Great Sphinx rain catchment system

[ShadowSot]

So we must dial down their IQ to fit the theory that they all drank from a sewer that drains an entire continent.

No, the cases of worms wasn't common. Keep in mind this was thousands of years before the germ theory of disease. People have been drinking water out of rivers for thousands of years.

Also, you are now adjusting the Nile to a sewer to make your theory work.

I don't buy it. Man has understood the difference between fresh, pure water and river swill for tens upon tens of thousands of years.

Man hasn't had much of a choice for thousands of years.

You had water, fruit juice, beer, or wine, usually.

The Ancient Egyptians drank a lot of beer, but also a lot of water. The parasites mentioned occurred, but for the most part they had a immune system that was used to what the Nile may through at them.

We know that the elites drank from the Nile as some of their mummies show the same worms.

I believe they also knew that sex (between male and female) often resulted in babies, even though THAT took nearly a year too.

Yes, though the Ancient Greeks thought that reproduction was solely through the man, that the womb of a woman traveled throughout her body, and that your could successfully reproduce with animals.

They also though your eyes emitted rays like radar which was how you were able to see, and practiced fortune telling by reading entrails.

In the case of the sickness, it was not a common occurrence, they didn't have the medical technology of today (and not having technology does not make you less intelligent) and at the time if you became sick it was assumed your were cured, either by the gods or by a rival.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Whenever I've heard or read the Nile described in ancient times it was as "the reason Egypt was an empire" it provided transportation, fertilised the crops and was the source of water for the Egyptians. If someone's going to claim otherwise, they need to back that up with something. And saying "the Giza complex was a water catchment complex" is one of that extraordinary claims that requires extraordinary proof and saying "the water wasn't safe they must have used something else for their water QED" isn't proof of anything.

How does the Giza complex act as a water purification/collection system?

[questionmark]

Whenever I've heard or read the Nile described in ancient times it was as "the reason Egypt was an empire" it provided transportation, fertilised the crops and was the source of water for the Egyptians. If someone's going to claim otherwise, they need to back that up with something. And saying "the Giza complex was a water catchment complex" is one of that extraordinary claims that requires extraordinary proof and saying "the water wasn't safe they must have used something else for their water QED" isn't proof of anything.

How does the Giza complex act as a water purification/collection system?

The UFO...Osiris...the beans OK?

[Aus Der Box Skeptisch]

The UFO...Osiris...the beans OK?

Lol

[kmt_sesh]

I've come to the discussion late but haven't had a lot of free time lately. I had been wondering why Mr. Giles has been so absent in the "Well Supported Theory" thread started by cladking, and now I see why. I don't know that there's anything wrong with starting a new thread, although it does seem somewhat redundant given that the entire "Well Supported Theory" discussion is based on the same thing. But now it's specifically the Sphinx's turn, I suppose.

I'm not the only one, obviously, who has a problem with the whole rain-catchment theme, but it's only fair to give Mr. Giles his platform. That's what UM is for. Still, I don't see how the Sphinx complex would've ever worked to catch and keep rain. Any decent aerial photo should be self-explanatory:

When it comes to a sealed and impervious system, it's obvious the Sphinx enclosure would not have worked too well for that purpose. Moreover, nothing in the archaeology of the site shows that the valley temple of Khafre (to the left in the above photo) and the Sphinx temple (to the right) ever formed a solid mass to close off the front or eastern end of the enclosure. There is a slight and steady decrease in elevation here as the complex moves to the east, so any rain falling on the Plateau in enough percentage to collect, would've run freely down, between, and out the east ends of the two temples.

To be sure, I think enough evidence was presented in the "Well Supported Theory" discussion to clarify in the first place that insufficient rain fell in the Old Kingdom for any of this to have worked. But even if rain had been plentiful, why carve out a massive statue inside the Sphinx enclosure or build colossal pyramids and surround them with walls, if all these things were meant to do is collect rain? Seems to me, the more logical approach would've been to build free-standing enclosures with stone pavements. Massive pyramids and a huge man-headed lion right in the middle of the enclosures would've done nothing but hamper rain collection.

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Earlier in the thread there was a fair amount of argument over the consumption of water in pharaonic times. Some posters seemed highly incredulous that the ancient Egyptians would've drunk river water from the Nile, as though they ought to have known better. Other posters pointed out the hit-and-miss nature of water-borne illnesses and parasitic organisms such as guinea worms. I would fully have to side with the latter group. Absolutely. The full weight of evidence is with them. Well-preserved human remains recovered from ancient burials have evidenced parasitic organisms such as guinea worms and the worms that caused schistosomiasis. As it happens, schistosomiasis was one of the leading killers in ancient Egypt. It's true the worm that causes this ailment may be introduced by means other than by drinking, but the sheer numbers of deaths caused by schistosomiasis argues otherwise--polluted water was consumed. Of course, ailments caused by guinea worms are by vast majority caused by people ingesting the immature form of these worms--from bad drinking water. As other posters mentioned, at the time people were drinking the water, the worms in their immature forms would've been too small for the naked eye to see.

This should not give anyone license to think of the ancient Egyptians as "stupid," nor is it cause for those who oppose the evidence to suggest arguments about bad drinking water are "stupid." First and foremost a student must divorce himself or herself from modern attitudes and sensibilities. It's not easy to try to see things from the perspective of someone living in the Bronze Age, but it's worse for the student to expect that Bronze Age person to have possessed the medical and scientific knowledge we moderns take for granted. The simple fact is, the main source of drinking water for people living in the ancient Nile Valley was the River Nile.

Wells were in fact dug by the Egyptians, but not many are evidenced in and around the ruins of ancient communities along the river--where the vast majority of the population lived. Wells were more typical at distant quarry sites where water sources were rare. Excavations of these sites have even revealed depressions carved into rocky outcrops so that infrequent rains could collect in them. But this was not the general case among the habitations in the Nile Valley. A good example is the ancient workmen's village known by the Arabic name Deir el Medina. Here lived the men who carved the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, in the New Kingdom. Deir el Medina is in a remote and rather inhospitable site. It is about a mile distant from the river. No wells were dug there, and in fact it's known that daily teams of workers trekked down to the river and back to collect water for drinking, washing, and cooking.

The image below has been shared in several posts already:

I've tried to find the origin of this image and more information about it, but have come across almost nothing. I can't find it in any of the books in my own library. It appears on several different web pages as a "clarifying device" for water. Most of these web pages state that the image was drawn from a scene found in KV35, the tomb of Amunhotep II (Dynasty 18). I have my doubts about that. I can't be completely certain I'm right, of course, but this is not ordinarily the type of thing depicted in a royal New Kingdom tomb. However, it's possible the scene comes from the mortuary temple of Amunhotep II.

Although numerous web pages describe the image as a "clarifying device" for water, I myself highly doubt this, too. The scene clearly shows a priest at left drinking from the jugs at top while the priest at right pours something into the endmost jug. The distillation of liquids was not known in pharaonic Egypt and what the priest at left is grasping is in fact a straw. Many might not know that ancient straws, often made of wood, have been recovered from archaeological sites in the Near East. Such images are found in other tombs, like this one. What the priest is drinking is almost certainly beer--the jugs atop the cabinet are typical of the iconography for beer jugs. What the priest at right is pouring into the end jug I am not sure, but quite possibly the small flask he's holding up contains honey. This was commonly used as a sweetener for beer. In his right hand he appears to be grasping his scribal kit, a mark of authority and prestige with which priests are commonly depicted.

It's true the fermentation process that produced beer would've killed many if not most of the parasitic organisms that caused gastrointestinal ailments. Thus, beer was generally safer to drink (in moderation, of course). But more important to the Egyptians was the nutritional value of beer. It was a ready energy product and simple to make. This is why it was one of the staples of the diet, along with bread. It's also why children commonly consumed beer, although arguably the variety they consumed was very weak in alcohol and more like an oatmeal than a drink.

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It should be remembered that all of the Old Kingdom pyramids were clustered at the very northern end of Egypt. One of the premises of Mr. Giles rain-catchment theme is that it was only in the Old Kingdom when these rain-catchment devices were made, or so I remember him telling me in the "Well Supported Theory" thread. This doesn't seem terribly efficient, however, because tens of thousands of Egyptians in the Old Kingdom lived in the southern regions. Where are their pyramids and Sphinx for catching rain?

[jules99]

I've come to the discussion late but haven't had a lot of free time lately. I had been wondering why Mr. Giles has been so absent in the "Well Supported Theory" thread started by cladking, and now I see why. I don't know that there's anything wrong with starting a new thread, although it does seem somewhat redundant given that the entire "Well Supported Theory" discussion is based on the same thing. But now it's specifically the Sphinx's turn, I suppose.

I'm not the only one, obviously, who has a problem with the whole rain-catchment theme, but it's only fair to give Mr. Giles his platform. That's what UM is for. Still, I don't see how the Sphinx complex would've ever worked to catch and keep rain. Any decent aerial photo should be self-explanatory:

When it comes to a sealed and impervious system, it's obvious the Sphinx enclosure would not have worked too well for that purpose. Moreover, nothing in the archaeology of the site shows that the valley temple of Khafre (to the left in the above photo) and the Sphinx temple (to the right) ever formed a solid mass to close off the front or eastern end of the enclosure. There is a slight and steady decrease in elevation here as the complex moves to the east, so any rain falling on the Plateau in enough percentage to collect, would've run freely down, between, and out the east ends of the two temples.

To be sure, I think enough evidence was presented in the "Well Supported Theory" discussion to clarify in the first place that insufficient rain fell in the Old Kingdom for any of this to have worked. But even if rain had been plentiful, why carve out a massive statue inside the Sphinx enclosure or build colossal pyramids and surround them with walls, if all these things were meant to do is collect rain? Seems to me, the more logical approach would've been to build free-standing enclosures with stone pavements. Massive pyramids and a huge man-headed lion right in the middle of the enclosures would've done nothing but hamper rain collection.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Earlier in the thread there was a fair amount of argument over the consumption of water in pharaonic times. Some posters seemed highly incredulous that the ancient Egyptians would've drunk river water from the Nile, as though they ought to have known better. Other posters pointed out the hit-and-miss nature of water-borne illnesses and parasitic organisms such as guinea worms. I would fully have to side with the latter group. Absolutely. The full weight of evidence is with them. Well-preserved human remains recovered from ancient burials have evidenced parasitic organisms such as guinea worms and the worms that caused schistosomiasis. As it happens, schistosomiasis was one of the leading killers in ancient Egypt. It's true the worm that causes this ailment may be introduced by means other than by drinking, but the sheer numbers of deaths caused by schistosomiasis argues otherwise--polluted water was consumed. Of course, ailments caused by guinea worms are by vast majority caused by people ingesting the immature form of these worms--from bad drinking water. As other posters mentioned, at the time people were drinking the water, the worms in their immature forms would've been too small for the naked eye to see.

This should not give anyone license to think of the ancient Egyptians as "stupid," nor is it cause for those who oppose the evidence to suggest arguments about bad drinking water are "stupid." First and foremost a student must divorce himself or herself from modern attitudes and sensibilities. It's not easy to try to see things from the perspective of someone living in the Bronze Age, but it's worse for the student to expect that Bronze Age person to have possessed the medical and scientific knowledge we moderns take for granted. The simple fact is, the main source of drinking water for people living in the ancient Nile Valley was the River Nile.

Wells were in fact dug by the Egyptians, but not many are evidenced in and around the ruins of ancient communities along the river--where the vast majority of the population lived. Wells were more typical at distant quarry sites where water sources were rare. Excavations of these sites have even revealed depressions carved into rocky outcrops so that infrequent rains could collect in them. But this was not the general case among the habitations in the Nile Valley. A good example is the ancient workmen's village known by the Arabic name Deir el Medina. Here lived the men who carved the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, in the New Kingdom. Deir el Medina is in a remote and rather inhospitable site. It is about a mile distant from the river. No wells were dug there, and in fact it's known that daily teams of workers trekked down to the river and back to collect water for drinking, washing, and cooking.

The image below has been shared in several posts already:

I've tried to find the origin of this image and more information about it, but have come across almost nothing. I can't find it in any of the books in my own library. It appears on several different web pages as a "clarifying device" for water. Most of these web pages state that the image was drawn from a scene found in KV35, the tomb of Amunhotep II (Dynasty 18). I have my doubts about that. I can't be completely certain I'm right, of course, but this is not ordinarily the type of thing depicted in a royal New Kingdom tomb. However, it's possible the scene comes from the mortuary temple of Amunhotep II.

Although numerous web pages describe the image as a "clarifying device" for water, I myself highly doubt this, too. The scene clearly shows a priest at left drinking from the jugs at top while the priest at right pours something into the endmost jug. The distillation of liquids was not known in pharaonic Egypt and what the priest at left is grasping is in fact a straw. Many might not know that ancient straws, often made of wood, have been recovered from archaeological sites in the Near East. Such images are found in other tombs, like this one. What the priest is drinking is almost certainly beer--the jugs atop the cabinet are typical of the iconography for beer jugs. What the priest at right is pouring into the end jug I am not sure, but quite possibly the small flask he's holding up contains honey. This was commonly used as a sweetener for beer. In his right hand he appears to be grasping his scribal kit, a mark of authority and prestige with which priests are commonly depicted.

It's true the fermentation process that produced beer would've killed many if not most of the parasitic organisms that caused gastrointestinal ailments. Thus, beer was generally safer to drink (in moderation, of course). But more important to the Egyptians was the nutritional value of beer. It was a ready energy product and simple to make. This is why it was one of the staples of the diet, along with bread. It's also why children commonly consumed beer, although arguably the variety they consumed was very weak in alcohol and more like an oatmeal than a drink.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It should be remembered that all of the Old Kingdom pyramids were clustered at the very northern end of Egypt. One of the premises of Mr. Giles rain-catchment theme is that it was only in the Old Kingdom when these rain-catchment devices were made, or so I remember him telling me in the "Well Supported Theory" thread. This doesn't seem terribly efficient, however, because tens of thousands of Egyptians in the Old Kingdom lived in the southern regions. Where are their pyramids and Sphinx for catching rain?

Hi kmt_sesh;

Just a little niggle here, micro organisms present in water are more likely to prevent the fermentation process rather than be killed by it, in my current understanding.

Also wasnt it confirmed that ground water levels were substantially higher at the time these monuments were constructed, which might mean another source other than precipitation for water catchment/distribution.

Cheers...Jules

Edited December 3, 2011 by jules99

[questionmark]

Hi kmt_sesh;

Just a little niggle here, micro organisms present in water are more likely to prevent the fermentation process rather than be killed by it, in my current understanding.

Also wasnt it confirmed that ground water levels were substantially higher at the time these monuments were constructed, which might mean another source other than precipitation for water catchment/distribution.

Cheers...Jules

Then the beer would be spoiled, thrown away and no harm done (except the economic loss).