1650 replies to this topic

[questionmark]

lakeview rud, on 21 November 2012 - 03:21 PM, said:

Folks, seems were getting a bit off topic (How old is the Sphinx?). I would like to see some explanation of the apparent evidence of water erosion (vertical cuts) on the body of the Sphinx that makes at least some scientific sense. .  SInce the Sphinx was evidently buried up to its neck for much of its existence it would make sense that this erosion dates from way back in its past.  Another way to check on this would be to remove some of the cosmetic surgery (more operations than Joan Rivers?) and see if there is any evidence of this erosion beneath.  Alledgedly there is some repair work on it that dates to the 4th dynasty and that would be a good place to start.

fine sand can create exactly the same erosion marks, especially then when the object is covered by it.

Edited by questionmark, 21 November 2012 - 03:23 PM.

[kmt_sesh]

lakeview rud, on 21 November 2012 - 03:21 PM, said:

Folks, seems were getting a bit off topic (How old is the Sphinx?). I would like to see some explanation of the apparent evidence of water erosion (vertical cuts) on the body of the Sphinx that makes at least some scientific sense. .  SInce the Sphinx was evidently buried up to its neck for much of its existence it would make sense that this erosion dates from way back in its past.  Another way to check on this would be to remove some of the cosmetic surgery (more operations than Joan Rivers?) and see if there is any evidence of this erosion beneath.  Alledgedly there is some repair work on it that dates to the 4th dynasty and that would be a good place to start.

The topic has been discussed to death and beyond at UM, and in some detail within this thread, so it's not surprising that the discussion has wandered into other topics.

But in summary a much older age for the Sphinx was the pet project of a geologist named Robert Schoch. As far as I'm aware he has garnered no support from the scientific community, fellow geologists included. His fan base consists of folks like J.A. West, so take that for what it's worth.

Other geologists have commented on Schoch's theory, as well as on less-extreme theories posited by others. The most authoritative is probably the geologist James Harrell, whose expertise is the archaeogeology of Egypt. You can visit his own website here. Harrell's theories are much more grounded in plausibility, whereas Schoch approached the issue with a painfully narrow lens in which he failed to take into account other extant evidence at the Giza Plateau.

Additionally, the extensive work of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project has more or less established beyond a reasonable doubt that the Sphinx was carved by Khafre as an integral part of his pyramid complex, which means what we see today of the Sphinx dates to around 2500 BCE.

[Alcibiades9]

It's gone very quiet.

So, does the Sphinx date back to 10,000BC?  Let's discuss...

[kmt_sesh]

Alcibiades9, on 25 November 2012 - 10:03 PM, said:

It's gone very quiet.

So, does the Sphinx date back to 10,000BC?  Let's discuss...

I thought we'd covered that topic. LOL

I can't think of anything new to add to it right now. Anything you can contribute?

[docyabut2]

kmt_sesh, on 22 November 2012 - 09:43 PM, said:

The topic has been discussed to death and beyond at UM, and in some detail within this thread, so it's not surprising that the discussion has wandered into other topics.

But in summary a much older age for the Sphinx was the pet project of a geologist named Robert Schoch. As far as I'm aware he has garnered no support from the scientific community, fellow geologists included. His fan base consists of folks like J.A. West, so take that for what it's worth.

Other geologists have commented on Schoch's theory, as well as on less-extreme theories posited by others. The most authoritative is probably the geologist James Harrell, whose expertise is the archaeogeology of Egypt. You can visit his own website here. Harrell's theories are much more grounded in plausibility, whereas Schoch approached the issue with a painfully narrow lens in which he failed to take into account other extant evidence at the Giza Plateau.

Additionally, the extensive work of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project has more or less established beyond a reasonable doubt that the Sphinx was carved by Khafre as an integral part of his pyramid complex, which means what we see today of the Sphinx dates to around 2500 BCE.

I completey agree, but yet they do go on :0)The only fansinated thing about the great pyramid is why  khafre had those shafts put in.

[cladking]

docyabut2, on 26 November 2012 - 12:22 AM, said:

I completey agree, but yet they do go on :0)The only fansinated thing about the great pyramid is why  khafre had those shafts put in.

Oh, ye of little faith.

Everything is simple if you just assume the answers.  If you trust wiki for answers
then everything that can be known is known.  But when you dig into any topic what-
soever you'll find it is not so cut and dried. The Sphinx has yet to be positively dated
and no records survive from the time it was built.

Reality appears different from every perspective and no one can state positively
which perspective is the most accurate.

[docyabut2]

opps, khufu:)

[kmt_sesh]

docyabut2, on 26 November 2012 - 01:23 AM, said:

opps, khufu:)

LOL Good save.

[Quaentum]

Scott Creighton, on 20 November 2012 - 10:18 PM, said:

SC: Indeed. Good to see you found the evidence without me having to cite it chapter and verse. Ready made storage/redistribution vessels. Why go to all the trouble of making such storage/distribution vessels from scratch when they already had a ready-made supply that could be recycled?



SC: Dream on. KMT_Sesh is hardly the fount of all knowledge and he certainly seems to have been unaware that the Ibis bird was revered in AE as the 'harbinger of the flood'. The Ibis ALSO symbolised the AE god, Thoth whom the AEs believed would send a great deluge to drown all of Egypt. And that is even before we begin to analyse the AE word for 'pyramid' (actually a Greek word) which in AE was 'm r'.  I'll leave you to work that one out for yourself.



SC: Then by that standard it would be the worst possible place to inter a king whose body is supposed to remain intact and not to decay in a sodden tomb. Over and above which, the vast quantities of seeds recovered from under this pyramid complex showed no sign of water ingress. There was a reason they built the Recovery Vaults on high plateaus.



SC: Why would you expect it to still contain recovery goods?  That was the point!  Unlike the mummified remains of AE kings, the recovery goods stored in and around the pyramid complex were MEANT to be removed (when it was deemed necessary to do so). Mummies weren't meant to be removed. But we still have enough recovery items recovered from two of the eleven galleries under Djoser's pyramid and elsewhere in that pyramid complex to know what its purpose was. That is REAL HARD evidence supporting the RVT.  Where's your mummies?



SC: See above. It was sealed (from the top) when the chambers were filled. There is good evidence to suggest that the three granite plugs at the bottom of the Ascending Passage of the GP were placed in-situ as the pyramid was being built layer by layer. Why seal the entrance when the king's coffin is supposed to pass through there? This makes perfect sense in terms of the RVT but absolutely not in terms of the PTT (Pyramid Tomb Theory).



SC: Alas for you, I actually have the recovery goods to support my theory.  Where's your mummies?



SC: The Arab texts state both - flood first, then drought. So I will not disagree with you on that point.

SC

kmt_sesh may not be "the font of all knowledge" as you put it, yet I generally take the word of someone who has been involved or at least studied a subject for a number of years over someone who has put his own interpretation on an inscription who has far less time and experience with the same subject.

This article is of interest concerning the underground cavern:  http://www.talkingpyramids.com/new-shaft-found-in-worlds-oldest-pyramid/

In particular this part of the article:

Quote

The rising water table is causing large salt deposits to form in the underground network of tunnels and galleries underneath the pyramid and deep cracks are forming in the walls. This is obviously a major concern as the rising water table continues to weaken the bedrock, increasing the risk of cave-ins.

The caverns would have been flooded during a catastrophic flood from the rising water table that evidently is not that far below the complex.

Where are the mummies?  If memory serves, Djoser's mummy is buried in the center of the underground complex.  There is no reason to bury a mummy in a recovery vault so that alone puts a dent in your assumption that it is.

Was the Great Pyramid a recovery vault?

• The Great Pyramid, according to you, was a recovery vault to recover after a catastrophic flood.
  
• There is no evidence in Djoser's underground complex to indicate a catastrophic flood occurred at any time since it's construction.
  
• Since the flood had not occurred, the recovery materials inside the Great pyramid would have remained undisturbed as they were not needed.
  
• The plugs and seals in the Great Pyramid were not meant to be opened once sealed and would have required the destruction of those seals to reach the inside.
  
• The seals were untouched at the time the Arabs drilled a hole in the side of the pyramid.
  
• The Arabs found nothing inside the Great Pyramid.

Since there was nothing inside the pyramid and no indication of any entry before the Arabs broke in, IMO it shows the Great Pyramid was not a recovery vault.

Alas for you, you have what you believe to be recovery goods, but have yet to explain why there was a mummy in the supposed recovery vault in Djoser's Pyramid, nor where all the supposed recovery materials vanished to that should have been in the Great Pyramid.

[cladking]

Quaentum, on 26 November 2012 - 09:26 PM, said:

Where are the mummies?  If memory serves, Djoser's mummy is buried in the center of the underground complex.  There is no reason to bury a mummy in a recovery vault so that alone puts a dent in your assumption that it is.

There is no known burial in any great pyramid.  This is assumption.

The builders repeatedly said the pyramid was the ka of the king and his grave was in the sky.

Here's something written in a more modern lnguage that agrees precisely with what the Pyramid
Texts says.  It is Borghouts 10(4, 1).

Quote

...I will annihilate his corpse on the day of the Sokar Festival, I will root out his ba on the five additional days of the year, I will set fire to him at the beginning of the great season.

He was also called "flame-in-his-face".

Orthodox interpretations do not fit the evidence.

[cladking]

Quaentum, on 26 November 2012 - 09:26 PM, said:

The seals were untouched at the time the Arabs drilled a hole in the side of the pyramid.

The granite blocking stones are not "seals" per se because they were built in place in
all probability.  Anything sealed inside was sealed inside as it was being built.  This is
far more consistent with the concept of a recovery vault than it is with a burial.

[cormac mac airt]

cladking, on 26 November 2012 - 10:02 PM, said:

There is no known burial in any great pyramid.  This is assumption.

The builders repeatedly said the pyramid was the ka of the king and his grave was in the sky.

Here's something written in a more modern lnguage that agrees precisely with what the Pyramid
Texts says.  It is Borghouts 10(4, 1).



He was also called "flame-in-his-face".

Orthodox interpretations do not fit the evidence.

Actually cladking, it's not. The wooden coffin and body of a boy aged 8 to 10 was found under Djoser's pyramid along with a partial pelvis of a 18-19 year old girl.

cormac

Edited by cormac mac airt, 26 November 2012 - 10:31 PM.

[cladking]

cormac mac airt, on 26 November 2012 - 10:22 PM, said:

Actually cladking, it's not. The wooden coffin and body of a boy aged 8 to 10 was found under Djoser's pyramid along with a partial pelvis of a 18-19 year old girl.

I meant there is no proven burial of any Egyptian king in any great pyramid.

Indeed, there is no proof that there was any burial that took place in the great
pyramids at the the time they were built.  If there is no burial then they might
have not been tombs just as the "builders" said.

If they were not tombs then our job becomes to discover what they really were.

[cormac mac airt]

cladking, on 27 November 2012 - 12:02 AM, said:

I meant there is no proven burial of any Egyptian king in any great pyramid.

Indeed, there is no proof that there was any burial that took place in the great
pyramids at the the time they were built.  If there is no burial then they might
have not been tombs just as the "builders" said.

If they were not tombs then our job becomes to discover what they really were.

So you've finally found a 4th dynasty text then, mentioning the Giza Pyramids? Good, since I've been waiting on a valid citation.

cormac

Edited by cormac mac airt, 27 November 2012 - 12:17 AM.

[kmt_sesh]

Sometimes the dating of a body found in an Old Kingdom pyramid has shown it to be an intrusive, later burial, such as the mummy found in the pyramid of Menkaure (among others). Sometimes it's not clear to which period a body might belong. In other cases there's no real reason to doubt that a mummy (or part thereof) dates to some later period. I believe the remains of the boy and perhaps the teenage girl found below the Step Pyramid have been questioned as to time of origin, but not really the mummified foot found in the burial chamber of the Step Pyramid. There's no overt or obvious reason to doubt that this is what's left of Djoser.

Wanting it not to be Djoser so that one's fringe beliefs can live another day, is not a valid reason. It's clear the Egyptians themselves regarded the pyramids as tombs, or they would not have used them for burials at later times. Why should one question the Egyptians? I think they were perfectly capable of recognizing a cemetery for a cemetery. If it's that obvious to us modern folks, it was even more so to them.