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The Pyramid and the Yard


RayGday

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The zodiac as determined by the Greeks is irrelevant to the period of the builders of the Great Pyramid as Egypt had not such zodiac. Which makes the Greek zodiac meaningless in this discussion.

The Greeks didn't create the Zodiac.

"From Architecture down to the Zodiac, every science worthy of the name was imported by the Greeks" - Helena Blavatsky

"…the Egyptians were the first to discover the solar year, and to portion out its course into twelve parts both the space of time and the seasons which they delimit. It was observation of the course of the stars which led them to adopt this division…It is also the Egyptians who first bought into use the names of the twelve gods, which the Greeks adopted from them" - Herodotus

"In their desire to appear highly intellectual, scientific and mathematical, the Greeks, probably about the time of Alexander the Great, adopted the solar nomenclature, thereby turning ancient zodiacal symbolism topsy-turvy and making it sheer nonsense" - Cyril Fagan (Astrological Origins)

"However, whenever the ancients mentioned the position, during their own times, of the planets or of the Equinoxes in reference to the Zodiacal Constellations, the chronological era of such men in world-history can be determined with exactness. An illustration of the truth of this claim, and one which incidentally proves the great astronomical learning of the ancient Egyptians, who could so correctly place the planets, is a mummy’s coffin, now in the British Museum, which bears on its cover a Zodiacal representation of the planetary positions at the time the dead Egyptian was embalmed. Calculations by modern astronomers have proved that on the precise date of October 7, 1722, B.C., the planets and luminaries were in the exact positions shown on the coffin design. The mummy can thus be assigned an undeniable antiquity of seventeen centuries before Christ." - Astrological World Cycles by Tara Mata (Laurie Pratt) 1932

Homer, Solon, Thales, Pythagorus, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Eudoxes, Plato, Euclid, Pericles, Aristyllus, Timocharis, Aristarchus, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Hipparchus, Aristotle, Strabo and Diodorus all recieved their knowledge of Geometry, Mathematics, Philosophy and Astronomy from Egyptian tutors.

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The Greeks didn't create the Zodiac.

~SNIP~

The two biggest flaws with your argument are 1) the zodiac you repeatedly post a picture of is Greek and didn't exist in Egypt before Alexander the Great and the latter Ptolemaic Period and 2) while the usage of early constellations and such may have started in Babylon in the second millenium BC, nothing approaching the zodiac we can see from your pictures is in evidence there as having been used until the 1st millenium BC. Both of which are irrelevant to the construction of the GP in the 3rd millenium BC. It appears you're playing mix-n-match with the timeline in order to get the results you desire, which makes it meaningless.

cormac

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"From Architecture down to the Zodiac, every science worthy of the name was imported by the Greeks" - Helena Blavatsky

Quoting the chief female (VS Crowley as chief male) quack will certainly get us nowhere nearer to facts. You are referring to somebody who could not even make a living holding up trains in the West as being authoritative here. Besides her "channeling"she never even bothered to show a source... and most of the channeling does not hold water on closer scrutiny. As far as I know the only one that was accurate was that the sun rises in the morning.

The Zodiac we know was from the Greeks, those that came before it were single stars, not imaginary pictures of some of them. And the names we know them by nowadays are Roman. All that can be easily learned by reading translation of actual works of ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Babylonians.

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The two biggest flaws with your argument are 1) the zodiac you repeatedly post a picture of is Greek and didn't exist in Egypt before Alexander the Great and the latter Ptolemaic Period and 2) while the usage of early constellations and such may have started in Babylon in the second millenium BC, nothing approaching the zodiac we can see from your pictures is in evidence there as having been used until the 1st millenium BC. Both of which are irrelevant to the construction of the GP in the 3rd millenium BC. It appears you're playing mix-n-match with the timeline in order to get the results you desire, which makes it meaningless.

There is no flaws in the argument. The graphic is a modern Zodiac representing 12 divisions of the 360° sky.

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Pyramidiots

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The Greeks didn't create the Zodiac.

...

I'll skip commenting in detail on your citations since the first is from Blavatsky, who was something of a nut-job occultist with little understanding of history; the second is Herodotus, whose Histories is fascinating and entertaining to read but is riddled with obvious errors borne of Greek bias; and the last two seem to be related to astrology, which is not a legitimate branch of historical enquiry.

You'd be much better off to search out legitimate professional historians who could guide you toward lots of useful and reliable answers.

You're correct that the Greeks didn't invent the zodiac. Nevertheless, the zodiac in your image represents a purely Greek adaptation of it. This zodiac has nothing to do with ancient Egypt, where an entirely different comprehension of the heavens was known. In point of fact we don't see anything truly in the nature of a zodiac in dynastic Egypt prior to the Greek period. What we see are star charts, and there are quite a few of those—often depicted in tombs.

The oldest and one of the most famous is the star chart in TT353 at Deir el Bahri, which belonged to the great steward Senenmut of Dynasty 18 and was probably a cenotaph for him, given that he had another tomb. Click here for an image of it. Senenmut and his cenotaph with the star chart date to the mid-fifteenth century BCE. The next notable example comes from KV17, the tomb of Seti I in Dynasty 19. Click here for a line-art representation of part of the chart. Seti I and his tomb date to the early thirteenth century BCE.

There are numerous other examples down through the dynastic period, but you get the idea. At least I hope you do. As you can see, there is no realistic concordance with the Greek-style zodiac. That is not evident in Egypt until well into the Greek period, such as the well-known example from Dendera. This does resemble the Greek-style zodiac, but results only from several centuries of intensive interaction with Greeks; as you can see the Dendera zodiac is a mixture of the Egyptian and the Greek. It dates to around 50 BCE, as I recall.

In other words, your zodiac image has nothing to do with dynastic Egypt, nor would the Egyptians have cared about or understood it till the end of their history—and only then from interactions with the Greeks.

Homer, Solon, Thales, Pythagorus, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Eudoxes, Plato, Euclid, Pericles, Aristyllus, Timocharis, Aristarchus, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Hipparchus, Aristotle, Strabo and Diodorus all recieved their knowledge of Geometry, Mathematics, Philosophy and Astronomy from Egyptian tutors.

I am left wondering where you get your sources from. I mean, Homer? Historians still debate whether this was even a real man or a Greek synthesis of ancient bards. Practically nothing substantial is known of his life. Solon? He might very well have travelled to Egypt but only late in his life and only to escape the tumult he caused in Athens due to his constitutional reforms.

I don't have time to comment on all of your list, but in fact there's no reason to. While it's true the Archaic Greeks were inspired and influenced by Egypt, the folks in your list lived long after that time and were the beneficiaries of centuries of Greek improvements on the original Egyptian models (mathematics, architecture, art, et cetera). On the face of it, it is well understood historically that the Egyptians did not practice any sort of developed philosophy—at least nothing like the philosophies of Greece with which we're familiar.

What are your sources?

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Pyramidiots

I normally avoid responding to such posts but it seems to me you might be missing a great deal

about the reality to respond in this manner. There is an implication that the facts are known and

some people won't accept them. Have you ever asked yourself why don't the powers that be simply

run the scientific tests that would positively answer the various theories including their own? Have

you ever asked yourself why orthodoxy can't undermine mostof the "pyramidiots" out there? Yes,

some of these theories are extremely weak and are severely undermined by facts but most can't be

because orthodoxy refuses to gather the evidence that would prove or disprove the various ideas.

What are they so afraid of? If these people are so stupid as to delude themselves then a few facts

should destroy many of their theories. If orthodoxy is so golden then having a fact or two to support

their ideas should be quite welcome. Instead it goes on year after endless year with the same old

head in the sand attitude and calling names instead of seeking facts. They spend millions looking

for treasure and troweling for ramps but won't even allow science that is quite inexpensive and would

cost them nothing at all.

What terrifies them so?

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Hi Kmt_sesh,

I would not argue with you that H.P. Blavatsky was involved in Pseudo Science, but she had huge influence on Annie Besant and Alice Bailey of Lucis Trust Fame, i have sympathy for Annie Besant who tried to get independence for India and knew Gandhi, and was involved in the Fabian Society that was the origin of the UK Labour Party, so pseudoscience does effect politics throughout the ages!

Please note in 1890's many thought Communism may work before the Soviet Union, so wasn't a dirty word then!

All of the above believed in ascended masters and a Great White Brotherhood on Sirius!

http://www.esoteric-philosophy.net/mast-av-disc.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Besant

Alice Bailey is connected to Lucis Trust, that was recognized by the U.N.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Bailey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucis_Trust

A fuller report on the origins of the UK Labour Party can be seen below, three pages, however it is an old report by me so don't expect all links to work that i gave then:-

http://www.mauricefernandez.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1940&start=0

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The origin of the British Yard is unknown and thought to be created about 1000 years ago.

But...

Yardstick was a common word 2500 years ago.

"Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure." - Leviticus 19:35, Old Testament.

Meteyard - a yard staff, or rod, used as a measure. A yardstick.

Is this evidence that the yard is at least 1500 years older than previously thought?

Archaeologists believe Egyptians and Mesopotamians used the cubit and the Greeks and Romans favoured the foot.

The Cubit was 18 inches or 1⁄2 yard. ("a Foot and a half" - Isaac Newton.)

A Foot is 12 inches or 1⁄3 yard.

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The origin of the British Yard is unknown and thought to be created about 1000 years ago.

But...

Yardstick was a common word 2500 years ago.

Meteyard - a yard staff, or rod, used as a measure. A yardstick.

Is this evidence that the yard is at least 1500 years older than previously thought?

Archaeologists believe Egyptians and Mesopotamians used the cubit and the Greeks and Romans favoured the foot.

The Cubit was 18 inches or 1⁄2 yard. ("a Foot and a half" - Isaac Newton.)

A Foot is 12 inches or 1⁄3 yard.

Not hardly.

No, this is evidence that you shouldn't be relying solely on a translation of the Greek originally used into the English of the time of King James, which is 1611. In the original Greek as well as English translations of the Jewish Tanakh and Septuagint there is no evidence of the use of the word "meteyard", the word actually used translates as "measures". What is further irrelevant is the fact that the short cubit is not evidenced as having been known, let alone used, during the period the GP was being constructed. Also, since the short cubit was 17.68 inches and you've decided to round it off to 18 inches then you're effectively making the facts fit your "theory" (and I use that word lightly) instead of the theory fitting the facts. Which is just one more reason not to take it seriously.

cormac

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To add, and to end this crap once and for all: the word yard comes from the proto-germanic gard (the g sounds like the English y), and that means stick and not meter. In fact, the word Meter was not used until after the French revolution when measurement systems were unified... and the Greek verb ἐμμετρέω, (to measure by) was used as word to define the new measurement.

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the word actually used translates as "measures".

Appreciate your reply but I doubt meteyard translates as "measures" because the word measure is already used.

Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure."

Look up dictionary definitions of the word "meteyard"

meteyard.png

What is further irrelevant is the fact that the short cubit is not evidenced as having been known, let alone used, during the period the GP was being constructed. Also, since the short cubit was 17.68 inches and you've decided to round it off to 18 inches then you're effectively making the facts fit your "theory" (and I use that word lightly) instead of the theory fitting the facts. Which is just one more reason not to take it seriously.

The pyramid builders using a 17.6 inch cubit is a theory too.

english-units.png

http://en.wikipedia....i/English_units

yard-origin.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yard

There are more references to a 18 inch cubit than a 17.68 inch cubit.

http://www.worldwideflood.com/ark/noahs_cubit/cubit_references.htm

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Appreciate your reply but I doubt meteyard translates as "measures" because the word measure is already used.

Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure."

Look up dictionary definitions of the word "meteyard"

meteyard.png

The pyramid builders using a 17.6 inch cubit is a theory too.

english-units.png

http://en.wikipedia....i/English_units

yard-origin.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yard

There are more references to a 18 inch cubit than a 17.68 inch cubit.

http://www.worldwideflood.com/ark/noahs_cubit/cubit_references.htm

I didn't say 'meteyard' translates as measure, as it is found NOWHERE in the original Greek of the Bible. It only appears in the 1611 King James Version. In short, it was a word added to the text. The actual text, in Greek, reads as follows:

35. οὐ ποιήσετε ἄδικον ἐν κρίσει ἐν μέτροις καὶ ἐν σταθμίοις καὶ ἐν ζυγοῖς

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/sep/lev019.htm

The highlighted word above means "measure" and had nothing to do with "meteyard". The latter of which (again) is nowhere in the text. Therefore your argument is based on a non-existant word.

A 17.68 inch short cubit is based on the available evidence of measuring rods from Ancient Egypt as described by Flinders Petrie in his book "Ancient Weights and Measures, Illustrated by the Egyptian Collection in University College, London" dated 1926. None of which are either 18 inches in length or date to the Old Kingdom, which makes your Wiki link meaningless.

cormac

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...

A 17.68 inch short cubit is based on the available evidence of measuring rods from Ancient Egypt as described by Flinders Petrie in his book "Ancient Weights and Measures, Illustrated by the Egyptian Collection in University College, London" dated 1926. None of which are either 18 inches in length or date to the Old Kingdom, which makes your Wiki link meaningless.

cormac

Thank you, cormac, for this welcomed reminder of reality. I get a bit impatient with folks who profess things to be true even in the face of no tangible evidence. Anachronisms always lead one astray and should be avoided at all times.

I'm not even certain why we should fuss over biblical quotes considering no passage in the Bible, Old Testament or New, pertains in any way to the Great Pyramid or any other Egyptian pyramid. This is especially true for Greek renderings of the Old Testament, all of which derive from the original Septuagint commissioned early in the Ptolemaic Period of Egypt—2,000 years after the building of the Great Pyramid. In any case, also important to remember is that the Hebrew cubit and Egyptian cubit were not the same. Close, but not the same. "Close" isn't really good enough when erecting colossal monuments that required something akin to precise fittings of masonry blocks (be it the Great Pyramid or the Temple of Jerusalem).

To RayGDay I would ask: where is your evidence? By this I mean not your opinions or assumptions based on coincidences between ancient forms of measurement and modern. I mean actual physical evidence produced from the material record through archaeology of the Nile Valley. How can you support your claim in this manner? This is what matters.

You stated that the 17.6-inch equivalent in cubits is a theory, too. Well, no, it isn't. It's fact. Cormac mentioned measuring rods. These exist. Quite a few have been found in archaeological excavations in Egypt. While I'm not aware of cubit rods surviving from the Old Kingdom, it's evident that the Egyptian cubit changed little if any down through pharaonic history. Cubit rods are well evidenced. For example:

m13825.jpg

louvre_739.jpg

A close-up of the second cubit rod:

lourve_closeup_689.jpg

A rod like this was divided into cubits and from there subdivided into palms. While no one to this day can definitively identify how the cubit came to be or which civilization in the ancient Near East first developed it for purposes of measurement, how it was used in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Judah, and elsewhere is well attested. The closeup photo above shows the subdivisions representing palms, along the beveled edge. Anyone with a passing familiarity with hieroglyphs can read this. Each single slash represents "one," while each horseshoe-shaped glyph represents "ten." Therefore, from left we have 16 subdivisions, 15, 14, and 13.

The Egyptian cubit comes out to be 17.6 inches. The Hebrew cubit is 17.5 inches. The Old Babylonian cubit is 19.69 inches. The Greek cubit, 18.68 inches. These are basic facts, and well represented archaeologically and textually.

So, I ask yet again, where is your evidence? Physical, archaeological, textual evidence—not pareidolia.

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I forgot to mention something so I'll throw it into this post.

Obviously a cubit rod would not be terribly useful in establishing long-distance measurements, such as the 750 feet on each side of the Great Pyramid. For this purpose the Egyptians used measuring ropes. These long ropes were knotted at even intervals for the purposes of measurement. This includes not just structures like the Great Pyramid but land surveys for the purposes of taxation. A good example is seen in the tomb of Menna, from the New Kingdom:

measuring_land_rope_tomb_chap_hi.jpg

All right, now I'm finished.

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Thank you, cormac, for this welcomed reminder of reality. I get a bit impatient with folks who profess things to be true even in the face of no tangible evidence. Anachronisms always lead one astray and should be avoided at all times.

I'm not even certain why we should fuss over biblical quotes considering no passage in the Bible, Old Testament or New, pertains in any way to the Great Pyramid or any other Egyptian pyramid. This is especially true for Greek renderings of the Old Testament, all of which derive from the original Septuagint commissioned early in the Ptolemaic Period of Egypt—2,000 years after the building of the Great Pyramid. In any case, also important to remember is that the Hebrew cubit and Egyptian cubit were not the same. Close, but not the same. "Close" isn't really good enough when erecting colossal monuments that required something akin to precise fittings of masonry blocks (be it the Great Pyramid or the Temple of Jerusalem).

To RayGDay I would ask: where is your evidence? By this I mean not your opinions or assumptions based on coincidences between ancient forms of measurement and modern. I mean actual physical evidence produced from the material record through archaeology of the Nile Valley. How can you support your claim in this manner? This is what matters.

You stated that the 17.6-inch equivalent in cubits is a theory, too. Well, no, it isn't. It's fact. Cormac mentioned measuring rods. These exist. Quite a few have been found in archaeological excavations in Egypt. While I'm not aware of cubit rods surviving from the Old Kingdom, it's evident that the Egyptian cubit changed little if any down through pharaonic history. Cubit rods are well evidenced. For example:

m13825.jpg

louvre_739.jpg

A close-up of the second cubit rod:

lourve_closeup_689.jpg

A rod like this was divided into cubits and from there subdivided into palms. While no one to this day can definitively identify how the cubit came to be or which civilization in the ancient Near East first developed it for purposes of measurement, how it was used in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Judah, and elsewhere is well attested. The closeup photo above shows the subdivisions representing palms, along the beveled edge. Anyone with a passing familiarity with hieroglyphs can read this. Each single slash represents "one," while each horseshoe-shaped glyph represents "ten." Therefore, from left we have 16 subdivisions, 15, 14, and 13.

The Egyptian cubit comes out to be 17.6 inches. The Hebrew cubit is 17.5 inches. The Old Babylonian cubit is 19.69 inches. The Greek cubit, 18.68 inches. These are basic facts, and well represented archaeologically and textually.

So, I ask yet again, where is your evidence? Physical, archaeological, textual evidence—not pareidolia.

Just for the sake of clarity the Egyptian cubit kmt_sesh is referring to is the short cubit and should not be confused with the Royal Cubit of 52.4 centimeters/20.63 inches.

cormac

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The graduations on the rod in your pic which are numerically marked are fingers, I believe.

Four of those made a palm, with seven plams in a cubit.

Just sayin' :w00t:

Harte

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The graduations on the rod in your pic which are numerically marked are fingers, I believe.

Four of those made a palm, with seven plams in a cubit.

Just sayin' :w00t:

Harte

And you know what you've got if you have 7 palms, right? Three and a half people. :lol:

cormac

Edited by cormac mac airt
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And you know what you've got if you have 7 palms, right?

cormac

Four politicians, only three of which are completely in your pocket.

Harte

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Four politicians, only three of which are completely in your pocket.

Harte

Zing!

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And you know what you've got if you have 7 palms, right? Three and a half people. :lol:

...A date for every night of the week?

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  • 2 weeks later...

To add, and to end this crap once and for all: the word yard comes from the proto-germanic gard (the g sounds like the English y), and that means stick and not meter.

If mete-yard translates as mete-stick then yardstick must translate as stick-stick.

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A 17.68 inch short cubit is based on the available evidence of measuring rods from Ancient Egypt as described by Flinders Petrie in his book "Ancient Weights and Measures, Illustrated by the Egyptian Collection in University College, London" dated 1926. None of which are either 18 inches in length or date to the Old Kingdom, which makes your Wiki link meaningless.

The original 18 inch cubit was divided into 6 divisions of 3 inches, called Palms.

Lets analyze Petrie's wooden cubit rods using inductive metrology.

Cubit #6 totals 17.6 inches with the strange short palm.

cubit_6.png

Cubit #8 - Orignal length unknown, it could have been a 18 inch cubit.

Median palm length gives a 17.92" cubit - 99.6% of 18 inches.

cubit_8.png

Cubit #12 - Orignal length unknown, it could have been a 18 inch cubit.

cubit_12.png

Here's a rod with 1 inch divisions.

cubit_3.png

So much for wooden cubits.

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The Egyptian cubit comes out to be 17.6 inches. The Hebrew cubit is 17.5 inches. The Old Babylonian cubit is 19.69 inches. The Greek cubit, 18.68 inches. These are basic facts, and well represented archaeologically and textually.

It's obvious they all derive from a common ancient source of 18 inches or half a yard.

"a Foot and a half" - Isaac Newton.

"In Egypt the scientific basis for the calculation of geodetic measures was the geographic foot or geographic cubit (1 cubit=1½ feet)." - Livio C. Stecchini

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