Giza

[marduk]

One symbol seems Sumerian

no it doesn't

this is cuneiform

this is the Giza inscription
its gibberish which is why no one knows what it means
any language that used symbols like these would be well known and easily readable
and none do
probably some college kids idea of a prank

[Beagle]

http://www.book-of-thoth.com/article1617.html

But, as the story goes, there was no booty; apparently this most ancient and precious of cupboards was absolutely bare. There were not only no burial artifacts, but no burial and no inscriptions either! The first thought to cross the mind of the Caliph must have been that the ‘tomb’ had been robbed, but how? Even if the secret ‘Well Shaft’ deep inside the pyramid had been found at this stage, it is hardly a suitable tunnel through which to strip a wealthy burial chamber totally bare. So where was all the loot? The Caliph and his excavators must have not only been very exasperated, after all their work, but mystified too.


Here's a great little piece of speculation. They could be right too.

[stan]

Did you guys read Michelle's post the other day about the fate of the
quarries we've been discussing? It was pretty detailed.
I wondered why the quarries didn't fill up with sand...

[Beagle]

I may have missed it Stan. Remember where it's at?

[Minimalist]

Did you guys read Michelle's post the other day about the fate of the
quarries we've been discussing? It was pretty detailed.
I wondered why the quarries didn't fill up with sand...

Apparently they did....Lehner seems to have excavated them as far as I can tell from this.

http://guardians.net/hawass/pbuildrs.htm

II. The Location of the Quarry.

The search for the location of ramps and quarries must include surveys of all four sides of the respective pyramids. Lehner located the quarry of Khufu's pyramid to the South side of the pyramid base, and South of the causeway of Khafre.15
The South side of Khufu's pyramid should be the only side which could contain the quarry and the ramp. The East side is not suitable as the tombs located there were built in year twelve of Khufu's reign. The location of these tombs is cause enough to realize that blocks from the quarry could not be dragged through this area since it is known that pyramid construction began before and ended after the year twelve of Khufu's reign.

[Tech]

Beagle
Your point that nothing at all was found is one I have never heard a reasonable explanation for , It obviously wasnt robbed as that would have left evidence . If there was nothing in there why did they go to all the effort of sealing it ? It doesnt make any sense . There must have been some reason to put that amount of work in .

[Minimalist]

If there was nothing in there why did they go to all the effort of sealing it ?

Why go through all the effort of building it in the first place?

[Tech]

Still on the subject of the great pyramid , I noticed nobody mentioned its dimensions . Maybe its fringe stuff and nobody wants labeled a kook (which I would like to avoid) but from what I can find Egyptians are thought to have been exceedingly backward in astrology, their meteorology and division of the seasons in their system has convinced researchers that no true system of cosmology could have originated among them. These researchers indicate that Egyptian astronomy was primitive . Cosidering this the following dimensions seem a bit advanced for them

The base unit of measurement in the Pyramid's is 25.052 inches. The Pryamid's inch is 1.0025 of our regular inch. Each side of its base is 365.2422 cubits, which is the exact number of days in a solar year. Now 365.24 cubits occur five or six times somewhere within the pyramid that shows it was not a coincidence.

The Pyramid's perimeter, the distance around the four sides of the base, correlates with the circumference of the earth.

According to Professor Piazzi Smyth, multiplying the height of the Pyramid's 35th layer by 10 derives the distance of the earth from the sun.

The base unit of measurement used by the Pyramid designer is ten-millionth of the earth's polar radius, according Peter Lemeisuier. Simply put it is one ten millionth the distance from the North Pole to equator.

The number of days in a century (100 years) is 36,524 days and corresponds to the total inches valued in the Pyramid's perimeter.

The number Pi is the mathematical constant 3.1415, with the ratio of the diameter to the distance around the circle, called the circumference. In the pyramid it is the ratio of the height to twice the length of the base.

So without joining the von daniken club , any thoughts ?

[Tech]

We had a debate earlier about how the blocks could have been moved and many theories were put forward , but another point that was missed completly was that though The Great Pyramid is constructed with approximately 2,300,000 limestone and granite blocks. Weighing between 2.5 and 50 tons each, these stone blocks had to be quarried from the earth. Thats our first problem. In the Cairo museum thay have several examples of simple copper and bronze saws, which Egyptologists claim are like those utilized in the cutting and shaping of the pyramid blocks. These tools are a problem. On the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, copper and bronze have a hardness of 3.5 to 4, while limestone has a hardness of 4 to 5 and granite of 5 to 6. The known tools would only barely cut through limestone and would be useless with granite. No archaeological examples of iron tools are found in early dynastic Egypt, but even if they were, the best steels today have a hardness of only 5.5 and are inefficient for cutting granite. Some years ago Sir Flinders Petrie, one of the "fathers" of Egyptology proposed that the pyramid blocks had been cut with long saw blades studded with diamonds or corundum. But this idea has problems too. The cutting of millions of blocks would require millions of rare and expensive diamonds and corundum, which constantly wear out and require replacement. It has been suggested that the limestone blocks were somehow cut with solutions of citric acid or vinegar, yet these very slow-acting agents leave the surface of the limestone pitted and rough, unlike the beautifully smooth surface found on the casing stones, and these agents are completely useless for the cutting of granite. The truth is, we have no idea how the blocks were actually quarried.

Next we come to another problem, that of the fashioning and placement of the highly polished limestone casing stones that covered the entire pyramid. The finished pyramid contained approximately 115,000 of these stones, each weighing ten tons or more. These stones were dressed on all six of their sides, not just the side exposed to the visible surface, to tolerances of .01 inch. They are set together so closely that a thin razor blade cannot be inserted between the stones. Egyptologist Petrie expressed his astonishment of this feat by writing, "Merely to place such stones in exact contact would be careful work, but to do so with cement in the joint seems almost impossible; it is to be compared to the finest opticians' work on the scale of acres."

As for inscriptions on the outside, Herodotus, visiting in the fifth century BC, reported that inscriptions of strange characters were to be found on the pyramid's casing stones. In AD 1179 the Arab historian Abd el Latif recorded that these inscriptions were so numerous that they could have filled "more than ten thousand written pages." William of Baldensal, a European visitor of the early fourteenth century, tells how the stones were covered with strange symbols arranged in careful rows. Sadly, in 1356, following an earthquake that leveled Cairo, the Arabs robbed the pyramid of its casing of stones to rebuild mosques and fortresses in the city. As the stones were cut into smaller pieces and reshaped, all traces of the ancient inscriptions were removed from them.

[stan]

numerology....

I am very sceptical of the astronomical relevance of the great pyramid's dimensions. When you start measuring things, you have to have a unit of measurement...inch, centimeter, cubit, etc. in order to get numbers...unless you use ratios, which is something very different
I know people have supposedly figured this out...but it seems implausible to me.

Anybody else?

[Tech]

Truthfully stan I have no Idea about astronomy thats why I left the question open ,math I understand thats why I found it interesting

[oldarchystudent]

numerology....

I am very sceptical of the astronomical relevance of the great pyramid's dimensions. When you start measuring things, you have to have a unit of measurement...inch, centimeter, cubit, etc. in order to get numbers...unless you use ratios, which is something very different
I know people have supposedly figured this out...but it seems implausible to me.

Anybody else?

I have read dis-proofs of all the mathematical statements made about the pyramids (can't recall where - but I remember John romer describing the proponents as "pyramididiots" - no offense intended to anyone here). It's easy to make things seem mysterious by quoting some mathematical formulae. Problem is most of them are bogus.

Jim

[Minimalist]

You know, I've noted that very technique myself, OAS (I hope you don't mind the abbreviation.....oldarchystudent is just too damn long to write out everytime.)

It amounts to scientific swiftboating. Attack the person with slanders and cutesy names (pyramidiots) but as far as actually dealing with the issue at hand....eh...not so much. There was a denunciation of a guy by the name of Sitchin which spent an awful lot of time ranting and raving about how Sitchin believed in aliens and Atlantis but never really explained why Sitchin was wrong about Howard Vyse's graffiti in the Great Pyramid.

Whenever someone starts off a "de-bunking" exercise by doing that he now loses all credibility in my book.

[Minimalist]

Tech, the Egyptology Club tells us that in addition to a veritable army of stone carvers there was another veritable army of tool sharpeners and probably a third army of "tool collectors" running back and forth picking up the worn ones and delivering the sharpened ones...

Egypt would have had a great 4x440 relay team back then, I imagine.

[oldarchystudent]

You know, I've noted that very technique myself, OAS (I hope you don't mind the abbreviation.....oldarchystudent is just too damn long to write out everytime.)

It amounts to scientific swiftboating. Attack the person with slanders and cutesy names (pyramidiots) but as far as actually dealing with the issue at hand....eh...not so much. There was a denunciation of a guy by the name of Sitchin which spent an awful lot of time ranting and raving about how Sitchin believed in aliens and Atlantis but never really explained why Sitchin was wrong about Howard Vyse's graffiti in the Great Pyramid.

Whenever someone starts off a "de-bunking" exercise by doing that he now loses all credibility in my book.

OAS is fine!

I am heading out right now but I'll see if I can find the proofs. Essentially it was statements like "this formula doesn't work - that one is incorrect" etc. If I can find it I'll post it. Romer was also talking about people who believed that pyramids sharpen razors....