Mark_Lehner

When you want it to be.

Yes. I think the discoveries in Gobleki Tepi are changing all archaeologists understanding of ancient civilizations and the human career. I wish I had more time to learn more about them.

Nope, I do agree with the sentiment that the Egyptian government is actively blocking research which may reveal links between the pyramids and other (non-Egyptian) cultures. Although I know some think so. The Egyptian government is generous and supportive in granting research concessions to archaeological missions from other countries.

I can't speak for all mummies. I haven't sniffed but a few. But once I had to map a labyrinth of shafts, passages, and chambers cut out of the bedrock and stacked with cat mummies - at Saqqara. In one chamber, cat mummies were stacked up like cordwood. They smelled like dirty socks, socks worn but not washed for a week or two.

Some think the head of the Sphinx may be too small, yes. From my experience with sorbing and mapping the Sphinx, the head is especially too small for the length of the lion body. A "normal" Egyptian Sphinx body, that is, a lion body, is three heads long. That is usually a king's head wearing the nemes headdress (nemes is the name for a way of folding a plated scarf, such as you see on Tutankhamen's golden mask). The face-plus-headdress makes a good proportion with the barrel-vaulted lion chest and fore-body. The Giza Sphinx body is five heads long. Its as though they pulled the lion body and stretched it out. I think the sculptors may have done this because a huge fissure cuts through the bedrock just at the waist. They could not complete the rump, haunches and tail (upswinging against the right haunch) because of the fissure, which opens two meters wide at the top of the back. So they stretched the body out. The head is more proportional for the front view of the Sphinx. This is hat I glean from looking at bedrock reality.