Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Great Pyramid not built by Khufu?


The Puzzler

Recommended Posts

Instead of trying to use the old fringe technique of "attack the mainstream evidence", why don't you present the evidence for this other culture that built the Giza pyramids and the evidence you have that they did so.

I don't know, I guess it's these fortune cookies, each time I open one it says "Attack the mainstream evidence" and I can't disobey the cookies. Fantastic contribution to the discussion btw. lol

Edited by onefourfour
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know, I guess it's these fortune cookies, each time I open one it says "Attack the mainstream evidence" and I can't disobey the cookies. Fantastic contribution to the discussion btw. lol

Yes it was, I clearly identified what you were trying to do - exactly what ever other fringe believer tries to do - attack the mainstream evidence INSTEAD of presenting the fabulous and extensive evidence for this other culture that built the pyramids - that left no writing, pottery, tools, burials or habitations.....lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes it was, I clearly identified what you were trying to do - exactly what ever other fringe believer tries to do - attack the mainstream evidence INSTEAD of presenting the fabulous and extensive evidence for this other culture that built the pyramids - that left no writing, pottery, tools, burials or habitations.....lol

Well good thing you came along and pointed that out. We would have been so lost without you.

Try this. Go to google.com and write "Define skeptic"

What does it say next to "1." there... the first definition given...?

Edited by onefourfour
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have read postulations that around 3400 bc the Egyptian culture(s) went through a shift with a 'sudden' appearance of script with sound values, burial customs and monumental stone work due to a new people / culture arriving. But I have not heard a valid suggestion as to who those people were or where they came from. Some have suggested Africa as a source for both influences in Mesopotamia and Egypt , but even they admit that is a stretch.

It seems to me however, that many of the stone architectural features , motifs and designs are based on construction elements of an earlier age ; plam logs, bundled papyrus stalks, lotus, woven reed walls, etc. If they did build similar structures (smaller scale of course) they would soon rot and not leave a trace of a smiilar form.

One can build quiet large structures out of reeds though

047.jpg

The best source I have on the period is John Romer's 'A History of Ancient Egypt - from the first farmers to the Great Pyramid.' It has been a while since I read it but I dont remember anything in there other than a gradual development with some gaps , but he uses an 'evidence based' approach.

I dont know if anything else is out there that shows any other influence or source . What's the latest ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well good thing you came along and pointed that out. We would have been so lost without you.

Yes you would have -unless it was your point to waste peoples time, was that your objective?

Try this; provide us with evidence for those you think made the pyramids of Giza. Or do you have no idea?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hanslune

I think you should be more focused on developing your personality in a kinder, happier direction. :)

Edited by onefourfour
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the lead. Indeed it's pretty hard and sometimes impossibly so. Gobekli Tepi was made of stone and buried. Even stone structures are destroyed by climate and often humans. It is an exceptional archaeological find, because of how little else exists. But the monument obviously attests to something, doesn't it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hanslune

I think you should be more focused on developing your personality in a kinder, happier direction. :)

I'm skeptical of that

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't made up my mind yet, and there are a whole lot of people who are very well educated who have the same doubts. If you're already really sure you're right, that must be frustrating... hang in there we'll all get there eventually if you're right.

Yes, it's frustrating, perhaps because I've encountered the same alternative arguments so many times for so many years. Education is one thing and I'm the first to laud it, but most important is how one's education is germane to the subject at hand. I am educated but am far from all knowing, which is why I'll speak authoritatively on subjects in which I'm educated but will say little to nothing on subjects with which I'm not familiar. Plenty fringe and alternative writers appear to be intelligent and educated people but understand very little on, say, ancient Egypt or the ancient Near East, which is why the stuff they write is so easily dismantled. So they can have all the doubts they want, but short of the proper training, their doubts don't mean much of anything.

Both Lehner and Hawas are very politically involved, career-minded individuals. Lehner and Hawass are known characters. Hawass is a known liar. You may not think that matters, but I'm 100% sure some other people do. You may think their characters (both) are unassailable, but I'm 100% sure some other people think otherwise. You may not think the people who fund and head a project matter or make methods and results more or less trustworthy, but I'm .... lol

It's something to consider. No need to think it concludes or closes the case.

Anyone who's invested time and expense into a career had better be career minded or he or she will not have that career for long. Hawass is indeed a character, in so far as the term can be seen in a subtle pejorative sense, but Lehner certainly is not. Hawass can certainly be thought of as political (at least till he lost his position in the government), but Lehner cannot. Lehner is a highly respected, solidly grounded academic. For much of his career Hawass was too.

Put this into perspective. The C14 dating covered in the report involved two rounds of analyses: 1984 and 1995. In 1984 Hawass was a chief inspector of Giza; by 1995, he had become general director of Giza and Saqqara. In all these years he was still leading and conducting valuable archaeological digs and publishing peer-reviewed literature. He contributed a lot to Egyptology. The more clownish and camera-hogging Hawass you're thinking of was the later version, when he became secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (that was 2002). And few would doubt that that position went right to his head.

If you're trying to argue against orthodox science and research, you must address the methodology. Assailing the character or personality of a scientist or historian is a common fringe tactic that always reflects badly on the poster, not on the scientist or historian. It seems desperate. Can you challenge the science or methodology of the C14 tests conducted on all of these Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom monuments? That's what would matter. Taking pot shots at the people involved gets you nowhere. This is certainly easy to do with fringe writers (e.g., Erich von Däniken, Zecharia Sitchin, Chris Dunn, David Icke, et al) because they do not follow the scientific method or observe research protocols, but it's a whole different matter when you try to do the same to legitimate researchers.

I'm droning on about this, so my apologies. It's a touchy point with me. In conclusion for the time being, it should be understood that Hawass's name is on the C14 report mostly due to his governmental status at the time. He was involved but the lead Egyptologist was Mark Lehner. I don't know what you're drawing from with your skepticism of his standing, but I'd be very suspicious of your sources.

Given the notorious reputation of archaeologists of the time and the shear amount of fraud that has gone on historically, I think doubts are reasonable, we may just be at different stages and speeds of resolving the doubts. The doubts are reasonable.

The most convincing thing about the inscription to me was that part of it wrapped around an inaccessible stone. I'm looking for more source data on that particular point if you can help

This is not an explanation I should attempt to provide in one post, so I shall refrain from doing so for the time being. It's a complicated subject and Lord knows it's been debated in significant detail in numerous different UM threads, so we can set this aside for the time being unless you wish to develop the debate further. I am willing to take part. You might bring up specific points of debate you've come across which describe what makes the graffiti "fake," and we'll take it from there.

For the time being I'll just say the nature and content of the graffiti is such that it's unreasonable (and unrealistic) to suggest that its discoverer, Col. Howard Vyse, forged it. Neither Vyse nor 99% of the people fumbling around Giza in 1837 could read or understand hieroglyphs, which had been translated successfully for the first time by Champollion only fifteen years earlier. Personally I side with pretty much all historians and Egyptologists who are familiar with this graffiti: it is authentic.

Have they tried dating the paint? Just curious...

Others have asked if this could be done, and the simple answer is, yes, it potentially could. Will it be done? Not likely. First, as I said, those familiar with the historical nature of the graffiti do not doubt its authenticity, which brings us to the second point: there is no motivation to damage any of it for the sake of dating. But perhaps the most thorny point is that the relieving chambers in which the graffiti is found has been frequented by tourists since Vyse first discovered them in 1837. Many of those tourists filled the chambers with graffiti of their own. And some years ago the SCA conducted a thorough cleaning of all of the chambers. The short of it is, so many people have been in there touching and disturbing all surfaces that contamination is a high risk, rendering chemical dating unreliable at best.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Look here http://www.rickricha...gypt/Egypt6.htm

See the "dot" in the middle of the right character, which the author here thinks is evidence that the character has been altered?

Well, I found better images and I suspect "dot" actually is just a hole on the wall, connected to a crack. It's not actually paint. The photos above are black and white so you can't tell.

Rest assured, when I talk to the other side I am presenting the carbon dating, and making arguments in the other direction.

Well, I missed this and see you've already posted something about the graffiti. I'll try to keep this short. This image and the argument behind it come from a couple of fringe books published by the late Zecharia Sitchin. His position on the matter is comical at best, and outright dishonest at worst. I started an old thread directly addressing Sitchin's position, and if you're interested you can review it here. Everyone knows I'm enough of a windbag as it is (obviously), so I needn't repeat it all here.

Suffice it to say the common fringe argument is that this glyph (designated Aa1 in Egyptology) must have three striations inside the circle in order to represent the "kh" slound properly. The glyph in the image looks more like a blob than striations, which makes it resemble the sun-disk glyph more closely. Well, as anyone versed in hieroglyphs knows, the Aa1 glyph can have any number of striations or none at all—it's the context of the glyph, not necessarily its orthography, that determines the sound value. The fringe stance on this is truly awful and uninformed. I'm always surprised that it's still brought up.

But there's more to it. Since the time I wrote that thread attacking Sitchin's "interpretation" of the graffiti I've come into possession of high-resolution images of the graffit from the British Museum. These images are proprietary so I cannot post them, but I'm willing to bet a good internet hunt will allow the searcher to find equivalents. It turns out Sitchin craftily used a very reduced and blurry version, with the obvious intent to misrepresent the evidence. The actual glyph in that spelling does have striations. Sitchin appears to have deliberately misled his readers.

Big surprise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a final note for now, I wanted to touch on something that Hanslune brought up. It's a common fringe tactic to claim the Great Pyramid was built thousands of years earlier than conventionally believed, and that Khufu somehow "repurposed" it.

It's also a common fringe failing to ignore the significant body of research which explores periods of history much earlier than Khufu's time. Thanks to gifted researchers such as Toby Wilkinson and David Wengrow, we have a considerable knowledge of Early Dynastic and prehistoric Egypt. While this knowledge is far from complete, of course, the sum total of it has allowed us to trace the socio-political development of prehistoric peoples in Egypt.

The short of it is, there is simply no evidence that a much more advanced civilization occupied the Nile Valley or Delta prior to the Egyptians' own emergence as a kingdom in around 3100 BCE. The prehistoric context of the Memphite region (Giza included) is well understood, and in fact it's understood that the prehistoric Egyptians of Lower Egypt lagged behind their southern kin in socio-political terms until the period of unification.

In other words, no evidence exists in any realistic sense that some mysterious, unknown culture built the Great Pyramid centuries or millennia before Khufu's time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Helpful posts - thanks. On the notion of inscriptions being written wrapped around stone, I've got no debate to offer, I just would like to find better sources. The only one mentioned so far is a sort of badly translated personal opinion page. Sitchin is dishonest or otherwise not good at thinking, I get nothing from him or the other fellows you mentioned.

Excellent elaboration on Hawass. My intention isn't to use a "tactic" of any kind, I'm just considering everything, and I am suspicious of career-oriented political men and billionaire (politically active) financiers. I do think it throws doubt on the results and the integrity of the whole study. It doesn't for you, and I understand why. Maybe the whole thing is innocent, well intentioned scientific work. :) There are however a large number of more trustworthy people who would like the same opportunities, and they are locked and muscled out of it. It's all extremely suspicious for me. I don't say it to bother you intentionally.

Mark Lehner is very legitimate. *Legitimate*

I agree, past our exchanging opinions on them it doesn't really lead anywhere productive. I guess I hoped you might know of dating work done more independently, by a university and without celebrities and billionaires involved. I'd really like to hear about that if you do.

I understand the frustration. This IS an internet forum about unexplained mysteries and it's different people at different stages of understanding coming, and they are all following the same cookie crumb trail so the questions are going to get repetitive.

You should collect and edit your work here and publish a book. There is tremendous interest and ignorance and there are very few people who take the time to do what you're doing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

we have a considerable knowledge of Early Dynastic and prehistoric Egypt sum total of it has allowed us to trace the socio-political development of prehistoric peoples in Egypt.

The short of it is, there is simply no evidence that a much more advanced civilization occupied the Nile Valley or Delta prior to the Egyptians' own emergence as a kingdom in around 3100 BCE.

These are two distinct arguments. For reasons outlined (very clearly I think) in my posts prior in this thread, I think the second argument is much less useful than the first. It amounts to looking for a preconception of what a society needs to be in order for stone structures to exist. They don't need civilizations, those come much later in human history than religion and temples. This is my version of your dislike for the "Hawass is untrustworthy" tack. It's not supported by even consensus history anymore. It is a myth that human beings were civilized before holy sites existed. The massive pyramids imply the need for labour and you can cite lack of evidence of labour. That's as far as it goes.

Besides that, the aliens were just leaving behind a message, they didn't stay.

;)

Edited by onefourfour
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fresh direction-

The Osirion and the argument about it being much lower and not well integrated with the Seti temple. I can't remember where I heard about this - sorry. I'm sure you're familiar with this. What are the best explanations?

The earth and moon proportions of the GP and the special decimal degree latitude (it is the speed of light in meters per second.) Someone elsewhere suggested that it was a modern fraud, that somehow the meter and the second were invented suitably for this purpose by the illumanati or something. The meter is the distance a pendulum must be in order to have a period of 1 or 2 seconds, I don't recall which off hand. They are gravitational numbers tied with the mass of the earth. Looking for something better.

The other two pyramids on the Giza plateau, and the "bent" pyramid, also demonstrate an affiliation with mathematics and geometry. Good reads that talk about the subject would be appreciated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But they didn't modify it -- and that was my point. The pyramid didn't become integrated into their burials... it's just 'nearby'.

But they didn't modify it -- and that was my point. The pyramid didn't become integrated into their burials... it's just 'nearby'.

You're saying that of all the places in the desert, it's just a coincidence that a pyramid was there, because if it had anything to do with the burials in any way, they would have modified the pyramid.

I get it, I just totally disagree and think it's not even logical the way you are thinking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are plenty of motives which range from sincere to scandalous which you can attribute to the establishment of an afterlife-promising place to go to die. It may have been something like Varanasi is today. The pyramid doesn't need to have been re-purposed or even accessible to the enterprise. I believe generally that entire villages are considered special throughout the world and history with the presence of a temple of this stature. Even when the people who visit, and live in the village, can't access the temple. It happens. Go look.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The abandonment and repossession of ancient monuments and buildings is typical of many sites and not an idea only in the head of fringe thinkers. Classic want-to-be's and tourist attractions, religion and or sports centers etc added over the centuries is normal in the discoveries of ancient ruins.

To walk into an ancient site and give all the credit of its construction to a native paddling a canoe nearby, may be exciting but foolish. Then to write a book on how many millions of canoe paddlers it took to build the thing, is a great idea too, for money.

Just think of all those stuffed monkeys that will buy into it.

Then to send in a team of 200 university students to move one stone of about 400 kg, and erect it with ropes and buckets of water, or whatever the going thing is, it's great entertainment for a documentary, watched by the beige.

Still, we can up on that and send in a scientist to decipher the markings on the walls, which have to be significant, otherwise the team will look silly to the watching world, especially if the man in the canoe comes up and tells them he did it, just for graffiti.

Kufu or whatever his name is, came upon an abandoned site, no more pastures around as there were when it was built, just the desert. Well, what an opportunity for tourism and trading with the passing caravans. And that's how the Egyptian kingdom started. Kufu was the old mayor of this new estate under the shadow of the triangles. Buildings were added, roads improved, markets opened, agriculture and canals were built etc. Slavery as a major human resource did not enter until Jacob settled there, due to people from surrounding populations selling their labor for food. Slavery did not become compulsory until about a century later.

Although slaves built many things in Egypt, they did not build the pyramids, not even under Kufu, any more than the man in the canoe is a king.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kmt_Sesh just one note when you say the plateau; are you excluding the earlier Mastabas burials in the west and east fields?

Almost missed this, My apologies.

I'm not certain so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming you're referring to the cemeteries to the east and west of the Great Pyramid (many dozens of mastaba tombs).

These two cemeteries date to the time of Khufu and could not have been developed until the building of the Great Pyramid was underway. The East Cemetery contains largely the tombs of family members of Khufu (including his mother, Hetepheres), while the West Cemetery contains largely the tombs of high officials of Khufu. These are, originally, Dynasty 4 cemeteries, although many individuals rich and poor were entombed there in the last two dynasties of the Old Kingdom.

There is no definitive evidence that that area of the Plateau was used for burial or monumental building prior to Khufu.

But at the far south end of the Plateau, well behind the later Wall of the Crow, are the ruins of tombs from Early Dynastic times (from Dynasty 1, as I recall). I'm working from memory here so I may be mistaken, but the same southern area of the Plateau contains some predynastic burials, too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Helpful posts - thanks. On the notion of inscriptions being written wrapped around stone, I've got no debate to offer, I just would like to find better sources. The only one mentioned so far is a sort of badly translated personal opinion page. Sitchin is dishonest or otherwise not good at thinking, I get nothing from him or the other fellows you mentioned.

LOL I'm glad to hear that about Sitchin and the other fringies I mentioned. You will never get anything (useful) from them.

We recently had an extensive debate on the graffiti in another UM thread, and during the course of it a useful website came to my attention. I can't verify the full legitimacy or veracity of the written material because I'm not familiar with the author, Colette Dowell, but it's loaded with good images. I would direct you to this page.

There's a ton of information here but I'd go a little more than halfway down the page, where Martin Stower is mentioned. He's participated in a number of graffiti-related threads at UM and I consider him to be a superb researcher. To help get you to the right spot I would use your browser's search feature and search for the sentence " The text paragraphs below these new photographs was written by Martin Stower and posted on the Hall of Ma'at " Immediately below that you will see a bunch of thumbnails you can enlarge, one or more of which focus on glyphs between the stone blocks. You might spend some time reviewing other photos on the page, too.

Excellent elaboration on Hawass. My intention isn't to use a "tactic" of any kind, I'm just considering everything, and I am suspicious of career-oriented political men and billionaire (politically active) financiers. I do think it throws doubt on the results and the integrity of the whole study. It doesn't for you, and I understand why. Maybe the whole thing is innocent, well intentioned scientific work. :) There are however a large number of more trustworthy people who would like the same opportunities, and they are locked and muscled out of it. It's all extremely suspicious for me. I don't say it to bother you intentionally.

Mark Lehner is very legitimate. *Legitimate*

I can't say for certain but I wouldn't be surprised if Hawass is very wealthy, given his endless TV appearances, interviews, and laymen books. I rather doubt Lehner is that wealthy, however. Academia is a world for those seeking knowledge, not fortunes. Lehner is still hard at it and now directs the Giza Plateau Mapping Project, which I would consider to be the most extensive and important scientific investigation of Giza yet (everything from archaeology to geology). As far as I'm aware Hawass is no longer a practicing archaeologist, although he has a new book coming out soon (on CT scanning the pharaohs, which interests me considerably). However, since losing his ministry position in the Egyptian government, Hawass has become a high-priced tour guide in Egypt. I'm not kidding.

I should stress in no uncertain terms that for me personally, Hawass is not my favorite Egyptologist. I could name others who are considerably more polished and better established academically, Lehner included. I defend him only because I'm put off by fringe writers' penchant for trying to make him some kind of evil boogyman, which he doesn't deserve by any stretch of the imagination. Enough said.

I agree, past our exchanging opinions on them it doesn't really lead anywhere productive. I guess I hoped you might know of dating work done more independently, by a university and without celebrities and billionaires involved. I'd really like to hear about that if you do.

I'm certainly aware of other C14 trials of Old Kingdom sites and material culture, but as far as I myself am aware, there aren't other comprehensive C14 analyses of the Great Pyramid. Lehner took forty samples from that monument alone, in two different trials, so I imagine there's no rush or need to do it again any time soon.

I understand the frustration. This IS an internet forum about unexplained mysteries and it's different people at different stages of understanding coming, and they are all following the same cookie crumb trail so the questions are going to get repetitive.

A common charge laid on us "skeptics" is that this section of UM is about alternative history and ancient mysteries. I totally agree. But there are two sides to every coin, and this would be an awfully boring place if both sides weren't represented. Long before I became a Moderator, I came to UM to help represent the orthodox approach to historical research. Speaking for myself, I still consider that an important thing to do.

You should collect and edit your work here and publish a book. There is tremendous interest and ignorance and there are very few people who take the time to do what you're doing.

You're too kind. Believe it or not it's not the first time someone has suggested I write a book, and I'm always flattered. But I immediately come back to earth with the realization: Who in the hell would want to read it? I am not an Egyptologist or other form of professional historian. I am only an amateur historian. People want to read such things from the minds of respected professionals, and there already is indeed a modest body of literature out there on refuting fringe and alternative arguments.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

These are two distinct arguments. For reasons outlined (very clearly I think) in my posts prior in this thread, I think the second argument is much less useful than the first. It amounts to looking for a preconception of what a society needs to be in order for stone structures to exist. They don't need civilizations, those come much later in human history than religion and temples. This is my version of your dislike for the "Hawass is untrustworthy" tack. It's not supported by even consensus history anymore. It is a myth that human beings were civilized before holy sites existed. The massive pyramids imply the need for labour and you can cite lack of evidence of labour. That's as far as it goes.

Besides that, the aliens were just leaving behind a message, they didn't stay.

;)

I'm guessing those aliens are the ones who gave the Egyptians their hieroglyphs.

I'm only kidding, everyone. Don't take me seriously. I haven't lost my marbles. Yet.

I would disagree about the thrust of your post. The Egyptian civilization emerged around 3100 BCE, when the first kings united the south and north into one kingdom or nation-state. The Great Pyramid was not built until around 500 years later. I stress again the nature of evidence which shows neither site development at Giza until Khufu's reign nor the existence of an earlier civilization which could have achieved something like the Great Pyramid.

And a full-fledged civilization was required for building something like the Great Pyramid. These early Old Kingdom pyramids (Dynasty 3 and Dynasty 4) were the epitome of royal ideology, but setting aside the religious aspects of such monuments, it required massive amounts of logistics and manpower to accomplish them. Only a stable, flourishing state could've done this. For all intents and purposes, while the masonry pyramids were being erected, the entire nation was focused on them. Moreover, only a powerful ruler supported by a well-established bureaucracy could've marshaled the manpower and resources to do the job. In other words, these pyramids were works projects of the state.

Several villages are known from Dynasty 4 Giza, a couple of them in among the pyramid fields and a much larger one to the south. The archaeology of these villages has revealed how the workers were fed, equipped, governed, and otherwise cared for. The large village to the south alone could've fed and equipped thousands of workers at any one time. Also, cemeteries for these workers have been excavated adjacent to the large southern workmen's village, containing around thirty tombs for foremen and other high officials and hundreds of simpler burials for lower-ranked laborers.

I sense in part of your post you're thinking of Göbekli Tepe, in ancient Turkey. This is indeed an impressive, long-used site and millennia older than the founding of the Egyptian civilization. You would be absolutely correct in stating there is no evidence that the prehistoric folks who established and used Göbekli Tepe were a civilization. As impressive as the site is, and even considering how many years it's been excavated, the site has yielded no evidence of occupation, burial, or evidence for a distinct socio-political organization (all of which are abundantly evidenced at Giza). So we would be correct in saying a culture erected the stone monuments there, but not a civilization (anthropologically and archaeologically speaking, this is a critical distinction to bear in mind). But as impressive as Göbekli Tepe certainly is, it is a pale shadow of the logistics, engineering, and manpower necessary to erect something like the Great Pyramid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...

Kufu or whatever his name is, came upon an abandoned site, no more pastures around as there were when it was built, just the desert. Well, what an opportunity for tourism and trading with the passing caravans. And that's how the Egyptian kingdom started. Kufu was the old mayor of this new estate under the shadow of the triangles...

And your peer-reviewed evidence for this would be?...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Almost missed this, My apologies.

I'm not certain so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming you're referring to the cemeteries to the east and west of the Great Pyramid (many dozens of mastaba tombs).

These two cemeteries date to the time of Khufu and could not have been developed until the building of the Great Pyramid was underway. The East Cemetery contains largely the tombs of family members of Khufu (including his mother, Hetepheres), while the West Cemetery contains largely the tombs of high officials of Khufu. These are, originally, Dynasty 4 cemeteries, although many individuals rich and poor were entombed there in the last two dynasties of the Old Kingdom.

There is no definitive evidence that that area of the Plateau was used for burial or monumental building prior to Khufu.

But at the far south end of the Plateau, well behind the later Wall of the Crow, are the ruins of tombs from Early Dynastic times (from Dynasty 1, as I recall). I'm working from memory here so I may be mistaken, but the same southern area of the Plateau contains some predynastic burials, too.

Oops my apologies I was thinking of something completely unrelated to that. You are correct.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why not try the experiment? :wub:

No need - why not drop the pretext?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.