Zuistar's Ziggurat

Now according to the figures on Statistics Iceland, just over 80% of Icelanders are registered as Protestant Christians, mostly as members of the Lutheran Church of Iceland (230,000). BUT some 1% of Iceland's population say that they are Zuists.

Zu, Imdugud - TheThunderbird - One Of The Sumerian Gods

Now I thought I was pretty hot on the worlds religions, from Jedi Knights, to Jesus Christ, and all view points in between, but Zuism is something new to me. It is in fact a 'pagan' (depending upon your point of view) religion, based on ancient Sumerian beliefs ... or at least what modern people know about that religions rites and passages, and first appeared in an Icelandic context in 2013.

The Riddle Of The Sphinx

I am following on to an earlier post, in which I bemoaned this strange idea in current western archaeology, that ancient monuments such as Stonehenge, or Hadrian's Wall, should be left in disrepair, to somehow make them 'Authentic'. In fact of course they are only 'authentic' when they are as the makers intended them to be seen.

Take, the Sphinx ....... probably built by Pharoah Khufu in his likeness.

Sphinx Circa1893 .... Until Archaeologists Started Work

It was buried in the sands for millennia until the Victorians uncovered it again .... as they did the other Pharaonic ruins.

The Sphinx as Archaeologists like to see it

But even so, it's age, weathering, and vandalism, have left it a pale shadow of its original self. But instead of the Chinese model of repairing heritage sites, all we do is say, "what the heck, the damage is 'historical' so we'll leave it", and then strangely, we proceed to spend millions to keep the sites in exactly the current stage of disrepair that we found them in. How weird is this?

So how would the sphinx look repaired? Well I had a go at 'repairing it' (apologies for the poorness of my Photo-shop skills) ..... maybe something like this?

A Repaired, Brick Faced Version Of The Sphinx

Assuming that after it was carved from the bed rock, it was faced with shaped stones or shaped bricks (like the Great Pyramid of Giza was), then it would have been something like the image above. Or maybe if they just carved the rocks and left it, maybe more like the image below.

A Repaired, Rock Version Of The Sphinx

In either event how much more wondrous to see it as it was intended to be seen?

Added after visitor suggestion a 'human scale' image .... incidently, notice that the Victorian photo (which was in B&W before I coloured it), show that some 'repair' was done by archaeologists before the current vogue of 'not repairing' items (see top image for current state of 'repair').

Human Added To Show Scale

Some people suggest that it was actually more polished when originally completed .... something like this reconstruction I have created .....

How Great Sphinx May Have Looked ....

 

 

Update: The latest studies suggest that originally the Great Sphinx was painted with a red body and a full headdress ....

The Red Sphinx ......

Painted Headdress And Body .....

And at least a very strong suggestion from an image found in an early Old Kingdom tomb that it had painted wings on its side (as representative of its aspect as Horus) .....

Fully Painted With Godly Aspects Of The Pharaoh ....

Nefertiti - Eternal Beauty

I, like many people own a small copy of the statue of Nefertiti, the Queen of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten .....

 

Nefertiti Statue

 

..... its black, and shows her bust as whole and complete, with her ears and missing eye repaired. You can buy many representations of the original bust, some very gaudy indeed, but the best, are faithful copies, in colour etc, but to my eyes too faithful.

Garden Of Eden Found

Here is an interesting story featured on another blog site called Bayou Renaissance Man ...... Its concerning archaeological discoveries at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. The original story source seems to be the Daily Mail newspaper in the UK, and the blogger has his own take on it, as well as following up on his first blog with an expanded view......

The story has correlations with the Bibles 'Garden of Eden' tale which is fair enough, as the site archaeologist Klaus Schmidt has made the connection. "In the Book of Genesis, it is indicated that Eden is west of Assyria. Sure enough, this is where Gobekli is sited. Likewise, biblical Eden is by four rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates. And Gobekli lies between both of these. In ancient Assyrian texts, there is mention of a 'Beth Eden' - a house of Eden. This minor kingdom was 50 miles from Gobekli Tepe".

Another book in the Old Testament talks of 'the children of Eden which were in Thelasar', a town in northern Syria, near Gobekli. The very word 'Eden' comes from the Sumerian for 'plain'; Gobekli lies on the plains of Harran. It was built around 10,000 BC. By comparison, Stonehenge was built in 3,000 BC and the pyramids of Giza in 2,500 BC.

The story highlights the fact that carbon-dating indicates that the temple complex is at least 12,000 years old, and maybe even as old as 13,000 years old. This takes it into the Neolithic period and well before the date the intelligent designer (aka God) is supposed to have created the Earth on (6,000 BC).

The carvings (seen here with Klaus Schmidt) are highly sophisticated, and the scale is somewhat reminiscent of the Malta temples (below) although much earlier.

 

On a side note ... I have noticed before that a lot of US blogger's quote from UK newspapers, and if any American can tell me if there is a particular reason for this - maybe US newspapers don't cover these kinds of stories? I would appreciate it.