QUARANTINE BLOG # 263

December 18, 2020

The Great Sphinx of Giza is a giant 4,500-year-old limestone statue situated near the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt.  Measuring 240 feet long and 66 feet high, the Great Sphinx is one of the world’s largest monuments.  It is also one of the most recognizable relics of the ancient Egyptians, though the origins and history of the colossal structure are still debated.

A sphinx is a mythical creature with the head of a human, a falcon, a cat, or a sheep and the body of a lion with the wings of an eagle.  The sphinx is said to have guarded the entrance to the Greek city of Thebes, asking a riddle to travelers, the most famous riddle in history: “Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?” She strangled and devoured anyone who could not answer.  Oedipus solved the riddle by answering: “Man – who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age.”

Modern Egyptology says that the Great Sphinx was built in approximately 2500 BC for the pharaoh Khafre, the builder of the Second Pyramid at Giza.  The Sphinx was not assembled piece by piece but was carved from a single mass of limestone.   According to some estimates, it would have taken about three years for 100 workers, using stone hammers and copper chisels, to finish the statue.

The nose on the face is missing.  Examination of the Sphinx’s face shows that long rods or chisels were hammered into the nose, then used to pry the nose off.  Many folk tales exist regarding the destruction of its nose.  One tale attributes it to cannon balls fired by the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

For thousands of years, sand buried the colossus up to its shoulders, creating a vast disembodied head atop the eastern edge of the Sahara.  

Then, in 1817, a Genoese adventurer, Capt. Giovanni Battista Caviglia, led 160 men in the first modern attempt to dig out the Sphinx.  They could not hold back the sand, which poured into their excavation pits nearly as fast as they could dig it out.  The Egyptian archaeologist Selim Hassan finally freed the statue from the sand in the late 1930s.

Residues of red pigment are visible on areas of the Sphinx’s face.  Traces of yellow and blue pigment have been found elsewhere on the Sphinx, leading some to suggest that the monument was once decked out in bright colors.

Bonaparte Before the Sphinx, painted by Jean-Léon Gérôme in 1886.

👉  Is it the season of giving or the season of getting?  Calvin and Hobbes, our favorite six year old and his friend have one idea.

👉  I don’t think it has anything to do with Christmas, but MacKenzie Scott is giving away her fortune at an unprecedented pace, donating more than $4 billion in four months after announcing a first $1.7 billion in gifts in July.  Shortly after her divorce from Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, Scott pledged to give away most of her fortune.

The world’s 18th-richest person outlined the latest contributions in a blog post Tuesday.  Scott’s wealth climbed $23.6 billion this year to $60.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as Amazon.com Inc., the primary source of her fortune, has surged.

“I have a disproportionate amount of money to share,” she said.  “My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful.  It will take time and effort and care.  But I won’t wait.  And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”

To date, she has given her billions to 500 charitable organizations.  She has asked her staff to help her give it away faster.

👉  Dominic Julian Lot of Sydney Australia entered the world on December 9, weighing in at 8.5 pounds.  Because his parents Clementine Oldfield and Anthony Lot, named their son Dominic, Domino’s Pizza, celebrating their 60th anniversary awarded the family $10,000.  The company said that the first baby to be born in Australia on their anniversary day who was named Dominic or Dominique would win the cash equivalent of a pizza a month, for six decades.  The couple had already chosen the name Dominic when they first discovered Ms. Oldfield was pregnant with a boy.  “It’s one of my favorite names since I was a little kid,” she said.  The couple did not name their favorite pizza.

👉  Let’s go back down Memory Lane before we close today:

👉  Third Friday of Advent

Under New Management

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind (Isaiah 65:17).

Let me speak about the new heaven. That may seem strange and removed to you for almost everyone assumes that heaven is either closed or empty and irrelevant.  But isn’t it strange that this poet uses his precious poetic gifts to speak of a new heaven?  And he does so in a time of despair and stress in his community, when you would have thought he had other things to do.  But he takes that as his proper task.

I dare to say to you that this poem is about as relevant as we can get, for it affirms to us that the current contrivance that makes some rich at the expense of others is a momentary contrivance.  That contrivance need not endure.  Finally, it will end because God has set in motion, sooner or later, promises that will be kept.  We grow cold and cynical.  And we forget.  But it is so.  We are not conformers to this age, but we are the ones who gamble toward a new age of justice.

Sooner or later, we know your promises will be kept, O God.  We know that a new earth follows in the wake of your new heaven, and so we wait with eager longing.  Keep us attentive to your rule.  Empower us to overcome unjust contrivances and gamble toward your newness.  Amen.

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