All Ihave is words to direct peoples’ attentions to the actual facts and logic. “Semantics” would be saying the Great Pyramid can’t be a tomb because tombs can’t be great. Logic is pointing out that ramps are the most highly inefficient means that could have been used to build pyramids. Using words to draw attention to facts is saying each of the great pyramids were built on top of a structure with all the needed characteristics to catch water and funnel it to where it would have been most useful.
Hey, if I like Kottke then anything is possible. He’s the exception that proves the rule.
I’m a very big fan of Ringo’s movie “Caveman”. It teaches you a new language in less than half an hour and the language has similarities to the actual ancient language. I’m not very familiar with most of Ringo’s musical work outside the Beatles. I didn’t care too much for the Beatles until late-'70’s and then I liked a lot of their work.
I just now “got” their name. :smack:
I had a night mare this morning that I was back at work and espousing all sort of hairbrained ideas about the nature of the work and equipment. I suppose I should quit looking at this theory through your eyes.
One thing I keep telling people is that ALL Egyptologists believe in ramps and tombs depite the mountain of contradictory evidence. The word “ramp” isn’t even attested. Even if they were right that ramps were used this is still a CRAZY theory. Why propose something contradicted by the evidence, illogical, and grossly inefficient and then just stick to it?
The evidence and logic say they pulled stones straight up the side one step at a time. And still Egyptologists believe in stinky footed gobbledty gook spouting bumpkins! At least if confirmation bias has twisted my mind I ended up at something palatable and sensible. I wouldn’t want to wake up some day and discover my beliefs about the ancients is illegitimate, illogical, contraindicated, and paints me as the stinky footed bumpkin!
If I have to be wrong I still want the high road and not one where my ancestors were made mighty through superstition.
Otherwise I agree with you. I didn’t choose this though, it chose me. What sets this apart is simply that it seem to be at odds with everything people believe. It’s not at odds with what we know, merely what we believe. Here, too, is something that sets this apart; I didn’t have to change many of my “beliefs” to get to this point. This is because I didn’t have many beliefs other than about other people. It’s these beliefs about others that took a beating.
If I had my druthers or the means I’d have never started researching this at all.
As long as you refuse to model anything, falsify your theories, address the holes in your theories, or do any sort of critical thinking or science, what you call “evidence and logic” will remain mere supposition. That’s really all there is to it.
Yes! This is the primary reason. There are numerous other reasons as well soince Egyptologists aren’t stupid.
That the architecture “evolved” though is an exceedingly weak argument. Did they really expect stone age masons to reinvent the wheel when they started stacking one mastaba on top of another. Just because mastabas were tombs hardly means pyramids must be.
They also point at the stone box in G1 and call it a “sarcophagus” since it does have all the properties of one (other than evidence of a body). They point at canoptic jars (holders) in great pyramids and this is one of the stronger arguments but it is hardly conclusive. Even if the internal organs were kept in the pyramid they might have simply been there for the communion of the king’s ka (pyramid) and his ba (sky). Perhaps to be whole he needed his liver. The only thing I can say is what the builders actually said and how it relates to the near vacuum of evidence. I didn’t start with any notions and that the pyramid wasn’t a tomb is one of the last major discrepancies I found. The clues aren’t so very subtle but I had no reason to doubt Egyptological axioms. With the robbers’ tunnels and lack of evidence why would anyone doubt the assumption? When I put this together I researched what made Egyptologists believe they were tombs and discovered it was merely opinion that had become assumption.
But this becomes another of the many falsifiable points. We now have the technology to do microscopic forensics in the cracks in the floors. There should be ample evidence of a burial if they are right and my theory predicts different results. This work should be done no matter who is right.
There is no direct evidence they were tombs. The builders never once called the pyramids tombs. They never said anyone was buried in one.
My knowledge here is much less than some you guys. I suspect though that some species are too different when selected for their desirable characteristics or the desirable characteristic disappears altogether. If you select for tame or manageable deer you might end up with an animal that’s too small or requires excessive “husbandry”. Once they understood the theory it seems likely they tried to farm many animals and often without success.
Our agriculture is based on their successes and is the only reason the human race survived the collapse of the language so that we could eventually invent modern science.
[QUOTE=cladking]
That the architecture “evolved” though is an exceedingly weak argument. Did they really expect stone age masons to reinvent the wheel when they started stacking one mastaba on top of another. Just because mastabas were tombs hardly means pyramids must be.
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So, what you are saying here is that they Egyptians had a tradition of burying their kings and other important persons in large monumental tombs, we can see the progression of these tombs becoming larger as they stacked larger and larger numbers of mastabas on top of each other, and as they refined the technique to become closer and closer to a pyramid shape, but then they decided, out of the blue, that these weren’t going to be tombs any more when they built purpose made pyramids…but that they still built burial chambers and the like because reasons? Is that a good summary of what you are advocating? Because, frankly, it doesn’t make much sense. The Egyptians buried their kings and elite (and later, even lower ranks and even common people) in tombs before and after the pyramid building period, after all. It’s pretty clear that they believed the pyramids to be resurrection machines for their kings and that the things were heavily looted (there is tons of evidence of robbers holes in the pyramids…the same kind that are in later tombs in, say, the valley of the kings). So, most if not all of the evidence in the form of bodies and objects are missing, no doubt…but that doesn’t mean much in the context.
Well, there are the chambers, similar to those in the mastabas that we KNOW were tombs, and also similar to later tomb architecture from later periods. So, it’s a bit puzzling why the Egyptians would stop, only during this period, to use their monumental architecture as tombs for their kings when they built all of the same sorts of internal infrastructure to MAKE them tombs. Also, since I don’t think much, if any writings from the actual pyramid builders age remains, it’s silly to say they didn’t call them tombs…they didn’t call them anything at all, since we don’t have written evidence of what they DID think they were. Or, to put it another way, they didn’t not call them tombs, and, frankly, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably not a lion.
As for no one being buried in one, since, as noted, they were heavily looted, we don’t know exactly what was in them.
And yet your conclusions have demonstrated neither facts nor logic, and your definitions are unique to your narrative. Logic is not the process of ruminating on definitions until they makes sense to you. Facts are not the conclusions reached by such obsessive rumination.
Third base!
Just one quick note before I can get back.
You’re right that there isn’t a lot of writing but they had ample opportunity to call them tombs. Khufu’s brother is buried right next to G1 and an inscription said not that he wanted to be buried next to the tomb or next to his brother but that he wanted to be buried next to his brother’s pyramid. This same thing is repeated in at least a dozen ways. These weren’t called things like the “tomb of Khufu” but they were called things like “Khufu’s Horizon” which is the name of this pyramid. In every single case the words match my theory and not Egyptological assumptions.
There is physical evidence to suggest that thesewere not intended for burial since a sealed sarcophagus was pulled from a minor pyramid of the era and found to be empty. One of the stories of Mamuum’s raid of G1 says the sarcophagus was sealed and found empty. There is no evidence there was ever a burial in any great pyramid.
Even if this were true, it is not proof that the pyramids were not intended as tombs.
I am afraid that it is much, much worse that-You have anti-knowledge. You have actively rejected actual knowledge in favor of feelings and unsupported “gut” instinct, and have gotten yourself so intellectually invested in your pet idea that you cannot entertain the thought that anyone else in the world but you could possibly be correct, turning all who actually study and work at Egyptology for a living into cartoon caricatures with one mind who utter simplistic stock phrases all the time.
I’m probably sounding like a broken record at this point, but do you have a cite for, well, any of this? My understanding is that most of the inscriptions on or around the pyramids were from later periods, and I seem to recall that there is controversy over the ‘Horizon’ pictogram…and that, again, it’s ascribed to a later period (from memory, the pictogram shows the sun rising between two mountains, thought to represent pyramids on the Giza plateau…but, of course, there wouldn’t have been two such pyramids when Khufu was building his ‘Horizon’).
None of this means that they weren’t tombs, of course, since it is, again, YOUR interpretation of other peoples translations, but I want to see if, just once you will provide a cite to backup your assertions. I’m not holding my breath of course…
Because the context of the PT makes only sense if it related to what to say before going to rule in the underworld, also that the Pyramids are next to a necropolis, with many tombs of the overseers of the pyramids. And there is other evidence too. And also, (related to your silly idea) there is only enough [del]Alka Seltzer[/del] natron to only make sense in the context of an embalming or purification rite for one person alone. Not a deluge as you imagine.
The Great Pyramid: Ancient Egypt Revisited
By John Romer
QFT
Indeed; the much referenced Houdin, for example, is willing to test his theory. And he got this far thanks to very simple models that convinced a few archeology and Egyptology experts. And then more experts of physical models then were interested to make more advanced models with physics added.
**cladking **even fails at the first step. And then like the Nowhere man, there is no way to lose as there is no way to falsify that he believes.
Well, actually there is a constant losing of any interest coming from any respected researcher towards that watery idea.
Well, mebbe. But on the other hand, those objections can be leveled at alpacas, one of the very few non-Eurasian domesticated species. I’d guess the territorial breeding is the biggest drawback to domesticating deer; if we could tame them, we could breed for milk and meat. We have domesticated one species of deer: reindeer. ('Course, we needed Santa to do it…:D)
Uhm… Alpacas provide wool and they can carry burdens.
Karibu carry burden too. The Saami even ride them.
Precisely why, in the absence of horses or donkeys, they were domesticated.
Deer do not produce enough milk. It would have taken generations upon generation of selective breeding stock that would provide enough milk.
That was not worth the trouble, as the first farmers that appeared in the west, already had sheep and goats. Cattle and pigs were, as you say, easier to keep inside penns.
I think it would be possible to domesticate deer. It’s just not woth the effort.
Am I misremembering, or don’t they have domestic deer farms on New Zealand? Not that this seems to have much to do with pyramids and how they were built, but what the hell. 
Red deer, yeah. Well, farms certainly, although IIRC there is some question about whether or not they are “truly” domesticated.
Reindeer in [del]Europe[/del] Scandanavia probably qualify as fully domesticated, I think.
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Sure…plus that ability to fly and have glowing red noses definitely comes in handy, making them very useful domestic animals. 