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Montuhotep88
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 Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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| cladking wrote: | | No. This isn't really true. Great pyramids sprang out of nowhere. The very first pyramid was a great pyramid 200' tall and they never built another as tall. Then they eventually built G1 which required about 45 times as much work as this first one. |
I can't understand what you're talking about. Which is the "first pyramid" in this context? Djoser's step pyramid? And the followons at Meidum and the two at Dahshur were surely taller than Djoser's, by a good 40%. So I can't see how you say that they "never built another as tall." There is a clear lineage of design as you look at them in sequence. |
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cladking
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| Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 10:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Montuhotep88 wrote: | | cladking wrote: | | No. This isn't really true. Great pyramids sprang out of nowhere. The very first pyramid was a great pyramid 200' tall and they never built another as tall. Then they eventually built G1 which required about 45 times as much work as this first one. |
I can't understand what you're talking about. Which is the "first pyramid" in this context? Djoser's step pyramid? And the followons at Meidum and the two at Dahshur were surely taller than Djoser's, by a good 40%. So I can't see how you say that they "never built another as tall." There is a clear lineage of design as you look at them in sequence. |
Yes. The first great pyramid was Djoser's Pyramid and it was 200' tall. After the last great pyramid Khafre's Pyramid)(G2) they never again built a pyramid as large as this first one. The ones that follow the great pyramids are mostly tiny little piles of rubble and dirt. Calling these later structures "pyramids" is obscuring the fact that the great pyramids are different than all of the other pyramids in Egypt built before and after. It is obscuring the fact that we don't know how they were built, what they were for, or the nature of the culture which built them.
There is no "cultural context" to explain Djoser's Pyramid or how they were suddenly able to do so much work in a small area. There are no explanations for why they'd suddenly change the shape of a mastaba (which means "bench") and turn it into a pyramid. There is no explanation for any of what's known about the people who built them or why we don't have basic answers to fundamental questions like why the builders said they aren't tombs and how they built them.
What we have are questions but all the answers are merely interpretations that don't agree with the evidence that survives. There aren't any stone draggers, tomb builders, or quarrymen buried at Giza. How is it possible to do all this work and leave behind evidence that shows something completely different?
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Montuhotep88
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| Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 11:35 pm Post subject: |
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If you're going to ignore whatever is inconvenient to you (i.e. all the other tombs and pyramids), we don't have any common ground for discussion.
There is loads of context, but you have to take your eyes off the big pyramids to see it. Archaeology and anthropology is all about context; an artifact or structure by itself tells us much less than all of the other details surrounding it, from potsherds to plant remains.
It's also rather astounding that you maintain that there are "no" stone draggers, etc., buried at Giza. What do you think Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner have been doing the past few decades? Uncovering the very communities and tombs that you deny the existence of. |
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cladking
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| Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 1:43 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | It's also rather astounding that you maintain that there are "no" stone draggers, etc., buried at Giza. What do you think Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner have been doing the past few decades? Uncovering the very communities and tombs that you deny the existence of. |
What they’ve been doing and what they think they’ve been doing are, I believe, two entirely different things. They think they’ve been excavating the infrastructure for the housing of the superstitious people who dragged the stones up ramps to build pyramids. But the actual evidence denies this. For instance they dug up a cistern in Khentkawestown that couldn’t be filled with rainwater! The inlet was so tiny that the flood would pass straight over it leaving it high and dry. This is illogical in a desert and implies there was running water right down the channel and the inlet was made small just so muddy water in a rain event would contaminate the water in it.
They excavated the main town and claimed the builders lived there but the site is far too tiny for the huge numbers of stones draggers which would be needed. Then they claimed the actual draggers lived on the ramps but there are no roads leading out of the town. So then they announced that the builders just wettened the sand to make it firm leaving the workers to toil, live, and die, on wet sand ramps.
They keep digging up tombs but they never have found tombs associated with ramps or pyramids as tombs. They find “Overseers of Canals” and “Overseers of Metal Shops” and not “Overseers of Stone Draggers” or “Overseers of Builders of the King’s Tomb”. The names of the structures have to do with life, not death. Across the board it’s the same thing, Egyptologists believe in superstition and death and the builders spoke only of what they knew and of life. Most people don’t realize this but the ancient vocabulary had no words for “belief” or “thought”. We can hardly make a sentence without such words and their vocabulary lacked them. Indeed, the Ancient Language broke Zipf’s Law and may have had no taxonomic words either. You’d be very hard pressed to find a sentence written by any priest or scientist that lacked such words.
No. It’s quite apparent that we wholly misapprehend all the writing that survives as well as the physical evidence. We look at it but we don’t see it.
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cladking
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| Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 1:46 am Post subject: |
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| Montuhotep88 wrote: | | If you're going to ignore whatever is inconvenient to you (i.e. all the other tombs and pyramids), we don't have any common ground for discussion. |
Actually all these mastaba tombs are critical to understanding the real function of the great pyramids. It is largely by seeing the job titles that the means to build can be deduced. It is by seeing how they buried their dead that it becomes apparent the pyramids really weren't tombs.
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karnsculpture
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| Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 9:00 am Post subject: |
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So if they aren't tombs, what are they? Some form of mortuary temple or object of worship?
What is M's opinion as he or she started the thread then disappeared? |
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Ikon
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| Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 9:31 am Post subject: |
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| The thread has no purpose other than to insult us, it's what the fringe do, it's all they can do as they have nothing else. Look at the hostile reviews on Amazon of "Giza and the Pyramids" by Lehner & Hawass. |
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Ikon
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| Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 10:00 am Post subject: |
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| cladking wrote: |
There are many such mentions of where the kings grave is and how he gets there (he rises on the smoke of incense because he was cremated). The most dramatic examples is ritual #364
616c. She has made them well for thee.
616d. Thou art given over to thy mother Nut, in her name of "Grave";
616e. she has embraced thee, in her name of "Grave";
616f. thou art brought to her, in her name of Maṣṭaba." |
This is a wrong interpretation of the text, which even gives the correct context in the notes in the Faulkner edition. Anyway, it hardly needs his notes to work out that what is being referenced here as regards Nut is the depiction of her on the underside of coffin lids, of which there are many examples. So this is about burial in a coffin which is itself in a tomb, it does actually state that very clearly. The phrase "In her name of" does not mean that Nut is using different names for whatever purpose, but that she is manifest as the coffin and the tomb.
This particular spell also references Osiris having his body cut up and parts thrown into the Nile. The parts are collected, reassembled and put into a coffin. This is applicable to the dead king as he has become an Osiris.
Where you state that the phrase:
Your body has not decayed, your flesh has not decomposed
This in the Amduat, Tenth Hour lower register in the tomb of Thutmosis III, is used about those who have drowned in the Nile and their bodies swept away, therefore denying them a proper burial. But it has come from the PT where while it does not yet reference the ordinary folk, only the king, it is used because, as above, the king is now an Osiris so ritually goes through the process that Osiris did. It is absolutely nothing to do with cremation, but all to do with making sure that the body is whole and given a proper burial within a coffin and a tomb, both represented by Nut. |
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Ikon
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| Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 10:37 am Post subject: |
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| To be clear about what we see in the PT and the Amduat about this. The Amduat is informed by the Coffin texts which are in turn informed by the PT, therefore at least this specific part of the Amuduat is directly connected to the PT. Over the course of time, ressurection was extended to all, not just the king as it was in the Old Kingdom, therefore the precise context of the relevant texts has changed to encompass anybody who has no corpse to bury, but the mechanism for "rescue" from this situation has remained the same as it was for Osiris and the dead king in the role of Osiris. This is not an "incorrect" usage of the Amduat in order to "distort" the meaning of the PT, but a very obvious observation that the two, in at least this regards, have the same meaning, with the exception, as noted, that while the PT is only about the king and ties the king to Osiris, the Amduat version is for all. So it's about the soul being rescued from a drowned, lost and disarticulated body, not cremation, which is perhaps the most incorrect and opposite reading of these texts there can be. |
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Montuhotep88
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| Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 11:44 am Post subject: |
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| Ikon wrote: | | Look at the hostile reviews on Amazon of "Giza and the Pyramids" by Lehner & Hawass. |
Yeah, those are bizarre.
My principal complaint about the book is that it's too heavy to read comfortably.  Actually, I haven't gotten to it yet, but it's been beckoning me from my shelf and I'm looking forward to reading it. |
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Lutz
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Location: Berlin, Germany
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cladking
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| Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 5:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Ikon wrote: | | To be clear about what we see in the PT and the Amduat about this. The Amduat is informed by the Coffin texts which are in turn informed by the PT, therefore at least this specific part of the Amuduat is directly connected to the PT. |
This is exactly how and exactly where Egyptology went wrong. They assumed that since the vocabulary remained about the same that it must be the exact same language. Even what seem to be being described seems similar. It is obvious the Pyramid Texts led to the Coffin Texts which led to the “book of the dead”. So it seemed perfectly acceptable to translate and interpret the Pyramid Texts in terms of the “book of the dead”.
It is NOT ok. It is not okay because the nature of language changed. This is why the Pyramid Texts can be taken literally and it makes perfect sense but the “book of the dead” is obviously superstitious nonsense about the afterlife and makes no sense in terms of reality as such. It’s nonsense and they used this nonsense to understand the Pyramid Texts written in a completely different kind of language.
There are many reasons that the change isn’t recognized that go beyond the bad assumptions. One is that the languages can not be translated one to another! When the Ancient Language became too complex all of science was lost but the later people knew the older people were powerful and wise. They tried to emulate them in all ways so the “book of the dead” arose after many centuries of confusion. We understand the book of the dead but we have even less understanding of the rituals that are the Pyramid Texts than do any of the later Egyptians.
We see a steady progression where none exists. We see it because it makes perfect sense to us that humans always progress and there was a “3000 year cultural context” of Egypt. The problem with this belief is that the Pyramid Texts makes perfect sense. The problem is they had no words for “thought” or “belief” the problem is there are no taxonomic words. The problem is the language breaks Zipf’s Law. The problem is they had only a few thousand words in the entire vocabulary and complex ideas can’t possibly be communicated using such a limited vocabulary if it is formatted like our language.
It necessarily follows that the formatting was different. Just as computer language does complex things with only 8 or 10 words, Ancient Language could communicate very complex ideas with only ~3000 compared to our 150,000.
Say what you will but the fact is the builders of the great pyramids are the authors of much of the Pyramid Texts (if not all) and they said over and over and over again that the king was the pyramid and it was not a tomb. This is the literal meaning of what they said. Everything they said is at odds with our beliefs. The reason there’s no direct evidence the pyramids are tombs is very simple; They were not tombs.
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Ikon
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| Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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Show your workings for your assertions. Please tell why you think you know better than Faulkner and have ignored his notes about PT spell 364, which contradict you. You call the "Book of the Dead", there is no such thing by the way, "superstitious nonsense". In so doing it is very clear you have never properly read and understood these texts, if you have read the full texts at all that is. I highly recommend that you read "The Egyptian Amduat" by Erik Hornung and Theodor Abt, and it's companion volume by the same two authors, "Knowledge for the Afterlife". When you have read and understood the Amduat I suggest then picking up "The Egyptian Book of Gates", again by Hornung and Abt. You should, after assimilating these works, and other exist, understand that they are not "superstitious nonsense", but the earliest known works of philosophy. A feat denied to ancient Egypt by those who are ignorant, and you do not help by casually dismissing their achievements as they do not fit, and indeed, contradict, your extraordinarily minority view, a view held it seems by you alone.
At the end of the day it comes down to you against the world, bar the very unpleasant loonies on the GH forum of course, though I think even they don't agree with you except for your ridiculous anti Egyptologist stance. It also comes down to you wanting all of us to accept your assertions when you do not publish, or show any meaningful workings. I, nor anybody on a forum such as this dealing with reality, needs to answer to you, as it is beholden to you to provide the evidence that will upset accepted facts.
Show the elements in language change that indicate a change in theology and ritual to the extent that, in your opinion, what we see in the Amduat and other texts has no relationship to the pyramid texts. Explain precisely why you clearly think Faulkner is wrong, and by extension a large number of others since him. Don't just say it is so, prove it to be so by showing your workings. |
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Lutz
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| Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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You bring here continuously completely piece-of-evidence-free statements and assertions that contradict the results of the archaeological researches (and from my point of view in some cases the common sense...).
A little bit more should be there already. Otherwise, maybe you just found your own religion, with believers who do not question?
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cladking
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| Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 8:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Ikon wrote: | | Please tell why you think you know better than Faulkner and have ignored his notes about PT spell 364, which contradict you. |
Please tell why you think you know better than Faulkner and have ignored his notes about PT spell 364, which contradict you.
I’m not ignoring Egyptology. They are ignoring me. I stated exactly why they are wrong. Their understanding breaks Zipf’s Law and can’t account for the highly limited vocabulary consisting principally as nouns. My understanding does account for such things and why the ancients couldn’t “think” or “believe”. Their understanding flies in the face of both logic and physical evidence.
By ignoring me they hope to keep from elevating my hypotheses to a new crackpot idea. The fact is my hypotheses explain a great deal and answer most of the mysteries like why is there no direct evidence any great pyramid was a tomb. The fact is the assumption these were tombs is fundamental to Egyptology yet there’s no direct evidence that they were. Instead we are told the lack of bodies show they were looted and the “robber’s tunnels” show the same. The empty stone boxes show there were corpses at one time. Meanwhile the Grand Gallery and everything else is said to be “holy” and related to religion and incantation.
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