The Old World is a reference to those parts of Earth known to Europeans before the voyages of Christopher Columbus; it includes Europe, Asia and Africa.
Like, you know, when you beach a boat, it usually rides right up out of the water
Yes. Although a properly designed boat is designed to float....whereas a perfectly designed rock is designed to sink.
Again, I'll repeat my comments....most of the methods mentioned for moving stones would probably work to one degree or another. The question is could any of them work well enough to build something the size of the GP in 20 years?
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Like, you know, when you beach a boat, it usually rides right up out of the water
Yes. Although a properly designed boat is designed to float....whereas a perfectly designed rock is designed to sink.
Again, I'll repeat my comments....most of the methods mentioned for moving stones would probably work to one degree or another. The question is could any of them work well enough to build something the size of the GP in 20 years?
Probably not. Maybe they could if they got into a rythym and got very proficient at it. Construction can speed up as things become more familiar. I still say the 20 year figure is just a guess. There is no written record of how long it took except by authors hundreds of years after the fact. I'm almost positive that Khufu died before his pyramid was finished so the length of his reign means nothing. That's why there are 3 chambers. He was placed in them as they were finished.
National Geo has a special on tonight about building the pyramids.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Hmmm....well, as I watched it I jotted down a few notes. These are in BOLD after the description of the issue at hand.
1- (On the concept of aligning the pyramid to true north within less than 1/3 of a degree by use of hand held plumbs and the human eye.)
An astonishing assumption about the alignment....instead of simply saying it, why not demonstrate the method and have their work checked by modern methods?
2- (On the concept of levelling the site of the pyramid with a water channel and copper chisels.) How many generations to level that site by hand with chisels?
3- (An ancient tool expert shows that a small copper chisel could chip limestone. He also shows a toothless 'saw' cutting granite with sand as a grinding agent. Both blocks on which the demonstration was performed were already cut and shaped. No discussion at all of how the blocks were cut out of the quarries.) Quite a leap of faith in the cutting of limestone and granite and the process seems damned slow.
4- (On the ramps.) Lehner is being honest about the ramps - he said no one knows.
5- (re-iterated that the pyramid of Khufu was completed within his 23 year reign.) I thought Kat said that Lehner thought that Khufu reigned longer than that?
6- (Stressed that Egyptians built 17 major pyramids) Failed to mention that most of them have been reduced to rubble.
7- (Zahi Hawass stood at a worker's tomb and proclaimed that the pyramid builders could not have been slaves because slaves would not have been given such burials. The tomb was clearly decorated with hieroglyphs.) How come the burials of workers have hieroglyphs but the pharoah's burial chamber is completely barren?
8- (Hawass proclaimed that he and Lehner had found the camp of the workers who built the pyramid. Lehner notes, probably quite correctly, that few cities in 2500 BC would have had populations of 20,000.) They may be right but they presented no evidence that the people who lived in this camp built the pyramid. They could have been building other structures or it could have been a military encampment for all the evidence they presented.
9- (They made it clear that the skilled workers lived in their camp but the conscripts who were brought in to pull the rocks lived elsewhere.) Where would they have lived? They had to be as close to the work site as possible just for logistical considerations.
10- Too much religious crap - not enough about the construction.
11- Overall impression. Disappointing.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
They claim that it was a "stylistic decision" to leave the greatest monument in human history as bare as a train tunnel.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Beagle wrote:#7 is a huge question. I don't think I've ever heard Zahi or anyone try to answer it.
A little more on the issue, Beags.
The Pyramid at Medum (c. 2686-2613 BC)
The Pyramid at Medum was originally built as a step pyramid about 94 m (398 ft) high. In the 4th dynasty, under Snefru (fl. 2600 BC), it was converted into a true pyramid by filling in its angles and casing it with limestone. The casing later collapsed, so that the pyramid today resembles a huge, squat tower. Early 4th-dynasty tombs north of the pyramid contained fine examples of Egyptian painting, notably the mural known as the "Medum Geese."
Geese
Painted plaster. Old Kingdom
Egyptian Museum, Cairo.
Right half of a 4th Dynasty panel from the tomb of Itet at Medum (c. 2560 BC). The geese, with their brightly colored markings, stand out vividly against a neutral background.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
And as long as I am on the subject, here is an interactive web site which shows the rest of the paintings and hieroglyphs at the tomb of Nefermaat and his wife Itet (Atet?). The geese picture is certainly not unique.
Information about Nefermaat is to be found in hieroglyphs on the panel of his false door.
Many of his titles are here mentioned.
Thus we are being asked to believe that lower-level officials and their wives get beautifully decorated tombs but the King of Kings is planted in a dull, gray, utilitarian-at-best, space, with no mention made of his deeds?
It does not make sense.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
About twentyfive tombs contained a stone slab (more than the double had an emplacement for that): Z.Saad called them 'ceiling stelae' and they are of Second Dynasty date (sadly almost all of them were excavated in the poorly published last six years excavations; see bibliography below; cfr. Vandier loc.cit.supra).
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
They claim that it was a "stylistic decision" to leave the greatest monument in human history as bare as a train tunnel.
Who would say such a silly-ass thing? I've been aware of the question for a long time but I never heard of that answer. Was it Zahi?
Um....Kat posted this about page 9 of this very thread. The first line was my comment which she quoted.
Quote:
Undecorated, without any evidence of a burial and with no treasure or ancient wisdom....which Ma'mun claimed to be more interested in than 'treasure'
Undecorated btw seems to be the norm at this point in pyramid construction. It wasn't until Unas in the Vth Dynasty that we see the PT's on the walls for example.
As for Ma'mun there are conflicting stories ... I'll try to find in the Ma'at archives this information for you.
She doesn't say who she is citing but you will see that Hancock discusses this point in FOTG when you get to it.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
That "stylistic decision" answer has the feel of one of those ad hoc explanations that people come up with when the evidence does not fit their pet theory.
There is a well known discrepancy in the gospels of Matthew and Luke in which one of them says that Jesus was born when Herod was king and the other says that Jesus was born when Quirinius was governor of Syria and took a census. Since Herod died around 4 BC and Quirinius was governor in 6 AD there is thus at least a 10 year difference. To overcome that obvious gap (and, preserve the story of the Slaughter of the Innocents) which was ordered by Herod, allegedly, some christian apologists have simply declared that Quirinius was governor of Syria twice. There is no truth to the tale and we know from Roman sources who was governor of what and when they did it, but the story is simply accepted inspite of the fact that no one ever governed the same province twice in all of Roman colonial history. But, it preserves their little gospels without too much thinking which might lead to the discovery that the damn things were simply works of fiction that were written nearly one hundred years after the fact.
In such a way this 'undecorated' tomb stuff flies in the face of logic when tombs of lesser nobles are decorated but the pharoah's are not.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Frank Harrist wrote: "I was a simple guy and didn't want any decoration."
Maybe.
Perhaps after spending 20 years and using 6 million tons of stone to build his tomb he didn't want to seem 'ostentatious?'
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
"I was a simple guy and didn't want any decoration."