zoser, on 27 October 2009 - 03:25 PM, said:
1) What is the tangible evidence for the tomb theory, or what is the weight from evidence from say looking at a trace of burial customs of previous dynasties? Where did the tomb idea come from originally?
I'm going to
try to keep each answer brief because I know how painfully verbose I tend to get, but no promises. The first royal burials occurred at Abydos over 5,000 years ago, and that's where the idea of the royal tomb began. Little remains of their superstructures but the sum total of evidence points toward something akin to a mastaba, a common type of elite tomb throughout much of the rest of the Old Kingdom. The first royal tombs at Abydos were clustered in an area now called Umm el Qa'ab. Nearby these tombs, massive walled structures were erected, only a couple of which survive. The most famous is the
Shunet elz-Zebib, built for Khasekhemwy at the end of Dynasty 2. The ruins of structures inside these enclosures suggest ritual activities took place in them for the cult of the deceased king.
Then came Netjerikhet (Djoser) at the start of Dynasty 3. He built a large mortuary complex that joined both tomb and enclosure in a common setting. It is clear that Djoser's tomb began as a large mastaba, like those belonging to the kings who preceded him, but Djoser had it expanded laterally and vertically to encompass a series of stacked mastabas. In doing so Djoser created the first pyramid in the world, which mirrored the sacred Benben stone of the temple of Heliopolis. The pyramid from the start was as much a solar symbol as a tomb--as the sun is reborn, so is the king.
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2) The GP is arguably the most intricate of the 3rd and 4th dynasty pyramids. Could the GP be a special case in some way?
It is special because of its colossal size and remarkable workmanship, as well as for unusual features like the so-called "air shafts." Aside from that, the Great Pyramid follows the logical development of pyramid-tomb begun by Djoser over 100 years earlier. Khufu's father, Sneferu, had built
three pyramids in his twenty-plus years on the throne, and it was Sneferu who had taken Djoser's plan a step farther with the true pyramid. Much of the architecture that fringe adherents see as unique to the Great Pyramid was in fact already employed in one or more of the three pyramids of Senefru or in the smaller pyramids for his queens. The corbelled ceiling of the GP's Grand Gallery is one example. Khufu's pyramid, then, follows even more logically on the remarkable developments of his father.
One of the single greatest mistakes I see fringe adherents make, is to try to pull the Great Pyramid out of its rightful context as though it is somehow completely separate from the evolution of royal monuments in the Old Kingdom. This mistake is in fact fatal--every time. It sinks all subsequent arguments fringe adherents make, because the arguments are tremendously attenuated and incomplete.
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3) One of the previous threads said that bones were found in the GP granite box. Not a mummy. What were they doing there? What about the animal bones apparently found in the box in Khafre's pyramid?
I've never heard that bones of any kind were found in Khufu's sarcophagus, aside possibly from the accounts of early Arab explorers. I have, however, read of Arab accounts of human remains found within the sarcophagus of Khafre's burial chamber. The animal bones you mention are news to me. Just the same, I don't know of any modern explorer or archaeologist having found human remains in either of these two pyramids.
Menkaure's pyramid is another matter. Although his sarcophagus was lost at sea in the nineteenth century while en route to England, a second coffin was found in the burial chamber. It was clearly of a design dating to Dynasty 25 or Dynasty 26 of the Late Period, and is on display now in the British Museum. It was built at that time as a ritual
reburial for Menkaure, and did in fact contain human remains. People for a long time believed this was in fact the skeleton of Menkaure, but modern C14 analysis indicates the person found in the coffin dates to a much later time (Dodson 2006: 63), even though the coffin was inscribed for Menkaure.
None of this is unusual. The tombs of royals and nobles were often reused for later burials. A combination of limited skills in mummification and prolific tomb robbing have left us with precious few Old Kingdom mummies, period.
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4) How does the architectural design of all the pyramids (The Red pyramid, The Bent Pyramid, Khafre's, Menkaure's)support the tomb theory? if not then what were they for?
The Egyptians built colossal pyramids for one reason and one reason only: royal burials. There is no legitimate evidence to suggest otherwise. We can dispense with the idea that the pyramid was a massive water pump or other type of machinery, because the material culture as revealed through painstaking archaeology and scientific analysis has demonstrated beyond dispute that from the start, Egypt was a Bronze Age civilization. We
have to adhere to what the evidence tells us, and it certainly doesn't tell us that the Egyptians built mechanical devices hundreds of feet tall!
Each pyramid, from Djoser's in Dynasty 3 to Ahmose's in Dynasty 18, was part of a larger complex. Each pyramid contained one or more temples in which the cult of the king took place. We have papyri records from the late Old Kingdom detailing the duties and responsibilities the priests had in these pyramid temples, although I'm not certain if the records specifically mention
Akhet-Khufu (the ancient Egyptian name for Khufu's pyramid complex).
In other words, someone wishing to know about any Egyptian pyramid cannot properly learn about it by looking at the pyramid alone, because each was part of something larger. It would be much like the parable of the three blind men trying to figure out what in the hell an elephant is by touching only one part of the elephant. It's not realistic.
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5) Is there any evidence that the Giza Pyramids were from an earlier time and therefore had a different purpose other than tombs? Could the others be attempts at copying the originals created by some earlier culture, or were the Giza Pyramids a culmination and evolution from previous attempts. Is so then how do we explain the subsequent more inferior attempts?
We can also dispense with any notion that a pre-existing civilization built the stone-masonry pyramids. This is due to the simple fact that from the last 200-plus years of excavations, not one shred of evidence has surfaced to suggest a pre-existing civilization. Not one. Rather, the evidence is abundant that the Egyptians themselves evolved and developed into the sophisticated state we all know.
People interested in studying the Great Pyramid simply have to study a lot more about the Old Kingdom if they're truly going to acquire a useful understanding. We're back to the blind guys and the elephant, I guess. To do otherwise is to be intellectually slothful, in my opinion. Between Djoser's pyramid and Menkaure's pyramid, there were other monuments of which most fringe adherents appear to be completely unaware. Sekhemhet's pyramid, the Layer Pyramid, Djedefre's pyramid, and Seth?ka's pyramid are just some examples of royal monuments begun but never completed in this time period of more than 180 years. These are interspersed between Djoser's and Menkaure's monuments. Plenty of masonry pyramids were never even finished.
Without understanding the whole, the hopeful student is just a blind guy slapping dumbly at a big smelly mystery.
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