Giza

[Minimalist]

THey loaded the barge enough to push it down to the water line, not to sink it!

Did you read the page from catchpenny?

So they sank a heavy barge to the water line, moved a heavy obelisk on it and......what? The obelisk weighed nothing so it continued to float?

Perhaps they had gangs ready to push the ballast stones overboard as soon as the obelisk was on the way down?

Casualties must have been high.

[tj]

According to some authorities, it was carried downstream by the engineer Satyrus on a raft; but according to Callixenus, it was conveyed by Phoenix, who by digging a canal brought the waters of the Nile right up to the place where the obelisk lay. Two very broad ships were loaded with cubes of the same granite as that of the obelisk, each cube measuring one foot, until calculations showed that the total weight of the blocks was double that of the obelisk, since their total cubic capacity was twice as great. In this way, the ships were able to come beneath the obelisk, which was suspended by its ends from both banks of the canal. The blocks were unloaded and the ships, riding high, took the weight of the obelisk.

Come beneath the obelisk? How did they get the obelisk to span the canal? And how did they prevent the obelisk from breaking under its own weight across that span? Forgive me if these questions are foolish, I've been into the Brazilian rum tonight.

[Minimalist]

How did they get the obelisk to span the canal?

Oh, that's easy...they laid the obelisk down and then dug the canal under it.

All this reminds me of one of Murphy's Laws:

Everything is easy for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.

(I used to work for one of those clowns.)

[Katherine Reece]

This all changed around 2630 BC with the erection of the step pyramid.

Assuming that is correct....it would not be hundreds and hundreds of years to the GP...and again, the Step Pyramid (as well as Sneferu's work, seem to be built of much more manageable sized stones.

I never said it was hundreds of years between the Step Pyramid and the GP ... I said they had worked and moved stone for hundreds of years before the GP. I've given you two examples already that were long before the Step.

[Minimalist]

I did a little checking and there is suprisingly little agreement about the span of time between Zoser and Khufu. The last site I saw said about 150 years but I won't quibble. Let's say two hundred years which gives you 2 x hundreds. Close enough for government work even in Egyptian times.

There is still a magnitude of scale between the size of both Zoser's tomb and Sneferu's tombs and the Giza Pyramids (except for the 3'd one) as well as an apparent discrepancy between the size of the individual stones used in construction.


But let's forget all that for the moment shall we and purely for the sake of argument let's accept your premise that this culture retained all the knowledge from its past and built on it.

We have the Step Pyramid (primitive compared to the GP) and Sneferu's Red Pyramid and Bent Pyramid ( which could have been designed by FEMA in modern times) and then the Meidun thing which may or may not be his. From there, almost by magic, the Egyptians produce three perfect pyramids two of which are on a scale which still boggles the mind (and, in all honesty, tempts people to speculate on how the hell they did it.)

Then comes the 5th Dynasty.

Userkaf

This ruined pile lifes to the northeast of the Step Pyramid and it little more than a pile of stone. We snapped this picture while walking to the complex of Saqqara.

However, it is a fairly important monument, marking the return of the pharaohs to Saqqara as a burial place. Userkaf, the first king of the fifth dynasty, built his pyramid here close to the step pyramid. In fact, it is exactly located at the northeast corner of the complex of Djoser.

This was a small pyramid to begin with, and it has collapsed even more with the inevitable plundering of its fine limestone casing. The interior blocks are left in a rough pile, and appear to be uneven, thin slabs of limestone stacked into roughly pyramidal shape.

Sahure:



Neferirkara:




(Almost looks like they were reverting to a Step Pyramid there, doesn't it?)

Niuserre:

Niuserre's pyramid is in no better repair than the others at Abu Sir. It is swashed into the space between Sahure's Pyramid and Neferirkare's Pyramid, even to the point that the temple and portico are a strange l-shape, to avoid mastabas that were in place, and to allow NIuserre to usurp the valley temple foundations of this father, Neferefre. The causeway is the most complete on the site, however.

Apparently, they couldn't get a better shot of this one because the area is now a military reservation or something.

Neferefre:





Menkaukor



There is that damned step pyramid 'echo' again!

Djedkare:



and, last but not least...

Unas:




Now, it could just be my imagination but it sure as hell looks as if the Egyptians lost the secret for building pyramids as quickly as they learned it.

In fact, and this is not my observation, I read it somewhere but I certainly agree with it. Judging by the remains it seems fair to draw this analogy. Egyptian pyramid-building artistry seems to have gone from producing a Ford Model A (Zoser) to a Ford Model T (Sneferu) to a Ferrari 360 Modena (Giza) and then reverted to horse and buggy, (the 5th Dynasty wrecks.)

I am sure as I'm sitting here that the Egyptology Club has a simple answer for this apparent disparity...but you know what H.L. Mencken said about simple answers.

[Katherine Reece]

Yes there's an answer, I'll tell it even though from your previous postings you aren't likely to even take it into consideration as you seem to enjoy the ranting and raving against the "Egyptology club."

The answer lays in the writings of German archaeologists who studied the engineering principles behind the pyramids. A friend of mine, whose pages I've linked to before, has a library the size of most people's houses and he provided the answer.

Some of those destroyed pyramids you're showing that post-date Khufu were actually an engineering step ahead. In those the "skeleton" or supporting framework was actually the limestone casings. Once those were stripped away the support was gone and they became the mess you see today.

As far as the huge leap ahead that Khufu's pyramid represents. It was a huge leap ahead and every Egyptologist I've read on pyramid construction recognizes this. Throughout history huge leaps have been made by the genius of one man (consider the stuff da Vinci was doing in his time). Hemiunu was Sneferu’s grandson and Khufu’s nephew. He was also Khufu’s vizer and was in charge of building all the “king’s works.” Most Egyptologists believe he was the architect of the GP. He grew up in a pyramid building family and quite likely was visiting pyramid construction sites since he was a child. You can rest assured that part of his education included the engineering, organization, and construction of pyramids.

By the way you have Djedefre in your list there. Are you not aware he was Pharaoh after Khufu? For whatever reason he chose to build his pyramid elsewhere, however he died before it was completed and so like Sekhemkhet’s years before they left it as a truncated pyramid. Khafre became King next and returned the pyramid building to Giza. So using his pyramid as an example of how Egyptians “forgot” how to build pyramids after the 4th dynasty is a bit .. well. … wrong!

[Katherine Reece]

By the by ... starting this afternoon over the next week I won't be able to post as frequently ... the light of my life ... the most gorgeous and intelligent child in the world ... a stunning beauty of a child in both face, spirit and soul.... my granddaughter Anna! is coming to stay with Grandma for a week...

I'll catch up on things as I can ... but she's three and a bit of a handful... someone I suspect is spoiling her .... I can't imagine who that would be.

[Minimalist]

Are you not aware he was Pharaoh after Khufu?

They were all pharoahs after Khufu....that's the point. Again, I did not create the list of 5th Dynasty Pharoahs. I just went down it and found photos of their (now ruined) pyramids.

PS...Leonardo may have been a visionary thinker but few of his designs were ever built.

He was a pretty good painter, however.

[Katherine Reece]

I just went back and looked at the list again .... it was Djedkare not Djedefre on that page.

That's what happens when I scan too quickly!
However my comments regarding the skeleton of the pyramid holds.

[Minimalist]

it was Djedkare not Djedefre

Don't you just hate it when they make them that similar?



I have to think about the implications for that theory. Offhand, something doesn't sound kosher.

[Katherine Reece]

Yeah ... these Djed guys just wanting to sound like their strong ...lol...

That's the most I can tell you on the external skeleton .... you'd have to ask Frank Dorenburg for more information. I haven't read the german archaeologists reports that he has. Unfortunately right now I can't even refer you to the post he made at Ma'at concerning this.

This MySql servers have been tossing their lunch on the size of the tables at my website and we had to cut them in half until our technical guru gets off the road and can break the tables down into a more managable size. This means that any post made before sometime in 2003 is not accessible at this time, we have them saved, we just have to do some restructuring. Don should be taking care of that sometime this month. You can either wait for that or go to Ma'at and post asking about it .... there's no registration required btw.

[Minimalist]

I already belong to six message boards....I don't think I can handle another.

Thanks for the invite, though.

[Katherine Reece]

I'll see if I can get the info from him...

[stan]

Minimalist wrote

So they sank a heavy barge to the water line, moved a heavy obelisk on it and......what? The obelisk weighed nothing so it continued to float?

No, Bob. I don't think you read the description offered on the catchpenny page.

[Minimalist]

Okay, Stan, at your insistence I went back and read it. There are an awful lot of unsubstantiated statements there....and moving the lighthouse is apples and oranges compared to lifting an enormous weight up in the air, but let's stick to the boat.

First off, they seem to be quoting ancient sources for that one (I couldn't tell if it were Herodotus or someone else because it was poorly written.)

Herodotus claimed 100,000 slaves for 20 years but Egyptologists reject that but they accept this? It is the same kind of picking and choosing that I blast arch for doing.

Hancock catalogued some 30 different theories for pyramid construction. I'm sure each looked good on paper and compelling arguments can be made. Yet, when a Japanese team tried in the late 70's to build a 60 foot replica of the GP using 'ancient methods' they failed totally. Perhaps they should try one of the other 29 methods?

BTW, it seems very hard to find references to that Nissan-funded Japanese experiment. Perhaps old Zahi and his pal Lehner don't like embarassing failures?

Granted that last bit was gratuitous but they are the defenders of the faith, here.