Sitchin's Folly: Graffiti in the Pyramid

[Harsh86_Patel]

SC: Based on what evidence?

SC

They don't have any empirical evidence for most of the stuff regarding egyptology that they are flouting as fact.....it is all based on consensus amongst the Monopoly club.The funny part is that people demanding proof and suggesting alternte theories are branded as fringe looneys and those supporting this unverified position of the mainstream are the great 'Sceptics' lol. Their scepticism is only directed towards others and not the mainstream.

[Scott Creighton]

So Vyse putting up graffiti, while entirely possible, is highly unlikely based on the evidence presented.

SC: Unlikely? Based on what evidence?

M14: Does that pretty much sums up this argument?

SC: No. You fail to consider the evidence that strongly suggests Howard-Vyse was a fraudster.

We don't have to look to Egypt to discover Howard-Vyse's dishonesty - it started much closer to home:

Note: Many of the ' f ' letters should be read as an ' s ' (Old English):

SC: "...guilty of bribery and corruption and corrupt practices...." Doesn't smell too nice, does it?

Let's have a closer look at that election result. The Vyse's literally came from nowhere in the Beverley constituency. See here:

Talk about stuffing the ballot box!

This was a John Wharton safe seat. Then daddy Vyse makes an appearance on the scene (in the favour of the Duke of Cumberland). Doesn't win outright (although still elected as second candidate). But my oh my - look at Howard-Vyse's (the son's) vote - first time ever that anyone got into the thousands in this seat and, as such, was able to dislodge Wharton from first place (Wharton elected as second candidate even though he increased his vote from the previous election). A vote like that for Howard-Vyse (which was never repeated by anyone before or after) totally reeks of impropriety and totally smacks of Howard-Vyse going in with all 'gifts' blazing to make sure he got the outcome he desired; to make sure that, where daddy had failed in securing first spot, Howard-Vyse would succeed. Or, Howard-Vyse wanted to make sure he didn't lose daddy's hard bought seat - the shame of it! No wonder Mr Staple complained to the House of Commons about corrupt practices of Howard-Vyse. And after Howard-Vyse departs Beverley for pastures new (the Honiton constituency), the seat returns to Wharton in first position on a much reduced winning vote. As for the Beverley constituency itself:

For much of the borough's history, elections in Beverley were notorious for their corruption. In 1727, one of the victorious candidates was unseated on petition, his agents were imprisoned and Parliament passed a new Bribery Act as a result. Between 1857 and 1868 six petitions were lodged against election results, of which three succeeded in voiding the election and unseating one or more of the victors. After the 1868 election, the writ for the borough was suspended and a Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the conduct of elections in Beverley; when it reported that it had found proof of extensive bribery, an Act of Parliament was passed permanently depriving Beverley of the right to return Members of Parliament, abolishing the constituency and incorporating it within the East Riding constituency.

The novelist Anthony Trollope was one of the defeated candidates in the final corrupt election for which Beverley was disfranchised. He drew on his experience directly for his description of the Percycross election in his novel Ralph the Heir, and also told the story in his Autobiography. He found that corruption was taken for granted and that the price of a vote was between 15 shillings and £1 source.

SC: And after Beverley, Howard-Vyse is parachuted into the Honiton seat completely unopposed

Long before the general election of 1812 Cavendish Bradshaw, who went over to government on the establishment of the Regency, had decided that he could not afford another election for Honiton. Just after the dissolution Canning, who was staying with his friend Lord Boringdon at Saltram in Devon, received an overture from Honiton, probably through Flood, and was asked to nominate a friend who, he was assured, ‘might be returned for an expense of between £3,000 and £4,000’. He recommended George Abercrombie Robinson, a director of the East India Company, who came in unopposed for ‘not more than £1,500’— so Canning heard— along with Howard Vyse, a ministerialist, whose father was in the confidence of the Duke of Cumberland. The young radical Samuel Colleton Graves, invited to contest Honiton, had allowed himself to be waylaid at Taunton.

SC: "...allowed himself to be waylaid at Taunton"? Perhaps Mr Graves had been gratefully plied with copious amounts of good Taunton cider? In any case, the two seats in Honiton went unopposed. And when we consider the history of the Honiton seat, why should we not be surprised to learn this:

Honiton had a reputation for shameless venality .... Source

SC: Howard-Vyse certainly knew what seats to target. His political aspirations totally reek -- doing precisely what he needed to do to ensure he got the outcome he desired. And where have we seen/heard that before?

And the charges of fraud against Howard-Vyse don't end there. Humphries Brewer, a stonemason who worked with Howard-Vyse at Giza wrote this:

And if the above wasn't bad enough, there is the debacle of Howard-Vyse’s claimed discovery of the remains of Menkaure in G3 which totally smacks of attempted deception (coffin remains bearing Menkaure’s name found with bones wrapped in wool – both found to be from different eras none of which belonged to the 4^th dynasty). .It is hardly surprising that this whole episode of Howard-Vyse’s activities in G3 are quietly being dropped by consensus Egyptology. Very telling.

Then there is the fact that there are no recognisable glyphs in Davison's Chamber or in the small recess chamber at the end of the QC southern shaft or, apparently, in any of the tight gaps between the blocks of Campbell's Chamber. In fact, the only places where readable script has been found are in those places that Howard-Vyse had first and easy access to. Another bad smell.

Howard-Vyse was as corrupt as they come as his parliamentary shenanigans clearly demonstrates. The man has zero credibility and is even less a credible witness as far as his alleged discoveries in the Great Pyramid are concerned. I think the evidence presents a very bad and very revealing picture for Howard-Vyse and strongly suggests that a fraud was indeed perpetrated by him.

If, however, you have evidence that proves the provenance of the disputed inscriptions is contemporary with the construction of the GP, then do present it--I'd be very interested to see it.

SC

Edited April 18, 2013 by Scott Creighton

[Scott Creighton]

They don't have any empirical evidence for most of the stuff regarding egyptology that they are flouting as fact.....it is all based on consensus amongst the Monopoly club.The funny part is that people demanding proof and suggesting alternte theories are branded as fringe looneys and those supporting this unverified position of the mainstream are the great 'Sceptics' lol. Their scepticism is only directed towards others and not the mainstream.

Hi Harsh,

Indeed. As I have often said, only SHEEPLE believe and accept unevidenced theories.

Regards,

SC

Edited April 18, 2013 by Scott Creighton

[Codenwarra]

A layman's view.

How old?

"Forward! Remember that from those monuments yonder forty centuries look down upon you." Napoleon Bonaparte, 1798, before the Battle of the Pyramids, long before Champollion deciphered the Rosetta Stone. In other words, before Egyptology was a matter of large scale study, the date of construction of the Giza pyramids was approximately known or suspected. Yes, Bonaparte might have said "four thousand three hundred and fifty years plus or minus twelve years" but I doubt he was striving for precision on that particular day.

Physically associated with the pyramid is a boat discovered in 1954 and reassembled by about 1964. This gives plentiful material for carbon dating and that date is 2650 BCE, according to sources on the more readily accessible parts of the internet, though no error estimates are included. All consistent with the usual dates for the Pyramid. Inscriptions on the inside wall of the pit appear to refer to the son of Khufu, so it was either the son's boat, or perhaps it was Khufu's boat and placed by the pyramid, the act of a dutiful son. Or maybe it belonged to someone else entirely. You choose.

Obviously the stones of the pyramid cannot be carbon dated. Yet flecks of charcoal in mortar were dated in 1984 and they indicate a date of about 380 years before the usually accepted date. Charcoal and straw samples from bakery sites and the main pyramids were dated in 1995. These gave younger dates, by about 100 to 200 years than the 1984 dates with charcoal generally giving older dates than straw. This has been interpreted as the makers of mortar using old wood to burn gypsum, on the supposition that the Nile valley was already largely denuded of trees when construction began. The dates for the Great Pyramid scatter over 400 years. So it seems that the charcoal in the mortar cannot be used to date the Great Pyramid and other pyramids reliably, but it scotches the idea of dates much before 3000 BCE.

http://archive.archaeology.org/9909/abstracts/pyramids.html

That graffiti

I don't set much store by Howard Vyse being elected in a rigged election with voters bribed with food or booze. Such shenanigans were common enough in English elections before the Acts of Parliament that closed the pubs on election day and brought in the "Australian" or secret ballot in 1872.

Apparently the lowest relieving chamber contained no hieroglyphic, demotic or hieratic graffiti, while the upper three had some. If this graffiti recorded the gang that cut the stones, then it seems possible that any graffiti of the lowest chamber just happened to be on sides of the stones turned away from the chamber. The only way to be certain of this would be to tear the pyramid apart. Further, the fact that some of the graffiti in other chambers is inaccessible, upside down or vertical indicates to me that it was there before the stones were placed. This appears to be the simplest explanation to me.

Did Vyse fake ancient graffiti which attributes the pyramid to Khufu? The physical evidence is that he probably did not but it's not absolutely certain. Supposedly he went to the extra trouble of drawing inverted, vertical inscriptions, and the three versions of Khufu's name, but not all in the one chamber. The suggestion that he went to the trouble of using thin boards and string to print marks in gaps inaccessible by hand smacks of desperation to discredit him. And if he did do this, then why didn't he go the extra nine yards and put all the names he knew in all the chambers? Would this have given him extra recognition? Did he have a solid motive for such an imposture when he had already turned up something real and significant? The very discovery of the higher chambers would satisfy most of us in a quest for fame or recognition. Where is Occam's razor in all this?

The suggestion that the graffiti might have gunpowder residues on the surfaces is fair enough if they were there when Vyse blew his way in, but some form of chemical analysis that would do little damage to the markings would be needed to test this. In view of the fact that hundreds of people have been in the chambers with candles, kerosene lamps, tobacco and whatnot since 1837 might invalidate the analysis. In any case someone with the funds has to be convinced enough that Vyse might have faked the names to fund the analysis. As a former analytical chemist I can say that many analyses on a micro scale are not so simple and can be expensive. By the same token, demanding that the Sinai papyrus be carbon dated also entails expense that somebody has to pay for.

There is more solid, accessible information coming from orbiters and rovers at Mars than from a monument a few kilometres from a major city.

When I read of the Great Pyramid or see TV documentaries, I get the feeling that the thing has not been thoroughly investigated. We have a suggestion of a spiral internal ramp from Jean-Pierre Houdin which seems plausible, apparent evidence of the ramp from gravitational studies and a quick look at the "notch" which might support this theory but nothing seems to have come of this.

Meanwhile, investigation of the other two major pyramids at Giza and the Red and Bent pyramids, which might throw light on pyramid building in general appears to be neglected.

The robotic explorations may have found previously unknown chambers but the public are given five paragraphs and two photograph, one of which is of the pyramid from the outside which we have all seen countless times, the other one is indistinct. The full story is hidden by a pay wall and only available to subscribers to Wiley or Elsevier journals. There does not seem to be an authoritative, complete popular synthesis of what is known and why it is known available to the interested layman.

In such a vacuum, the dubious theorists, mystifiers, cranks and frauds like Sitchin and von Daniken run wild.

[Scott Creighton]

Coden: The dates for the Great Pyramid scatter over 400 years. So it seems that the charcoal in the mortar cannot be used to date the Great Pyramid and other pyramids reliably, but it scotches the idea of dates much before 3000 BCE.

SC: I am not so sure:

”A complete rewrite of the history of modern humans could be needed after a breakthrough in archaeological dating techniques.

British and American scientists have found radio carbon dating, used to give a rough guide to the age of an object, can be wrong by thousands of years.

It means humans may have been on earth for a lot longer than previously thought and accepted versions of early history could need a radical rethink.

Experts have known for years that carbon dating is inexact but until researchers from Bristol and Harvard completed their study no one knew by how much.

Study method

The scientists calculated the age of ancient limestone formations in caves using carbon dating.

The results were checked using a newer, more accurate method known as uranium dating.

They found that the carbon dates were wrong by thousands of years and that the further back in time they went, the more out-of-date they were.

The reason is that carbon dating measures radioactive carbon and there may have been much more of it in the distant past than previously thought.” – from here.

SC: And then this from Zahi Hawass, former Egyptian Head of Antiquities:

Hawass remains categorical in his rejection of the [C14 dating] technique: "Not even in five thousand years could carbon dating help archaeology... carbon dating is useless. This science will never develop. In archaeology, we consider carbon dating results imaginery." - Dr Zahi Hawass, Egypt Independent

Coden: That graffiti

I don't set much store by Howard Vyse being elected in a rigged election with voters bribed with food or booze. Such shenanigans were common enough in English elections before the Acts of Parliament that closed the pubs on election day and brought in the "Australian" or secret ballot in 1872.

SC: It was common in certain seats, the ones Howard-Vyse put himself forward as a candidate. And just because it was common did not make it legal or morally right. It was illegal and people went to jail for it. It was illegal and Howard-Vyse would have known that. Still didn’t stop him from getting what he wanted. This evidence goes to the character of Howard-Vyse just as it would in any modern criminal trial. The man was morally corrupt. There is also the charge by Humphries Brewer of painting marks in the GP and there’s Howard-Vyse’s debacle of the discovery of Menakure in G3 which turned out to be completely bogus with elements from different ages, none of which were contemporary with the 4^th dynasty. All indicative of Howard-Vyse's corrupt character.

Codem: Further, the fact that some of the graffiti in other chambers is inaccessible, upside down or vertical indicates to me that it was there before the stones were placed. This appears to be the simplest explanation to me.

SC: Some may well be original--afterall, we are told through Humphries Brewer (a stonemason that worked for Howard-Vyse at Giza at the time) that two others that worked for Howard-Vyse, Messrs Hill and Raven, had repainted faint marks (and had painted new ones). The point here, according to Graham Hancock’s personal observation, is that there is NO graffiti i.e. recognizable hieroglyphs, just regular “quarry marks” in these inaccessible areas between the blocks. Hancock knows what registers of hieroglyphs look like but he does, however, concede to being no expert and it would seem prudent to have Hancock’s observation corroborated.

Codem: Did Vyse fake ancient graffiti which attributes the pyramid to Khufu? The physical evidence is that he probably did not but it's not absolutely certain.

SC: It was believed by the diehard Egypt-apologists on this Board and elsewhere that it was impossible for Howard-Vyse to have perpetrated such a fraud. If you have evidence that the glyphs are genuine then please do share. Simply saying Howard-Vyse “probably did not” fake them is not evidence of the veracity of the inscriptions. The remotest possibility that they could have been and might have been faked demands that additional evidence be obtained to prove the authenticity (or otherwise) of the inscriptions.

Codem: Supposedly he went to the extra trouble of drawing inverted, vertical inscriptions, and the three versions of Khufu's name, but not all in the one chamber.

SC: AE hieroglyphs were often written vertically. Three versions of Khufu’s name – they all had variants of ‘Khufu’ (Khuf, Khnum-Khuf etc) in the name—which one should Vyse use? Ah, put them all in—whatever they read it must be related to Khufu. And none at all in the chamber Howard-Vyse knew had been entered by others and which was known not to have contained any glyphs. He’d be a bit silly to have placed glyphs in a chamber where it was already known that none existed.

Codem: The suggestion that he went to the trouble of using thin boards and string to print marks in gaps inaccessible by hand smacks of desperation to discredit him.

SC: No – merely to demonstrate how it is possible to get marks into these tight gaps. It would certainly present a convincing impression of authenticity that would convince even the most ardent skeptic.

Codem: And if he did do this, then why didn't he go the extra nine yards and put all the names he knew in all the chambers? Would this have given him extra recognition?

SC: The point may well be moot in any case since Hancock does not believe that there are any glyphs in these areas, just “quarry marks” (although this needs to be corroborated). It seems that there is only AE script in chambers that Howard-Vyse had first access to. All other chambers that Howard-Vyse had no first or easy access to (including, according to Hancock, the gaps between the blocks) contain no AE script, just ‘quarry marks’.

Codem: Did he have a solid motive for such an imposture when he had already turned up something real and significant? The very discovery of the higher chambers would satisfy most of us in a quest for fame or recognition. Where is Occam's razor in all this?

SC: The first person to connect the Great Pyramid directly with its supposed builder (according to Herodotus) was a prize that would confer ‘immortality’ upon its discoverer.

Codem: The suggestion that the graffiti might have gunpowder residues on the surfaces is fair enough if they were there when Vyse blew his way in, but some form of chemical analysis that would do little damage to the markings would be needed to test this. In view of the fact that hundreds of people have been in the chambers with candles, kerosene lamps, tobacco and whatnot since 1837 might invalidate the analysis. In any case someone with the funds has to be convinced enough that Vyse might have faked the names to fund the analysis. As a former analytical chemist I can say that many analyses on a micro scale are not so simple and can be expensive. By the same token, demanding that the Sinai papyrus be carbon dated also entails expense that somebody has to pay for.

SC: This is why I have long advocated such non-invasive tests. More empirical, scientific evidence is needed to help settle this question. The question is—will the Egyptologists have them done? Or are they perhaps afraid of what they might discover?

SC

Edited April 18, 2013 by Scott Creighton

[kmt_sesh]

As a reminder, folks, this is a debate about the graffiti in the Great Pyramid and issues related to that. For the most part we're still on track, but this discussion is not about when the Great Pyramid was built, how it was built, by whom it was built, or other topics such as comparative analyses between the Great Pyramid and other pyramids.

Please, let's stay on task. I'd rather avoid having to go through the thread to remove irrelevant posts. If you wish to discuss these other issues, feel free to start a new thread.

Thanks.

[kmt_sesh]

SC: Whatever. The POINT is that before my intervention into this debate it had long been considered impossible for Howard-Vyse to have perpetrated such a fraud. Now it is not. It was perfectly possible or, if you prefer, "speculatively plausible". So that changes the game. I would now like to ask the Egypt-apologists to present the hard, empirical, scientific evidence that proves the provenance of these inscriptions are contemporary with the pyramid's construction. Let's see the evidence.

SC

Your intervention? Is this the "game changer" of which you speak? So, because you have some speculations absent evidence, the entire situation is different now? You must really think highly of yourself. A guy named Scott Creighton writes some posts on an internet message board, subsequently turning orthodox history on its head.

Really?

Speculation does not drive meaningful inquiry. You've presented a possibility, yes, just as anyone might do, but this is quite certainly not a "game changer." Does historical research revolve around Scott Creighton simply because he writes some posts? You need to get your feet on the ground.

Equally unbalanced is your insistence in an earlier post that because you've presented your speculations, it is now up to the orthodox Egyptological community to rush out and prove your point. You're essentially saying: "I believe such-andsuch to be true, so it's your responsibility to do my work for me." That's not how it works, although I'm quite familiar with the fact that this is a typical approach for fringe writers. You frequently use the redundant term "consensus Egyptology." Well, yes, in this case, it is the consensus of the Egyptological community that the graffiti is authentic. Therefore, if you believe otherwise, it is your responsibility to prove otherwise. Not speculate, mind you, but prove.

...

SC: This is why I have long advocated such non-invasive tests. More empirical, scientific evidence is needed to help settle this question. The question is—will the Egyptologists have them done? Or are they perhaps afraid of what they might discover?

SC

It's already been stated, but dating the graffiti is not going to happen. Get past this. Modern people were entering those chambers for well over a century after their discovery, writing their own graffiti and leaving their own contamination. Moreover, years back the SCA performed a thorough chemical cleansing of the chambers, so the contamination was compounded.

There will be no dating. Egyptologists are not afraid of the whimsies of alternative historians, and there is no reason to try to date something which arguably cannot be dated anymore—if it could've been done to begin with.

[kmt_sesh]

I've spent much of this evening reading through Colonel Howard Vyse's journal, The Pyramids of Gizeh, in two volumes. For anyone with even the slightest interest in this current discussion, skeptic and "believer" alike, I highly recommend you do the same. They're very interesting and loaded with memorable anecdotal stories, and replete with very skillful illustrations and sketches. But I'm not here to critique the journal. I read the two volumes to search out information specific to the relieving chambers and the graffiti therein.

What I noticed in doing so is the relative paucity of information regarding these chambers. Yes, Vyse writes a lot of details about them, but in his explorations of Giza it's clear the discovery of the upper chambers was not the most important find in his own mind. This is the first time I've read the journal, so I was surprised to see the amount of time Vyse spends on explaining his explorations of the so-called air shafts. He also devotes a significant amount of space to the tomb he called Campbell's Tomb. So while the relieving chambers are covered in his journal entries, they were clearly not Vyse's focus at Giza.

In the middle of numerous entries pertaining to the chambers, in fact, I was surprised to see Vyse's entry for April 26 (1837: 235): "All hopes of an important discovery were not yet given up, and the best quarrymen were employed to get above the roof of Nelson's Chamber." By this point the graffiti had already been discovered (almost a month earlier). The process of blasting into each subsequent chamber was slow going, and obviously it's not the graffiti that most interested Vyse. He does not elaborate, but with all such antiquarians of the mid-nineteenth century, to Vyse "an important discovery" most likely meant pharaonic gold. None was to be had.

Some other points revealed in the journal:

• Vyse was rarely alone in his Giza explorations. He wasn't accompanied only by his usual companions, such as J.P. Hill, but by a plethora of other people. These include British aristocracy and, significantly, the Egyptologist John S. Perring. Vyse regularly consulted with other Egyptologists of the day, including Samuel Birch of the British Museum. In the explorations of the relieving chambers, Vyse was almost always in the company of native workmen and numerous of the above-mentioned folks. When did he find the time to carry out such an elaborate conspiracy? It's not realistic, on the face of it.
  
• Vyse spent most of his time exploring other areas of Giza, including the outside vicinity of the Great Pyramid. His journals contain illustrations of graffiti he found in these areas, and none of it is terribly similar to the graffiti inside the relieving chambers. Even by this time (spring of 1837) most of the sand around the pyramids had been carted away, so it's not as though people were tripping over graffiti-covered blocks and ostraca. In my own years of researching the Giza Plateau and its textual evidence, I've never come across mention of graffiti or other forms of linear hieroglyphs that match that found inside the chambers, so speculating that Vyse got the idea for a hoax this way is, in reality, unrealistic.
  
• Vyse was not the first to draw the graffiti. Perring was. In Vyse's own words (ibid: 259):
  

Notwithstanding that the characters in these chambers were surveyed by Mr. Perring upon a reduced scale, I considered that facsimiles in their original size would be desirable, as they were of great importance from their situation, and probably the most ancient inscriptions in existence. I requested therefore Mr. Hill to copy them. His drawings were compared with the originals by Sir Robert Arbuthnot, Mr. Brettel (a civil engineer), Mr. Raven, and myself, and are deposited in the British Museum.

• Perring's and Vyse's drawings of the graffiti both present a rather nicely united front. It's already been shown how Zecharia Sitchin, the originator of the hoax notion, falsified evidence for his book The Stairway to Heaven, but the salient point here is, the idea that there were "misspellings" in the glyphs is patently unfounded. This is demonstrated in Vyse's own drawings, where in most cases the "sieve" or "placenta" glyph, designated Aa1 in modern scholarship, is shown with striations in the spellings of Khufu's name. Vyse was working from John. G. Wilkinson's Materia Hieroglyphica, in which the same glyph is shown no differently from the solar disk (ibid: 280), so it would be quite remarkable for a man like Vyse who didn't know hieroglyphs not only to write the names correctly on the walls but, in essence, to correct the work of an actual Egyptologist. The fact that the disk does not require the striations to be read correctly is beside the point: not only Vyse, but extremely few scholars of the day, knew the difference. This approach to the argument is, then, unrealistic.
  
• It was actually Vyse's companion, J.P Hill, who did the real transcription and copying of the graffiti. In some fringe literature it's been charged that Vyse directed HIll to perform a fraud by painting the graffiti itself. This is a misrepresentation of the facts. Vyse directed Hill to inscribe only the modern names of the chambers in there (Wellington's Chamber, Nelson's, Lady Arbuthnot's, Campbell's) (e,g., ibid: 208). The names are still there. In fact, it's telling to me that if Vyse were out only to make a name for himself, how odd it was that he did not name any of his discoveries after himself. This is not really the behavior of a man bereft or moral character, but it's easy for the alternative crowd to commit character assassinations of a man long dead. I do concur that Vyse was far from angelic, but character assassinations are not useful as evidence.
  
• I've saved perhaps the best two for last. First, Vyse describes in some detail the nature of the chambers when first entered. There is this entry for the first discovery, Wellington's Chamber (ibid: 206):
  

Upon first entering the apartment, a black sediment was found, of the consistence of a hoar-frost, equally distributed over the floor, so that footsteps could be distinctly seen impressed on it, and it had accumulated to some depth in the interstices of the blocks. Some of this sediment, which was sent to the French establishment near Cairo, was said to contain ligneous particles. When analyzed in England, it was supposed to consist of the exuviae of insects; but as the deposition was equally diffused over the floor…it was most probably composed of particles of decayed stone.

• These encrustations are common to Egyptian tombs when first found. They always have been. Some of it is from ancient man, some of it from the natural environment. I've read in Perring's descriptions of the same chambers how a crystalline encrustation covered all viewable surfaces: this is a problem in limestone monuments to this day in the Nile Valley, when salts in the ancient limestone are leeched to the surface. It's a natural phenomenon. The point is, these encrustations and debris covered all surfaces, including the graffiti. In fact, the graffiti wasn't even noticed at first, which brings me to my last point.
  
• Vyse was not alone when the graffiti was first noticed. In his own words (ibid: 207):
  

Mr. Perring and Mr. Mash having arrived, we went in the evening into Wellington's Chamber, and took various measurements, and in doing so we found the quarry marks.

• In this scenario, it seems the Egyptologist John Perring must have been part of the elaborate hoax, for it to be real. Either that or Vyse was working extremely fast when Perring and Marsh were turned the other way, in order to wipe away over 4,000 years of mineral encrustations and scribble out the graffiti. This is not realistic.
  

In total, alternative historians who still cling to the hoax notion have a hell of a lot of work to do in order to explain away real-world facts. In the light of day the hoax notion is simply not sustainable. It never has been, no matter how the approach is slapped together.

I've written another of my epic-length posts, for which I must apologize. Nevertheless, and drawing almost completely from Vyse's journal alone, I thought it was worth presenting this to the group.

[Harsh86_Patel]

As a reminder, folks, this is a debate about the graffiti in the Great Pyramid and issues related to that. For the most part we're still on track, but this discussion is not about when the Great Pyramid was built, how it was built, by whom it was built, or other topics such as comparative analyses between the Great Pyramid and other pyramids.

Please, let's stay on task. I'd rather avoid having to go through the thread to remove irrelevant posts. If you wish to discuss these other issues, feel free to start a new thread.

Thanks.

We are discussing Graffiti in the Great Pyramid which is claimed to be a indicative of the Builder of the Great Pyramids. The two topics are linked.You claimed that the Khufu cartouches were original and hence Khufu was the builder, whereas i feel that the cartouche's were forgeries and hence Khufu was not the builder of the great pyramid.

[kmt_sesh]

We are discussing Graffiti in the Great Pyramid which is claimed to be a indicative of the Builder of the Great Pyramids. The two topics are linked.You claimed that the Khufu cartouches were original and hence Khufu was the builder, whereas i feel that the cartouche's were forgeries and hence Khufu was not the builder of the great pyramid.

A Mod's warning or reminder does not require comment, Harsh. Review Section 6 of the Rules.

[Harsh86_Patel]

I've spent much of this evening reading through Colonel Howard Vyse's journal, The Pyramids of Gizeh, in two volumes. For anyone with even the slightest interest in this current discussion, skeptic and "believer" alike, I highly recommend you do the same. They're very interesting and loaded with memorable anecdotal stories, and replete with very skillful illustrations and sketches. But I'm not here to critique the journal. I read the two volumes to search out information specific to the relieving chambers and the graffiti therein.

What I noticed in doing so is the relative paucity of information regarding these chambers. Yes, Vyse writes a lot of details about them, but in his explorations of Giza it's clear the discovery of the upper chambers was not the most important find in his own mind. This is the first time I've read the journal, so I was surprised to see the amount of time Vyse spends on explaining his explorations of the so-called air shafts. He also devotes a significant amount of space to the tomb he called Campbell's Tomb. So while the relieving chambers are covered in his journal entries, they were clearly not Vyse's focus at Giza.

In the middle of numerous entries pertaining to the chambers, in fact, I was surprised to see Vyse's entry for April 26 (1837: 235): "All hopes of an important discovery were not yet given up, and the best quarrymen were employed to get above the roof of Nelson's Chamber." By this point the graffiti had already been discovered (almost a month earlier). The process of blasting into each subsequent chamber was slow going, and obviously it's not the graffiti that most interested Vyse. He does not elaborate, but with all such antiquarians of the mid-nineteenth century, to Vyse "an important discovery" most likely meant pharaonic gold. None was to be had.

Some other points revealed in the journal:

• Vyse was rarely alone in his Giza explorations. He wasn't accompanied only by his usual companions, such as J.P. Hill, but by a plethora of other people. These include British aristocracy and, significantly, the Egyptologist John S. Perring. Vyse regularly consulted with other Egyptologists of the day, including Samuel Birch of the British Museum. In the explorations of the relieving chambers, Vyse was almost always in the company of native workmen and numerous of the above-mentioned folks. When did he find the time to carry out such an elaborate conspiracy? It's not realistic, on the face of it.
  
• Vyse spent most of his time exploring other areas of Giza, including the outside vicinity of the Great Pyramid. His journals contain illustrations of graffiti he found in these areas, and none of it is terribly similar to the graffiti inside the relieving chambers. Even by this time (spring of 1837) most of the sand around the pyramids had been carted away, so it's not as though people were tripping over graffiti-covered blocks and ostraca. In my own years of researching the Giza Plateau and its textual evidence, I've never come across mention of graffiti or other forms of linear hieroglyphs that match that found inside the chambers, so speculating that Vyse got the idea for a hoax this way is, in reality, unrealistic.
  
• Vyse was not the first to draw the graffiti. Perring was. In Vyse's own words (ibid: 259):
  

• Perring's and Vyse's drawings of the graffiti both present a rather nicely united front. It's already been shown how Zecharia Sitchin, the originator of the hoax notion, falsified evidence for his book The Stairway to Heaven, but the salient point here is, the idea that there were "misspellings" in the glyphs is patently unfounded. This is demonstrated in Vyse's own drawings, where in most cases the "sieve" or "placenta" glyph, designated Aa1 in modern scholarship, is shown with striations in the spellings of Khufu's name. Vyse was working from John. G. Wilkinson's Materia Hieroglyphica, in which the same glyph is shown no differently from the solar disk (ibid: 280), so it would be quite remarkable for a man like Vyse who didn't know hieroglyphs not only to write the names correctly on the walls but, in essence, to correct the work of an actual Egyptologist. The fact that the disk does not require the striations to be read correctly is beside the point: not only Vyse, but extremely few scholars of the day, knew the difference. This approach to the argument is, then, unrealistic.
  
• It was actually Vyse's companion, J.P Hill, who did the real transcription and copying of the graffiti. In some fringe literature it's been charged that Vyse directed HIll to perform a fraud by painting the graffiti itself. This is a misrepresentation of the facts. Vyse directed Hill to inscribe only the modern names of the chambers in there (Wellington's Chamber, Nelson's, Lady Arbuthnot's, Campbell's) (e,g., ibid: 208). The names are still there. In fact, it's telling to me that if Vyse were out only to make a name for himself, how odd it was that he did not name any of his discoveries after himself. This is not really the behavior of a man bereft or moral character, but it's easy for the alternative crowd to commit character assassinations of a man long dead. I do concur that Vyse was far from angelic, but character assassinations are not useful as evidence.
  
• I've saved perhaps the best two for last. First, Vyse describes in some detail the nature of the chambers when first entered. There is this entry for the first discovery, Wellington's Chamber (ibid: 206):
  

• These encrustations are common to Egyptian tombs when first found. They always have been. Some of it is from ancient man, some of it from the natural environment. I've read in Perring's descriptions of the same chambers how a crystalline encrustation covered all viewable surfaces: this is a problem in limestone monuments to this day in the Nile Valley, when salts in the ancient limestone are leeched to the surface. It's a natural phenomenon. The point is, these encrustations and debris covered all surfaces, including the graffiti. In fact, the graffiti wasn't even noticed at first, which brings me to my last point.
  
• Vyse was not alone when the graffiti was first noticed. In his own words (ibid: 207):
  

• In this scenario, it seems the Egyptologist John Perring must have been part of the elaborate hoax, for it to be real. Either that or Vyse was working extremely fast when Perring and Marsh were turned the other way, in order to wipe away over 4,000 years of mineral encrustations and scribble out the graffiti. This is not realistic.
  

In total, alternative historians who still cling to the hoax notion have a hell of a lot of work to do in order to explain away real-world facts. In the light of day the hoax notion is simply not sustainable. It never has been, no matter how the approach is slapped together.

I've written another of my epic-length posts, for which I must apologize. Nevertheless, and drawing almost completely from Vyse's journal alone, I thought it was worth presenting this to the group.

SO you rely on Vyse's testimaony that he was not alone when he found the Glyphs, to suggest that he was not a forger, Doesn't seem a very prudent technique.

He was desperate to find something, he is a typical glory hound. And like SC mentioned that the person who would link the Great Pyramid with it's actual builder would literally be immortalised. This is reason enough for Vyse to have done it, also the reason we are still talking about Vyse is because of those Glyphs and his claims to have found them. What would Vyse be without this great claim, none of us would have known of him.

It is surprising that you so thoroughly doubt the motives of Sitchin because he writes books, but you would not be equally sceptical of VYSE. He was very much a self confessed amateur treasure seeker and glory hound.

[Scott Creighton]

Your intervention? Is this the "game changer" of which you speak? So, because you have some speculations absent evidence, the entire situation is different now? You must really think highly of yourself. A guy named Scott Creighton writes some posts on an internet message board, subsequently turning orthodox history on its head.

Really?

Speculation does not drive meaningful inquiry. You've presented a possibility, yes, just as anyone might do, but this is quite certainly not a "game changer." Does historical research revolve around Scott Creighton simply because he writes some posts? You need to get your feet on the ground.

Equally unbalanced is your insistence in an earlier post that because you've presented your speculations, it is now up to the orthodox Egyptological community to rush out and prove your point. You're essentially saying: "I believe such-andsuch to be true, so it's your responsibility to do my work for me." That's not how it works, although I'm quite familiar with the fact that this is a typical approach for fringe writers. You frequently use the redundant term "consensus Egyptology." Well, yes, in this case, it is the consensus of the Egyptological community that the graffiti is authentic. Therefore, if you believe otherwise, it is your responsibility to prove otherwise. Not speculate, mind you, but prove.

It's already been stated, but dating the graffiti is not going to happen. Get past this. Modern people were entering those chambers for well over a century after their discovery, writing their own graffiti and leaving their own contamination. Moreover, years back the SCA performed a thorough chemical cleansing of the chambers, so the contamination was compounded.

There will be no dating. Egyptologists are not afraid of the whimsies of alternative historians, and there is no reason to try to date something which arguably cannot be dated anymore—if it could've been done to begin with.

SC: I shall keep this brief, KMT, as you seem a tad upset and I do not wish this discussion to descend into acrimony and recrimination. It is not for me to disprove claims of authenticity. You are essentially asking me to disprove something that has not actually been proven. A logical fallacy. The burden of proof rests with those who claim the positive, those who claim the inscriptions are authentic. It is not for me to prove a negative but for you to prove the positive

I think it is fairly clear by now that Howard-Vyse was a man of highly dubious character, a man who would stop at nothing--including breaking the law--to get what he wanted. Given such and given also that "...You will take evidence every time..." then, rather than accept Howard-Vyse's questionable testimony on faith, present hard, empirical evidence that proves these inscriptions, found by him, are truly authentic. Do that and you will vindicate Howard-Vyse and his claimed discovery--do it not and the reek that exudes from everything Howard-Vyse has touched will continue to linger for a long, long time to come.

Present scientific proof of the authenticity of these inscriptions--that is all you have to do to settle this question.

SC

Edited April 19, 2013 by Scott Creighton

[Merc14]

SC: I shall keep this brief, KMT, as you seem a tad upset and I do not wish this discussion to descend into acrimony and recrimination. It is not for me to disprove claims of authenticity. You are essentially asking me to disprove something that has not actually been proven. A logical fallacy. The burden of proof rests with those who claim the positive, those who claim the inscriptions are authentic. It is not for me to prove a negative but for you to prove the positive

So you are demanding a level of proof that you aren't even remotely approaching? What hubris you have to take what little info you have and demand an ever increasing amount of data to disprove. I would guess short of transporting you back in time to watch Vyse in person you will never be satisfied. Even then you'd claim there was chicanery involved so wed are you to your ideas.

I think it is fairly clear by now that Howard-Vyse was a man of highly dubious character, a man who would stop at nothing--including breaking the law--to get what he wanted. Given such and given also that "...You will take evidence every time..." then, rather than accept Howard-Vyse's questionable testimony on faith, present hard, empirical evidence that proves these inscriptions, found by him, are truly authentic. Do that and you will vindicate Howard-Vyse and his claimed discovery--do it not and the reek that exudes from everything Howard-Vyse has touched will continue to linger for a long, long time to come.

Present scientific proof of the authenticity of these inscriptions--that is all you have to do to settle this question.

SC

You need to study up on C14 dating.

What will now happen here is kmt will eventually just stop answering the same questions over and over again because it is apparent to all but the delusional that SC will never admit he is wrong or that there is any answer other than his. When kmt stops answering, the fringer, SC, will start claiming victory with the words "See, he can no longer answer my questions and hides from the debate." This will then be presented as proof to his followers. The CTers do the same thing (see any 911 truther argument).

All you can do with these types is present your overwhelming proof debunking their theories and allow them to attack with the same theories and questions ad-infinitum, no matter the weight of evidence against their theories. Not once has SC admitted he may be wrong or less than 100% correct and he never will. Not ever. Hopefully the reasonable man will see that the fringer is completely beyond reasoning and that his data, now shot full of holes and sinking by the bow, is in error, and make the right decision and dismiss the bunk.

[Scott Creighton]

...All you can do with these types is present your overwhelming proof debunking their theories...

SC: It is not any theory of mine that is being questioned in this thread. The question, since it has obviously escaped your attention, is whether or not the inscriptions found by Howard-Vyse in the GP are authentic and what proof there is to substantiate their authenticity. A zillion Egyptologists all agreeing with each other that they are authentic is not proof. Consensus opinion is not fact.

Is it wrong to demand that consensus Egyptology and its Egypt-apologists present empirical evidence that these inscriptions are as authentic as they claim them to be? Is it wrong that alternative authors such as myself demand from consensus Egyptology and its Egypt-apologists a level of proof that they demand of others?

I think not.

SC

Edited April 19, 2013 by Scott Creighton

[Merc14]

SC: It is not any theory of mine that is being questioned in this thread. The question, since it has obviously escaped your attention, is whether or not the inscriptions found by Howard-Vyse in the GP are authentic and what proof there is to substantiate their authenticity. A zillion Egyptologists all agreeing with each other that they are authentic is not proof. Consensus opinion is not fact.

Is it wrong to demand that consensus Egyptology and its Egypt-apologists present empirical evidence that these inscriptions are as authentic as they claim them to be? Is it wrong that alternative authors such as myself demand from consensus Egyptology and its Egypt-apologists a level of proof that they demand of others?

I think not.

SC

It has already been stated that getting viable C14 samples is improbable, afterall, Vyse blew a hole in teh floor with black powder and then countless peole smoked in there. I read this article from Nova with this paragragh:

Gangs and graffiti

You've made reference to inscriptions at Giza that indicate who built the Pyramids. What do the inscriptions say?

One of the most compelling pieces of evidence we have is graffiti on ancient stone monuments in places that they didn't mean to be shown. Like on foundations when we dig down below the floor level, up in the relieving chambers above the King's chamber in the Great Pyramid, and in many monuments of the Old Kingdom—temples, other pyramids. Well, the graffiti gives us a picture of organization where a gang of workmen was organized into two crews, and the crews were subdivided into five phyles. Phyles is the Greek word for tribe.

The phyles are subdivided into divisions, and the divisions are identified by single hieroglyphs with names that mean things like endurance, perfection, strong. Okay, so how do we know this? You come to a block of stone in the relieving chambers above the King's chamber. First of all, you see this cartouche of a King and then some scrawls all in red paint after it. That's the gang name. And in the Old Kingdom in the time of the Pyramids of Giza, the gangs were named after kings. So, for example, we have a name, compounded with the name of Menkaure, and it seems to translate "the Drunks (or the Drunkards) of Menkaure." There's one that's well-attested, in the relieving chambers above the King's chamber in the Great Pyramid, "the Friends of Khufu Gang." This doesn't sound like slavery, does it?

In fact, it gets more intriguing, because in certain monuments you find the name of one gang on one side of the monument and another gang, we assume competing, on the other side of the monument. You find that to some extent in the Pyramid temple of Menkaure. It's as though these gangs are competing. So from this evidence we deduce that there was a labor force that was assigned to respective crew, gang, phyles, and divisions.

Full article - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/who-built-the-pyramids.html

and it just shows how complicated and beyond anyone's expertise in the mid 19th century, it would've been to pull off this vandlism.

Anything is possible but is it probable? In this case it isn't, IMHO. When it gets to the point of absurdity to justify a theory I tune out. It would be interesting to see what the diaries of the folks that accompanied Vyse say but I am sure you'd convict them of being part of the grand conspiracy so what's the point?

[Scott Creighton]

SC: It is not any theory of mine that is being questioned in this thread. The question, since it has obviously escaped your attention, is whether or not the inscriptions found by Howard-Vyse in the GP are authentic and what proof there is to substantiate their authenticity. A zillion Egyptologists all agreeing with each other that they are authentic is not proof. Consensus opinion is not fact.

Is it wrong to demand that consensus Egyptology and its Egypt-apologists present empirical evidence that these inscriptions are as authentic as they claim them to be? Is it wrong that alternative authors such as myself demand from consensus Egyptology and its Egypt-apologists a level of proof that they demand of others?

I think not.

Merc14: It has already been stated that getting viable C14 samples is improbable…

SC: You make the assumption here that I have asked for C14 dating tests to be done. Where have I suggested that? And, in any case, "improbable" isn't the same as impossible. We will not know until we try. Who knows what miscroscpoic specs of pollen might be found behind the paint? Imagine the uproar if one of those dated to ca. 1850 CE? Who knows what microscopic fleks of lead-nitrate might be found behind the red ochre? Imagine the outcry if it was found that such a flek was found UNDER the paint? Has anyone looked? Not as far as I am aware. (These are, of course, but examples of what MIGHT be looked for and tested).

Merc14: You've made reference to inscriptions at Giza that indicate who built the Pyramids. What do the inscriptions say? …and it just shows how complicated and beyond anyone's expertise in the mid 19th century, it would've been to pull off this vandlism.

SC: Nonsense. I suggest you read everything I have written in this thread. You will find how easy it could have been to perpetrate such a fraud.

Merc14: Anything is possible but is it probable? In this case it isn't, IMHO.

SC: Before I entered into this debate, the Egypt-apologists around here were telling us that such a fraud was IMPOSSIBLE for Howard-Vyse to have perpetrated, the implication being that the inscriptions in question MUST therefore be authentic. This is no longer being said. KMT_Sesh now accepts (if somewhat reluctantly) that I have “… presented a possibility…” and you now describe what was formerly impossible as “complicated”. So, what was once deemed here as impossible is no longer considered so, ergo, it is now at least possible that the inscriptions may not be authentic. No longer can the Egypt-apologists make the claim that such a fraud was impossible, and that, by implication the inscriptions are genuine. That is a change (even if it was like pulling teeth to extract such an admission).

Merc14: When it gets to the point of absurdity to justify a theory I tune out. It would be interesting to see what the diaries of the folks that accompanied Vyse say but I am sure you'd convict them of being part of the grand conspiracy so what's the point?

SC: What is absurd is how the Egypt-apologists claimed it was impossible to perpetrate such a fraud when nothing could be further from the truth. What is absurd is the complete blanking by the Egypt-apologists of Howard-Vyse’s corrupt moral character and the charges of fraud leveled against him by his own workers. What is absurd is the scorn placed upon anyone who has the effrontery to demand of Consensus Egyptology and its apologists a single crumb of empirical evidence to substantiate the authenticity of the inscriptions. This is especially more critical given that such a fraud was not as impossible as they had once imagined. If you’re looking for absurdity, have a look at the unevidenced ‘fact’ that is Consensus Egyptology.

SC

Edited April 19, 2013 by Scott Creighton

[cormac mac airt]

So if you're not asking for C14 dating yet still complaining about evidence, what exactly DO you want? Even Robert Schoch said the following in regards to the quarry-marks:

Studying them closely, however, they looked authentically ancient to me. I could see later mineral crystals precipitated over them, a process that takes centuries or millennia, and the inscriptions continue under the overlying blocks.

http://www.robertschoch.net/Exploring%20the%20Great%20Pyramid%20Robert%20M.%20Schoch.htm

As to the charges of fraud leveled at Vyse by his own workers, Brewers words "...had dispute with Raven and Hill about painted marks in the pyramid. Faint marks were repainted, some were new..." can't be seen as supporting the alleged forgery since it doesn't actually mention red paint specifically nor does it acknowledge the fact that Vyse had the chambers painted with names in black such as Nelson's Chamber, Lady Arbuthnot's Chamber, etc. which are still there.

It's even been claimed that Brewer "witnessed Mr. Hill go into the pyramid with red paint and brush, supposedly to paint over ancient markings, but actually to paint new ones". So where is the evidence of this claim as even you have failed to substantiate it. All you've done is provide a quote which is lacking in any specific details, in an attempt to present it as more than it is.

cormac

[Scott Creighton]

So if you're not asking for C14 dating yet still complaining about evidence, what exactly DO you want? Even Robert Schoch said the following in regards to the quarry-marks:

Studying them closely, however, they looked authentically ancient to me. I could see later mineral crystals precipitated over them, a process that takes centuries or millennia, and the inscriptions continue under the overlying blocks.

http://www.robertsch...t M. Schoch.htm

As to the charges of fraud leveled at Vyse by his own workers, Brewers words "...had dispute with Raven and Hill about painted marks in the pyramid. Faint marks were repainted, some were new..." can't be seen as supporting the alleged forgery since it doesn't actually mention red paint specifically nor does it acknowledge the fact that Vyse had the chambers painted with names in black such as Nelson's Chamber, Lady Arbuthnot's Chamber, etc. which are still there.

It's even been claimed that Brewer "witnessed Mr. Hill go into the pyramid with red paint and brush, supposedly to paint over ancient markings, but actually to paint new ones". So where is the evidence of this claim as even you have failed to substantiate it. All you've done is provide a quote which is lacking in any specific details, in an attempt to present it as more than it is.

cormac

SC: This is all precisely why I consider it important that further tests be done on these inscriptions, further evidence gathered to help us come to a conclusion on this question. Hill and Raven were said to have repainted over existing glyphs and to have painted new glyphs (which ones were old, which were new and why even paint new glyphs and how did they know which new glyphs to paint?). So it does seem (on the evidence of Humphries Brewer) that there were some original gyphs in these chambers--I have never denied this. There may also have been ancient glyphs that Hill and Raven did not repaint which may well have been the glyphs that Schoch refers to.

The allegation of Humphries Brewer was presented by his great-grandson. What was it about this paint-job that Brewer so objected to? If you are implying that Humphries Brewer made this up then why would he lie about Howard-Vyse? What would he gain by so doing? The whole episode reeks (as does Howard-Vyse's claims regarding G3).

What we have here is essentially one person's word against another. Do we accept the word of Humphries Brewer (who had nothing to gain) or do we accept the word of Howard-Vyse? Which one of the two is known to be of dubious moral character? I'll leave you to figure that one out for yourself.

At the end of the day, only further evidence can hope to settle this question one way or the other.

SC

Edited April 19, 2013 by Scott Creighton

[Irna]

Do we accept the word of Humphries Brewer (who had nothing to gain) or do we accept the word of Howard-Vyse? Which one of the two is known to be of dubious moral character? I'll leave you to figure that one out for yourself.

The word of Humphries Brewer? What we have here (from Sitchin) is a page of notes made by Mr. Allen in 1954 after a conversation with his mother, during which they discussed a visit by Mr. Allen’s mother ​​(in August 1954) to a third person ("Nell Pattengill”) who was supposed to be in possession of some letters written by Mr. Allen’s great-grandfather, Humphries, letters that Mrs. Pattengill had been given by her father ...

These letters were never produced... So where are the words of Humphries Brewer?

[Harte]

The word of Humphries Brewer? What we have here (from Sitchin) is a page of notes made by Mr. Allen in 1954 after a conversation with his mother, during which they discussed a visit by Mr. Allen’s mother ​​(in August 1954) to a third person ("Nell Pattengill”) who was supposed to be in possession of some letters written by Mr. Allen’s great-grandfather, Humphries, letters that Mrs. Pattengill had been given by her father ...

These letters were never produced... So where are the words of Humphries Brewer?

Great post.

But... only 25 posts in 7 years?

We need more from you.

Harte

Edited April 19, 2013 by Harte

[cormac mac airt]

SC: This is all precisely why I consider it important that further tests be done on these inscriptions, further evidence gathered to help us come to a conclusion on this question. Hill and Raven were said to have repainted over existing glyphs and to have painted new glyphs (which ones were old, which were new and why even paint new glyphs and how did they know which new glyphs to paint?). So it does seem (on the evidence of Humphries Brewer) that there were some original gyphs in these chambers--I have never denied this. There may also have been ancient glyphs that Hill and Raven did not repaint which may well have been the glyphs that Schoch refers to.

The allegation of Humphries Brewer was presented by his great-grandson. What was it about this paint-job that Brewer so objected to? If you are implying that Humphries Brewer made this up then why would he lie about Howard-Vyse? What would he gain by so doing? The whole episode reeks (as does Howard-Vyse's claims regarding G3).

What we have here is essentially one person's word against another. Do we accept the word of Humphries Brewer (who had nothing to gain) or do we accept the word of Howard-Vyse? Which one of the two is known to be of dubious moral character? I'll leave you to figure that one out for yourself.

At the end of the day, only further evidence can hope to settle this question one way or the other.

SC

This is where we disagree because neither you nor Brewer's claim has shown, specifically, that "glyphs" were painted over. Nor does the claim of using red paint, specifically, appear to have any merit. And while it's speculation on my part, it could be that portions of the names for the chambers (i.e. Lady Arbuthnot's, Campbell's, etc.) were poorly done and it was felt necessary to redo them to make them legible.

No, I'm saying that even if true he doesn't know "what" was being painted. While we do know the chambers were being named.

Humphrey's Brewer has said nothing about glyphs, so that's not much of an argument.

cormac

[cormac mac airt]

The word of Humphries Brewer? What we have here (from Sitchin) is a page of notes made by Mr. Allen in 1954 after a conversation with his mother, during which they discussed a visit by Mr. Allen’s mother ​​(in August 1954) to a third person ("Nell Pattengill”) who was supposed to be in possession of some letters written by Mr. Allen’s great-grandfather, Humphries, letters that Mrs. Pattengill had been given by her father ...

These letters were never produced... So where are the words of Humphries Brewer?

They're sitting on the shelf right next to Solon's text about how he heard the story of Atlantis, first person, from a priest of Sais.

cormac

[Scott Creighton]

SC: This is all precisely why I consider it important that further tests be done on these inscriptions, further evidence gathered to help us come to a conclusion on this question. Hill and Raven were said to have repainted over existing glyphs and to have painted new glyphs (which ones were old, which were new and why even paint new glyphs and how did they know which new glyphs to paint?). So it does seem (on the evidence of Humphries Brewer) that there were some original gyphs in these chambers--I have never denied this. There may also have been ancient glyphs that Hill and Raven did not repaint which may well have been the glyphs that Schoch refers to.

The allegation of Humphries Brewer was presented by his great-grandson. What was it about this paint-job that Brewer so objected to? If you are implying that Humphries Brewer made this up then why would he lie about Howard-Vyse? What would he gain by so doing? The whole episode reeks (as does Howard-Vyse's claims regarding G3).

What we have here is essentially one person's word against another. Do we accept the word of Humphries Brewer (who had nothing to gain) or do we accept the word of Howard-Vyse? Which one of the two is known to be of dubious moral character? I'll leave you to figure that one out for yourself.

At the end of the day, only further evidence can hope to settle this question one way or the other.

CMA: This is where we disagree because neither you nor Brewer's claim has shown, specifically, that "glyphs" were painted over. Nor does the claim of using red paint, specifically, appear to have any merit.

SC: You miss the point. It is precisely BECAUSE we do not know the precise nature of the paint-job, that it was not clearly identified that permits the question. The POINT is that it COULD have been glyphs that were repainted and new ones painted. The mere fact of this paint-job being mentioned calls ALL the painted marks into question. Especially so with someone of the low moral character of Howard-Vyse in charge of proceedings. It cannot be denied that it remains entirely possible that the discussion between Brewer, Hill and Raven WAS INDEED about the glyphs. And because that possibility cannot be discounted, requires of us to revisit this entire question of these inscriptions, to do more tests and to try and uncover evidence to determine exactly what was done in these chambers by Howard-Vyse. Or, indeed, to vindicate him.

CMA: And while it's speculation on my part, it could be that portions of the names for the chambers (i.e. Lady Arbuthnot's, Campbell's, etc.) were poorly done and it was felt necessary to redo them to make them legible.

SC: But this merely emphasizes my point. There’s no record of what “faint marks” were repainted and which ones were new. It may or it may not have been what you suggest. But we will not know for certain until more tests are done. That is the point. It is an open, unanswered question. In any case, I hardly see Humphries Brewer having a dispute about the painting of Arbuthnott or Campbell into the chambers—this isn’t forgery and hardly something to have a dispute over. It seems more likely that he would have had more of a dispute at plans to commit forgery and that this is what the dispute was about. Certainly, Brewer’s use of the word “faint marks” is ambiguous due to the modern painted names placed into the chambers. The Jury’s out—we need more evidence to help settle the issue.

SC

Edited April 19, 2013 by Scott Creighton

[Scott Creighton]

These letters were never produced... So where are the words of Humphries Brewer?

SC: In his unproduced letters. Are you suggesting that Walter Allen made this up? What would his motives have been? The "notes" make some remarks that are entirely verifiable thereby conferring credibility upon the original source.

SC

[cormac mac airt]

SC: You miss the point. It is precisely BECAUSE we do not know the precise nature of the paint-job, that it was not clearly identified that permits the question. The POINT is that it COULD have been glyphs that were repainted and new ones painted. The mere fact of this paint-job being mentioned calls ALL the painted marks into question. Especially so with someone of the low moral character of Howard-Vyse in charge of proceedings. It cannot be denied that it remains entirely possible that the discussion between Brewer, Hill and Raven WAS INDEED about the glyphs. And because that possibility cannot be discounted, requires of us to revisit this entire question of these inscriptions, to do more tests and to try and uncover evidence to determine exactly what was done in these chambers by Howard-Vyse. Or, indeed, to vindicate him.

SC: But this merely emphasizes my point. There’s no record of what “faint marks” were repainted and which ones were new. It may or it may not have been what you suggest. But we will not know for certain until more tests are done. That is the point. It is an open, unanswered question. In any case, I hardly see Humphries Brewer having a dispute about the painting of Arbuthnott or Campbell into the chambers—this isn’t forgery and hardly something to have a dispute over. It seems more likely that he would have had more of a dispute at plans to commit forgery and that this is what the dispute was about. Certainly, Brewer’s use of the word “faint marks” is ambiguous due to the modern painted names placed into the chambers. The Jury’s out—we need more evidence to help settle the issue.

SC

I don't see this as a valid argument as nobody, including yourself, has produced anything actually written by Humphries Brewer supporting any of this alleged forgery. It all conveniently starts with his great-grandson. Which means that your claim in Post #152:

Humphries Brewer, a stonemason who worked with Howard-Vyse at Giza wrote this:

Since it's dated at the top of the left side as October 9, 1954 then there is no way Brewer could have written this 117 years before. Which means what you claimed is factually incorrect.

cormac

Edited April 19, 2013 by cormac mac airt