Sitchin's Folly: Graffiti in the Pyramid

[mstower]

Any reason that the same logic could not be applied to the Brewer letters (If they even existed)?

In none of the material directly attributable to Walter M. Allen does he claim that Humphries Brewer sent letters home from Egypt.

This idea comes entirely from Sitchin.

M.

[SHaYap]

Frank Doernenburg's site

the Colonel don't print very well does he ?

anyone knows what was written here in his journal ? what do the numbers '313.30' or '414.20' means ?

did the Colonel scratch out the entries here ?

[jules99]

Hi Harsh,

Here is a link to Frank Doernenburg's site showing the Howard-Vyse page in hi-res where you can clearly observe three distinct lines. I had an issue with this myself a number of years ago since the low-res version of this drawing on Frank D's site does not look like the disc in Stadelmann's photo. As a result of that discussion, FD placed a link to the hi-res image on his site (see below).

http://doernenburg.a...Journal_lrg.jpg

Given the evidence of Hill's drawings from the British Museum, I think we have little option but to dismiss Sitchin as an unreliable witness. This does not, however, mean that the inscriptions in the chamber are authentic. Absolutely not! That question is still very much alive and contentious as it ever was, especially in light of Howard-Vyse's dubious moral character. And I suppose if we have to ditch Sitchin's writings as a result of his lack of a moral compass, I see little reason not to consider Howard-Vyse's writings in the same light. The debate goes on.

SC

Hi Scott;

Dont be too hard on Vyse, remember he was exploring while Charles Dickens was a teenager campaigning for the rights of children, George Elliot was the pseudonym for Mary Anne Evans as she couldnt get published as a female...morals were different back then and it was a harder world....whether the glyphs are real or not, I know we can only see the world through our eyes today, but a bit of respect and acknowledgement of perspective wouldnt hurt....people would be genuinely devastated if the glyphs were found to be fraudulent...years of research...

A bit of understanding wouldnt hurt...Cheers

[mstower]

And I suppose if we have to ditch Sitchin's writings as a result of his lack of a moral compass, [. . .]

Would this include his writings on Walter M. Allen and Humphries Brewer, which you relied on without checking?

I see little reason not to consider Howard-Vyse's writings in the same light. The debate goes on.

Would this be a conscious or unconscious echo of Stephen Boyd’s line in Ben Hur?

M.

[mstower]

Frank Doernenburg's site

the Colonel don't print very well does he ?

anyone knows what was written here in his journal ? what do the numbers '313.30' or '414.20' means ?

did the Colonel scratch out the entries here ?

Additional note: the image is my scan of a detail in R. W. H. Howard Vyse’s manuscript journal, written in Egypt.

His writing is atrocious. The numbering I’ll look at in the photocopy.

The captions to the illustrations are (as best as I can make out):

Cartouches in Tomb to the W. of Great Pyramid are ?different ?than Suphis

Cartouche in Campbell’s Chamber.

The scratching out: he seems to have gone through the whole journal like this, presumably to mark what had been covered when writing up the version for publication.

M.

Edited April 25, 2013 by mstower

[SHaYap]

~snip

The captions to the illustrations are (as best as I can make out):

Cartouches in Tomb to the W. of Great Pyramid are ?different ?than Suphis

Cartouche in Campbell’s Chamber.

The scratching out: he seems to have gone through the whole journal like this, presumably to mark what had been covered when writing up the version for publication.

M.

Thank you kind Sir .... comparisons here from his own attempt in his own hand at the Cartouches and the one in situ is sufficient enough to prove conclusively that the Colonel is not responsible for the marks in the pyramid. Totally different class of penmanship.

I always have this mental picture about the Colonel being rather more inclined to be in Paris or Rome than Egypt if he wasn't in dire financial straits...

[Scott Creighton]

Would this include his writings on Walter M. Allen and Humphries Brewer, which you relied on without checking?

Would this be a conscious or unconscious echo of Stephen Boyd’s line in Ben Hur?

M.

Still smartin' Martin?

SC

[mstower]

Hi Scott;

Dont be too hard on Vyse, remember he was exploring while Charles Dickens was a teenager campaigning for the rights of children, George Elliot was the pseudonym for Mary Anne Evans as she couldnt get published as a female...morals were different back then and it was a harder world....whether the glyphs are real or not, I know we can only see the world through our eyes today, but a bit of respect and acknowledgement of perspective wouldnt hurt....people would be genuinely devastated if the glyphs were found to be fraudulent...years of research...

A bit of understanding wouldnt hurt...Cheers

What Creighton illustrates is the danger of bringing moral judgements into discussions of matters of fact. Firstly because such judgements are excessively arbitrary and secondly because they muddy the waters in areas where the two are hopelessly mixed, as in judgements of character.

What we need is a rigorous treatment of what we may legitimately infer from the electoral episode about Vyse’s likely behaviour in Egypt. I’d say nothing at all: the circumstances and the issues are too different.

Creighton’s conjecture about Vyse’s character is self-defeating. It predicts far too much. We’d expect his entire life to be a trail of scandal. It isn’t. With the sole arguable exception of the electoral episodes (at Beverley and Honiton), his biography is one of stuffy respectablity.

The circumstances in which (the younger) Vyse entered politics were ones in which he might reasonably have believed that he was serving King and Country by doing so, as well as relieving his father of a burden which had proven onerous. There is (as you can see) another way of seeing things.

M.

[mstower]

Still smartin' Martin?

Still dodging the issue?

Which being Sitchin’s claims about Walter M. Allen and Humphries Brewer.

What steps did you take to verify this material, before posting it?

M.

[mstower]

Thank you kind Sir .... comparisons here from his own attempt in his own hand at the Cartouches and the one in situ is sufficient enough to prove conclusively that the Colonel is not responsible for the marks in the pyramid. Totally different class of penmanship.

I always have this mental picture about the Colonel being rather more inclined to be in Paris or Rome than Egypt if he wasn't in dire financial straits...

Naples would be nearer. It was a family visit, for several months, at least. He met Gell there, and engaged in some amateur archaeology.

Then went to Rome and bribed the Pope. (That last bit is made up.)

M.

[Harsh86_Patel]

Thank you kind Sir .... comparisons here from his own attempt in his own hand at the Cartouches and the one in situ is sufficient enough to prove conclusively that the Colonel is not responsible for the marks in the pyramid. Totally different class of penmanship.

I always have this mental picture about the Colonel being rather more inclined to be in Paris or Rome than Egypt if he wasn't in dire financial straits...

I never expected that Vyse would have painted the Cartouche himself on the walls. He must have gotten someone else to do it.

[Harsh86_Patel]

You need to pay closer attention to the replies.

First of all, Vyse did not draw this. A lithographer working for the company of Day and Haghe drew this, based on a drawing by Perring.

It appears as a detail in a lithograph in Vyse’s published work, Operations Carried On at the Pyramids of Gizeh in 1837.

Here are some more adequate images of the same thing. The first two I’ve already posted.

Here’s a better one. Please note that copyright in this image remains with Jon Bodsworth:

Note the scale. This is a tiny detail in a scale drawing, and you are comparing it with the full-sized original.

Please don’t post this Richards material again.

M.

My bad, thought it was from Vyse's handwritten journal.

Still very difficult to digest that the builders of the Great Pyramid who were so meticulous in it's building, would so crudely paint the cartouche of Khufu (for whom the tomb was made apparently) on a rough wall.

BTW- whats you opinion on the lack of Heiroglyphics in the great pyramids compared to the others? Why were there no heiroglyphics in the Davison chamber. Don't you find it a little suspicious that the Glyphs were found only in the chambers blasted by Vyse?

Edited April 25, 2013 by Harsh86_Patel

[mstower]

Just some caps:

M.

[SHaYap]

I never expected that Vyse would have painted the Cartouche himself on the walls. He must have gotten someone else to do it.

I don't believe he'd put himself in such a precarious situation, he's a politically aware animal ... that spot there in the chambers isn't exactly an easy place to access, further more I think there's more hieroglyph literates in the west than locally in Egypt at the time.

Do you know anyone who is into Calligraphy ? Get an opinion ... I'm curious to know too.

[Harsh86_Patel]

I don't believe he'd put himself in such a precarious situation, he's a politically aware animal ... that spot there in the chambers isn't exactly an easy place to access, further more I think there's more hieroglyph literates in the west than locally in Egypt at the time.

Do you know anyone who is into Calligraphy ? Get an opinion ... I'm curious to know too.

will try.

[mstower]

Sitchin claims to have viewed the originals himself in the British Museum, before publishing his books, which means one of two obvious things: either Sitchin never actually saw the originals and lied about it, or he saw the originals and deliberately falsified the transcription from Campbell's Chamber. In either case it shows that Sitchin was a fraud (and still is and will always be, in so far as his regrettable books continue to be published).

Additional considerations:

Sitchin’s piece in FATE, July 1993, includes this:

. . . the British and Austrian consuls were invited to witness the finds. Mr. Hill made a facsimile of the cartouches on cloth-lined paper, and all present authenticated it. The document was then sent to the British Museum in London, and the event made great news, because the discovered cartouches spelled out the name of Khufu . . .

After great efforts and initial claims by the officials in the Museum that no such document existed, they found and let me examine the “Hill Facsimile.” As I unrolled the sheets, I at once knew that it was a fraud, a forgery. Whoever had written the royal name had misspelled it. Instead of writing Kh-u-fu he used the hieroglyphic symbols spelling out RA-u-fu.

He’d have difficulty unrolling them. They have a cloth backing, apparently a conservation measure applied at the museum, which makes them as stiff as card. They have apparently always been kept in the same, flat, portfolio.

Note the bit about cloth-lined paper. This seems to be a confused reference to the cloth backing. Sitchin showed continued confusion about this. In an interview with Harvey Hagman (The World and I, Vol. 26, No. 3, 1 March 2011), he stated:

The facsimile was then wrapped in cloth and sent to the British Museum in London.

Sitchin’s remark is more suggestive of a verbal description imperfectly recalled than it is of having actually seen and handled the facsimiles.

M.

Edited April 25, 2013 by mstower

[Harsh86_Patel]

Additional considerations:

Sitchin’s piece in FATE, July 1993, includes this:

He’d have difficulty unrolling them. They have a cloth backing, apparently a conservation measure applied at the museum, which makes them as stiff as card. They have apparently always been kept in the same, flat, portfolio.

Note the bit about cloth-lined paper. This seems to be a confused reference to the cloth backing. Sitchin showed continued confusion about this. In an interview with Harvey Hagman (The World and I, Vol. 26, No. 3, 1 March 2011), he stated:

Sitchin’s remark is more suggestive of a verbal description imperfectly recalled than it is of having actually seen and handled the facsimiles.

M.

Is it possible that Sitchin was given the wrong document or a faulty copy?

[Harte]

There goes Wikipedia again.

Several examples of the cartouche name Xnmw xwfw, Khnum-khufu. One example of the cartouche name xwfw, Khufu.

Several example of a non-cartouche name, Hr MDdw, Hor Medjedu, the Horus name of Khufu.

All of these are names of Khufu.

M.

Other pharoahs are mentioned.

These are the names of gangs involved in the construction.

IIRC, one of them was "Drunkards of Menkaure."

Harte

[jules99]

Other pharoahs are mentioned.

These are the names of gangs involved in the construction.

IIRC, one of them was "Drunkards of Menkaure."

Harte

Hi Harte, would you have a link to confirm that...I couldnt find anything other than friends of Khufu;

edit you might not find one.....;

http://www.aeraweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/aeragram7_1_2004.pdf

Edited April 26, 2013 by jules99

[Scott Creighton]

Some skeptical sources here and elsewhere have suggested that Sitchin made up the personage of Mr Walter Allen in order to create a false witness to the forgery claims in his books. Some further claim that Walter Allen was complicit in some way with Sitchin.

The article below (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 14^th March, 1977) shows Mr Walter Allen pictured (right) with his daughter and granddaughter. The article explains how Walter Allen and his family have been tracing their family for many years and through many, many generations all the way back to Britain and Ireland. The article even briefly mentions Humphries Brewer as one of their descendents (the descendent that emigrated from England to set down roots in the USA).

The article (above) was published in 1977. As far as I can determine, Sitchin’s first mention of fraud in the Great Pyramid was published in 1986, "Forgery" in the Great Pyramid by Venture Inward [magazine of the Association for Research and Enlightenment and The Edgar Cayce Foundation], November/December 1986, pp. 33‑37. This is almost 10 years AFTER Walter Allen first mentions Humphries Brewer in his family ancestry. I think it is safe to place questions of complicity or conspiracy between the two firmly in the bin. Walter Allen claimed Humphries Brewer as a family ancestor long before he had any connection with Sitchin.

SC

(PS - Still trying to trace the original letters from Brewer).

Edited April 26, 2013 by Scott Creighton

[questionmark]

Looking at the past, and similar discussions, what I find notable is that the only evidence the fringies seem to apport to it is that the "Official Egyptology is wrong" not bringing any evidence but conjectures, speculations and, in some cases, crap they must have made up while sitting on the loo inspired by the smell emanating from the back.

And then they claim that school Egyptology is unscientific.

Good one, very good.... can't stop laughing.

Oh, it was not supposed to be a joke?

[Scott Creighton]

Looking at the past, and similar discussions, what I find notable is that the only evidence the fringies seem to apport to it is that the "Official Egyptology is wrong" not bringing any evidence but conjectures, speculations and, in some cases, crap they must have made up while sitting on the loo inspired by the smell emanating from the back.

And then they claim that school Egyptology is unscientific.

Good one, very good.... can't stop laughing.

Oh, it was not supposed to be a joke?

SC: If you would prefer that Egyptology be treated as a science then it should do the science that will prove the inscriptions in the chambers of the GP are as authentic as they claim instead of relying on the dubious testimony of a man of questionable moral probity. When Egyptology pulls its finger out and DOES the science then it can be treated as a science. And not before.

SC

Edited April 26, 2013 by Scott Creighton

[Tutankhaten-pasheri]

And in this tower of Babel, those lights of reason still remaining grow dimmer and dimmer. Beasts with mouths where their bellies (or somewhere else) should be, stalk about turning all reason on it's head. The manic screeches of charlatans drown out the voices of truth. The world turned upside down, Maat held in contempt. For what? for $, for ego. There is no Galileo here, no Martin Luther overturning obvious nonsense. There is simply screeching ego echoing around the hollow edifice of the monumental ignorance known as "Alternative".

Edited April 26, 2013 by Atentutankh-pasheri

[questionmark]

SC: If you would prefer that Egyptology be treated as a science then it should do the science that will prove the inscriptions in the chambers of the GP are as authentic as they claim instead of relying on the dubious testimony of a man of questionable moral probity. When Egyptology pulls its finger out and DOES the science then it can be treated as a science. And not before.

SC

Which one of 20 Egyptologists, including Mr. Hancock, a former detractor, are you referring too? Or is it just some more of your classical mudslinging to see if something sticks?

[mstower]

Some skeptical sources here and elsewhere have suggested that Sitchin made up the personage of Mr Walter Allen in order to create a false witness to the forgery claims in his books. Some further claim that Walter Allen was complicit in some way with Sitchin.

The article below (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 14^th March, 1977) shows Mr Walter Allen pictured (right) with his daughter and granddaughter. The article explains how Walter Allen and his family have been tracing their family for many years and through many, many generations all the way back to Britain and Ireland. The article even briefly mentions Humphries Brewer as one of their descendents (the descendent that emigrated from England to set down roots in the USA).

The article (above) was published in 1977. As far as I can determine, Sitchin’s first mention of fraud in the Great Pyramid was published in 1986, "Forgery" in the Great Pyramid by Venture Inward [magazine of the Association for Research and Enlightenment and The Edgar Cayce Foundation], November/December 1986, pp. 33‑37. This is almost 10 years AFTER Walter Allen first mentions Humphries Brewer in his family ancestry. I think it is safe to place questions of complicity or conspiracy between the two firmly in the bin. Walter Allen claimed Humphries Brewer as a family ancestor long before he had any connection with Sitchin.

SC

(PS - Still trying to trace the original letters from Brewer).

Creighton cut and pasted this from another board (or from here to another board).

Two can play at that game.

Scott Creighton wrote:

. . . still playing the expert when really he’s just playing catch-up . . .

> (PS - Still trying to trace the original letters from Brewer).

Letters written from Egypt?

Good luck with that one.

Allen never claimed that such letters existed. His story was that Humphries Brewer told his father the story after he got home. It’s an oral tradition.

The letters idea was Sitchin’s. Again, you rely on him uncritically.

The letters Walter Allen told me he’d seen were ones from Humphries Brewer’s father, covering the period from Humphries Brewer’s arrival in the USA to his father’s death: 1848-1857. (In the same letter, working from memory, he gave the year of Humphries Brewer’s emigration as 1848, which is actually a mistake: it was 1849.)

Letters usually remain, if anywhere, with the recipient, so Humphries would scarcely take his own letters to America, while his father and mother were still alive. We’d need to suppose that mother Jane (Jennie) brought them over in 1864—and Sitchin tells us that Humphries wrote home “regularly”. A trunkful of letters? It could happen.

M.

Edited April 26, 2013 by mstower