Show french savant says it once wore head ornament M hippolyte declare it hi belief that foundations for top piece formerly retted in in crown paris since the discovery more than a year ago of deep cavities in the crown 0 the sphinx of gizea egypt have debated much aa to the purpose which caused their construction the suggestion that the great vacant spaces were intended for gal lories or chambers has been disputed and the question has assumed almost the importance of a second riddle ot uie sphinx now comes P hippolyte boissac boussac Bous sac formell for merl a member of the oriental in statute of cairo and a distinguished architect with what may be the colu alon in a learned article in illustration he argues that the cavities contained the foundations tor the head or lamenta which he believed adorned the sphinx every god of egypt wore on his head a symbolic ornament intended to designate his character writes M the sphinx looked like this some 3 years ago says a french egyptologist hippolyte boissac boussac on the head of ra or ammon ra were a solitary disk and two tall feathers Re presenta lions ot the head of ills frequently show a disk between two belter horns surmounted by the inscription As rep resenting her name lowre boum B head vas decked with a full grown lotus from which emerged symbolic feathers thoth the god ot sciences letters and arts was often shown with the head of an ibis having a wig with lap pets surmounted by a disk and cres cent examples might be multiplied similar characteristics appeared among the other gods in the pantheons of the pharaohs Phara with very few exceptions these attributes are not confined to one divinity exclusively they servo as emblems marking the bolea played by each god the pharaohs Phara themselves made use of them in the performance of certain religious ceremonies the sphinx nas the image of the god the sun at its setting a divinity essentially funereal in ac thus Is explained his place in the necropolis at memphis As with he other egyptian gods his head was surmounted by a symbolic ornament usually the adew or disk of the eun velch was worn also by osiris the god of the dead this ornament con sifted of a white crown with two 01 plumes a solitary disk and two rams horns it Is know that the great sphinx of was cut out of a high clia en the edge of the libyan desert the ancients were unable to fashion the head ornament while sculpturing the figure out of the maea of rock but added it later this process Is komu times followed in the case even of statuettes it was necessary to dig deepa into the bead in order to in sure the stability of the lofty orns ment which surmounted it this was the purpose of the cavity which has been discovered in the head of this sphinx As the ornament was not mono but was formed of superimposed strata it must have been campara lively trail it was threatened by the lightning the grafl the sandstorms sand storms and winds ot the desert it did not figure at all on the bas relief of the sphinx in the time of IV in the eighteenth dynasty which waa shown crouching on a lofty pedestal doubtless in this epoch about 1600 B C the ornament already had been destroyed the sphinx was then more than 2 years old older than the parthenon of our day and in th 5 long stretch of centuries the symbols accessory acce sory might well have fallen vie alm to the ravages of the elements in the temple of daebel barkal the disks placed much lower and alpar antly being less frail which surmount ed the beads of the other sphinxes also have ds appeared although they had been carved out of the same block when in the sixteenth century before our era thommes IV restored the great sphinx doubtless he consid red it inadvisable to replace an or cament which had not proved durable but the lapreta lap peta of which no trace remains today existed then in part at they are indicated in a bas deltef of the eighteenth dynasty |