Archaeologists discover giant sphinx in California

October 17, 2014 12:31 PM MST


A sphinx from the set of 'The Ten Commandment' that dates back 90 years. commons.wikimedia.org

Digging deep into the not-so-distant past, archaeologists have discovered and unearthed the body of an enormous 90-year-old plaster sphinxamong the dunes of Guadalupe, California. Live Science reported on Friday that the sphinx was from the set of the 1923 blockbuster silent film "The Ten Commandments." The plaster body of the sphinx was highly eroded by the harsh weather in area, but the archaeologists behind the project are hoping that, with some reconstruction, the sphinx will be ready for public display at the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Center as early as 2015.

The massive sphinx is about 15 feet tall, and was one of the 21 statues that lined the path to the Pharaoh’s City. Doug Jenzen, executive director at the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Center, told Live Science that Cecil B. DeMille’s film had “one of the largest movie sets ever made, because they didn't have special effects.” Jenzen indicated that because of the limitations of special effects at the time “anything that they wanted to look large, they had to build large.” One of the biggest pieces was the façade of the Pharaoh’s Palace which stood at an estimated 12 stories tall and 720 feet across.

According to the Live Science article, popular legend has held that the set was torched after filming and the sphinxes were dumped in a trench and buried. However, Jenzen says that recently uncovered evidence paints a different picture.

By watching the film during the night and digging during the day, the archaeologists have discovered that much of the remains of the set are where they would have been originally. It appears that the set was largely left to the mercy of the elements, and it was wind, rain and the ever-shifting sand dunes that tore down the set.

The first excavation of the set occurred in 1990, after it was discovered that one of the dunes in the desert never moved.

According to an archived People report, Peter Brosnan, 38 at the time, claimed that the sand of the unmoving dune was anchored to part of the set. It wasn’t until 2012 that a major part of the set was uncovered when the Dunes Center asked several groups of archaeologists to dig on the site. A massive sphinx head was discovered “the size of a pool table,” and is now on display at the Dunes Center. When the archaeology group Applied Earthworks returned in 2014 they discovered that the body of the sphinx to which the head had belonged was heavily eroded. Fortunately they discovered another one nearby, which they have successfully dug up and are hoping to have in a presentable state by late 2015.

http://www.examiner.com/article/arch...r-old-film-set