Update on Scan Pyramid project Oct 2016

[Lord Harry]

4 minutes ago, mstower said:

I might summarise Creighton’s theory, were there not drying paint which urgently needs watching.

M.

Creighton strikes me as a disciple of Edgar Cayce. Now Cayce was a very amusing old chap indeed. Claiming the existence of a Hall of Records buried beneath the Giza Plateau without the slightest mention of such a scriptorium in either the Grecian or Arab fables.

A bold gentleman if there ever was one.

Edited December 26, 2017 by Lord Harry

[mstower]

4 hours ago, Jarocal said:

Jesus was an old woman? That would definitely bring the shroud of Turin into question...

Jesus may take many forms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc2TzUWeEbw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi5q3Gq6UhI

M.

[Jarocal]

2 hours ago, mstower said:

I might summarise Creighton’s theory, were there not drying paint which urgently needs watching.

M.

I only watch paint dry for overtime. It is far too strenuous an activity for straight pay (or sober for that matter). 

I liken most of Scotts theories to paint drying also. Since my employer won't pay me to read those on company time well they tend to wait until...

Edited December 26, 2017 by Jarocal
I sold Vyse the red paint

[Lord Harry]

2 hours ago, Jarocal said:

I only watch paint dry for overtime. It is far too strenuous an activity for straight pay (or sober for that matter). 

I liken most of Scotts theories to paint drying also. Since my employer won't pay me to read those on company time well they tend to wait until...

We all knew you were a Stinky Footed Bumpkin Jarocal. LOL!

[Jarocal]

1 hour ago, Lord Harry said:

We all knew you were a Stinky Footed Bumpkin Jarocal. LOL!

I freely admit to being an undereducated redneck and having made a career from smacking rocks with blunt objects then stacking them. Bumpkin is most likely an appropriate moniker to describe me.

My personal incredulity seems to surface when I see personages far more educated than I expressing chronic astonishment at what the Ancient Civilizations were able to construct with simple hand tools when similar versions of such tools are employed daily in the construction trades today.

Geometric shapes are not as difficult to lay out as one would imagine using a couple sticks and a string. If a graduated measurement system is used in conjunction with the stick and string the precision achievable is unfathomable to some. Even without a defined measure system a fairly accurate approximation can still be achieved by cutting a piece of that string to use as a non standard measuring system to ascertain proper ratios.

[Lord Harry]

1 minute ago, Jarocal said:

I freely admit to being an undereducated redneck and having made a career from smacking rocks with blunt objects then stacking them. Bumpkin is most likely an appropriate moniker to describe me.

My personal incredulity seems to surface when I see personages far more educated than I expressing chronic astonishment at what the Ancient Civilizations were able to construct with simple hand tools when similar versions of such tools are employed daily in the construction trades today.

Geometric shapes are not as difficult to lay out as one would imagine using a couple sticks and a string. If a graduated measurement system is used in conjunction with the stick and string the precision achievable is unfathomable to some. Even without a defined measure system a fairly accurate approximation can still be achieved by cutting a piece of that string to use as a non standard measuring system to ascertain proper ratios.

I couldn't agree more. Though I would hardly classify a charlatan such as Erich von Daniken as being "highly educated."

[kmt_sesh]

5 hours ago, Lord Harry said:

I couldn't agree more. Though I would hardly classify a charlatan such as Erich von Daniken as being "highly educated."

Then why are your bookshelves crammed with von Däniken's books? Aren't they used for your university course material?

(Snicker! )

[Jarocal]

6 hours ago, kmt_sesh said:

Then why are your bookshelves crammed with von Däniken's books? Aren't they used for your university course material?

(Snicker! )

Historical fiction is an underrated category of writing.

 I can purchase ten (used) copies of work by Sitchin, Creighton, Bauval, Hancock (Look at the peers your book resides beside on my shelves Scott) for the same money I gave to a university press for one copy of Devenan's latest version of his book.

 So long as the author has a modicum of talent in weaving a narrative I personally don't mind finding their assertions to be hmm, I will just use the word unlikely to be polite...

I do find the works of such fringe authors far more entertaining than the convoluted mathterbation found in fringe theorists websites to wedge some specific sacred number into the construction of the megalithic sites.

[Jarocal]

12 hours ago, Lord Harry said:

I couldn't agree more. Though I would hardly classify a charlatan such as Erich von Daniken as being "highly educated."

He was intelligent enough to employ a professional to edit his first and most acclaimed book. Apparently was desperate enough to sign a crappy contract in order to see it in print but Chariots of the Gods provided him notoriety he still benefits from decades later (guest spots on Ancient Aliens etc.)

[Scott Creighton]

Further research reveals that the O51 sign (with flat top) is in fact bushels of straw stacked to make a haystack (see image below - row 4):

From here.

The O51 variant with the barrelled roof would appear to be a granary building or double granary building:

In summary then, it seems that the variants of the O51 sign can be interpreted as:

IMO, it remains unclear what the pyramid-shaped O250 signrepresents although it clearly seems to have an agricultural context. I am not convinced that this is a mound of grain since there already exists a separate sign for a mound of grain (Gardiner’s M35 above).

SC

Edited December 28, 2017 by Scott Creighton

[mstower]

3 hours ago, Scott Creighton said:

Further research reveals that the O51 sign (with flat top) is in fact bushels of straw stacked to make a haystack (see image below - row 4):

From here.

The O51 variant with the barrelled roof would appear to be a granary building or double granary building:

In summary then, it seems that the variants of the O51 sign can be interpreted as:

IMO, it remains unclear what the pyramid-shaped O250 signrepresents although it clearly seems to have an agricultural context. I am not convinced that this is a mound of grain since there already exists a separate sign for a mound of grain (Gardiner’s M35 above).

SC

Marked in blue are Creighton’s various dubious cognitive achievement claims.

Again, Creighton neglects the distinctive graphic element shared by the variants, which Gardiner and others identify as a mud floor.  How strange: not so very long ago, he was making this dubious claim: “The mud floor, incidentally, represents the ridge and trough of furrowed earth in a ploughed field. You can see these earth/mud furrows in the image below . . .”  Which being an exercise in “it looks like” no better than this latest.

Creighton is again granting himself latitude by playing on the ambiguity of “interpret”.  All he is doing is making stuff up which we alreadly know is counterevidential.  Again, Gardiner:

Note the indication of the contexts in which O51 appears—and from this paper:

http://unicode.org/L2/L2016/16257-n4751-hieroglyphs-new.pdf

Title of the paper: Source analysis of an extended Egyptian Hieroglyphs repertoire (Hieroglyphica based).

Creighton has been told more than once what he needs to do if he has the least notion of countering this and he has repeatedly failed to do it.  He might also have looked more carefully at the lowermost register here:

M.

[mstower]

1 hour ago, mstower said:

Marked in blue are Creighton’s various dubious cognitive achievement claims.

Again, Creighton neglects the distinctive graphic element shared by the variants, which Gardiner and others identify as a mud floor.  How strange: not so very long ago, he was making this dubious claim: “The mud floor, incidentally, represents the ridge and trough of furrowed earth in a ploughed field. You can see these earth/mud furrows in the image below . . .”  Which being an exercise in “it looks like” no better than this latest.

Creighton is again granting himself latitude by playing on the ambiguity of “interpret”.  All he is doing is making stuff up which we alreadly know is counterevidential.  Again, Gardiner:

Note the indication of the contexts in which O51 appears—and from this paper:

http://unicode.org/L2/L2016/16257-n4751-hieroglyphs-new.pdf

Title of the paper: Source analysis of an extended Egyptian Hieroglyphs repertoire (Hieroglyphica based).

Creighton has been told more than once what he needs to do if he has the least notion of countering this and he has repeatedly failed to do it.  He might also have looked more carefully at the lowermost register here:

M.

What’s amusing is that where Gardiner cites “Ti 124” for “the shape of the heap”, he’s talking about this same relief, as here:

http://minerva.mq.edu.au:8080/vital/access/services/Download/mq:68/DS17

He should perhaps have cited Tafel 125, which shows the heap in the lowermost register.  Close attention to the inscriptions is suggested.

M.

[Scott Creighton]

Further research into sign O51 and variant O51a suggests that there is a very specific reason for the absence of the grain element in sign O51a (see below):

It appears that sign O51 may be a haystack with the grain kernel still attached to the stalk (straw), hence why we perhaps see the grain (kernel) element within this sign. The absence of the grain element from sign O51a may indicate that the grain kernels have been removed (threshed) from the stalk, hence why we perhaps see no grain element in this variant sign.

Threshing grain with cattle trampling grain on a threshing floor was not the only means by which the ancient Egyptians threshed their grain. Consider the image below:

Threshing board – removing the grain kernel from the stalk

The image above shows an ancient Egyptian threshing board. The stalks of grain are pulled through the ‘teeth’ of the board thus snagging and removing the grain kernels from the stalks.

If we consider that sign O51 represents a haystack with the grain kernels still attached to the stalks (see below):

Possible haystack with intact grain kernels

…then the men with long forks could use these tools to snag and remove the kernels of grain from the stalks, the ‘teeth’ of the ‘threshing forks’ effectively acting in a similar way to the threshing board ‘teeth’.

Possible haystack with grain kernels removed by ‘threshing forks’

Note also in the image above the two people climbing up the sides of the stack. Assuming this particular feature in this drawing is Gardiner’s O51 sign (mound of grain) then it would not be possible to do this. You would certainly be able to clamber up a haystack but you would sink into a mound of grain.

SC

Edited December 29, 2017 by Scott Creighton

[mstower]

2 hours ago, Scott Creighton said:

Further research into sign O51 and variant O51a suggests that there is a very specific reason for the absence of the grain element in sign O51a (see below):

It appears that sign O51 may be a haystack with the grain kernel still attached to the stalk (straw), hence why we perhaps see the grain (kernel) element within this sign. The absence of the grain element from sign O51a may indicate that the grain kernels have been removed (threshed) from the stalk, hence why we perhaps see no grain element in this variant sign.

Threshing grain with cattle trampling grain on a threshing floor was not the only means by which the ancient Egyptians threshed their grain. Consider the image below:

Threshing board – removing the grain kernel from the stalk

The image above shows an ancient Egyptian threshing board. The stalks of grain are pulled through the ‘teeth’ of the board thus snagging and removing the grain kernels from the stalks.

If we consider that sign O51 represents a haystack with the grain kernels still attached to the stalks (see below):

Possible haystack with intact grain kernels

Creighton’s hedging marked in green.  What he’s presented here is of course entirely speculative.

The full range of variants is again conveniently forgotten.  Reminder:

His earlier insistence that heaps are depicted with rounded tops is likewise quietly shelved.

There is of course no reason at all to “consider that” O51 “represents a haystack with the grain kernels still attached to the stalks”.  Very much the contrary, as this hieroglyph typically appears in the writing of the word šnwt, meaning “granary”.

2 hours ago, Scott Creighton said:

…then the men with long forks could use these tools to snag and remove the kernels of grain from the stalks, the ‘teeth’ of the ‘threshing forks’ effectively acting in a similar way to the threshing board ‘teeth’.

Possible haystack with grain kernels removed ‘threshing forks’

Note also in the image above the two people climbing up the sides of the stack. Assuming this particular feature in this drawing is Gardiner’s O51 sign (mound of grain) then it would not be possible to do this. You would certainly be able to clamber up a haystack but you would sink into a mound of grain.

SC

I suggested attention to the inscriptions.  Notable are those we see in part in Creighton’s cropped image.  I see the sequence M17-D36-D58, i3b.  There is a verb of this form meaning “heap up” or “rake up”, used in the specific context of heaping up corn with a pitchfork.  A small complication: the determinative is not the one usually shown in the dictionaries, but then neither do they show it for a homophone with a different meaning.  I gather from The Ḥeḳanakhte Papers and Other Early Middle Kingdom Documents by T. G. H. James that there are variant writings of this verb.  Other characters present make it tolerably clear that the inscriptions concern corn (and possibly even heaps of corn).

I invite Scott to state the empirical basis of his claim that “you would sink into a mound of grain”.  A real mound of grain would not of course have the angle of repose shown.  I doubt that clambering up one would be impossible.  I doubt it would be so here:

We may note also that the people shown are behind the stack: we are not shown what they are standing on.

What we see in the lowermost register is winnowing.  What one would want in such a case is a heap of grain and not a heap of chaff.  Creighton has it backwards.

Input from kmt_sesh would be welcome at this point.

M.

Edited December 29, 2017 by mstower
to add something.

[mstower]

Look at these guys, just literally sinking into heaps of grain:

M.

[BorizBadinov]

3 hours ago, mstower said:

Creighton’s hedging marked in green.  What he’s presented here is of course entirely speculative.

The full range of variants is again conveniently forgotten.  Reminder:

His earlier insistence that heaps are depicted with rounded tops is likewise quietly shelved.

There is of course no reason at all to “consider that” O51 “represents a haystack with the grain kernels still attached to the stalks”.  Very much the contrary, as this hieroglyph typically appears in the writing of the word šnwt, meaning “granary”.

I suggested attention to the inscriptions.  Notable are those we see in part in Creighton’s cropped image.  I see the sequence M17-D36-D58, i3b.  There is a verb of this form meaning “heap up” or “rake up”, used in the specific context of heaping up corn with a pitchfork.  A small complication: the determinative is not the one usually shown in the dictionaries, but then neither do they show it for a homophone with a different meaning.  I gather from The Ḥeḳanakhte Papers and Other Early Middle Kingdom Documents by T. G. H. James that there are variant writings of this verb.  Other characters present make it tolerably clear that the inscriptions concern corn (and possibly even heaps of corn).

I invite Scott to state the empirical basis of his claim that “you would sink into a mound of grain”.  A real mound of grain would not of course have the angle of repose shown.  I doubt that clambering up one would be impossible.  I doubt it would be so here:

We may note also that the people shown are behind the stack: we are not shown what they are standing on.

What we see in the lowermost register is winnowing.  What one would want in such a case is a heap of grain and not a heap of chaff.  Creighton has it backwards.

Input from kmt_sesh would be welcome at this point.

M.

Not to disagree that is could potentially be a pile of grain, which it could be for all I know but here is the way it made sense to me knowing the process.

Everything in the panels was easy to identify except the pile of grain in the bottom one. I confess I just looked at the pictures and didn't read the full analysis first.

Nowadays we wait to harvest wheat until the heads pop open fully because our threshing machines can capture the grains with little loss as well as separating the chaff all in one process. If harvesting by hand with a scythe much grain would be lost in the field due to the violent action with no way to capture them as you cut and bundled and moved them if you harvested them fully ripe. You would harvest before the heads open and dry them in a place where you could recover the grains to reduce waste. 

I had to look at the bottom register a while before I realized that's what the stack represented to me. The bundled wheat after the grain heads opened up. It looked wrong to me and like a grain pile until I thought about the way they would have done it as opposed to how we do it now. Once I realized it represented the open grain heads all the little dots made sense.

When we would tear down a stack by hand from the trailer (in my case I refer to hay bales) you don't start at the bottom. One or two people go on top and toss down bales and someone else is waiting to move them below. The two guys on top are tossing down tied bundles to the threshers who pull the straw from the grains. The sifters scoop the grains from the floor and sift the chaff out. Anyone who has processed seeds or grains knows the stuff ends up all over the floor no matter how careful one is. Once sifted it would be hauled out in baskets to dump in a granary. Pretty straight forward.

That's what I see from my experiences growing up in and around farming. 

   

[Windowpane]

The crops grown in AE weren't necessarily the same as modern ones.  For instance, the wheat grown was apparently emmer  (p. 1).  Some ancient harvesting and threshing processes are described here (240, PDF 7).  I'm not sure to what extent this compares with modern methods.

[BorizBadinov]

For the record I wasn't trying to claim any knowledge of their farming practices beyond saying the panels made perfect sense to me how they were depicted and what I see as normal processing. Modern machinery does the same basic tasks just with a few expedited steps.

What I had to reconcile in my mind was the pitchforks. You wouldn't use pitchforks to move grains unless it was still on the stalk. The forks as depicted are too wide to effectively strip the grains out so I would think they are more for moving bundles than threshing but then there are too many workers just forking around so perhaps its part artistic license.

Strictly my interpretation as a former farm laborer. 

[mstower]

Some fun with piles of corn:

M.

[mstower]

3 hours ago, BorizBadinov said:

For the record I wasn't trying to claim any knowledge of their farming practices beyond saying the panels made perfect sense to me how they were depicted and what I see as normal processing. Modern machinery does the same basic tasks just with a few expedited steps.

What I had to reconcile in my mind was the pitchforks. You wouldn't use pitchforks to move grains unless it was still on the stalk. The forks as depicted are too wide to effectively strip the grains out so I would think they are more for moving bundles than threshing but then there are too many workers just forking around so perhaps its part artistic license.

Strictly my interpretation as a former farm laborer. 

Winnowing with pitchforks seems still to happen in some places, albeit some of these pictures are decades old:

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/farmers-winnow-barley-in-the-wind-picture-id575407507

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/tajik-man-with-a-pitchfork-heaving-wheat-into-the-air-to-separate-the-picture-id148823701

The older (traditional) Ethiopian pitchforks (two-pronged and three-pronged) resemble the ancient Egyptian ones.  I guess that this is what we’re seeing in that lowermost register, but I claim no expertise: I could do with knowing more about all of this.

M.

[mstower]

On 12/26/2017 at 3:17 PM, Lord Harry said:

Creighton strikes me as a disciple of Edgar Cayce. Now Cayce was a very amusing old chap indeed. Claiming the existence of a Hall of Records buried beneath the Giza Plateau without the slightest mention of such a scriptorium in either the Grecian or Arab fables.

A bold gentleman if there ever was one.

Creighton has a ready audience in the disciples of Cayce, but is himself more a disciple of Barnum, I suspect.

M.

[BorizBadinov]

1 hour ago, mstower said:

Winnowing with pitchforks seems still to happen in some places, albeit some of these pictures are decades old:

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/farmers-winnow-barley-in-the-wind-picture-id575407507

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/tajik-man-with-a-pitchfork-heaving-wheat-into-the-air-to-separate-the-picture-id148823701

The older (traditional) Ethiopian pitchforks (two-pronged and three-pronged) resemble the ancient Egyptian ones.  I guess that this is what we’re seeing in that lowermost register, but I claim no expertise: I could do with knowing more about all of this.

M.

This makes perfect sense to me used in that way. A little breeze and it would clear the chaff nicely looks like. Thanks for the visuals. Makes my skin itch looking at the pictures though, straw chaff would get everywhere.

[Lord Harry]

On 12/9/2017 at 11:49 AM, Scott Creighton said:

The image below (left) shows a number of 'crested ibis' used in the name 'Akhet Khufu'. The examples are from Chris Tedder's article here..

The example on the right is from the modern panel composition (Note: I inverted it to allow easier comparison with the other birds in the image).

Can you explain to me why the bird on the far right "is not crested"? Setting the 'standard perch' aside, why do you think this is not the same bird as those used in the 'Akhet Khufu' name on the left?

SC

EDIT: I should have added. Given that the drawings of 'Akhet Khufu' (above left) are clearly modern renditions, do you consider that these images are not "authentic inscriptions? Just because the location of the modern composition (the one on the right) has not been identified should not mean it does not actually exist - however much that may offend you.

The answer to your inquiry is really quite simple. They are minor variants of the same bi-literal sign used to spell the word akh. The Egyptians had many signs with multiple variants. Compare F23 and F24, for example. Both were tri-literal signs containing the consonants khpsh, and were used to spell the word strong arm. Middle Egyptian also used about ten different variants of the sign for the Horus Falcon.

Edited December 30, 2017 by Lord Harry

[mstower]

Looking at this one again, I suspect that the third prong is illusory:

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/farmers-winnow-barley-in-the-wind-picture-id575407507

The traditional Ethiopian pitchfork is two-pronged.

See here, p. 176, 16:

http://www.egyptology.ru/lang/Wb/Wb_a.pdf

—for two- and three-pronged variants of the pitchfork determinative.  The paper I mention above (which cites this) is actually a review by C. H. S. Spaull of The Ḥeḳanakhte Papers and Other Early Middle Kingdom Documents by T. G. H. James:

https://kupdf.com/download/spaullreview-of-james-hekanakht_5a2c5278e2b6f55873aebb85_pdf

M.

[Kenemet]

On 12/9/2017 at 5:49 AM, Scott Creighton said:

The image below (left) shows a number of 'crested ibis' used in the name 'Akhet Khufu'. The examples are from Chris Tedder's article here..

The example on the right is from the modern panel composition (Note: I inverted it to allow easier comparison with the other birds in the image).

Can you explain to me why the bird on the far right "is not crested"? Setting the 'standard perch' aside, why do you think this is not the same bird as those used in the 'Akhet Khufu' name on the left?

SC

EDIT: I should have added. Given that the drawings of 'Akhet Khufu' (above left) are clearly modern renditions, do you consider that these images are not "authentic inscriptions? Just because the location of the modern composition (the one on the right) has not been identified should not mean it does not actually exist - however much that may offend you.

I just noted this, and am coming back to it.

How do we know that the image on the right is not an authentic inscription?  Because the hieroglyphs in the picture don't actually make a coherent text.  Ancient Looking Gibberish is not the same as Ancient Egyptian.  In addition, they used text and images in the same way that we construct political cartoons (or any cartoon) - the words around the main picture refer to the picture itself.

In this case, the words under the misspelled "Thoth" are the words for "scribe" ...and then a picture of a woman, indicating 'female (goddess) scribe'.  Presumably the artist - who couldn't read hieroglyphs- meant it to be 'god' (A40) but that's a different symbol (B1).  There's the letter "n" under that, for no apparent reason.  They then apparently try to copy "Lord of Things" underneath that, but there's a goddess there (and Thoth is not female) and "Lord of Things" is not one of his titles (though it often shows up in royal titles.)

We know the drawings from Tedder are correct - and we can look at photos to confirm them.  The artists' rendition is not, full of errors and sloppy mistakes.

Edited January 1, 2018 by Kenemet