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Sphinx and GP dates from 10 500 BC?


Big Bad Voodoo

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Sometimes, no, often, in this bizarre fantasy world, the Egyptians themselves are forgotten and what they said ignored. Did not Prince Thutmose (The future king Aakheperenra), say that the Sphinx was a representation of Ra-Horakhty facing the rising Sun, with the face made in the likeness of Khafre. And did he not say that "Since Khafre was laid to rest in his pyramid, the sands have blown against the sphinx until it is now almost buried". From this we can take a few points. The sphinx is Ra-Horakhty, with, in a rather meglomaniac way perhaps, the face of Khafre. Therefore not Anubis or anything other than Ra-Horakhty, and is contempary with the pyramids and not 10,000 years old. Prince Thutmose should know far better than us the purpose of the pyramids. If he says Khafre was buried in his pyramid, then who now is so arrogant as to know better?. I said in an earlier post that the Giza complex is about the horizons of sunrise and sunset. This is laid out clearly in the pdf that I link to again, and includes the original Lehner-Goedicke line and it's interpretation. Again, nothing to do with the stars etc, but with the horizons and placing the pyramids so as not to obstruct sightlines. No great mysterious plan here, just practicality.

What is written here destroys much of the nonsense I see in this thread....

http://www.gizapyram...hner_afo_32.pdf

So, anybody here know better than Prince Thutmose? Please, go ahead and prove what he said was wrong

I don't like your link. It's just the same old stuff about where the ramps mustta been and an admitted

methodology of trying to force the evidence into the mould of ramps. Ramps weren't used and even if

they had been you can't use the assumption they were used as evidence they were used. The article

otherwise is reasonably well written and is fairly consistent with most of the evidence but there is very

little new and useable information in it.

I believe prince Thutmose lived ~ 1400 years after G1 was built. I do not believe his opinion is as good

as your's or mine. I believe his description of the Sphinx is likely in the ballpark but I believe he is wrong

that any king was ever buried in a great pyramid. Frankly it wouldn't surprise me if there's a translation

issue here additionally. It's possible the word for "pyramid" had a different referent than G2.

We need to include as much and as many ancient reports as is possible in our theories but we do need to

always consider the source. Budge isn't always wrong and Prince Thutmose might not be always right.

Edited by cladking
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Then you know more than an actual ancient Egyptian? What they say in the pdf about the ramps is not interesting to me. I posted the link because of what they say about the layout of Giza and the geology of the Sphinx

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Then you never heard of the dream stelae between the forepaws of the Sphinx? or know that Prince Thutmose became Thutmose IV. He is not any historian and doees not need methodology or peer review, he was an ancient Egyptian, and therefore knows more about his culture than any of us.

Someone being closer in time to a particular event does not always make them more knowledgeable about it. And Thutmose IV was still a millenium after the supposed building time of the pyramids at Giza. He might have known everything about his own culture, but to have correctly known anything about the intentions and wishes of those who lived at least 1,000 years before him would require quantifiable, corroborative historical sources and an empirical methodology on his part.

What did the average English king in 1100AD know about the Roman Empire of 100AD? Probably a lot less than the average schoolboy of today.

Thutmose IV for all we know was just blindly repeating the same moth eaten myths about the pyramids that had been passed down to his time. The original pyramid builders had been dead for 10 centuries and could not speak for themselves.

Thutmose IV is probably just another piece of detritus getting in the way of the truth. Sorry to break that to you... you sound rather a fan of his.

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Someone being closer in time to a particular event does not always make them more knowledgeable about it. And Thutmose IV was still a millenium after the supposed building time of the pyramids at Giza. He might have known everything about his own culture, but to have correctly known anything about the intentions and wishes of those who lived at least 1,000 years before him would require quantifiable, corroborative historical sources and an empirical methodology on his part.

What did the average English king in 1100AD know about the Roman Empire of 100AD? Probably a lot less than the average schoolboy of today.

Thutmose IV for all we know was just blindly repeating the same moth eaten myths about the pyramids that had been passed down to his time. The original pyramid builders had been dead for 10 centuries and could not speak for themselves.

Thutmose IV is probably just another piece of detritus getting in the way of the truth. Sorry to break that to you... you sound rather a fan of his.

not taking the bait mister :sleepy:

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not taking the bait mister :sleepy:

Bait? Not baiting you, just knocking your ridiculous argument out of the park.

Now if you want to go running to your mummy... you'll find it in KV35. :passifier:

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Then you know more than an actual ancient Egyptian? What they say in the pdf about the ramps is not interesting to me. I posted the link because of what they say about the layout of Giza and the geology of the Sphinx

When I answered your post I wasn't aware you were referring to the Dream Stela. I don't

believe there's anything in this source to suggest Prince Thutmose believed that Khafre was

buried un G2.

It's not a question of whether I know more than Prince Thutmose. The question is did he

know and accurately report the reality and have we properly understood his report. In point

of fact I seriously doubt his understanding of ancient Egypt was nearly as good as mine. The

people probably changed rather dramatically and he probably didn't know it. Nothing survives

from before the 5th dynasty and I believe this is because people like Prince Thutmose didn't

understand it so it wasn't protected. If he didn't understand it then what would he necessarily

know about the ancients? He would make assumptions just as we do but at least we know more

about science and have evidence at our disposal.

I'm not trying to be harsh about your link and our disagreement is no reflection on you. It's not

as bad as most things of the sort and it is reasonable in most regards. The fact is whenever al-

most no evidence exists people are reduced to making lots of inferances and guesses if they

want to write about it. The fact they did get most of the facts straight is very much in their favor.

One of the things I most doubt is that they quarried stone on the cliff face. I can easily believe

they worked these faces or removed overburden (including calsium carbonate) but it was a form

of sculpting and not quarrying. It's not only the fact that this conmtention has been reported no-

where else but the fact that the cliff face is barely capable of supporting the pyramid. The build-

ers certainly knew this situation and would not have mined this face once construction was first

considered. It is wholly illogical to lift stone up the steep slope and if they actually did it then it

would be supportive of my contention that they lifted stone straight up the side of the pyramid and

weaken further the argument for ramps. There are several other inor points that I believe are in

error like the nature of the fill on this cliff face and the nature of the coffer dam surrounding G1. These

are relatively insignificant differences though and it realkly is all the stuff about ramps I find disturbing.

The concept that construction might be led frpom a high point near the wadi is especially irksome to

me since it seems so highly illogical. No matter how it was built it was most likely directed from the

top. Of course if debunked ramps had been used it might have been directed from the south bottom.

The other material about the layout and the Sphinx I've seen quite a bit. They do a good job with it

but it is of lesser interest to me personally. I believe the Sphinx is intimately connected to the pyra-

mids but there's relatively little question in my mind how it was built. There's little question why it was

built as well though specifics are more elusive.

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The fact is whenever al-

most no evidence exists people are reduced to making lots of inferances and guesses if they

want to write about it. The fact they did get most of the facts straight is very much in their favor.

This point is imperative whenever we are dealing with ancient "historians". Tacitus, for example is a grand read, and he still brings first century Rome to life in marvellous fashion... but much of what he writes must now be taken with a pinch of salt, regardless of his proximity to the people and events he describes... mainly because he was keen to ingratiate himself with the current regime under which he lived.

It is utterly naive (and romantic in the extreme) to place any historical significance on Thutmose IV and his "tales" regarding anything which happened centuries before his time. The Dream Stele was propaganda for his own time, and misdirection for the millenia to follow. He has not done real history any favours at all. As I rightly said: detritus. Just another distorting link in the vast and ancient Chinese whisper.

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The Giza circle, uses the position of the belt stars as they are today, with the center star, the center of the circle.

SC: The Giza circle does not use the astronomical position of the Belt stars as they are today. And neither is the center star at the center of the circle. If you read the thread properly you will see this has been discussed already.

Quaentum: Since the Ancient Egyptians would have used the stars as they were positioned at the time the plan was supposedly made ...

SC: Really? Where is it written that the AEs would do that?

Quaentum:... you need to redo the circle using the stars as they were or your circle can not be said to be accurate.

SC: Stars as they were? When? Why? The point of the great circle is to highlight the connection between the Sphinx and the other three points of the circle. And the circle serves a very specific function. Perhaps it might help you to read this.

Quaentum: Either that or you have to drop the stars completely out of the picture.

SC; Not possible. The Belt stars play a very unique and important function. See the thread linked above.

SC

Edited by Scott Creighton
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Thutmose could be stating what was believed to be the thruth during his era. But his statements, I agree, are a far better argument than you'll get from a bunch of geeks sitting at keyboards arguing about this.

Let us not forget that we're not talking about some oral tradition being transferred through Thutmose. They did have writing, after all, just like we do. Does anyone believe that, in 900 years, anyone will argue that it simply can't be Lincoln up there on Mount Rushmore?

Only if you're willing to postulate such a ridiculous state can you dismiss Thutmose's statements. IMO, that would be "utterly naive."

Harte

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Thutmose could be stating what was believed to be the thruth during his era. But his statements, I agree, are a far better argument than you'll get from a bunch of geeks sitting at keyboards arguing about this.

Let us not forget that we're not talking about some oral tradition being transferred through Thutmose. They did have writing, after all, just like we do. Does anyone believe that, in 900 years, anyone will argue that it simply can't be Lincoln up there on Mount Rushmore?

Only if you're willing to postulate such a ridiculous state can you dismiss Thutmose's statements. IMO, that would be "utterly naive."

This claims to be only a partial translation but I've never seen anywhere that claims

Khafre was buried in G2. Indeed, the first claim that the great pyramids were tombs

might date to Herodotus who also said Khufu wasn't buried in G1.

"Now the statue of the very great Khepri [the Great Sphinx ] rested in this place, great of fame, sacred of respect, the shade of Ra resting on him. Memphis and every city on its two sides came to him, their arms in adoration to his face, bearing great offerings for his Ka. One of these days it happened that prince Thutmose came travelling at the time of midday. He rested in the shadow of this great god. [sleep and] dream [took possession of him] at the moment the sun was at zenith. Then he found the majesty of this noble god speaking from his own mouth like a father speaks to his son, and saying: "Look at me, observe me, my son Thutmose. I am your father Horemakhet-Khepri-Ra-Atum. I shall give to you the kingship [upon the land before the living]....[behold, my condition is like one in illness], all [ my limbs being ruined]. The sand of the desert, upon which I used to be, (now) confronts me; and it is in order to cause that you do what is in my heart that I have waited." "[2]

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SC: Semantics. You can’t have a ‘Flood Season’ without a flood. It is the flood that gives the season the name ‘Akhet’. You can try and spin it any way you like but the word ‘Akhet’ is clearly associated with ‘flood’.

Semantics? What is your background and training in translating hieroglyphs? What is your training in the orthography and syntax of hieroglyphic inscriptions? I'm not saying I'm an expert even if I've undergone the training, but basically your track seems to be: "If it sounds right, it's good enough." By your reasoning we should call springtime "rain" because it tends to rain a lot.

Granted, the most important event of the season of Akhet was the inundation, but look into how the word was hieroglyphically spelled. Not only does it have no relation to ancient Egyptian words for "flood," but it's spelled differently from the glyphic arrangements for "horizon." The deciding glyph in the word for the season of Akhet is M8, the pool with lilies. It defines the nature of the flood to restore life to the Nile Valley every year. It's a completely different word from those for either "flood" or "horizon" and does not appear in the spelling for the name of Khufu's pyramid complex.

In other words, Akhet as the season refers not so much to the flood as to what the flood brought: abundance. The term did not denote a sense of dread or threat, but hope. Without the inundation, there simply could not have been a kingdom. Look into the actual words for "flood." They're quite clear: in most cases their determinative is the three water lines, specifically denoting water. This is not evident in the spelling for the season of Akhet.

The crested-ibis is believed by Consensus Egyptology to represent ‘essence of light’ or “transcendent light” or something along those lines. How they ever came to such a conclusion is anyone’s guess. The crested-ibis could just as easily be a determinative symbolising ‘flood water’ since the crested-ibis spends much of its time wading in the shallow flood waters of the Nile, using its long beak to search for food under the flood water.

The crested ibis in ancient Egyptian stood for the sound value "akh" (ax). It is a very difficult word to translate. It is the spirit-form which inhabits the afterlife and is fixed to that place. It's often translated as "effective spirit" or words to that effect, which is about as close as one can come in English and other modern languages. It might be hard to translate but its meaning is well understood. The word for horizon, Akhet, literally means "place of the akh." It goes back into Old Kingdom times when the Duat (place of afterlife) involved the heavens more so than it did in later times.

How exactly the word "akh" came to be represented by the crested ibis has to do with the difficulty in representing abstract concepts with hieroglyphs, which tend to be physical and concrete things in most cases. "Akh" is one word for the crested ibis, so it could be used to represent "effective spirit," too. Egyptian hieroglyphs are replete with such usages. Another example is the word "ankh" (anx), "life." It would be very difficult to represent a concept such as "life" with glyphs, but there are numerous other examples of "ankh" in the ancient language (mirror case, sandal, et cetera), so a concrete object was used to represent an abstract concept.

The crested-ibis is also a symbol of rebirth and is closely associated with the AE god Thoth who promised to send a great deluge that would flood and drown all of Egypt. In this sense, the crested-ibis, as well as being a determinative for ‘flood water’ could just as easily symbolise the rebirth of the kingdom (not the king) from the great flood promised by Thoth. The hieroglyphs for flood or inundation typically show grain sprouting forth from the elliptical land glyph but this sprouting grain is absent in the ‘Akhet Khufu’ land glyph. This makes sense since this particular flood was destined to wipe everything away, to scrub the land bare – the ‘end time flood’.

The threat of the cosmos-ending flood was an abstract concept and not something believed to happen imminently. It was a nebulously defined "eventual" threat and is explained particularly well in Erik Hornung's Conception of God in Ancient Egypt. As far as it goes, I'm not aware of evidence that this belief was defined or existed in the Old Kingdom. I'm aware of your theme that the Egyptians were building the Great Pyramid as their "recovery vault" because they feared an imminent flood, but I'm certainly not aware of evidence that the Egyptians of Dynasty 4 believed such a threat existed. Especially from the early to mid-part of the dynasty, the state was stable, prosperous, and powerful, and everything was working in favor of the king and his court. Where is there evidence the Egyptians feared otherwise?

SC: You can double-check it with God Himself, for all I care. Once-upon-a-time Budge was the all-knowing authority. Not any more though. And I am sure that, in time, the authority you are presently citing will also be displaced. Such is the ephemeral nature of Consensus Egyptology. But while you’re here - explain to us precisely how a crested-ibis (G25) from the Old Kingdom evolves into the sun disc between two mounds (N27) in the Middle Kingdom?

The study of ancient Egyptian linguistics is one of the focuses of my own research, and I can say with confidence that there is simply no possible comparison between what was known in Budge's day and what is known today. Budge's work is riddled with errors, which is why he's not a primary research source in any modern historian's work. Nowadays linguists like Faulkner (deceased) and Allen (thriving) quibble over fussy parts of speech, but hieroglyphs are firmly understood. As long as an inscription or text was written crisply by a reasonably educated scribe, a modern Egyptologist rarely has difficulty translating it. I'm certainly not as polished as an Egyptologist, but I find the same to be true in most of my own translation exercises.

The gray areas lie much more in the cursive scripts like hieratic and demotic, which represent the every-day tongue of the Egyptians in their respective periods of development. Hieroglyphs did not. Hieroglyphs probably did represent the every-day language around the time of Djoser, but even by Khufu's time they expressed an outmoded way of speaking (similar to how words like "thee" and "thou" sound to a modern English speaker). While glyphs certainly changed through time, the language they were expressing barely did. That's why ritual and religious texts were generally written in hieroglyphs, which was a ritual script, while every-day, humdrum things were expressed in the cursive scripts.

Your question about the change in the Akhet glyphs is a fair one. I cannot answer it. The grammars and sign lists I keep in my library contain many examples of different ways words were written in hieroglyphs, including archaic examples and how they changed. This might make an interesting topic for a research paper, and I'm willing to guess the two mounds with sun disk were already appearing in the First Intermediate Period, but I cannot state so authoritatively. All I can say with certainty is the way it's spelled in Khufu's complex and the way it is spelled in later periods reflect only a different glyphic spelling, but not a different meaning. In a sense modern languages like English have undergone similar transformations in spelling conventions.

SC: Which is nothing but the OPINION of Consensus Egyptology. Their best guess. The pyramid sign in your image sits above the land glyph i.e. that the Pyramid protects against the flood and ensures the rebirth of the flooded kingdom. “Akhet Khufu” – ‘flood protector’.

Egyptology has two centuries of ceaseless and concerted research behind it; the linguistic end of it alone has been firmly developed just in the last several decades. That said, I will prefer Egyptology every time. It has the peer-reviewed research to back it up. What linguistic evidence can you present that the pyramid glyph means what you're saying it means? How can you demonstrate that it is not, in fact, the semantic determinative that anyone trained in hieroglyphs will see it as?

A note on your belief about the name Khufu, which I didn't touch on before. You're suggesting the word Khufu means "protect" or "protector." The word "protect" in the ancient language is khu (xw). "Khufu" is merely an abbreviated form of the formal name Khnum-Khuf. The "f" at the end of the name is the third-person masculine suffix pronoun and means "him." The full name means "Khnum protects him," in other words. In any case, the name Khufu in the inscription resides inside a cartouche, which obviously indicates that this person is a king. That's what cartouches were for. Cartouches did not contain random nouns.

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Someone being closer in time to a particular event does not always make them more knowledgeable about it. And Thutmose IV was still a millenium after the supposed building time of the pyramids at Giza. He might have known everything about his own culture, but to have correctly known anything about the intentions and wishes of those who lived at least 1,000 years before him would require quantifiable, corroborative historical sources and an empirical methodology on his part.

What did the average English king in 1100AD know about the Roman Empire of 100AD? Probably a lot less than the average schoolboy of today.

Thutmose IV for all we know was just blindly repeating the same moth eaten myths about the pyramids that had been passed down to his time. The original pyramid builders had been dead for 10 centuries and could not speak for themselves.

Thutmose IV is probably just another piece of detritus getting in the way of the truth. Sorry to break that to you... you sound rather a fan of his.

While I would not see Tuthmosis IV as "detritus" ("ambitious" would be more accurate), and while you and I rarely seem to agree on things, Alcibiades9, this is one of those rare cases where we seem to be in agreement.

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Bait? Not baiting you, just knocking your ridiculous argument out of the park.

Now if you want to go running to your mummy... you'll find it in KV35. :passifier:

How many accounts do you have here? As Alcibiades you seem to like making grand appearances now and then to make arrogant and pompous attacks, as if only you have some truth. You waste my time. Now show what you really are by having to make some last purile comment to "prove" that you have won a non existant argument. I do not debate with such as you. So go ahead, make some flippant remark, throw a purile insult, use a smiley, whatever, etc etc..........

Edited by Atentutankh-pasheri
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This claims to be only a partial translation but I've never seen anywhere that claims

Khafre was buried in G2. Indeed, the first claim that the great pyramids were tombs

might date to Herodotus who also said Khufu wasn't buried in G1.

"Now the statue of the very great Khepri [the Great Sphinx ] rested in this place, great of fame, sacred of respect, the shade of Ra resting on him. Memphis and every city on its two sides came to him, their arms in adoration to his face, bearing great offerings for his Ka. One of these days it happened that prince Thutmose came travelling at the time of midday. He rested in the shadow of this great god. [sleep and] dream [took possession of him] at the moment the sun was at zenith. Then he found the majesty of this noble god speaking from his own mouth like a father speaks to his son, and saying: "Look at me, observe me, my son Thutmose. I am your father Horemakhet-Khepri-Ra-Atum. I shall give to you the kingship [upon the land before the living]....[behold, my condition is like one in illness], all [ my limbs being ruined]. The sand of the desert, upon which I used to be, (now) confronts me; and it is in order to cause that you do what is in my heart that I have waited." "[2]

The tale from the Dream Stela likely was fabricated after Thutmose became king to afford him greater standing. That said, elements of the tale could well be correct, but likely not the "fact" that the Sphinx came to him in a dream when he was young.

The argument is being made here that Thutmose's claims should be dismissed entirely due to the fact that he lived a thousand years after Kaphre, but we can should fully believe a Greek that visited Egypt a thousand years after Thutmose died, and 2,000 years after Kafre?

I'm not saying Thumose's story is factual. I'm saying that complete dismissal of it by a few folks that don't really know what they're talking about is unwise.

Harte

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It should also be noted that contrary to Scott's misapplied naming and position of the Lehner Line as seen here:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread531478/pg1

The actual Lehner-Goedicke Line neither bisects G1a down the middle nor ends at the northeast corner of same. But as Mark Lehner himself has said, in part:

...touches the SE corner of Khufu's Pyramid, very nearly cuts the diagonal of his first queen's pyramid and ends in a large block of masonry built into the escarpment.

Which means that the median line extended due east, calculated from G3a to the end at the escarpment does not in fact point to the Sphinx but is actually well north of it.

cormac

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The tale from the Dream Stela likely was fabricated after Thutmose became king to afford him greater standing. That said, elements of the tale could well be correct, but likely not the "fact" that the Sphinx came to him in a dream when he was young.

The argument is being made here that Thutmose's claims should be dismissed entirely due to the fact that he lived a thousand years after Kaphre, but we can should fully believe a Greek that visited Egypt a thousand years after Thutmose died, and 2,000 years after Kafre?

I'm not saying Thumose's story is factual. I'm saying that complete dismissal of it by a few folks that don't really know what they're talking about is unwise.

No.

I'm saying the claim that the Dream Stela includes the claim that Thutmose said Khafre

is buried in G2 is unsubstantiated. I am accepting each of the claims I know he made and

have no particular problem with anything he claims to have dreamed.

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Nowadays linguists like Faulkner (deceased) and Allen (thriving) quibble over fussy parts of speech, but hieroglyphs are firmly understood. As long as an inscription or text was written crisply by a reasonably educated scribe, a modern Egyptologist rarely has difficulty translating it. I'm certainly not as polished as an Egyptologist, but I find the same to be true in most of my own translation exercises.

There's no doubt that Faulkner/ Allen could translate anything from later eras if they

were properly written in the first place. There seems far to little material from earlier

than 2000 BC to be sure any of it is translated properly. This is especially a problem

with anything from before the 5th dynasty.

The gray areas lie much more in the cursive scripts like hieratic and demotic, which represent the every-day tongue of the Egyptians in their respective periods of development. Hieroglyphs did not. Hieroglyphs probably did represent the every-day language around the time of Djoser, but even by Khufu's time they expressed an outmoded way of speaking (similar to how words like "thee" and "thou" sound to a modern English speaker). While glyphs certainly changed through time, the language they were expressing barely did. That's why ritual and religious texts were generally written in hieroglyphs, which was a ritual script, while every-day, humdrum things were expressed in the cursive scripts.

I'm aware of no writing before 2000 BC that is understood other than lists and

things of the like that were not dependent on grammar. I'm aware of other writing

like legal contracts from this early that seem vaguely comprehensible but who can

read legalese. ;)

Edited by cladking
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KMS: Semantics? What is your background and training in translating hieroglyphs? What is your training in the orthography and syntax of hieroglyphic inscriptions? I'm not saying I'm an expert even if I've undergone the training, but basically your track seems to be: "If it sounds right, it's good enough." By your reasoning we should call springtime "rain" because it tends to rain a lot.

SC: Hmm… interesting idea. Why then do you think North Americans call Autumn ‘Fall’? Why do some European countries still refer to Autumn as ‘Harvest’? And the season of ‘Spring’ when new life springs forth. It rather seems to me that the closer a culture is to its natural environment the more it seems to name things (like seasons) after defining events occurring within that natural environment. You cannot have the ‘Fall’ season without falling leaves and you cannot have the ‘Akhet’ season without the flooding Nile. ‘Akhet’ is inextricably linked to the concept of ‘flood’, in particular, the Nile flood.

KMS: Granted, the most important event of the season of Akhet was the inundation…

SC: And just as ‘Akhet’ is named after the defining event of the Akhet season – the Nile flood – the other two AE seasons were named after the defining events of those seasons ‘Peret’ (growing) and ‘Shemu’ (harvest). Each season was named after the defining event of the season ergo ‘Akhet’ is equated unequivocally with ‘flood’ or ‘inundation’ (of the Nile).

KMS: …but look into how the word was hieroglyphically spelled.

SC: I have looked and the orthography of ‘flood’ and ‘horizon’ are very similar (see image below) and variant spelling of a word is not unusual or uncommon in AE.

akhet-horizon-comparison.jpg

And, as you noted previously, there are other AE words that spell ‘Akhet’ (Axt) hence, of course, the importance of the determinative. In the image above, for example, we find G25 (crested-ibis) which I believe to be a determinative for flood since this particular bird spends much of its time wading in the waters of the Nile flood (Akhet). This bird also has symbolic connections with rebirth and with the AE god, Thoth – all of which I believe is important to the understanding of this particular group of glyphs.

KMS: Not only does it have no relation to ancient Egyptian words for "flood," but it's spelled differently from the glyphic arrangements for "horizon." The deciding glyph in the word for the season of Akhet is M8, the pool with lilies.

SC: M8 described here as “1. Ideogram & Phoneme for š3-(sh)a, ‘flooded country’”

KMS: It defines the nature of the flood to restore life to the Nile Valley every year. It's a completely different word from those for either "flood" or "horizon" and does not appear in the spelling for the name of Khufu's pyramid complex.

SC: Indeed, except the deluge the AEs were anticipating wouldn’t be anything like the annual Nile inundation that would bring new silts from the south to re-fertilize the land and enable new growth (glyph M8 above). This was an ‘end of time’ deluge (flood) that would strip the land bare, hence why there is no growth spouting forth from the land glyph (Z8) in the image above. (And I have to say here, how Consensus Egyptology arrives at 'horizon' and 'tomb' from these glyphs is simply beyond reason).

KMS: In other words, Akhet as the season refers not so much to the flood as to what the flood brought: abundance. The term did not denote a sense of dread or threat, but hope. Without the inundation, there simply could not have been a kingdom. Look into the actual words for "flood." They're quite clear: in most cases their determinative is the three water lines, specifically denoting water. This is not evident in the spelling for the season of Akhet.

SC: I don’t think anyone denies this understanding of ‘Akhet’ as it pertains to the annual cycle of the Nile inundation. It was absolutely essential for the viability of the kingdom. However, keep in mind here too that if the Akhet (flood) was too high or too low it would spell disaster. There was an inherent danger that if the annual Nile flood (Akhet) was too high, it would wash away villages and farms—there would be no growth upon the land thus a bare land glyph (Z8). The Akhet came with an inherent danger as would the anticipated deluge.

And you are quite right—there are numerous words the AEs used for different forms/bodies of water, many some form of flood or inundation. But the Nile inundation was defined as ‘Akhet’ without any squiggly lines denoting water. And it was the Nile flood (Akhet) that Thoth promised would rise up so high as to drown all of the country. In other words, a ‘Great Akhet’ or ‘Great Nile Inundation’. The deluge that would drown the entire country was foretold to come from the rising Nile, an event that occurs during ‘Akhet’.

“I am going to blot out everything that I have made. This Earth shall enter into (i.e. be absorbed in) the watery abyss of Nu (or Nunu) by means of a raging flood, and will become even as it was in primeval time. I myself shall remain together with Osiris, but I shall transform myself into a small serpent, which can be neither comprehended nor seen; one day the Nile will rise and cover all Egypt with water, and drown the whole country; then, as in the beginning, there will be nothing to be seen except water.” - Budge W. E. A., 'From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt', (Oxford University Press, 1934), 198.
SC:The crested-ibis is believed by Consensus Egyptology to represent ‘essence of light’ or “transcendent light” or something along those lines. How they ever came to such a conclusion is anyone’s guess. The crested-ibis could just as easily be a determinative symbolising ‘flood water’ since the crested-ibis spends much of its time wading in the shallow flood waters of the Nile, using its long beak to search for food under the flood water.

KMS: The crested ibis in ancient Egyptian stood for the sound value "akh" (ax). It is a very difficult word to translate. It is the spirit-form which inhabits the afterlife and is fixed to that place. It's often translated as "effective spirit" or words to that effect, which is about as close as one can come in English and other modern languages. It might be hard to translate but its meaning is well understood. The word for horizon, Akhet, literally means "place of the akh." It goes back into Old Kingdom times when the Duat (place of afterlife) involved the heavens more so than it did in later times.

How exactly the word "akh" came to be represented by the crested ibis has to do with the difficulty in representing abstract concepts with hieroglyphs, which tend to be physical and concrete things in most cases. "Akh" is one word for the crested ibis, so it could be used to represent "effective spirit," too. Egyptian hieroglyphs are replete with such usages. Another example is the word "ankh" (anx), "life." It would be very difficult to represent a concept such as "life" with glyphs, but there are numerous other examples of "ankh" in the ancient language (mirror case, sandal, et cetera), so a concrete object was used to represent an abstract concept.

SC: I am well aware of the interpretation Consensus Egyptology places on the crested-ibis glyph even though it remains somewhat vague. My own view remains, however, that the “physical and concrete” interpretation is of a bird wading in the flood waters of the Nile which is what this bird spends much of its time doing. Given that there are many words using the ‘Akhet’ (Axt) glyphs, the crested-ibis is a good determinative to indicate the Nile ‘flood’ (the Akhet). But the use of the crested-ibis as a determinative could also be multi-layered with its association to the concept of rebirth and with the god Thoth, the instigator of the great deluge i.e. Thoth's Inundation or Deluge (Thoth's Akhet).

SC: The crested-ibis is also a symbol of rebirth and is closely associated with the AE god Thoth who promised to send a great deluge that would flood and drown all of Egypt. In this sense, the crested-ibis, as well as being a determinative for ‘flood water’ could just as easily symbolise the rebirth of the kingdom (not the king) from the great flood promised by Thoth. The hieroglyphs for flood or inundation typically show grain sprouting forth from the elliptical land glyph but this sprouting grain is absent in the ‘Akhet Khufu’ land glyph. This makes sense since this particular flood was destined to wipe everything away, to scrub the land bare – the ‘end time flood’.

KMS: The threat of the cosmos-ending flood was an abstract concept and not something believed to happen imminently. It was a nebulously defined "eventual" threat and is explained particularly well in Erik Hornung's Conception of God in Ancient Egypt. As far as it goes, I'm not aware of evidence that this belief was defined or existed in the Old Kingdom. I'm aware of your theme that the Egyptians were building the Great Pyramid as their "recovery vault" because they feared an imminent flood, but I'm certainly not aware of evidence that the Egyptians of Dynasty 4 believed such a threat existed. Especially from the early to mid-part of the dynasty, the state was stable, prosperous, and powerful, and everything was working in favor of the king and his court. Where is there evidence the Egyptians feared otherwise?

SC: A number of early Arab chroniclers tell us that when the stars in the heavens suddenly altered their course, the Egyptian King asked his priests and astronomers what this altered state of the heavens would mean for the kingdom. His advisors told the king that, 300 years hence, it would first bring a great flood followed by fire. The king, upon hearing this, ordered the construction of the pyramids to safeguard what was of most esteem in the kingdom; that the pyramids would protect and ensure the rebirth of the kingdom from the anticipated deluge. That the skies had altered would have been regarded as a bad omen, a sure sign that the ‘end times’ were close at hand, that the great deluge promised by Thoth would soon become a reality with the Nile rising up (a Great Akhet) to engulf the entire kingdom.

SC: You can double-check it with God Himself, for all I care. Once-upon-a-time Budge was the all-knowing authority. Not any more though. And I am sure that, in time, the authority you are presently citing will also be displaced. Such is the ephemeral nature of Consensus Egyptology. But while you’re here - explain to us precisely how a crested-ibis (G25) from the Old Kingdom evolves into the sun disc between two mounds (N27) in the Middle Kingdom?

KMS: The study of ancient Egyptian linguistics is one of the focuses of my own research, and I can say with confidence that there is simply no possible comparison between what was known in Budge's day and what is known today. Budge's work is riddled with errors, which is why he's not a primary research source in any modern historian's work. Nowadays linguists like Faulkner (deceased) and Allen (thriving) quibble over fussy parts of speech, but hieroglyphs are firmly understood. As long as an inscription or text was written crisply by a reasonably educated scribe, a modern Egyptologist rarely has difficulty translating it. I'm certainly not as polished as an Egyptologist, but I find the same to be true in most of my own translation exercises.

The gray areas lie much more in the cursive scripts like hieratic and demotic, which represent the every-day tongue of the Egyptians in their respective periods of development. Hieroglyphs did not. Hieroglyphs probably did represent the every-day language around the time of Djoser, but even by Khufu's time they expressed an outmoded way of speaking (similar to how words like "thee" and "thou" sound to a modern English speaker). While glyphs certainly changed through time, the language they were expressing barely did. That's why ritual and religious texts were generally written in hieroglyphs, which was a ritual script, while every-day, humdrum things were expressed in the cursive scripts.

SC: And yet, for all that you say above, the ephemeral nature that is Consensus Egyptology, will, undoubtedly, supplant many currently accepted translations with newer ones. There will come a time when Faulkner and Allen will be as marginalised as Budge is nowadays. You can put your mortgage on it.

KMS: Your question about the change in the Akhet glyphs is a fair one. I cannot answer it. The grammars and sign lists I keep in my library contain many examples of different ways words were written in hieroglyphs, including archaic examples and how they changed. This might make an interesting topic for a research paper, and I'm willing to guess the two mounds with sun disk were already appearing in the First Intermediate Period, but I cannot state so authoritatively. All I can say with certainty is the way it's spelled in Khufu's complex and the way it is spelled in later periods reflect only a different glyphic spelling, but not a different meaning. In a sense modern languages like English have undergone similar transformations in spelling conventions.

SC: Fair enough.

SC: Which is nothing but the OPINION of Consensus Egyptology. Their best guess. The pyramid sign in your image sits above the land glyph i.e. that the Pyramid protects against the flood and ensures the rebirth of the flooded kingdom. “Akhet Khufu” – ‘flood protector’.

KMS: Egyptology has two centuries of ceaseless and concerted research behind it; the linguistic end of it alone has been firmly developed just in the last several decades. That said, I will prefer Egyptology every time. It has the peer-reviewed research to back it up. What linguistic evidence can you present that the pyramid glyph means what you're saying it means? How can you demonstrate that it is not, in fact, the semantic determinative that anyone trained in hieroglyphs will see it as?

SC: Longevity of a discipline is no barometer as to the veracity of the ideas it posits. It is Egyptology by ‘Consensus’. They THINK they understand what this or that means. No doubt there is much that they have nailed down perfectly well (mostly from after the 5th dynasty) but they still do not understand why Giza would be called ‘Akhet Khufu’ and guess that it is some symbolic “abstract concept” associated with the spirit. It may not mean what they THINK it means and it may simply mean something “concrete and physical” like ‘flood’ or ‘Nile flood’ or 'Thoth's Inundation' (crested-ibis=Thoth followed by akhet=inundation).

KMS: A note on your belief about the name Khufu, which I didn't touch on before. You're suggesting the word Khufu means "protect" or "protector." The word "protect" in the ancient language is khu (xw). "Khufu" is merely an abbreviated form of the formal name Khnum-Khuf. The "f" at the end of the name is the third-person masculine suffix pronoun and means "him." The full name means "Khnum protects him," in other words. In any case, the name Khufu in the inscription resides inside a cartouche, which obviously indicates that this person is a king. That's what cartouches were for. Cartouches did not contain random nouns.

SC: I understand your point here but I see no problem in reading this as: ‘May he (the king) protect [his kingdom from the] flood’. By building the Great Pyramid, it is Khufu himself who ensures that the kingdom is protected from the anticipated flood. The king’s abbreviated name offers the term ‘protect’ – Khufu himself is (in this instance) the Protector, the ‘Saviour’ (noun with capital ‘S’). Why repeat ‘Khu’ (protect) twice just because the first instance happens to be the king’s (partial) name within his royal cartouche? We can easily extrapolate the meaning from the king’s name without having to have the meaning repeated; this is to say that we can easily read ‘Akhet Khufu’ as ‘Khufu protects against the flood’ or ‘[the King] protects against the flood' (through the agency of his Pyramid Recovery Vault’).

SC

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SC: And yet, for all that you say above, the ephemeral nature that is Consensus Egyptology, will, undoubtedly, supplant many currently accepted translations with newer ones. There will come a time when Faulkner and Allen will be as marginalised as Budge is nowadays. You can put your mortgage on it.

I'm not sure why I feel compelled to comment since I'm in general agreement but I imagine

that if Egyptology is left to their devices they will complete the task of turning the Pyramid

Texts into the book of the dead. Faulkner and Allen would never be marginalized because

they began the process. It won't happen because science is going to stop the process in

its tracks.

I have less and less confidence in the ability of the scholars to properly translate the earliest

writing. Translators used to say they could only approximate the meaning but now they seem

to suggest they undersatand it almost perfectly and it's gobblety gook. I can't get comfortable

with the implications. There must be something wrong with this picture.

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While I would not see Tuthmosis IV as "detritus" ("ambitious" would be more accurate), and while you and I rarely seem to agree on things, Alcibiades9, this is one of those rare cases where we seem to be in agreement.

I'm very glad to hear you say that... because I do not say that Thutmose is wrong per se. I only say that we cannot regard him as an historian or a true historical point of reference simply because he is a lot closer to the events we are talking about than we are. Time brings distance, but sometimes it also brings clarification... and sometimes the real truth does not emerge till years, centuries, after the event. While it may not seem fair, you would still need to require of him the same standards, the same methodology, as you would require of any historian on whom you are going to rely - be it Scott with his theory or Edward Gibbon or Anthony Beevor - before you quote him as an authority. When it comes down to him we rely on him because "he's all we got".

Much the same applies to Herodotus, whom I read and read again as a boy - no one can deny he brings the past to life. But is it the real past? He's called the "Father of History" but also the "Father of lies". Without historical methodology - without the science - these sources give us an impressionist painting. It looks like reality, but we can't be sure. It may be deceiving, but hopefully it's better than nothing.

Thutmose may have been the first, but he wouldn't be the last, historical figure to manufacture a dream, a theme of being a man of destiny - uncover the Spinx and you will be Pharoah. Robert the Bruce watched the spider try, try and try again. Arthur pulled the sword from the stone. George Washington couldn't tell a lie. Bill Clinton stood up to his abusive stepfather. You make your own myths. You make your own luck. The rest of us have to deal in fact, if we can.

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How many accounts do you have here? As Alcibiades you seem to like making grand appearances now and then to make arrogant and pompous attacks, as if only you have some truth. You waste my time. Now show what you really are by having to make some last purile comment to "prove" that you have won a non existant argument. I do not debate with such as you. So go ahead, make some flippant remark, throw a purile insult, use a smiley, whatever, etc etc..........

I have one account, and as I've remarked before I don't have the spare time to come in and argue back and forth every single day on every single point as many of you (on both sides) seem to. It's quarter to 11pm on a Saturday night and I'm just catching up.

Believe me, I would dearly love to come in daily and put you over my knee and give you the spanking you deserve. It would, I think, do you good in the long run because you are by no means a hopeless case but you clearly need some sense knocking into you.

As it is, I merely responded to your rather absurd assertions about the unassailability of Thutmose IV as an historical source. If you can counter this with some detail about Thutmose's sources - primary, secondary, tertiary, anything - used to produce a historical account of events one millenium before his own time I would be delighted to hear about them.

By the way... dreams don't count.

As for my "arrogant and pompous attacks"... well, in the words of Sir Thomas More, "I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm." I'm just another guy looking for the truth.

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No.

I'm saying the claim that the Dream Stela includes the claim that Thutmose said Khafre

is buried in G2 is unsubstantiated. I am accepting each of the claims I know he made and

have no particular problem with anything he claims to have dreamed.

Understandably, I don't know what you were saying.

I was talking about the Sphinx being the image of Kaphre. The stela tells us Kaphre had the Sphinx built.

That might not be true, and it's not generally accepted as factual by Egyptology, though many do accept it.

Harte

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Understandably, I don't know what you were saying.

I was talking about the Sphinx being the image of Kaphre. The stela tells us Kaphre had the Sphinx built.

That might not be true, and it's not generally accepted as factual by Egyptology, though many do accept it.

It's often difficult to follow the conversation since there can be a few distinct conversations

going, the quote function doesn't preserve earlier posts, and it's easy to lose track. We all

tend to get a little sloppy sometimes. In post 1044 it is claimed that Khafre was buried in G2

according to a very ancient text. I dispute this and I dispute there's any mention of any great

pyramod being a tomb until much later in history. I believe thisa is an important point.

Everyone wants to discredit ancient sources but i believe they tend to be more reliable and

more truth per sentence than modern sources. The ancients tried to faithfully reproduce what

they were told where modern people just dismiss everythjing except very incomplete informa-

tion as found by technology. We jump to conclusions and first one we jump to is that experts

must be right and the second is ancient people must have been superstitious.

I'm also not convinced that the Dream Stela says The Great Sphinx is Kapfre the dead king.

Many translations say it is Khepri the Natural Phenomenon of High Noon or god of midday sun

for traditionalists. I don't have a dog in the fight but my guess is the Sphinx pre-dates the Pyr-

amids which were begun circa 2750 BC by at least 200 years and possibly significantly more. I

certainly do have a dog in the fight about the function of these structures because the PT says

they were not tombs. I believe the Pyramid Texts are literally accurate hence if there were any

evidence they were tombs it would undermine my theories greatly.

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SC: Hmm… interesting idea. Why then do you think North Americans call Autumn ‘Fall’? Why do some European countries still refer to Autumn as ‘Harvest’? And the season of ‘Spring’ when new life springs forth. It rather seems to me that the closer a culture is to its natural environment the more it seems to name things (like seasons) after defining events occurring within that natural environment. You cannot have the ‘Fall’ season without falling leaves and you cannot have the ‘Akhet’ season without the flooding Nile. ‘Akhet’ is inextricably linked to the concept of ‘flood’, in particular, the Nile flood.

I agree Akhet was inextricably linked with the flood, but the fact remains it wasn't a word for "flood." When speaking of the inundation specifically—that event during which the margins of the river were flooded every spring—the Egyptians employed three different terms: baHw, iwHw, and wDnw. These bear no similarity in hieroglyphic spelling to Axt.

SC: And just as ‘Akhet’ is named after the defining event of the Akhet season – the Nile flood – the other two AE seasons were named after the defining events of those seasons ‘Peret’ (growing) and ‘Shemu’ (harvest). Each season was named after the defining event of the season ergo ‘Akhet’ is equated unequivocally with ‘flood’ or ‘inundation’ (of the Nile).

"Shemu" (Smw) is a good example for your case because it was the word for "harvest." However, the same doesn't work for Akhet (for reasons already explained) or for Peret ("growing" was rendered as rd in the language). These were the names of seasons.

SC: I have looked and the orthography of ‘flood’ and ‘horizon’ are very similar (see image below) and variant spelling of a word is not unusual or uncommon in AE.

akhet-horizon-comparison.jpg

The only similarities here are the phonetic complements (namely, Aa1 and X1). Phonetic complements were commonly employed for glyphs possessing more than one sound value, but that has nothing really to do with the meaning of words. The pool with lilies (M8, first example above) often was used as a stand-alone and sometimes wasn't equipped with phonetic complements in the meaning for the Akhet season. In context the meaning would've been obvious.

However, while the crested ibis (G25, second example) most often possessed the sound value Ax, it was used in a variety of other words and did not always represent that sound, so it was accompanied by phonetic complements in many more cases. In your example the word Axt is also accompanied by the determinative of a strip of land (N17, the final glyph) to help reinforce the meaning: this was something physically associated with the landscape, as the horizon certainly is. The determinative is not always present in the spelling of Axt, however.

And, as you noted previously, there are other AE words that spell ‘Akhet’ (Axt) hence, of course, the importance of the determinative. In the image above, for example, we find G25 (crested-ibis) which I believe to be a determinative for flood since this particular bird spends much of its time wading in the waters of the Nile flood (Akhet). This bird also has symbolic connections with rebirth and with the AE god, Thoth – all of which I believe is important to the understanding of this particular group of glyphs.

The ibis was certainly associated with Thoth, but note the positioning of the glyph. In orthography, a glyph employed as a semantic determinative always appeared at the end of a word and did not possess a phonetic value. It was an aid in determining meaning, given the prevalence of homophones in the language. A word might even possess more than one determinative, but they did not begin a word. A glyph which began a word invariably possessed a phonetic value. In this Old Kingdom spelling, the ibis glyph is read as Axt and its phonetic complements (x and t) reinforce that principle. Remove the ibis or place it at the end of the word as a determinative, and you have the entirely different word xt.

SC: M8 described here as “1. Ideogram & Phoneme for š3-(sh)a, ‘flooded country’”

That's the glyph's phonetic value and was used in a wide variety of words. Examples include SA (pig), SAm (to be hot), and SASAt (necklace). This is another case of something I mentioned in my earlier post where the physical object a glyph depicts is not important but its sound value is. The Wiki source seems to be heavy on Budge and I honestly am not exaggerating my warnings against trusting his books. These were published mostly in the nineteenth century, remember. There's also a reason his books are so widely available and so cheap on the internet and in bookstores: there is no copyright any longer, and the books possess very little research value. I actually own a copy of Budge's two-volume dictionary but can't remember the last time I even consulted it. I purchased it some fifteen years ago, when I was first beginning my own training in hieroglyphs. At the time I wasn't aware of resources like Faulkner and the Wörterbook, which render Budge entirely superfluous.

In any case, right now I'm looking through Faulkner's translations of words with the SA root. Faulkner translates the same word as field, meadow, marsh, and the like. I'm not sure where "flooded country" comes from but, in all sincerity, don't use Budge. As Daniel Jackson quips in the movie Stargate, "Why do they still publish Budge?" I couldn't agree more.

SC: Indeed, except the deluge the AEs were anticipating wouldn’t be anything like the annual Nile inundation that would bring new silts from the south to re-fertilize the land and enable new growth (glyph M8 above). This was an ‘end of time’ deluge (flood) that would strip the land bare, hence why there is no growth spouting forth from the land glyph (Z8) in the image above. (And I have to say here, how Consensus Egyptology arrives at 'horizon' and 'tomb' from these glyphs is simply beyond reason).

Growth sprouting from the strip of land would've made it a different hieroglyph, and hence a different meaning.

This spelling of "horizon" seems to be the Old Kingdom norm, in so far as I have been able to determine. I've reviewed Kurt Sethe's hieroglyphic transcriptions of the Pyramid Texts (sources here and here) and this appears to be the way "horizon" is spelled in most if not call cases. As for why Akhet was used as a word for the royal tomb, it goes back to the belief that the king's "akh" or heavenly manifestation would be formed in the horizon, and the tomb is what made this possible.

SC: I don’t think anyone denies this understanding of ‘Akhet’ as it pertains to the annual cycle of the Nile inundation. It was absolutely essential for the viability of the kingdom. However, keep in mind here too that if the Akhet (flood) was too high or too low it would spell disaster. There was an inherent danger that if the annual Nile flood (Akhet) was too high, it would wash away villages and farms—there would be no growth upon the land thus a bare land glyph (Z8). The Akhet came with an inherent danger as would the anticipated deluge.

I agree with you, but I don't know of any such forebodings in Dynasty 4. One of the primary sources for this would be the Palermo Stone, which recorded yearly Nile measurements, and I don't recall imminent threats of a devastating flood for this time period.

SC: A number of early Arab chroniclers tell us that when the stars in the heavens suddenly altered their course, the Egyptian King asked his priests and astronomers what this altered state of the heavens would mean for the kingdom. His advisors told the king that, 300 years hence, it would first bring a great flood followed by fire. The king, upon hearing this, ordered the construction of the pyramids to safeguard what was of most esteem in the kingdom; that the pyramids would protect and ensure the rebirth of the kingdom from the anticipated deluge. That the skies had altered would have been regarded as a bad omen, a sure sign that the ‘end times’ were close at hand, that the great deluge promised by Thoth would soon become a reality with the Nile rising up (a Great Akhet) to engulf the entire kingdom.

I'm not familiar with these stories from the early Muslim period but I don't put a lot of stock in the myths devised by the early Arabs who inhabited Egypt after the conquest in the seventh century CE. Many misconceptions borne of the early Muslim period persist to this day, and the Arabs could not read hieroglyphs or hieratic or demotic (at that point no one could) so I don't know where they were getting their information.

SC: And yet, for all that you say above, the ephemeral nature that is Consensus Egyptology, will, undoubtedly, supplant many currently accepted translations with newer ones. There will come a time when Faulkner and Allen will be as marginalised as Budge is nowadays. You can put your mortgage on it.

It won't happen. There is simply no realistic comparison between Budge and modern linguists. I wouldn't doubt that future linguists will refine our understanding of some of the more opaque and arcane fussy parts of speech, but the overall understanding and meaning of inscriptions will change little. This is not true for all inscriptions, I grant, but for the vast majority, the meaning has been established. I am so confident about this because I personally have studied linguists like Faulkner and Allen and James Hoch and my own translations come out fine. Not as polished as a real linguist, but the meaning is the same. Back when I was trying to do this with Budge, I was getting nowhere. I unloaded his grammar years ago because it's almost useless for serious students. Modern linguists have never steered me wrong. And if I, an amateur historian, can learn and translate hieroglyphs, anyone can. That's thanks to folks like Faulkner and Allen and Hoch.

SC: Fair enough.

I looked into this in the book Visible Language, which was the companion book to an exhibit at the Oriental Institute on the earliest periods of writing in Egypt. I should've remembered this to begin with, but the development of hieroglyphic writing is particularly well covered in Andréas Stauder's chapter "The Earliest Egyptian Writing" (2010: 137-147). Phonetics and semantics were in flux in the early periods and words were often spelled by more strict phonetic components. In later periods there came an influx of more phonetic complements and determinatives, as well as more complicated usages of biliteral and triliteral glyphs.

SC: I understand your point here but I see no problem in reading this as: ‘May he (the king) protect [his kingdom from the] flood’. By building the Great Pyramid, it is Khufu himself who ensures that the kingdom is protected from the anticipated flood. The king’s abbreviated name offers the term ‘protect’ – Khufu himself is (in this instance) the Protector, the ‘Saviour’ (noun with capital ‘S’). Why repeat ‘Khu’ (protect) twice just because the first instance happens to be the king’s (partial) name within his royal cartouche? We can easily extrapolate the meaning from the king’s name without having to have the meaning repeated; this is to say that we can easily read ‘Akhet Khufu’ as ‘Khufu protects against the flood’ or ‘[the King] protects against the flood' (through the agency of his Pyramid Recovery Vault’).

SC

The bolded portion is a prospective form that doesn't require an introductory particle for "May," but you're still facing serious problems with your version. For one thing, your brackets contains critical sense-meanings that would render the phrase nonsensical if absent (i.e., "May he protect flood"), and the name appears only as Akhet Khufu without ever bearing the words in your brackets.

There's actually no word of which I'm aware for "kingdom" in the ancient language, so let's substitute it for tAwy, "Two Lands," which was a common way to express both the country and the state apparatus which governed it. The phrase would have to be spelled as xu.f tAwy m baHi, "May he protect the Two Lands from the flood." Referring to the king simply as "he" was not common in such a short phrase, so realistically it would more likely be rendered as xu Hm.i tAwy m baHi, "May my majesty protect the Two Lands from the flood." Nothing like this is evidenced at the pyramid complex of Khufu.

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I'm very glad to hear you say that... because I do not say that Thutmose is wrong per se. I only say that we cannot regard him as an historian or a true historical point of reference simply because he is a lot closer to the events we are talking about than we are. Time brings distance, but sometimes it also brings clarification... and sometimes the real truth does not emerge till years, centuries, after the event. While it may not seem fair, you would still need to require of him the same standards, the same methodology, as you would require of any historian on whom you are going to rely - be it Scott with his theory or Edward Gibbon or Anthony Beevor - before you quote him as an authority. When it comes down to him we rely on him because "he's all we got".

Much the same applies to Herodotus, whom I read and read again as a boy - no one can deny he brings the past to life. But is it the real past? He's called the "Father of History" but also the "Father of lies". Without historical methodology - without the science - these sources give us an impressionist painting. It looks like reality, but we can't be sure. It may be deceiving, but hopefully it's better than nothing.

Thutmose may have been the first, but he wouldn't be the last, historical figure to manufacture a dream, a theme of being a man of destiny - uncover the Spinx and you will be Pharoah. Robert the Bruce watched the spider try, try and try again. Arthur pulled the sword from the stone. George Washington couldn't tell a lie. Bill Clinton stood up to his abusive stepfather. You make your own myths. You make your own luck. The rest of us have to deal in fact, if we can.

Harte nailed it pretty well, I think, in Post 1075. The Dream Stela was not an historical document, it was a means to an end. Tuthmosis IV commissioned it to make his accession to the throne more tenable in his own time. He was hardly the first to resort to this tactic. If your claim to the throne might be questioned, turn to the gods to make it acceptable and therefore not to be questioned. And by all appearances Tuthmosis IV's claim to the throne was questionable. He wasn't a crown prince but he made it work, anyway.

This doesn't necessarily imply anything sinister about Tuthmosis IV. It merely suggests he was ambitious. That was hardly a rare quality in a royal family.

I think it was Cicero who dubbed Herodotus "Father of Lies" (although I might be mistaken). I think it's an unfair label. I'm usually one of the first around here to warn people away from taking Herodotus' accounts as hard historical facts, and modern historical studies have shown how abundantly wrong Herodotus was on so many things. But that doesn't imply anything sinister about him, either. He was establishing a tradition, after all: instead of just recording historical events, he was searching out cause and effect. But for these early writers, relating history was done in a format of story telling; if facts were unknown, it was permissible to invent them.

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