Unknown God of the Dead, Unknown One

A being that was once worshipped in ancient Egypt, and was the original model for the Sphinx. Its exact appearance is not known, because later, "Khephren the Great, who raised the Second Pyramid, carved over the Sphinx’s face in the likeness of his own."

In 1910, the magician Harry Houdini glimpsed the Unknown God of the Dead after being imprisoned in an unknown temple hundreds of feet below the Gizeh plateau, and perhaps constituting an undiscovered lower level of the Temple of the Sphinx near the Second Pyramind. The thing was being worshipped by hybrid men with the heads of hippos or crocodiles, along with King Khephren (aka the guide Abdul Reis el Drogman) and the ghoul-queen Nitokris. As it emerged from a huge dark doorway, the Unknown One appeared at first to be something yellowish and hairy, about the size of a hippopotamus, with five heads from which curious rigid tentacles extended to seize large offerings of carrion. Soon after, Houdini realized that this creature was the merest forepaw of a much larger being, presumably with an overall form resembling the Sphinx. [HPL Pyramids (online text)]

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