The Hall of Records: Legend, Science, and the Search Beneath the Sphinx
- Amanda Chance
- Jul 15
- 14 min read
Updated: Jul 18
Beneath the paws of the Great Sphinx, some believe an ancient library lies waiting—a repository of lost wisdom from a civilization lost to time. Known as the Hall of Records, this legendary chamber has captivated seekers, researchers, and alternative historians for nearly a century. But what does the evidence actually reveal? And why does this myth persist with such power?
The Origins of the Sphinx Hall of Records Legend
The phrase "Hall of Records" originated not with ancient Egyptian texts, but with Edgar Cayce (1877–1945), the American clairvoyant who became known as the "sleeping prophet". In readings given from October to December 1933, Cayce described three repositories of Atlantean records: one in Bimini (the Bahamas), one in the Yucatán Peninsula, and a "temple or hall of records" beneath the Great Sphinx of Giza.
Cayce's vision was specific: the Hall contained records of human history from its beginning to the destruction of Atlantis, which he dated to around 10,500 BC. He predicted the Hall would be discovered and opened between 1996 and 1998.
True or False: Chambers Exist... But not a library. In 1998, Dr. Zahi Hawass explored these areas and found only natural caves and dead end-tunnels.
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Precursors and Conflation
Cayce's claims did not emerge in a vacuum. As Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince have noted, the idea of lost Egyptian records "has a long pedigree".
Pliny the Elder, the Roman author of the first century AD, reported that the people living near the Giza Plateau in his time regarded the Great Sphinx as a deity and believed King "Harmais" (Horemheb) was buried inside. He also reported that they believed the Great Sphinx was brought from somewhere else.
Medieval Islamic legends, blending local myths, Coptic folklore, and Islamic history, interpreted the structures as the work of antediluvian kings and pre-Islamic giants. They also asserted that there were subterranean passages that existed beneath the pyramids. Medieval Arabic accounts also record that Caliph al-Ma'mun (830 AD) was fascinated by the Great Sphinx. Local lore at the time suggested the giant statue guarded a network of subterranean vaults filled with gold and secret pre-Islamic knowledge.
In the 1990s, Cayce's Hall of Records became conflated with other theories: the Sphinx water erosion hypothesis (which dates the Sphinx to around 10,500 BC) and the Orion correlation theory (which aligns the Giza pyramids with the constellation of Orion). Adherents hoped the discovery of the Hall would lend credence to these beliefs.
A Deeper Origin: The Sphinx Before the Sphinx
To date, no unequivocal ancient Egyptian textual reference to the Great Sphinx has been identified prior to Egypt's New Kingdom. This silence is striking. Why would such a monumental statue go unmentioned for so long?
However, the generational knowledge passed down through the Awyan Family provides a crucial key: the colossal statue on the Giza Plateau that was later carved into the Sphinx was originally Tefnut, a deity in Ancient Egyptian religion.
This perspective finds resonance in the Pyramid Texts, the oldest known body of ancient Egyptian religious literature, dating to the Old Kingdom. Within these texts, Tefnut is explicitly associated with lion form:
The texts mention Shu and Tefnut existing as a pair of lions (rwty). They are described as the guardians of the sun god, and their image was also applied to the sphinx form representing the queen.
Tefnut is referred to as a "lioness" and is often depicted as a lioness-headed goddess.
The king is described as a son of Shu and Tefnut, symbolizing divine lineage and power.
The king's ascension to the sky is also associated with the pair of lions (rwty).
Also prominent in the Old Kingdom is Sekhmet, the lioness-headed goddess whose name means "the powerful one." The Pyramid Texts record that the king was conceived by Sekhmet, further solidifying the sacred bond between lioness goddesses and royal power.
These passages from the Pyramid Texts provide solid textual support for the generational knowledge of the Awyan Family: the original form of the Sphinx was a powerful lioness goddess.
This conclusion is further supported by Old Kingdom artistic evidence. In the newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum, several 4th-6th Dynasty statues of lioness-headed goddesses from the Saqqara region are on display. One shows the goddess with small figures of the kings, Khufu (right) and Pepy I (left) as children, to indicate their divine birth. These archaeological finds, geographically close to the Sphinx, provide material evidence further confirming the prevalence of lioness goddess worship during the Old Kingdom.
Tefnut's association with the lioness form is further strengthened by her close connection to the uraeus—the sacred cobra that guarded kingship. As one of the incarnations of the "Eye of Ra," Tefnut embodies the solar force, and the uraeus is precisely the sacred weapon that protects the sun god and the pharaoh, warding off chaos and enemies. In some depictions, Tefnut is portrayed wearing a sun disk and uraeus, or, as the myths describe, spitting fire to destroy her enemies. Therefore, wearing the uraeus also symbolized that the pharaoh possessed the divine protection of Tefnut, the powerful goddess incarnate.
It is worth noting that while other studies have identified this original statue as Mehit, the evidence for Mehit's worship at the time of the Pyramid Texts is based largely on interpretations of specific titles and obscure symbols, and the study itself acknowledges that her cult was considered "archaic" even then. Tefnut, by contrast, is explicitly and directly associated with lions and kingship in the Pyramid Texts. Based on the generational knowledge of the Awyan Family, we maintain that her original identity is Tefnut.
This conclusion integrates three lines of evidence: family tradition, textual records, and archaeological artifacts. What originally stood on the Giza Plateau was a colossal lioness statue representing Tefnut. It was only during the dynastic period that a pharaoh carved the face we see today onto this ancient monument.
The Pharaoh Behind the Face
If the original monument was a lioness, who carved the human face we see today? The face remains a matter of scholarly dispute, with evidence suggesting it may represent Khufu, Djedefre, or Khafre.
French Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev of the French Archaeological Institute in Cairo has proposed a compelling theory. After two decades of research, Dobrev concluded that the Sphinx was created by Djedefre, Khafre's half-brother and the son of Khufu.
According to Dobrev, Djedefre, who succeeded his father, built the Sphinx in the image of Khufu, identifying him with the sun god Ra in order to restore or create respect for the ruling dynasty. Djedefre was, significantly, the first pharaoh to introduce the royal title "Son of Ra" into his own name—a precedent that supports the theory that he would have identified his father with the sun god.
This theory gains additional weight when we consider that Djedefre's court produced the earliest known sphinx: the painted limestone sphinx of his queen, Hetepheres II, discovered at his pyramid complex at Abu Rawash. It is said that while the pharaoh was seen as the incarnation of Horus, the queen was the incarnation of Tefnut, and when she appeared in the form of a sphinx, she was performing the role of the great lioness, guarding the sun god and pharaoh, who was the son of the sun god. This demonstrates that the artistic concept of combining a human face with a lion's body was now present in Djedefre's royal workshop.
Mesopotamian Connections
The concept of a hybrid creature combining human and animal elements was not unique to Egypt. Mesopotamian art featured similar composite beings, such as the Ugallu—a lion-headed or human-headed lion-bird demon. Mesopotamia also had stories of lost tablets referencing the history of mankind. Trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia was well established by the early dynastic period, making the exchange of artistic motifs and possible religious or historical texts a distinct possibility.
Djedefre's reign was marked by religious innovation—he was the first pharaoh to incorporate Ra into his royal name—suggesting his court was open to new ideas and influences.
True or False: In 2026, a resurfaced 1952 CIA document made reference to a "Temple under Sphinx." It was simply an archival inventory of photographs.
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Scientific Investigations and Recent Claims
The 1998 Excavation
In 1998, Dr. Zahi Hawass, then Chief Director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, excavated beneath the Sphinx's main body. He rediscovered access tunnels leading to several large, apparently natural caves directly under the Sphinx. No artifacts were reported to have been found; however, a survey was undertaken to assess any potential threats to the ancient monument.
The 2025 "Underground City" Controversy
In March 2025, Italian and Scottish researchers—led by Corrado Malanga (University of Pisa) and Filippo Biondi (University of Strathclyde)—made sensational claims about a vast underground city beneath the Giza Plateau. Using satellite radar pulses, they claimed to have identified:
Eight vertical cylinder-shaped columns extending more than 2,100 feet deep
Staircase-like structures spiraling around these columns
Chambers at depths of 2,000 and 4,000 feet
A spiral staircase descending from the Sphinx's base
The team suggested these structures could be 38,000 years old and that the Hall of Records might lie somewhere within this underground complex.
Mainstream Academic Response
The response from the archaeological community has been overwhelmingly skeptical. Professor Lawrence Conyers (University of Denver), an expert in both radar technology and archaeology, said that the paper's conclusions are "a huge exaggeration." Radar pulses, he explained, cannot realistically penetrate more than 4,000 feet into the ground in the way the researchers claim.
Key criticisms of the 2025 research include:
The study has not been peer-reviewed or published in any scientific journal
SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) technology can penetrate only about 10 inches into the ground, making it impossible to detect structures thousands of feet below
The interpretations of radar data are speculative and unverified
No physical excavation has been conducted to confirm the findings
The research team plans to publish their findings in 2026.
The CIA Document: A Resurfaced Mystery
In May 2026, a resurfaced Cold War-era CIA document reignited global fascination with hidden chambers beneath the Sphinx. While the document's contents remain classified in detail, its mere existence has fueled further speculation. The document appears to have been an archival inventory, but its cryptic references have been interpreted by some as evidence of a cover-up.
The Fate of the Records: A Pattern of Appropriation
The question of what happened to the Hall of Records—if it ever existed—leads us down a path far more complex than a single moment of discovery or loss. It stretches across millennia, involving Romans, Abbasid caliphs, and medieval Islamic builders, each layer of conquest adding another chapter to the story of Egypt's lost knowledge.
Augustus and the Roman Appropriation
When Emperor Augustus conquered Egypt in 30 BCE, he systematically appropriated Egyptian monuments as symbols of his victory. He transported obelisks from Heliopolis to Rome—one to the Circus Maximus and another as the gnomon of his sundial—as statements of conquest. These were not merely decorative; they were signature statements in colored stone celebrating the conquest of Egypt.
Augustus also dismantled the Pyramid of Djedefre at Abu Rawash, repurposing its stones for Roman building projects. If the Hall of Records was a real archive containing valuable documents, Augustus would have had every motivation to take them as spoils of war and bring them back to Rome. The Romans had a well-documented practice of appropriating Egyptian objects and displaying them in Italian contexts.
Al-Ma'mun and the Abbasid Excavation
The pattern continued nearly nine centuries later. In 820 AD, the Abbasid Caliph Abdullah Al-Ma'mun—son of the legendary Harun al-Rashid of Arabian Nights fame—became the first person to forcibly enter the Great Pyramid in recorded history. Acting on stories of great wealth hidden within the pyramid's recesses, he ordered his workmen to break through the north face. Unable to locate the original, long-forgotten entrance, they cut a tunnel straight through the solid limestone core blocks—a passage still used by tourists today, known as Al-Mamun's Tunnel.
After weeks of labor, the workmen finally broke through to the descending passage. What did they find? They reported empty chambers and a stone sarcophagus. No treasure. No secret library. The caliph's quest for hidden knowledge yielded only disappointment.
Yet the symbolic significance of al-Ma'mun's excavation cannot be overstated. Medieval Arab historians recorded his forced entry as a pivotal moment. The Caliph's actions were driven not merely by greed but by a broader Abbasid pursuit of ancient wisdom and legitimization of their cultural authority. This was part of a larger intellectual movement: al-Ma'mun founded the House of Wisdom (Bait-ul-Hikmah) in Baghdad, a legendary library and training center for scholars. His excavation of the pyramid was, in a sense, an extension of this project—a physical search for the knowledge that Greek and Persian texts could not provide.
The Tradition of Spolia
The appropriation of Egypt's ancient monuments did not end with al-Ma'mun's tunnel. From the beginning of its long history, Egypt has continuously experienced and practiced despoliation and looting of the monuments of its past. Medieval Islamic builders reused Pharaonic stones extensively in their own structures.
Pharaonic blocks—columns, capitals, lintels, architraves, and thresholds—were removed from ancient temples and repurposed in mosques, madrasas, and mausoleums across Cairo. The practice was so widespread that scholars have documented reused blocks from the time of Ramesses IX in the threshold of the Khanqah-Mausoleum of Sultan Baybars al-Jashankir, and high-quality green stone from the "Green Sanctuary" in Memphis was transported to Cairo for the building of Shaykhu's khanqah. Even the famous Cup of Pharaoh, a large basin discovered at the Abbasid capital of Samarra, was carved from Egyptian stone and may have generated its mysterious association with the Pharaonic past.
This was not mere scavenging. The reuse of ancient stones carried apotropaic and protective powers. Arabic literature inherited Platonic and Neoplatonic discourses on the temples and pyramids, viewing them as repositories of knowledge and wisdom. By incorporating Pharaonic stones into Islamic buildings, builders were not just recycling materials; they were appropriating the sacred power and authority of Egypt's ancient past.
A Pattern of Erasure and Appropriation
The destruction of Djedefre's pyramid, al-Ma'mun's forced entry into the Great Pyramid, and the widespread reuse of Pharaonic stones in Islamic architecture are not isolated events. They are part of a pattern of appropriation that spans millennia—a pattern in which each new power seeks to legitimate itself by either taking the sacred stones of the past or erasing them.
If the Hall of Records ever existed, its contents would have been subject to this same pattern. The Romans might have taken them to Rome. The Abbasids might have sought them in their excavations, only to find empty chambers. And even if the records survived, their stones—the very fabric of the buildings that housed them—would have been recycled into the mosques and madrasas of medieval Cairo.
Perhaps the ultimate fate of the Hall of Records is not that it was destroyed, but that it was dispersed—its knowledge scattered across the empires that conquered Egypt, its stones incorporated into the buildings of its conquerors, its memory preserved only in legend.
The Vibrational Wisdom Perspective
From the lens of our work, the enduring power of the Hall of Records legend offers a profound reflection on the nature of knowledge, memory, and the human longing for connection to a deeper past.
Why Does This Myth Persist?
Not because of evidence, but because it speaks to something true about the human condition. We sense that our ancestors knew something we have forgotten. We feel that the stones of Giza hold more than meets the eye. This intuition is not misplaced—it simply seeks expression in stories like the Hall of Records.
The legend endures because it encodes a fundamental truth: knowledge is fragile, and we are haunted by what we have lost. The systematic appropriation of Egyptian monuments—from Augustus to al-Ma'mun to medieval Islamic builders—is not just a story of stone theft. It is a story of cultural memory being deliberately reshaped, repurposed, and sometimes erased.
The Sphinx as a Resonant Threshold
Whether or not a physical library exists beneath its paws, the Sphinx itself functions as a symbolic gateway. Its very name, Tefnut—the lioness goddess, the Eye of Ra—connects it to the primordial forces of creation and destruction. The legend of the Hall of Records encodes a deeper truth: that wisdom is buried, and to access it, we must learn to listen.
The recarving of the Sphinx—from a lioness representing Tefnut to a human-faced monument—mirrors the broader pattern of appropriation we see throughout history. Each civilization that came to Egypt claimed the Sphinx for itself, projecting its own meanings onto the ancient stone. The Romans saw it as a symbol of conquest. The Abbasids sought its hidden treasures. Medieval Islamic builders incorporated its stones into their own sacred structures. Each act of appropriation was also an act of erasure—a forgetting of what came before.
The Hall of Records as a Metaphor for Lost Knowledge
Perhaps the greatest lesson of the Hall of Records is not about what lies beneath the Sphinx, but about what we have lost through the millennia of conquest, neglect, and cultural transformation. The Romans took obelisks. The Abbasids sought treasure in the pyramids. Islamic builders recycled ancient stones. Each act, whether driven by ambition, piety, or necessity, contributed to the fragmentation of Egypt's ancient wisdom.
What would a "Hall of Records" truly contain? Not stone tablets, perhaps, but the vibrational memory of the place itself. The Giza Plateau has been a site of human reverence, ritual, and inquiry for thousands of years. That accumulated presence is a kind of record—one that can be felt, not read. The stones remember, even if the texts are gone.
The Danger of Literal Interpretation
The Hall of Records legend becomes problematic when taken as literal history. It distracts from the genuine, astonishing achievements of the ancient Egyptians—achievements that need no Atlantis to explain them. The true mystery of Giza is not a hidden library, but the visible, tangible, resonant architecture that has stood for over 4,500 years.
Yet the legend also serves a purpose. It reminds us that knowledge is not guaranteed. It must be preserved, protected, and passed on. And when it is lost—whether through conquest, neglect, or the passage of time—it leaves a void that we fill with stories. The Hall of Records is one such story: a testament to our longing for a connection to the wisdom of the ancients.
Conclusion
The Hall of Records remains what it has always been: a powerful legend. No ancient Egyptian text mentions it. No archaeological excavation has confirmed it. The claims of a vast underground city beneath Giza have been rejected by the mainstream scientific community as methodologically flawed and scientifically unsupported.
Yet the legend endures—not because it is true, but because it speaks to a deep human longing: the hope that somewhere, somehow, the wisdom of our ancestors is preserved, waiting to be rediscovered.
The pattern of appropriation—from Augustus to al-Ma'mun to medieval Islamic builders—offers a sobering perspective. If the Hall of Records ever existed, its contents were likely dispersed across the empires that conquered Egypt, its stones incorporated into the buildings of its conquerors, its memory preserved only in legend. The Romans, the Abbasids, and the builders of medieval Cairo each took what they needed from Egypt's ancient monuments, leaving behind a fragmented record of a glorious past.
Perhaps the true Hall of Records is not a buried chamber, but the landscape itself. The Giza Plateau, with its pyramids, its Sphinx, and its millennia of human activity, holds a record far more profound than any library. It is a record of human aspiration, ingenuity, and the enduring quest for meaning. The stones remember. The resonance endures. And if we learn to listen, we can still hear the echoes of the voices that shaped this sacred landscape.
To stand before the Sphinx is to feel the weight of millennia. Its silence is not empty; it is full of waiting. The wisdom of the ancients may not be found in a hidden chamber, but in the stones themselves, in the resonance of the landscape, and in our own capacity to listen. The past is never truly lost—it only waits to be heard.
References
1. Seyfzadeh, Manu; Schoch, Robert M.; Bauval, Robert. "A New Interpretation of a Rare Old Kingdom Dual Title: The King's Chief Librarian and Guardian of the Royal Archives of Mehit." Archaeological Discovery, Vol.5 No.3, 2017.
2. Seyfzadeh, Manu; Schoch, Robert M. "Major Geological Fissure through Prehistoric Lion Monument at Giza Inspired Split Lion Hieroglyphs and Ancient Egypt's Creation Myth." Archaeological Discovery, Vol.7 No.4, 2019.
3. Dobrev, Vassil. Theory on Djedefre as builder of the Sphinx. French Archaeological Institute in Cairo, 2004.
4. Hawass, Zahi. Excavations beneath the Sphinx (1998).
5. Conyers, Lawrence. University of Denver. Critiques of 2025 radar claims.
6. Pliny the Elder. Natural History, Book 36.
7. Picknett, Lynn and Prince, Clive. The Stargate Conspiracy. 2000.
8. Cooney, Kathlyn. "Looted, Reused, and Recycled: The Pharaonic Blocks of Cairo." The Archaeologies of Islam, 2025.
9. "History of the Great Pyramid of Giza." www.historyofegypt.net.
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About the Author
Amanda Victoria Chance, MD, is an Internal Medicine board-certified physician reviving ancient healing practices. Also certified in Lifestyle Medicine, she bridges millennia-old vibrational wisdom with evidence-based lifestyle interventions-- including nutrition, stress resilience, and non-pharmacological therapies-- to activate whole person care. She co-leads transformative healing journeys in Egypt with her husband-- including resonance-based experiences inspired by Saqqara's legendary "healing hospital," a site documented in Gaia's The Pyramid Code through her husband's grandfather's archival legacy.
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