Ancient Civilizations

[Riders]

Egypt controlled Sinai and Canaan.. I think it was envy..

The Egyptian Empire rose during the period of the New Kingdom (c. 1570- c. 1069 BCE), when the country reached its height of wealth, international prestige, and military might.

The empire stretched from modern-day Syria in the north to modern-day Sudan in the south and from the region of Jordan in the east to Libya in the west.

Thanks for the info.

 

[sooda]

 

[gnostic]

You do realize that all the "true pyramids" as you call them are actually five steps underneath. There is no reason to call any of these steps a mastaba and it's illogical to build these steps if they are just going to be hidden. But obviously they were necessary to construction.

A pyramid is neither a "mastaba" nor a "tomb" as far as is actually evidenced. Indeed, Snefru built three of these pyramid/ tombs or fifteen "mastabas if you insist on calling them stacked tombs.

Current beliefs are unevidenced, untenable, and illogical. We'll never understand ancient civilizations if we don't understand ourselves and how we form our beliefs.

Yes! Mastabas were tombs.

There is no direct evidence any great pyramid was a tomb. There is no logic to explain how a mastaba could become a pyramid, why a king needed a pile of mastabas, or why pyramids would be built as a pile of tombs. It's illogic that has become repeated so many times that people think it sounds natural. Pyramids were tombs built for 3000 years by highly superstitious people with ramps. None of these assumptions is correct and "archaeological evidence" is word play and semantics.

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I agree.

And that first great pyramid probably really did start out as a mastaba.

It seems obvious some technological breakthrough allowed them to convert it into a "step pyramid".

There are several misconceptions that you have, that we need to dispel here, cladking.

First, there are only one “great pyramid”, Khufu’s pyramid. It is a modern name, to referred to with prefix “Great”, hence the “Great Pyramid”.

The “true pyramid”, always started as a “step pyramid”, but from Sneferu onward, Egyptians began adding limestone cladding or casing to the step pyramids give a more smooth finishing look. These claddings often wore away, due to centuries of wind and rain.

The ancient Egyptians never referred to the pyramids as “step”, “bent”, “true” or “great” pyramids. They were all referred to as “pyramid” regardless of their actual shapes or colours (like Sneferu’s “Red Pyramid”).

All those superfluous prefixes are modern naming conventions of how we view these pyramids, based on their shapes, size or colours.

Second, you keep telling us the pyramids are not tombs, then what is it?

It isn’t a palace, because the corridors and shafts, are too narrow, and the chambers, which there aren’t many of them in each, are too small to serve as throne room.

It isn’t a temple, since to date, no altars were found in any of the main chambers. And beside that most pyramids already have funerary or mortuary temples outside of the main structure of each pyramid.

It isn’t a grain-house to store grains or other supplies, since they were very costly to built, and as I said earlier, the rooms are too small to be useful to store food supplies.

And isn’t a beacon for extraterrestrial vessels. The notions that the Egyptians built it to contact aliens or that aliens built these pyramids, are just New Age conspiracy theories BS.

And if pyramids were palaces or temples, then why they were sealed off?

Third, some of the pyramids still have sarcophagi, in their chambers, while other pyramids have missing sarcophagi, which would suggest robbery.

Many tombs were robbed, whether they be pyramids or mastabas, and their are signs or evidences that grave robbers have broken into these tombs.

Fourth, these pyramids were built in necropolis, along with other mastabas and cemeteries, like those in Saqqara, Dahshur, Giza and other necropolis in Egypt.

The mortuary temples found outside of mastabas and pyramids are also indication they were temples for the deceased. Of course, not every pyramids, eg the smaller queens’ pyramids and pyramids for some rich nobles, have mortuary temples.

And then there are boat pits, outside most kings’ pyramids.

Why do they bury boats or ships or barques next to the pyramids?

According to Egyptian myths in the Old Kingdom period (3rd to 6th dynasties), the pyramid and mastaba were supposed to represent the first mound or dry land that Ra or Atum created from the primordial ocean, Nu. Ra required a boat or two (solar barque, and the barque he required to sail the Underworld), in which he required a crew to man his vessel.

The members crew were not only gods like Horus, Seth, Thoth, Wadjet, etc, but also included other deceased rulers.

Boat pits and a barque was found at the foot of Khufu’s pyramid, as well as that of the pyramid of Khafre, the 2nd largest pyramid in the Giza complex.

Clearly, the pyramids and boats were meant to represent Ra’s mound and solar barque, which the kings would enjoy their afterlife, sort of like deceased brave warriors in Odin’s Valhalla, before they were meant to join the gods at foretold Ragnarok.

 

[cladking]

First, there are only one “great pyramid”, Khufu’s pyramid. It is a modern name, to referred to with prefix “Great”, hence the “Great Pyramid”.

I don't do word games. The masonry pyramids over 200' tall are great pyramids. The tiny little piles of rubble that were built later that Egypt Egyptologists call "pyramids" are NOT great pyramids.

The “true pyramid”, always started as a “step pyramid”, but from Sneferu onward, Egyptians began adding limestone cladding or casing to the step pyramids give a more smooth finishing look. These claddings often wore away, due to centuries of wind and rain.

This looks like another word game. All the great pyramids are five steps. Address this point please.

The ancient Egyptians never referred to the pyramids as “step”, “bent”, “true” or “great” pyramids. They were all referred to as “pyramid” regardless of their actual shapes or colours (like Sneferu’s “Red Pyramid”).

Even if you were right it is irrelevant what the Egyptians called them. We are speaking English.

Second, you keep telling us the pyramids are not tombs, then what is it?

I believe they were chiefly mnemonics to remember the king. The closest word in English is "cenotaph" but this doesn't represent what the builders were thinking.

And beside that most pyramids already have funerary or mortuary temples outside of the main structure of each pyramid.

There is no evidence there were "temples" outside the pyramids. This is an assumption.

And if pyramids were palaces or temples, then why they were sealed off?

In what way do you believe they were "sealed off"? They were surrounded by a dam but this dam was in no way "sealed".

Third, some of the pyramids still have sarcophagi, in their chambers,...

Without any evidence of any sort anyone was buried in a great pyramid these are merely stone boxes.

Many tombs were robbed, whether they be pyramids or mastabas, and their are signs or evidences that grave robbers have broken into these tombs.

Tunnels only prove someone came in. Not that something went out. I'd remind you the only recorded breech found no body.

Fourth, these pyramids were built in necropolis, along with other mastabas and cemeteries, like those in Saqqara, Dahshur, Giza and other necropolis in Egypt.

They are surrounded by graves just like country churches.

The mortuary temples found outside of mastabas and pyramids are also indication they were temples for the deceased. Of course, not every pyramids, eg the smaller queens’ pyramids and pyramids for some rich nobles, have mortuary temples.

There is no evidence of a "mortuary temple". These are mere words.

And then there are boat pits, outside most kings’ pyramids.

And no one knows what they were for.

According to Egyptian myths in the Old Kingdom period (3rd to 6th dynasties), the pyramid and mastaba were supposed to represent the first mound or dry land that Ra or Atum created from the primordial ocean, Nu. Ra required a boat or two (solar barque, and the barque he required to sail the Underworld), in which he required a crew to man his vessel.

This is interpretation. It's not what they said.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Carbon dating is only part of what they use to date something.. Strata and what is found with the object is also evaluated.

Carbon dating is a very reliable method of dating. It is only rejected or maligned by creationists. Ironically, because it is so reliable.

 

[sooda]

Carbon dating is a very reliable method of dating. It is only rejected or maligned by creationists. Ironically, because it is so reliable.

I know.. Its hopeless to try and convince them. I find them so tiresome. I just don't see how an adult wouldn't question the fairy tales. Does any child really take Pinocchio and Gepetto seriously?

 

[sooda]

I don't do word games. The masonry pyramids over 200' tall are great pyramids. The tiny little piles of rubble that were built later that Egypt Egyptologists call "pyramids" are NOT great pyramids.



This looks like another word game. All the great pyramids are five steps. Address this point please.



Even if you were right it is irrelevant what the Egyptians called them. We are speaking English.



I believe they were chiefly mnemonics to remember the king. The closest word in English is "cenotaph" but this doesn't represent what the builders were thinking.



There is no evidence there were "temples" outside the pyramids. This is an assumption.



In what way do you believe they were "sealed off"? They were surrounded by a dam but this dam was in no way "sealed".



Without any evidence of any sort anyone was buried in a great pyramid these are merely stone boxes.



Tunnels only prove someone came in. Not that something went out. I'd remind you the only recorded breech found no body.



They are surrounded by graves just like country churches.



There is no evidence of a "mortuary temple". These are mere words.



And no one knows what they were for.



This is interpretation. It's not what they said.

More Than 800 Ancient Egyptian Tombs Mapped in Lisht ...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/09/news-800...
Sep 11, 2018 · Located at the edge of the Sahara, the ancient cemetery is no secret; today, a pair of pyramids rises above the landscape in the north and south of the burial grounds.

 

[gnostic]

Lastly, cladking.

There is no logic to explain how a mastaba could become a pyramid, why a king needed a pile of mastabas, or why pyramids would be built as a pile of tombs.

The step pyramid looked like mastabas being piled on top of each other, but it is just one tomb, not “pile of tombs”.

Each pyramid, whether it be step or true, is a single tomb, not multiple tombs stack on top of each other.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I know.. Its hopeless to try and convince them. I find them so tiresome. I just don't see how an adult wouldn't question the fairy tales. Does any child really take Pinocchio and Gepetto seriously?

Oh no. Not Pinocchio. Say it isn't so.

I agree. Cut off one head, and two more, denying history and science, grow to take its place. It can get tiresome.

 

[gnostic]

I don't do word games.

Nor do I.

I am just telling you as it is.

The masonry pyramids over 200' tall are great pyramids. The tiny little piles of rubble that were built later that Egypt Egyptologists call "pyramids" are NOT great pyramids.

The ancient Egyptians never called any pyramid “great”, big or small.

The Egyptians also never referred to their design as “step”, “bent” or “true” pyramids.

In fact, they never disclose how they design or construct any tomb, temple or palace. They weren’t manual authors and there are nothing to document “how to do” anything.

All we have are structures and artefacts left behind. And sometimes you may find inscriptions of which king that the tomb may belong to. But only 5th and 6th dynasties left behind extensive writings, and none of them relate to construction of pyramids.

 

[gnostic]

Even if you were right it is irrelevant what the Egyptians called them. We are speaking English.

Typical.

You keep referring to pyramids being “great”, but you are ignoring the fact the Egyptians didn’t refer to any way to it size, structure or design.

You are being hypocritical.

 

[cladking]

Carbon dating is a very reliable method of dating. It is only rejected or maligned by creationists. Ironically, because it is so reliable.

It's also disputed by Egyptology.

They explain the much older dates that appear for the pyramids a result of fundamental errors and they believe the builders used ancient wood!

 

[cladking]

I am just telling you as it is.

NO! you are attempting to use words to hide the fact that the large pyramids came first and required hundreds of times more work than the tiny little pyramids that are now piles of rubble.

All we have are structures and artefacts left behind. And sometimes you may find inscriptions of which king that the tomb may belong to. But only 5th and 6th dynasties left behind extensive writings, and none of them relate to construction of pyramids.

Yes! And these have never been subjected to scientific analysis by Egyptology. Egyptology calls itself a science and then votes on reality without ever performing the most basic testing of the artefacts.

 

[gnostic]

NO! you are attempting to use words to hide the fact that the large pyramids came first and required hundreds of times more work than the tiny little pyramids that are now piles of rubble.

The reasons why later dynasties build smaller pyramids, with poorer quality in workmanship and poorer materials, is threefold:

1. Politics, the kings of 5th and 6th were losing their powers and authorities to bureaucrats and the priesthood.
2. Economy; the 4th dynasty have expanded trades as well as subduing Nubia, but lost all that in the succeeding dynasties.
3. And religion; where as the 3rd and 4th dynasties, worship of Ra, was prominent with the kings, because they were reserved the rights in the afterlife to sail in the solar barque (like the afterlife of warriors in Norse Valhalla), but from the 6th dynasty onward, Egyptian religion afterlife was more focused on Osiris, as indicated in the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts and New Kingdom Book( s) of the Dead.

Pyramids are pyramids, regardless of size. To the Old Kingdom, pyramids were signs of the gods’ blessings, particularly Ra’s.

There are only one “Great” Pyramid, and that belonged to Khufu. The size is indicative of his wealth and his central authority in which he can imposed on the ordinary subjects.

You are just being pedantic, and you are the one who is playing with words.

 

[cladking]

There are only one “Great” Pyramid, and that belonged to Khufu. The size is indicative of his wealth and his central authority in which he can imposed on the ordinary subjects.

OK. You want to argue semantics.

What would you like to call the large masonry pyramids that aren't little tiny piles of rubble like most of the later ones? How do we differentiate them because I'm not talking about the little ones.

Any word you want.

 

[gnostic]

OK. You want to argue semantics.

What would you like to call the large masonry pyramids that aren't little tiny piles of rubble like most of the later ones? How do we differentiate them because I'm not talking about the little ones.

Any word you want.

You don’t understand Egyptian history.

The pyramids’ size are smaller in the later dynasties, I am not arguing against that. But the 5th and 6th dynasties have less powers than the previous dynasties, and therefore less wealth.

But pyramids are pyramids. If anyone is arguing over semantics, is you, because you’re the only one here, arguing that smaller pyramids are not pyramids.

Do you not the contradiction that you are arguing over?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It's also disputed by Egyptology.

What do you believe this means regarding the reliability of the technology?

They explain the much older dates that appear for the pyramids a result of fundamental errors and they believe the builders used ancient wood!

If the wood and charcoal that were tested result from wood already old when it was reused in construction of the pyramids, and radiocarbon tests are revealing that, then the dispute is over the results and not the reliability of the test. What fundamental errors? Fluctuation of C14 in the atmosphere that is available for fixation? Questions about decay rates? Contamination?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It's also disputed by Egyptology.

They explain the much older dates that appear for the pyramids a result of fundamental errors and they believe the builders used ancient wood!

What I find interesting is that on this thread, a biblical literalist claimed radiocarbon dating was unreliable and on another thread, another literalist was using RC results confidently to support his or her view of the history of Jericho.

Personally, I suspect a previously undiscovered inverse relationship is involved, but a physical mechanism driving this relationship eludes me. All I can say is that reliability appears to depend on certain characteristics of the results and the interaction of those qualities with expectations.

 

[cladking]

What do you believe this means regarding the reliability of the technology?

Some of Egyptology's criticisms probably have a basis in fact but it's unscientific to just dismiss evidence out of hand. Valid criticism simply affects the r ^ 2 or the confidence. Tests should be repeated. Indeed, Egyptologists refuse to test the paint (honey binder) of the quarry markings at all despite some question as to whether they are legitimate or not.

If the wood and charcoal that were tested result from wood already old when it was reused in construction of the pyramids, and radiocarbon tests are revealing that, then the dispute is over the results and not the reliability of the test. What fundamental errors? Fluctuation of C14 in the atmosphere that is available for fixation? Questions about decay rates? Contamination?

It's illogical to propose that Egypt had large quantities of wood lying around but this is their chief objection. The ONLY evidence available suggests wood was freshly cut in Lebanon. They also were concerned with variable rates in the atmosphere and with contamination.

 

[cladking]

What do you believe this means regarding the reliability of the technology?

I personally don't have any problem with the results but then it wasn't my ox getting gored. The results fit my theory pretty well but I believe that's chiefly because my theory was built around the physical evidence and logic. This evidence existed long before it was incorporated in my theory. It dovetails well with the idea of 40,000 years of science.

In Egyptology's defense there are an inordinate number of samples that just want to get tossed out. I have a possible explanation for these (old forest) but there's no evidence and only a little logic other than the samples themselves which makes me hesitant to adopt the hypothesis. I just try to accept the results at face value and remember there are numerous outliers for no known reason.