I'm never going to learn on the tack I'm on. What good is a theory
that fits all the evidence if it's wrong? It just doesn't make sense any
longer to work on something else when the real answer is right before
my eyes.

So please teach me about Egyptology. Keep it simple and remember
that I really know next to nothing about it and haven't read a single
book.

278c. the (Three) Enneads speak: A dam shall dam up the earth,
279a. both boundaries-of-the-cultivation shall be united, both riverbanks shall be joined,
279b. roads shall be closed against passengers,
279c. stairs for those who would ascend shall be destroyed.
279d. Adjust the cable, traverse the mśḳ.t, hit the ball on the meadow of Ḥȝpi.

280a. O, thy fields tremble, O, ’iȝd-star, at the column of the stars,
280b. when they see the column of Kns.t, the ox (or, bull) of heaven,
280c. and how the ox-herd is terrified (overwhelmed) at him.
281a. O, be afraid, tremble, ye criminals, before the tempest of heaven;

281b. he opened the earth with that which he knew, on the day he loved to come;
282a. so said, he--he who is rich in arable-land, he who inhabits the D[]t.

It's the last couple lines that are toughest. The one thing I thought I knew
for sure is that the D[]t is the netherworld where the dead live and Horus is
chief thereof. Why would someone open the Earth to come if he had good
land in the netherworld? Does Osiris ride on the back of Set there?

And what the heck is this supposed to mean;

236c. Be thou watered (washed), O desert; (let there be) water, not sand.

Why should this make more sense than any Psalm of the Bible?

These were ritual prayers.

Because we all know that everything spiritual can be traced back to Kemet / Ancient Egypt

And because of that, speaking in parables makes sense to those who don't know the culture?

Oh!!!! I did not expect this!

If you're right this is going to be easy.

So I can look at the pyramid and say they must have had ramps because it's
there? If asked about foreign sand in the queen's chamber I can say "it's there
so they put it there". If asked why carbon dating consistently suggests it's older
then I can say "carbon dating isn't always accurate and they must have saved
wood for many centuries to build.".

I gotta hope you're wrong and someone will provide a better answer. It just
ain't gonna be no fun at all if you're correct.

I don't understand that statement?
The Christian Bible is all parables and metaphors. Besides cladking wishes to understand the first and only religion of Earth.

Hmmm... Ok, lets go to square 1...where does the ritual prayer talk about ramps?

Yes.

I want to understand the people who made the pyramids, their religion, their methods, and their economy.

Like what were they doing with all that myrrh they were importing? The solid stuff was used as an aromatic and in the embalming process but what about the musilage form? It looks like they were injecting it into Osiris but how could this fascilitate his ability to stand? It's the same with natron. This was tossed into osiris by the bucket full to get him to stand according to the pyramid texts. If the Pyramid Texts had no basis in the activity of the people or their Gods then why do they seem to point in any specific direction? Shouldn't the apparent referants be far more random?

There is virtually no data and no facts whatsoever from this era and I want to learn everything the Egyptologists know. It's going to be pretty easy if every shred of evidence which does exist is simply cast aside as meaningless drivel.

You mean that the ritual prayers of the ancient Egyptians are not full of parables and metaphors? Pleeeze!

There's a single utterance referring to beating a path to the D[].t.

good... and that is a ramp?

compare the implied of the content of the following

[1]The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.
[2]He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters
[3]He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake
[4]Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
[5]Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemes; thou annointest my headwith oil; my cup runneth over
[6] Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. and I will dwell in the house of The Lord forever.

with those utterances above.

What do you notice?

Right...the promise of a better life.... regardless of how the tomb looks. And that is the above, it is neither historic, nor cultural and certainly not an instruction to build a pyramid. In fact, the same prayers were used before and after the Pharaohs were buried in pyramids.

OK.

How does this promise a better life?

1267a. Let not Osiris come in this his evil coming;
1267b. do not open to him thine arms.
1267c. Let him be gone; let (him) go to Ndi.t; at once; let him be gone to ‘dȝ.

1272a. If Isis comes in this her evil coming;
1272b. do not open to her thine arms; that which is said to her is her name (of) "wide of ḥwȝ-t (evil-smelling)."
1272c. Let her (lit. him) be gone; let her go to the houses of Mȝnw;
1272d. at once; let her go to Ḥdb.t, to the place where thou hast (she has) been struck.

1273a. If Nephthys comes in this her evil coming;
1273b. that which. is said to her is this her name of "substitute without vulva."
1273c. Go thou to the house of Śerḳet, to the place where thou didst strike thy two ‘nn.twi (thighs?).

Does keeping their Gods away assure paradise?

utterance #610

...1717a. A ramp is trodden for thee to the Dȝ.t to the place where Śȝḥ is.
1717b. The ox of heaven seizes thine arm;
1717c. thou nourishest thyself with the food of the gods...

There's certainly no indication that one is expected to drag a stone up to see Śȝḥ. Indeed, if the Egyptologists are correct then this ramp should lead down to the netherworld where NO MAN CAN GO. If my old theory were right then it would lead down to the "hard" Eye of Horus. In no case of which I'm aware might it lead up to the pyramid. ...until the pyramid began creating itself like Atum and his ben ben stone.

But I've gotta give it up.

I hope you don't give up. At least not too easily. I've made it no secret, cladking, that I personally disagree with your geyser theory because I am "old-school" and see the logic in what orthodox scholarship has taught us, but you're one of the few I've encountered proposing an alternative theory who's put so much time and effort into devising an argument. Few people would even care to try to tackle the Pyramid Texts, for example. The three lines you quoted from Mercer's translation are given in Allen's translations of Merenre's texts (numbered Spell 375) as:

A stairway has been laid down for you away from the Duat and toward the place where Orion is, and the Sky's Ox shall receive your arm.
You shall feed on the god's food...

Aside from the differences in the style of translation, when I read this it makes perfect sense from the perspective of orthodox Egyptology and our understanding of religion in the Old Kingdom. It can be contradictory and confusing because of how the Pyramid Texts were evidently assembled from a myriad of much older spells, but then again, to those of us raised as Christians, our own Bible can be very contradictory and confusing. No religious text is perfect.

We're still learning about concepts of the afterlife at the start of the Egyptian civilization, but one thing well understood is that heaven for the king was in the stars, "where Orion is." It was not in the Duat. That comes much later, by the New Kingdom, when the king became tied in with the nightly union and rebirth of Re and Osiris. There are many variations in afterlife beliefs from the dawn of Egyptian civilization, which probably reflects different sets of tribal beliefs that were coalescing into a common set of beliefs after state formation. One belief is that a divine ox would guide the deceased into the afterlife. On the bottoms of some anthropoid coffins, for example, you often see a depiction of the deceased riding a bull--into the afterlife. We even see this in the Pyramid Texts where the king himself is associated with a bull (i.e., "the Calf of Gold"). The Duat appears many times in the Pyramid Texts, and how it's referenced can be confusing at times.

Anyway, in this utterance from 610 we see the pyramid described as a stairway (or ramp) leading the king to his proper eternal rest: in the heavens, aided by the divine ox. He then becomes a god and does as the gods do. The remainder of Mercer's 1718 associates the king with Dedwen, originally a Nubian god who went on in Egyptian religion to represent all of the exotic goods from Nubia that they so loved, and especially in the context of the Pyramid Texts, incense. The use of incense was vitally important to Egyptian ritual and was a means to assure purity. The gods are pure and the king, a new god, is made pure by Dedwen.

I'll stop prattling on about the specifics because everyone is painfully bored by now, no doubt. In all honesty I'm not surprised you're coming up against hurdles when trying to use the Pyramid Texts for your theory. You're essentially removing them from their original royal funerary context. That's how I see it, of course. I know you disagree, but there is another thing I've long wondered about your argument. If the Pyramid Texts were meant to reveal how the pyramids were erected through the aid of cold-water geysers, why do they appear only in the smaller and later pyramids? If I'm correct you've never argued against the conventional belief behind the building of the pyramids of Unis and other kings in the later Old Kingdom, but why put the Pyramid Texts in them if they're referring to how the Great Pyramid was erected? Why were they also placed inside the little pyramids of some of the later Old Kingdom queens, and why even later inside the coffins of the well-to-do when the afterlife cult was starting to spread? These are things I feel I must ask because none of these later contexts have anything to do with your cold-water-geyser theory, do they?

You did ask about how you could learn more. Earlier you wrote that you want "to learn everything the Egyptologists know." LOL I wish I could do that! I've been studying ancient Egypt for over twenty years and am still learning--and always will. Every time I attend a lecture or just chat with one of the Egyptologists with whom I work, I learn something new. I think the only way to learn what they learn is to go through the years and years of hard study to which they subject themselves, and then begin a lifetime of devoted research and scholarship. The process never ends. The Egyptologist under whom I've studied hieroglyphs, for example, has been researching the language himself for around thirty years now and he's told me he considers himself to be still learning. Linguistics has grown by leaps and bounds in just the last few decades.

You wrote in your OP that you "haven't read a single book." LOL I suspect you're pulling our leg. But if not, it's easily remedied. Read! I'm certainly not wealthy but over the years I've spent way too much and have ended up with my own library, but that's only because of my passion for Egypt and the rest of the Near East. I don't drink (much) and don't smoke, so I guess my vice is buying many, many books. I'm willing to bet most library systems would have at least most of the books I own. The only answer, in my opinion, is to study what the scholars have written. When doing so, I can guarantee you, you'll be on solid footing to decide whether or not to carry on with your theory.

Okay, really, I am going to shut up now.

As you've probably guessed I haven't really given up my theory and this thread
is just a sort of hissy fit. There's no justification really since people have given me
a lot of help, steered me in the right direction, and challenged me where the evidence
is weak. There's little more I could ask.

This has been brought on by the fact that I really feel I've made huge progress re-
cently and still there is no refutation or confirmation from any quarter. This stuff
ain't rocket science and it just seems someone should know something that would
shoot it down or confirm it. Instead it seems that there is a huge black hole that
just sucks in everything and not even light can escape. I never imagined I could get
so far with such a crackpot idea without getting either guidance or support from the
powers that be. I'm surprised that other people haven't commented as well.

I really haven't read any books except a friend bought me Bauval's book. It's real-
ly surprisingly good and I learned a few things but it's not my cup of tea. I have
read enough of the egyptological opinion of the PT to guess how they'd interpret the
utterance about the ramp and only quoted it in responce to the question. You'd pro-
bably guess that my interpretation is much different.


I believe that the origins of the Pyramid Texts date back to even before the written
language. These were almost solely related to the "Land of Horus" which is the tri-
angular piece of land between Giza and the Fauum Depression. It was here that there
were caves through which the carbonated aquifer could rise to near the surface and
vent explosively. This was the land where the pyramids were built and Gods stood.
The Pyramid Texts evolved and changed as the years went by but NO COPIES exist
from before the 19th century BC when the geysers had already been mostly forgotten.
Sure they had old texts about it but most people were probably dubious. Without see-
ing it how many people would believe it? Even today most people would be a little
dubious if they hadn't heard of it. There may have been NO COLD WATER GEYSERS
ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH in 1900 BC. Most of these are man made so they may
well have been totally unheard of. Still they would try to keep their "holy book" as
true to the original as they could. Some places they might not understand the text
but would copy it religiously anyway. It would be assumed that they still had the an-
cient papyri when they were rewriting it in the later pyramids. They would have a great
deal other information as well to which we have no access today.

It seems improbable that at any point they'd make a point of inscribing details about
the geysers in stone. While they still existed it would be a military secret and probably
very bad magic to inscribe it isn stone. Not only might the Gods disappear but they just
might appear in their evil coming. When they began to fail it would be even less likely
and this was about the time of the first intermediate period. It might even have been
the cause of the first intermediate period. These weren't large areas under cultivation
but one has to assume they were very important areas. These were the ONLY CROPS
IN EGYPT GROWING DURING THE PEAK GROWING SEASON.

There was just no natural time to carve such things in stone and no papyrus exists
from this era. This leaves us with nothing except the artefacts and a second hand
look through the prism of the Pyramid Texts.

Obviously my theory isn't set in stone either. But egyptology is really in the same boat
since they have the same scanty information. Without evidence one can no more say
that the pyramids were built with ramps, geysers, or little green men. I believe there
is ample evidence that the geyser theory should get a fair hearing. This goes many
times over since it is actually provable or capable of being disproved. Hell, I'd almost
just settle for hearing that it had been seriously considered.

and



I don't know that your theory is really ever going to develop or receive notice if you keep it here. We're just a bunch of laypeople with a lot of passion but no credentials, and the professionals who take notice give little attention to the internet beyond the known and trusted sites of vetted material. As you know, Egyptology and the study of ancient history in general is an old-boys' club. By this I don't exclude women but merely use the term to express that scholars stringently abide by orthodox evidence and pay little mind to alternative theories unless there's provable data to back it up. The supporting evidence has to be scientifically and historically valid.

Unless you have the credentials and training to support your argument on your own, you will need professionals in the field to assist you and back you. For you personally, this would require three things probably more than anything else:

1) A geologist or related scientist who can validate your idea that powerful springs capable of producing geysers once existed on the Giza Plateau, or just below its surface. That water exists or has existed in the form of aquifers is not enough--we all know the porous nature of limestone and the fluctuations in the water table of the Plateau. This water source has to be under pressure to the degree that it can lift numerous stones averaging 2.5 tons apiece based on your counterweight argument. How you've addressed the granite dressing slabs weighing 50 or 60 tons, I don't know.

2) You would carefully have to address how an Early Bronze Age culture could've mastered such a complex and dangerous water-bourn, counter-weight system; I don't think it's as simple as you might believe it to be. Proposing that boats as counterweights lifted stone masonry to the proper level is one thing; showing in some form how the Egyptians developed the technology to do so efficiently and expediently, and without daily loss of life, is quite another.

3) You would need to recruit a highly trained and respected linguist specializing in the hieroglyphs of the Pyramid Texts who could support your own argument for what the texts mean; this would require a highly convincing argument to displace the established and orthodox understanding of the texts. What you've argued at UM from the English translations of Mercer would not suffice; you would have to delve into the original language of these texts. And along those lines, you would be well advised to abandon Mercer altogether and go with Faulkner, whose translations are considerably more advanced.

Do you argue the same thing for Meidum, Dashur, and the other two masonry pyramids at Giza? What about Djoser's at Saqqara, and Djedefre's at Abu Rawash? These other masonry pyramids from Dynasty 3 and Dynasty 4 would have to be similarly addressed. Probably the two that stand out most are the Red Pyramid at Dashur, which is a massive structure unto itself, and of course Khafre's at Giza, which is almost as big as the Great Pyramid.

Where you would pitch your theory, I don't know. The annual ARCE conference is probably one of the most likely venues. Every year all manor of scholars and doctoral students present their own work for review. I've never been to an ARCE conference and I don't know if alternative theorists speak at their events, but it would have to be something like that, where recognized and vetted scholars are in attendance. You have to catch their attention. You'd want to avoid being sponsored by someone like Robert Schoch or J.A. West, who are both intelligent men but who are ignored by the scholarly community, most of their own colleagues included.

I'm getting preachy again and I apologize for that. I am honestly trying to be helpful. I am not a professional historian but I have a lot of experience working with them, and through the years I've grown to understand how the scholarly and academic community works. LOL It can be pretty damn brutal.



I am in full agreement with your first comment there. It's the generally accepted view among many scholars and is similar to how the Old Testament came to be: an oral tradition later put in written form. As for the part about the "Land of Horus," I admit I am unfamiliar with this particular use of it. I would point out that the god Horus, one of the oldest in all of the Egyptian pantheon, is first noted in the predynastic site of Nekhen (the Greek Hierakonpolis), deep to the south in Upper Egypt. This form of the god was called Horus of Nekhen and was where the king first became associated with the god, with the exception of Peribsen and, to a lesser extent, Khasekhemwy in Dynasty 2. Nekhen was a very important city at the time of state formation, some 600 years before the Great Pyramid was built, but had probably been reduced in importance to a provincial backwater even before the reign of Sneferu, when Edfu became the principal city in the region. I mention all of this because during the predynastic origins of the Pyramid Texts, Horus would probably not have been of much importance in the Fayoum and Giza areas. At that time Sobek and Ptah, respectively, would've been of greater importance to those more northern tribes.



This reminds me of something else you'd have to argue. Even though there is a dearth of inscribed evidence relating to pyramid building, there is a wealth of evidence for the logistical and administrative organization of the people who built them. We can examine their settlements, industry, support structure, and of course tombs. We have an abundance of titles from this time, telling us specifically what a great many workers did (everything from quarrymen to administrators), and yet no titles of which I'm aware would fit your theory. You would invariably see something like imy-r mw, "controller of the water," but no such thing exists.

Ferryman. This "job" is mentioned repeatedly in the PT. He'd likely have two
or three helpers and a few laborers.

Seker did all the real work.



I fear you still don't have a good mental picture of this.

This wouldn't be the actual way it was done but if you follow this you'll see how
simple it really could be. Just picture piling some stones around the geyser.
After you get a few set it starts getting very difficult to lift stones up so you col-
lect the water falling down and use it to fill a large container. This container is
attached with a rope to a stone at the bottomof the other side of the pile. When
the container fills it falls and lifts the stone up the other side. Now you empty
the container, return it to the original position and repeat. The first stone is on
top where it's "easily" moved around and you're ready to lift a second stone.

There will be lots of little niceties you learn as you go along like not to build your
pyramid around the geyser but this is the general idea. This is remarkably safe
so long as you have natron and the north wind blows.

Even lifting men to the top is really fairly safe so long as the rope doesn't break.
They'd have lots of experience with inspecting ropes or cables. With two and a
half million stones in the pyramid they'd have lots of experience lifting. This would
be far safer than trying to drag stones up ramps with ninety degree bends.

It appears there were three counterweights operating on the Great Pyramid with
the center one being the primary. The largest stones were lifted using all three
counterweights in tandem.

Here's a little better answer right from the Pyramid Texts;

#300

445a. To say: O Hrti of Nsȝ.t, ferryman of the ’Iḳh.t-boat, made by Khnum,

Those who operate this boat are ferrymen. " ’Iḳh.t-boat" appears to have the
same root as "gas". Khnum is the God of craftsmanship and might certainly be
invoked to bless a boat whose stable operation assures people survive the task.

445b. bring this (boat) to N. N. is Seker of R-Śtȝ.w.

"R-Śtȝ.w" is Rosteau otherwise known as the Giza Plateau. Seker is Osiris when
he descends into the []nw-boat. The []nw-boat is a boat of ma'at which means ba-
lance. There seems very little doubt that the []nw-boat and the ’Iḳh.t-boat are sim-
ply different names for the counterweight. Perhaps ’Iḳh.t-boat is its name when it
ascends without Seker in it and []nw is when it contains the God. Anyone who wants
know for sure can study this stuff and find out for themselves. "Seker" is Osiris' name
when he sits in the []nw-boat and Seker means "come to me". In other words when
Seker is channeled into the boat it descends and the other boat ascends to Osiris the
Geyser.

From Osiris' point of view He Himself makes the other boat come to me.

445c. N. is on the way to the place of Seker, chief of Pdw-š.

Pdw-š" translates very well as "lifts". This is the definition as in the discreet lifts
made by a crane.

445d. It is our brother who is bringing this (boat) for these bridge-girderers (?) of the desert.

I've spoken of this before but to repeat, there would be very very few bridges in the
desert. Roads would tend to stay in the valley and the desrt doesn't force or allow the
construction of many bridges. In the bronze age the only bridge girders would be wooden.
There is no possibility that bridge girderers in the desert would have any use whatsoever
for a boat.

In a nutshell they were not building bridges at Rosteau nor did they use a boat.

What they were doing is building a bridge to the afterlife. They were building an "instru-
ment of ascension" so that the king might reach heaven and the sun might rise each day
(yeah this is in the PT too).

The simple fact is that there really is no other viable interpretation of this utterance. The
Egyptians obviously believed they had water at the top of the pyramid.

I'd be happy to hear any conjecture of why they might believe this. Considering the FACT
that the sand in the queens chamber would seem to be highly consistent with the ancients'
notion that they had water up here then it would be us who are deluded if we suggest they
couldn't have been correct.

OSIRIS IS THE "INUNDATION WHEN IT TOSSES".

Osiris was also equipped with "sky arcs" (rainbows) and stood in
the land of horus when salt was given to him. This is much as a
bootle of soda might stand if given a pinch of salt. Osiris was Lord
of Caverns and died after being induced to lay down in a box. He
stood in a djed which gave him air. It is an Eye of Horus which
makes him live and "I[].t-wt.t (yeast gas) which is his efflux and
is buried in four jugs at Rosteau. He has "evil comings" and his
sister with whom he's had a child stinks at times. Osiris was born
in no year (at the time of the start of the inundation) and stood
when the sky was ripped from the Earth. He was the first born of
the sky and his efflux spilled over the land when the north wind blew
at the start of the year. He came from the primordial waters (Nun)
and rode on the back of his brother Set.

This is what the Pyramid Texts say and it does not definitely con-
tradict itself as the egyptologists would have you believe. If you
accept that all this is literally true then the entire thing is consis-
tent and does not have gross gramatical errors as the egyptolog-
ists claim. You do not need to read dozens of book to understand
what it says because it means exactly what it does say.

Everyone should do the math for himself.

Hmmm ... is the bible also an instruction book for some type of building? They sure got lots of math errors in there too....

We are talking about legends here, legends that have been spun over millenniums ... a little math error does not matter there.

Hey, take Paul Bunyan .... he is nothing but a legend spun by some drunk journalist... yet Fargo claims him as real person by advertising itself as his home.

I'm not extremely familiar with the Bible but it has come up a few
times in trying to interpret the Pyramid Texts. I'm aware of no
"math errors" in either work though many of the numbers in the
Bible certainly appear highly suspect.

This is all irrelevant to whether or not there were geysers at Giza.
What the Egyptian religion and language evolved into is equally ir-
relevant to the question. This is how the error was made initially;
later words and practices were projected backward in time to the
great pyramid builders. While this technique can work, there is nev-
er certainty that it has worked.

We have a rather unique situation here where all the evidence
points clearly in another direction than orthodoxy. This is because
there is almost no evidence whatsoever and much of it has simply
been written off. Orthodoxy is mostly a best guess of 19th century
science and in this case they apparently missed the boat.

You will never establish /or not/ whether there was a Geyser in Giza by trying to interpret ritual prayers. Geology is more what you need.

I'm sure you're right.

But it's apparent that this is geologically possible in this area and that
it's even still possible if there were CO2 laden water.

There may not be a geologist on the face of the planet who specializes
in this field. There are few cold water geyser specialists and this par-
ticular case is different than is typical along several parameters. This
doesn't mean that expert opinion wouldn't be extremely welcome mere-
ly that getting competent expert opinion has eluded me to date.

There exists a source, a means, and even evidence that there is flow
through the plateau today. Indeed, there is even proof that there has
been water upwelling from below in the past during the age of pyramid
building. Coupled with the solid evidence of foreign sand high in the
Great Pyramid and other signs of water in this area it certainly seems
as though someone could scarce up a geologist.

Again though, geology is one of those "hard sciences" where they are
loathe to make definitive statements about things like this. This is es-
pecially true where the ramifications might be significant and the pow-
ers that be would suppress data and sample collecting.

Tried geology.com ?

I just gave it a peek. Don't know where I'd start.

This is a far more complicated question than you might think because
of the great deal of specialization in geology. Questions posted on geo-
logy forums get no response on this subject. My first advisor is well
known in geological arenas but was unfamiliar with the cold water gey-
sers. Of course I still owe him a great debt since he steered me in that
direction. Since then the specialists are few and far between and have
merely tried to guide me moreso than investigate. This has proven some-
what helpful but some of the leads have proven impossible to follow. Some
of the trouble is the language barrier since I don't speak Arabic.

If you have a real prob PM me the Arabic text.

Nevertheless, to get anywhere you will still have to prove your theory geologically and textually. The theory will never advance beyond UM, otherwise.

Earlier you wrote: "Orthodoxy is mostly a best guess of 19th century science and in this case they apparently missed the boat."

This demonstrates that you are quite unfamiliar with the modern applications of science and linguistics. I don't know of any Egyptologist who relies on material from the 19th century, any more than a doctor would do so when treating a patient. You seem to be suggesting that around the year 1900, Egyptologists and the scientists with whom they work simply stopped their efforts and no longer advanced our understanding; rather, from then on they turned only to historians of the past. I think you know there is no truth to this.

Your theory will not evolve and be accepted until you can address the gains made by orthodox research. Rather than knock them and refuse to study what they have provided, you carefully need to study the research of scholars like George Reisner, Dieter Arnold, Aidan Dodson, Mark Lehner, and Craig Smith--all experts on pyramid construction. To address your view of the Pyramid Texts you need to acquire at least a basic knowledge of hieroglyphs, which means a careful study of its leaders: people like Alan Garinder, Raymond Faulkner, James Hoch, and James Allen.

As for geology, I can't offer suggestions on particular leaders in that field because I am not well versed in it. However, you should carefully acquaint yourself with the material found here.

You've confessed that you've read little from the work of orthodox history. How can you possibly claim that is merely "a best guess of 19th century science" if you're not even familiar with the work? You can't dismiss it lump sum just because you're unfamiliar with it.

I really have a great deal more respect for eyptologists than it
may seem. They obviously have a great deal of knowledge and
even if I'm right and they're wrong they'll know far more about
the subject than I.

But some of this criticism really is justified; not because of their
scholarship or their tendency to ignore outsiders but because of
their certainty in their results when there is too scanty evidence
to even build a good theory. This appears to be an unintended
consequence of their hero worship of Flinders Petrie. He may well
have been a great man and the founder of archaeology but that
doesn't mean all his pronouncements and speculations are written
in stone.

To take the tiny bit of evidence and extrapolate a people is not
fair to them nor to us. And almost all the evidence on which egy-
ptology is based appears to have existed before 1900. New data
is either brushed aside or never sought in the first place. Yes, I
am well aware that in things like forensics and genetics there have
been signifiicant advances. Much more is known about trade and
even in linguistics some strides have been made. If they're bas-
ically right then many of my criticisms will be mostly unjustified
but they will still have a lot of truth to them.

Obviously this couldn't apply to each individual and there are still
very competent and intelligent people studying these things.

It really would be foolhardy to assume a theory is right just be-
cause it fits the evidence so well. This goes double in a case like
this where the theory is made around the facts rather than exper-
imentation.

Well I have to say this is quite an interesting thread and a refreshing theory on the building of the pyramids.

And I learned some new things I was not aware of and got some inspiring thoughts myself =)

Guess I have to look into some of the OP's previous posts as I've not heard of this theory before and it seems I've missed his other threads on the topic.

But it was a delightful reading so far, keep it up, and good luck with your research!

-EA

cladking wrote:


and



"Scanty evidence" and "tiny bit of evidence" are what you personally believe. The vast majority of historians and scientists would contradict that, and yet you're telling the vast majority of historians and scientists that they're wrong. Can you see the conflict here? What are you able to present to show them they're wrong? You have a geological supposition and your personal views on the Pyramid Texts based on Mercer's English translations of Sethe's original translations from one hundred years ago.

What empirical data do you have to offer? Can you see why I'm frustrated here? One moment you suggest Egyptologists are backward thinkers and the next you say you respect them. I don't know what to make of that, but in the end it doesn't matter what I think. If you are serious about presenting your theory, these are the very people to whom you will have to present it, and you'll need to have hard evidence to do so.

This idea of your presenting your theory for peer review is something I've been harping on, I realize. For all I know you have no interest in doing that and just enjoy sharing your theory with people here at UM. If that's the case, no problem. The thing I most stress is, before negating so much scholarship and reducing it to "scanty" and "tiny" evidence, commit yourself to serious study of the modern literature that's available to all of us. I suggested some of the leading scholars in my previous post. If after doing so you still feel confident to contradict orthodox science and history (I realize this would take years, but there's no way around it), you'll be on much more solid footing.



They certainly are not. Petrie was a genius and established much of the archaeological methodology still used in Egyptology, but numerous theories of his are considered outdated. "Hero worship" is a bit strong of a term, unless you're just referring to laypeople who have a zeal for ancient Egypt but not a solid background in its studies. You'd be hard pressed to find any Egyptologist or historian who sets aside all modern research and uses only Petrie. Or Breasted, or Maspero, or any of the other founders. How to conduct research is Egyptology 101.



This again shows you're not familiar with the modern research. Yes, many facts established in the 1800s have stood the test of time, but many more have not. Forensic anthropology and genetics are just two examples of modern sciences that are now a common part of Egyptology. So are geology and geomorphology, with technologies people in the 1800s could never have imagined. Huge strides in the sciences of chemistry enable researchers to examine most any chunk of stone on the Plateau and be able to determine from where within the strata of the Plateau it originally came. This, too, is common to modern Egyptology. Paleopathology and paleobotany are two other examples. All of these disciplines are common to Egyptology. You seem to view all of Egyptology as some bespectacled old man from 1850 in a wool suit, poking at a pyramid stone with his walking stick and proclaiming, "Yes, it means this or that so it must be this or that."

So what do you guys think of the cocaine and nicotine mummies?

If you are not familiar with it here is a link: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Misc/mummies.htm

Em hotep cladking: a study you may find of great help in understanding Kemeticism is the Hermetic Qabalah
It is complex but rewarding. Hermes as some may already know is none other that Thoth incarnate.
Qabalah / Kabbalah / Cabala is of course Judaic Mysticism which in turn is but one of the Sciences taught in the Egyptian Mystery Schools.

Regarding Hermes and Thoth, how is the connection made here? I've read pretty much about them being the same but I can't remember having read how and when Thoth became Hermes, or the other way, I just know it is usually said they are the same. Also, in the Corpus Hermetica it is mentioned that the son of Hermes is named Tat, is it possible that maybe Tat is Thoth (considering the similarities in names)? Does the egyptians mention anything about the son of Thoth and what his name was? And what about the father of Thoth/Hermes, anything known about him? I was also pondering a bit upon Moses and possible connections to Tuthmoses "Son of Thoth". Hermes is called the "thrice great" and I'm pretty sure I've read that his son Tat also have been referred to as Hermes, is it possible that this "thrice great" title could be because it was a lineage of three (father, son and grandson), possibly Hermes, Thoth and Moses? I'm pretty sure I've heard about an old painting in the vatican somewhere as well depicting Moses bowing down for Hermes and both holding the same book together.

Just something I've been pondering about and havn't had the time to look into further myself yet so perhaps you guys whom seem to know pretty much about this topic can enlighten me some? =)

Thanks and best wishes

-EA

Hi darkbreed,

While I am not sure why he is considered "the thrice great", it is my understanding that Hermes Trismegistus is an attempt to reconcile two similar deities, Hermes and Thoth by the Greeks of the 4th century BC. It doesn't, as far as I know, date to any older period especially to any of the Thutmose' kings or even an historical Moses.

cormac

I'm referring primarily to evidence for how the pyramids were constructed.

You need to understand my frustration as well. I see significant physical
evidence for the previous existence of geysers along with tremendous cir-
cumstantial evidence. And this goes along with no evidence for the exis-
tence of ramps as the primary means of doing the job.

It might seem that all of eyptology will be overturned if I'm right but in point
of fact most of it will still be equally valid but will have to be updated to in-
clude more facts. I think the big changes in thinking will be outside of egypt-
ology and outside anthropology.

Perhaps I'm wrong about this as well.



My understanding is that this is a virtual impossibility because they won't
consider anyone a peer without a degree and believing in ramps. (I'm on-
ly about half joking here). Further, I'd probably have to offer anything on
the net or through the mail. This site seems as good a place to start as any.



I'm actually amazed that there is dispute over the composition and nature
of the core stones of the pyramid. It's most remarkeble to me that this
hasn't been positively ruled cement or stone yet by chemists. Really even
an eygtologist could positively prove it's stone if he found a piece that can
be traced to its position in the quarry. It would appear even chemistry isn't
so advanced as I had thought.

The world is a pretty complicated place and there are very few certainties.
Sometime the old fool from the 1850's is just going to have a better chance
of being right than all of modern science. This is a simple fact and anyone
who doesn't believe it knows neither science nor technology. But, yes, it
does seem that a great deal has been built up not on bedrock but on shaky
foundations riddled with holes and imponderables. Proving me wrong would
be a good step in injecting a little concrete into the mix.

This association of Thoth with Hermes and Amun with Zeus or any of the other combinations, is wholly artificial on the part of the Greeks. The writings of Herodotus are revealing in this regard. He is typical of Greeks in the fifth century BCE who were coming into contact with the Egyptians and trying to make sense of this venerable but alien society. Like most of the rest of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern civilizations, the Greeks held antiquity in great respect. They felt that Egypt was the oldest of all civilizations, and that the gods worshiped there were the same as the gods worshiped back home in Greece and Ionia. In other words, Herodotus and his fellow Hellenes clearly believed that their own gods came from Egypt.

As the Greeks believed, Zeus and Athena and Apollo and all the rest weren't just their gods but were the gods. Everyone worshiped them differently but were all the same. So with this belief, it was logical to the Greeks to search out attributes of foreign gods and find associations with the deities of Greece.

There are no real associations in most cases, however. And in many cases, the associations applied by the Greeks are pretty thin. For example, just because Amun was the king of the Egyptian gods and Zeus was the king of the Hellenistic gods, does not mean they're one and the same. In fact, there are significant differences between the deities of Egypt and Greece, and the two religions bear few similarities. The Greeks were merely looking for connections and invented them to suit their religious sensibilities.

darkbreed wrote:


I wouldn't put too much stock into words that happen to sound alike. That's a natural occurrence between any set of languages because the human speech apparatus can produce only so many sounds.

Even if Moses was a real figure, and no such proof of such a man exists outside the Old Testament, his name Mss (in Egyptian transliteration) is frustratingly generic. We do have a handful of men named Mss from ancient Egyptian history, but as per your example of Tuthmosis, in the vast majority of cases the word mss ("born of") is an element of a name. The actual name of the god Thoth in the Egyptian language was Djehuty (DHwty). The name "Thoth" is a Greek corruption. So Thutmosis, then, to an Egyptian would've been pronounced Djehutymose (DHwtyms). The name means "Born of Djehuty," not "Son of Djehuty." That would be Sa-Djehuty. As cormac mac airt emphasized, the line of Thutmoside kings was much farther back in history--over 700 years before the Greeks even began to colonize the Mediterranean. There is no connection.

As for the second question, Thoth's consorts were the goddesses Seshat and Nehemetawy (depending on the timeframe), but off the top of my head I cannot think of any divine sons in the Egyptian tradition that were produced from either union. Good question.

So was I.



I can definitely understand your frustration. What I'm asking for is empirical data that can substantiate your physical evidence, that's all. A geological study of the substrata of the Great Pyramid verifying that a powerfully pressurized aquifer may have existed there, would be very helpful to share with all of us. I'm not aware of such findings but then again I've not read as much about this subject as I could've.

I'm still trying to assemble in my head exactly how you picture this to have taken place. In an earlier post you wrote, in trying to explain it to me:



I almost forgot to ask, but where exactly do you believe the geyser was in relation to the pyramid as it was being built? Also, I have in my head an image of an erupting geyser: how exactly was the water collected as it fell?



Big changes are part of Egyptology and anthropology every day. A discipline that does not adapt, grow, and accommodate new developments in science is of no benefit to society. Were you able to prove scientifically that your theory is true, of course a lot of existing beliefs in Egyptology will be overturned. But you know what? That's part of science. If you establish it as proof that can be substantiated by other researchers and verified through science, Egyptologists will have to agree. Not all would, of course, but those scholars who ignore something definitively proven through science tend to fade into obscurity very quickly. This still requires that you prove your theory at least as scientifically viable, and for that in my opinion you need to achieve the three objectives I listed back in Post #16 of this thread.



LOL Peer review through e-mail correspondence? I won't lie to you and say it would be easy, because it certainly wouldn't be. Not possessing a degree isn't necessarily the end of it. Much more important is the sort of empirical data you can produce. You're right that the lack of professional training can be a stumbling block, however, and that's why I was suggesting in Post #16 some sort of mentor to support you. But off the top of my head I can think of two successes in certain Egyptological research who are not Egyptologists: Bob Brier and Craig Smith. Brier possesses a doctorate in philosophy but today is recognized as one of the leaders in the study of Egyptian death and burial. Smith is an engineer who used his considerable experience in that field to study the Great Pyramid and how it was built from his own unique perspective, and he went on to publish one of the modern definitive books on the subject.

And if that's not enough for you, there's always Omm Seti. You're probably familiar with her but for everyone else's enjoyment, she was born Dorothy Eady in London in 1904. She was a bit of an odd duck and a mystic who believed she was a reincarnated temple priestess. She lived in Egypt for around 25 years after moving there in 1950, and educated herself on ancient Egypt. Right away at hearing such a thing most people would imagine the stodgy brotherhood of Egyptologists scoffing at this woman and shunning her, but quite the opposite was true. This woman was highly respected by many in the field and was an active part of the Egyptological community. She was so respected by Egyptologists and the modern Egyptians that when she died in April of 1981, she was allowed to be buried near the temple of Seti I in Abydos.



You'll find the cement argument on the internet and on places like UM, and now and then colleges publish articles trying to verify the possibility, but the nature of the core stones has been definitively established as, well, stone masonry. I'm not as well versed on this subject as others because I never believed in the cement theory to begin with (the greater archaeological and textual record rules it out, anyway), but one way we know the core blocks are stones is the presence of fossils. The homogenous distribution of the fossil shells within the core blocks matches exactly the pattern of fossil remains within the substrata of the limestone at Giza. This would simply never be in evidence in the blocks had they been made of cement.



This has been accomplished. Off the top of my head I can remember that the chemical signature of one of the core blocks matches the chemical signature in the exposed strata of the quarry by the Sphinx. This is the delight of science: any area of rock or soil in the world will produce its own distinct signature. This sort of analysis is also commonly done on pottery to determine the origin of the clay from which it was made. This has nothing to do with pyramids, but an example is the abundance of Canaanite-looking pottery found at Tell el-Dab'a (Avaris). Scholars have often wondered about the origin of the Hyksos from the Egyptian Second Intermediate Period, and most have believed them to be Canaanite in origin. Well, when chemically analyzing this pottery in the ancient Hyksos capital in Lower Egypt, the scientists were able to determine beyond doubt that its clay originated in southern Palestine. Just another example, but it's also been done at Giza.



There go with the concrete again. Kidding.

The best physical evidence is the existence of a clear water cavern
under the pyramid. This has to have a flow through it to keep it clear
so there's no doubt that the aquifer flows under Giza. There is a man
made passage above this cavern and evidence of water erosion be-
tween them. This is conclusive proof that water flowed up from below
Giza since man came to the plateau.

There is foreign sand 75' up inside the pyramid. There are really only
two ways that it is possible to get there; either it was carried up by
flowing water or the Egyptians imported sand to build in the desert. It's
absurd that they might import sand and it's impossible for water to have
flowed at this level in the orthodox model. The orthodox model must be
wrong unless you believe sand was imported.



~10' north of the N side and 20' east of dead center. There is a natural
fissure here and evidence of missing structure above this area.

Water sprayed straight up from the drilled geysers. The water went through
a hollowed sycamore called a djed pillar. It went through a small opening
in a structure above called "the upper eye of Horus". From this eye it was
led away in canals to do the needed work. These canals were lined with a
heavy grease containing large amounts of natron which caused the CO2 to
off gas. Foreign sand from dissolved sandstone had to be periodically shov-
eled out. This sand was Egyptian Red Sandstone after the siderite binder was
dissolved out of it by the carbonic acid (carbonated water). This sandstone
is the cap of the aquefer south of Giza around Elephantine. Red Ochre which
is a very similar material to siderite is mined here and the Egyptians mistak-
ingly believed that it was this that sometimes tiurned the geysers red.



I'm still waiting for someone to drive a nail in it. This surprises me. Some-
times I suspect it is neither natural limestone nor cement and this is causing
the delay.



That's interesting but I'd be far more impressed if the original position of a block
could be located. This would be very conclusive.



If I read the Pyramid Texts too much I not only walk like an Egyptian I start think-
ing like one.

Thanks both for the input on the Hermes question

I always thought Thoth was the Egyptian name and Hermes the Greek for same person/god. In other words, I thought that the greeks adopted Thoth/Hermes from the egyptians but for some reason called him Hermes instead of Thoth.

Not being familiar of the pronunciation of either greek nor egyptian I can't really say much about how "thoth" would sound in greek or "Djehuty" in egyptian but from the way you write it "thoth" seems close to "djehut(y)" so I can see how they could have misinterpreted this.

Still I am a little confused about how/when Thoth and Hermes became considered as the same person/god? Do you mean that the greeks already had a god named "Hermes" before they knew about the egyptians, and then after getting to know about the egyptian god "Thoth (Djehuty)" they thought he sounded so similar to Hermes that they considered him to be the same person/god even though different names were used?

And can anyone shred some light on the "thrice great" part regarding Hermes and what this is about?

Also, when exactly is the first historical records of any contact between the greeks and egyptians?

Thanks again! =)

-EA

Utterance 317.

507a. To say: N. is come forth to-day at the head of the inundation of the flood.
507b. N. is a crocodile god, with green feather, with vigilant countenance, with forehead erect;
507c. effervescent, proceeding from leg and tail of the Great (One) who is in splendour.

508a. N. is come to his watercourses, which are in the land of the flood, in Mḥ.t-wr.t,
508b. to the places of satisfaction, with green fields, which are in the horizon,
509a. that N. may make green the herbs in both lands of the horizon,

509b. (and) that N. may bring the green to the great eye which is in the midst of the field.


It appears in nearly every utterance that the Egyptians thought there were geysers. "Mḥ.t-wr.t" is likely "land of balance" or some such and refers to the balance of the counterweight and ascender. This is the land of Horus where the pyramids were built and the inundation tossed at the beginning of each year.

The names of Egyptian deities we use today can be somewhat misleading, darkbreed. It's not your fault. Much of the vocabulary pertaining to ancient Egypt with which many modern people are familiar is in fact Greek in origin, especially including place names and the names of gods and kings. It's really not even necessary to know unless the subject interests you and you want to commit yourself to serious study of ancient Egypt. Some other examples:

1) The god Osiris was pronounced something like Usir or Asir to the Egyptians; the goddess Isis, Uset or Aset.
2) The goddess Nephthys was pronounced more like Nebet-hut.
3) The god Anubis (my own favorite of the Egyptian deities) was pronounced more like Inepu.
4) The northern city of Memphis was Mennefer to the Egyptians.
5) Sometimes the names Greeks gave to cities is nowhere close to how the Egyptians knew them: Thebes to the Greeks was Waset to the Egyptians; Hierakonpolis to the Greeks was Nekhen to the Egyptians. This second one almost makes sense, though, because Hierakonpolis means "City of the Hawk," and ancient Nekhen was one of the earliest cult centers for the god Horus. LOL Oh, and Horus to the Greeks was Hor to the Egyptians--they were pretty close with that one.

As for Djehuty, I honestly don't know how the Greeks got Thoth out of it. I've only dabbled in the Greek language and am not familiar with it, so your guess is as good as mine. Greek is a beautiful language and I'd like to learn it, but goodness, who has the time for all of this study! I concentrate on ancient Egyptian, so for me one language at a time is more than enough.

How the Greeks came to associate their Hermes with Thoth might be easier to explain. I don't think it had anything to do with the sound of the two gods' names but rather attributes the Greeks found familiar in the Egyptian god Thoth. For example, Hermes had many powers and attributes but among them are literature, wit, and cunning. To the Egyptians Thoth was the god of writing and magic, among other things, so the similarities are there.

Other posters here with more of a background in ancient Greece might be better able to explain thrice-great Hermes, but as I understand it from my Egyptian studies, Hermes Trismegistus was a deliberate syncretism on the part of the Greek-Macedonian kings who ruled Egypt during the Ptolemaic Period. These Ptolemaic rulers were much concerned with maintaining peace and order, and strived to meld Egyptian and Greek gods to make them more harmonious to both the Greek and native Egyptian citizens of the land they ruled. Another good example is Hermanubis, a melded god consisting of Hermes and Anubis. Yet another example is the god Aser-hapi, a god completely invented by the first Greek ruler of Egypt, Ptolemaios Soter. It drew on the god Osiris and the divine Egyptian bull the Apis but was given a human-looking form (the Greeks disliked the Egyptian tendency to depict many of their gods as part animal). Most people know this god today by the name of Serapis. And although it was a Greek idea from the start, the Serapis was a grand success and was venerated by Egyptians and Greeks alike.

Lastly, you asked about the first contact or historical record between the Greeks and Egyptians. I would have to say the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period (1064-656 BCE) because the Greeks did not begin branching out into the wider Mediterranean till around 750 BCE (although they had been well acquainted with the northern Aegean well before that). At this time and into the Late Period of Egypt Greeks often enlisted in the Egyptian military as mercenaries; Greek mercenaries helped the Egyptians to fight the Persians, for example. In the Late Period is when you really see close contacts developing. The pharaoh Psamtik I (664-610 BCE) allowed the Greeks to establish a settlement in Lower Egypt, which was called Naukratis whose location in the Delta you can see on this map.

I suppose it also depends on what you want to define as "Greek," however. There is evidence, for instance, of Egyptian contact with the Mycenaeans going all the way back to the New Kingdom. The Mycenaeans were a Bronze Age culture and the progenitors of the Iron Age Greek civilization with which most people are familiar, and in my opinion the Mycenaeans of the Bronze Age and the Greeks who founded Naukratis are very different. When you think of Mycenaeans, think of the mythic Greeks who conquered Troy.

Thanks for your very enlightening and insightful reply kmt sesh

Some interesting things you mention there I've never been aware of.

Too bad there's so few hours in a day, there's plenty of topics I'd like to dive deeper into such as this. I already reduced my sleep length to get enough time to do all the things I'm currently doing and I can still only get to do a handful of what I'd like to do.

So many wonders, and so much great mysteries!

Thanks again and keep up the good work!

-EA

I got a chance to look through this stuff. I often think I have
more in common with our ancestors than with most today but
try to maintain a sort of scientific detachment.

I typically fail at least privately.

Peace.

It's the mysteries that drive us on. They are the appeal.

Thanks, darkbreed.

Oh btw you forgot to address my question regarding the cocain/nicotine/cannabis mummies, the post is up there somewhere. Any input on that? You think it's possible there were some ancient trading route between the americas and egyptians? (possibly other people involved, I'm not sure when the first discoveries of cocaine, nioctine and cannabis were done in for example europe, and it's a fact the vikings were in the americas at least once before colombus possibly several times and what they brought back is also open for speculation I suppose, if any such route was there at all it might not have been a "direct" one but one including several "third parties" before reaching egypt).

Well thanks again mates

-EA

Hi darkbreed,

Look for my post on 25-5-2008 @ 04:54 PM at the following: Speculation: Egypt to South America trade route

I wondered the same thing, so did some research of my own and that is what I found. Hope it helps.

cormac

Thanks, I will look at that link right now!

Cheers!

I was going to skip that one because I've done very little reading on it, and I'm not well informed. It also doesn't interest me much. However, since you asked, I did a little bit of looking while I'm sitting here at work during a slow time.

Someone asked this during a lecture I attended and the Egyptologist who was speaking said the most likely answer is contamination. He described the common practice until very recent times of handling mummies with bare hands and the ancient bodies coming into contact with modern residues. A moment ago I found this article, which basically says the same thing as the speaker at that lecture did. LOL However, the speaker presented it much better--this web page was badly translated from whatever language it was originally in, but it makes sense well enough.

Both the speaker at the lecture and the web page explain three things as I would understand the situation, too:

1) The mummies examined date to a period long before any advanced civilizations existed in Mesoamerica, so even if trade were possible, it's unlikely the Indians living in Central and South America at the time had progressed much beyond the state of hunter-gatherers.

2) The Egyptians never developed the sort of maritime technology that would've enabled them to set up trade relationships with civilizations on the other side of the world. Egyptian maritime technology is something I've spent a considerable amount of time researching, and though they were expert river and coastal mariners, they never cared to sail on the open seas until well into the Late Period (and even then they were mostly just part of the Persian naval force).

3) Contamination, to me, seems the most likely answer. It hasn't been until recently that scientists and historians have really taken this seriously when handling and studying mummies. Sometimes people today are still careless about it (I don't know how many times I've seen footage of Zahi Hawass touching mummies with his bare hands!).

Other than that it's not a subject with which I am very familiar, so I can't offer much of a debate.