70375/pg70375-images.html Lepsius Original Text: https://edoc3.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/lepsius/textb.html Hawass, Khufu Statuette: https://gizamedia.rc.fas.harvard.edu/images/MFA-images/Giza/GizaImage/full/library/hawass_fs_mokhtar.pdf King Amasis II Sphinx Statue: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/544885 #AncientEgypt #Sphinx #giza