If Pyramids not tombs where are the pharaohs?

[Hanslune]

10 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

...? I am arguing the pyramids were the cenotaphs, symbolic sarcophagi included, and the pharaohs were actually buried elsewhere.

We got that. Then to support that theory and falsify the current one you'd need to find one of those burials or find an inscription describing such a function, location, etc? Wouldn't you agree? So that theory exists along with many others but remains in abeyance due to a lack of supporting evidence.

[Hanslune]

11 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

All 37 do not, see Sneferu for example, but sarcophagi can also be found in cenotaphs which is what the OP suggests.  

You mean the one with devastated and broken up room? If someone was so made to find treasure they may have broken up the sarcophagus also. Do the 36 others have sarcophagus?

So how does the existence of Royal tombs and pyramids with sarcophagi effect your idea?

[cladking]

8 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

 

The point is not whether pyramids were broken into and robbed of what they did actually contain or not, we can refer to many examples this was the case, but rather that they are missing the accouterments of royal burial, some permanent, that could not be removed by robbing and/or completely removed. For more actually read the OP. 

 

The most surprising thing to me is that Egyptology has never performed a scientific forensic study of any of the great pyramids.  

Of course any such study must be microscopic in nature.   

Hawass "cleaned" the Osiris Shaft without doing this too.  From broken pottery lying about he determined that it was 6th dynasty but then we don't know if this were cleaned before the 6th dynasty or not and what was swept up the first time.  We also don't know if the pottery was ancient or even already broken when it came here.   

I find it fascinating that despite the lack of any direct evidence that they were tombs everyone fiercely defends the tomb concept anyway.   People don't like their assumptions to be challenged.  

[Harte]

14 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

How droll. Did we also eat the required writing off the walls? Every funerary artifact and every body including sarcophagi sealed for nearly 5,000yrs until opened in modern times?  

Dude. You're on an internet forum. You're not in a chatroom with colleagues.

Levity is actually allowed here.

Harte

[cormac mac airt]

16 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

I assume you are joking with both the woefully misplaced "you can halt right there" nonsense and the citing a 4th century BC Meroe pyramid burial as "evidence". Please.  Unfortunately it continues: 

Blindly quoting internet folk merely repeating the same mistakes and/or the same unqualified information with the actual context removed does no one any good, the least of which yourselves. You want to make a point about Menkaure and this is the best you can do? Here is an idea-start with Vyse the actual discover. He's on the internet too. Or say a Verner, Lehner, or the like with their popular books on pyramids. Anyhoo, from this blog post is it from one "Ean Radcliffe, studied at The Open University" who leads with:

"This [were pyramids built as tombs] is a leading question that’s often used by new-age nuts as a basis for a theory that the pyramids were never tombs, but were alien communication devices/power stations/granaries/Starbucks Franchises." 

Regarding Menkaure he says: 

They also found, in the main pyramid, part of a wooden coffin believed to be Menkaure's along with some mummy fragments.”

 You could make the effort to read any Egytological source and they will tell you the wooden coffin, anthropoid which should be a tip off as to whether it is intrusive or not, is widely accepted to date to the Saite Period (7th-6th century BC) and the bones RCD to the Christian era. Surely you can understand the difference between a royal burial and not just any 'ol body found in a pyrmaid. The wooden coffin in question:

 

It is a strange phenomenon how many rush to argue against something that does not jibe with their confirmation bias, with such attitude and confidence no less, yet never take the time to understand what the other side is actually saying let alone the sources they rely on. None of you that have responded have actually read what I am saying, you just know I am suggesting the pyramids were not intended to inter a royal burial and you just come out swinging with your eyes closed. Someone is "wrong" on the internet so those fingers just start clickity-clacking. Slow down. 

The point is not whether pyramids were broken into and robbed of what they did actually contain or not, we can refer to many examples this was the case, but rather that they are missing the accouterments of royal burial, some permanent, that could not be removed by robbing and/or completely removed suggesting they were not made to house the actual body. For more actually read the OP. 

 

Except that there is no way for anyone to know that since there is no evidence AFAIK, textually or physically extant, as to what 'may' have been interred in the GP other than the sarcophagus. You're complaining about others while making unsupported claims of your own IMO. 

cormac

[Hanslune]

3 minutes ago, cladking said:

Deleted the same stuff he's been saying for years

Cladking we're talking about what the pyramids might be. its not a forum for yet another display of your intense and irrational hatred of Hawass and Egyptology. Now...

You've claimed that the pyramids were built to make canned goods - but you've always refused to say whether they didn't really and you were kidding or support your contention - this is the place for it.

 

 

[Hanslune]

7 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

Except that there is no way for anyone to know that since there is no evidence AFAIK, textually or physically extant, as to what 'may' have been interred in the GP other than the sarcophagus. You're complaining about others while making unsupported claims of your own IMO. 

cormac

I think he's looking for praise for his idea?

Thanos - great idea - lets all hope that evidence is found in the future to support the current theory or yours.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Hanslune

[Wepwawet]

25 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

 

It is a strange phenomenon how many rush to argue against something that does not jibe with their confirmation bias, with such attitude and confidence no less, yet never take the time to understand what the other side is actually saying let alone the sources they rely on. None of you that have responded have actually read what I am saying, you just know I am suggesting the pyramids were not intended to inter a royal burial and you just come out swinging with your eyes closed. Someone is "wrong" on the internet so those fingers just start clickity-clacking. Slow down. 

The point is not whether pyramids were broken into and robbed of what they did actually contain or not, we can refer to many examples this was the case, but rather that they are missing the accouterments of royal burial, some permanent, that could not be removed by robbing and/or completely removed suggesting they were not made to house the actual body. For more actually read the OP. 

 

Yet you said, and I quote,

Quote

Though I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to why the walls would be completely bare, a-typical of all the tombs surrounding the pyramids and abhorrent to their religion

I've given a reason, the correct one, as even a cursory glimpse at Lehner, Akram, Hornung et al will show. It is a fact that no burial chamber, of king or commoner, was ever decorated until Unas, as decoration of the burial chamber did not comply with their religious beliefs before Unas. It should be noted that this was a time of transition in beliefs, not least the emergence at the end of the Fifth Dynasty of Osiris, but for the Gizamids it's perfectly normal not to be decorated.

[cormac mac airt]

14 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

I think he's looking for praise for his idea?

Thanos - great idea - lets all hope that evidence is found in the future to support the current theory or yours.

I see nothing praise-worthy, but ok. 

cormac

[Thanos5150]

10 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

You mean the one with devastated and broken up room? If someone was so made to find treasure they may have broken up the sarcophagus also. Do the 36 others have sarcophagus?

 

Which contained no evidence of a sarcophagus either in that chamber, say even one fragment, or any other. But for context, as stated by referring to Sneferu, this would also include Meidum, the BP and the BP's satellite pyramid which the latter according to Lehner was not even made to contain a sarcophagus. We could also include the southern pyramids, but that may confuse the issue.  

 

Quote

So how does the existence of Royal tombs and pyramids with sarcophagi effect your idea?

What is found in later royal tombs, and noble tombs as well, vs what is found in pyramids is the dichotomy which leads to question if the pyrmaids were actually made to inter the body.

It is interesting to me that the thrust of the OP refers to the tombs scheme of the 1st and 2nd Dynasties which set precedent for the idea, yet no one who has responded here has mentioned this once and keeps reffering to tombs 1000+ years after the fact. 

[Wepwawet]

4 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

yet no one who has responded here has mentioned this once and keeps reffering to tombs 1000+ years after the fact. 

Nope, nobody has mentioned tombs from 1000+ years later, which would be the 18 Dynasty and on. Yet you have transposed religious ideas and burial practise from the time of Unas and beyond, back hundreds of years to create an anachronism.

[Hanslune]

5 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

Which contained no evidence of a sarcophagus either in that chamber, say even one fragment, or any other. But for context, as stated by referring to Sneferu, this would also include Meidum, the BP and the BP's satellite pyramid which the latter according to Lehner was not even made to contain a sarcophagus. We could also include the southern pyramids, but that may confuse the issue.  

 

What is found in later royal tombs, and noble tombs as well, vs what is found in pyramids is the dichotomy which leads to question if the pyrmaids were actually made to inter the body.

It is interesting to me that the thrust of the OP refers to the tombs scheme of the 1st and 2nd Dynasties which set precedent for the idea, yet no one who has responded here has mentioned this once and keeps reffering to tombs 1000+ years after the fact. 

It was destroyed and I don't think the folks who investigated it stated that they check each fragment? Did they?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Probably because  we agree that they did so but here is the maddening thing - they changed their burial practices. However some aspect lasted for thousands of years - some didn't. The problem is determining which concept died out, which came back and which were created anew.

So again we are right back to the central requirement: There is a need to find one of these alternative tombs, until then it remains an un-evidenced theory.

[Hanslune]

5 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

Nope, nobody has mentioned tombs from 1000+ years later, which would be the 18 Dynasty and on. Yet you have transposed religious ideas and burial practise from the time of Unas and beyond, back hundreds of years to create an anachronism.

Early on I mentioned that Psusennes had the only unlooted Pharoah's tomb and I believe he was 21st dynasty. But the rest of you haven't as far as I can recall.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Hanslune

[Hanslune]

15 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

I see nothing praise-worthy, but ok. 

cormac

Well  its an interesting idea and it doesn't involved aliens, Atlantis or Vectron rays, helicopters and giants. I mean it is certainly possible.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Hanslune

[Thanos5150]

13 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

Yet you said, and I quote,

I've given a reason, the correct one, as even a cursory glimpse at Lehner, Akram, Hornung et al will show. It is a fact that no burial chamber, of king or commoner, was ever decorated until Unas, as decoration of the burial chamber did not comply with their religious beliefs before Unas. It should be noted that this was a time of transition in beliefs, not least the emergence at the end of the Fifth Dynasty of Osiris, but for the Gizamids it's perfectly normal not to be decorated.

I did not say "no" reasons were given but rather that I did not find them convincing. And when I say the walls are completely bare, including some sarcophagi, this refers to the whole of the pyramid i.e. entrance, passages, and ancillary chambers, not just the burial chamber, which of course this is not what we see in any king or commoner prior to Unas. The exception to this would be the palace facade motif in G3, another story, but interesting.  

Not exactly true about the burial chambers either, but close enough, but this is why as a rule instead the sarcophagus was adorned and inscribed which curiously G1 and G2's, unlike their contemplates, for example, are not.  

[Thanos5150]

22 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

Nope, nobody has mentioned tombs from 1000+ years later, which would be the 18 Dynasty and on. Yet you have transposed religious ideas and burial practise from the time of Unas and beyond, back hundreds of years to create an anachronism.

What a strange thing for you to say when literally the exact opposite is true. 

Of course I have not ignored it and have transposed nothing. My primary source are the burials contemporary with the 4th Dynasty pyramids and actually do not invoke the late 5th Dynasty pyramids at all. Can you quote in the OP where I do? No. In a later post #31 I go into detail about the 5th Dynasty representing a cultural shift.

Again, so many responses with no one actually taking the time to understand what is being said. Just clackity-clack. 

Edited April 23, 2020 by Thanos5150

[Wepwawet]

16 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

Early on I mentioned that Psusennes had the only unlooted Pharoah's tomb and I believe he was 21st dynasty. But the rest of you haven't as far as I can recall.

Ah, right. Well I'm glad you brought that up as I was thinking, in a nerdy and convoluted manner, that my reference to the Solar-Osirian Unity in regards to resurrection was taken as a reference to KV62, 1000+ years on from the OK of course.

[Scott Creighton]

I always found it highly peculiar that sarcophagi contemporary with Khufu and Khafre are found fully inscribed with the deceased's name/titles etc but that the so-called sarcophagi of Khufu and Khafre are entirely uninscribed. This is doubly peculiar given the importance of the king's soul to reach the heavens and ensure Ma'at is preserved. The simple expedient act of inscribing the king's name (which was itself an aspect of the king's soul) upon the sarcophagus would have assisted the King's Ba in finding the sarcophagus in order to unite with the Ka to create Akh and go onwards to the afterlife. But, oddly, we find the opposite is true. Those who were not expected (at this early time) to have an afterlife DID have their names inscribed on their sarcophagi but the very one (the king) who WAS supposed to receive an afterlife and preserve Ma'at has a totally plain granite box with no inscriptions whatsoever.

An inscription in the doorway of Kawab's mastaba reads:

Quote

"Her son, her beloved, Ka-wab, the daughter of her god, she who is in charge of the affairs of the jmAt, Meritites, his mother, who bore (him) to Khufu."

Inscriptions are also found on the sarcophagus of Kawab:

Quote

"...priest of Selket, Kawab... the king's son of his body, Kawab... king's eldest son of his body, officiant of Anubis, Kawab."

Likewise, the sarcophagus of Khufu's daughter, Meresankh II, is also inscribed with inscriptions that include her name:

Quote

"King's Daughter of his body, Meresankh"

The sarcophagus of Minkhaf I, another son of Khufu is likewise rendered with various offering inscriptions that also include his name:

Quote

Minkhaf held the titles Eldest king's son of his body, Chief Justice and Vizier and these inscriptions, including his name, were found in four niches within his mastaba tomb.

And so it goes on. There are many other such examples.

SC

Edited April 23, 2020 by Scott Creighton

[Thanos5150]

13 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

Ah, right. Well I'm glad you brought that up as I was thinking, in a nerdy and convoluted manner, that my reference to the Solar-Osirian Unity in regards to resurrection was taken as a reference to KV62, 1000+ years on from the OK of course.

Kenemet: "Here's the burial of a 4th century queen in a pyramid: https://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/02/pyramid-of-queen-khennuwa-investigated-by-archaeologists/109810". 

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, Thanos5150 said:

What a strange thing for you to say when literally the exact opposite is true. 

Of course I have not ignored it and have transposed nothing. My primary source are the burials contemporary with the 4th Dynasty pyramids and actually do not invoke the late 5th Dynasty pyramids at all. Can you quote in the OP where I do? No. In a later post #31 I go into detail about the 5th Dynasty representing a cultural shift.

Again, so many responses with no one actually taking the time to understand what is being said. Just clackity-clack. 

I'll quote this again from the OP

Quote

Though I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to why the walls would be completely bare, a-typical of all the tombs surrounding the pyramids and abhorrent to their religion

In the normal tomb we see two parts, the chapel, and below it the burial chamber, and of course you know this, it is just for clarity. The chapel was, if the owner so wished, and could afford it, decorated, the burial chamber, in this period, never. I'm sure that the chapels for the pyramids, including the Gizamids, were decorated, and with the Step Pyramid we see, as the first pyramid, a hybrid situation with some elements we expect to see in a chapel placed in a corridor under the pyramid, for instance the famous serdab showing a depiction of a running Sneferu. But this is not typical in itself as this serdab was never meant for anybody to come and lay offerings at, it was for Sneferu to communicate, unseen by living mortals, with the gods, probably. There is other decoration as well of course, but as I say, this was a hybrid and shows they were not settled on what a pyramid should be or not be. The burial chamber is of course totally bare.

The pyramids were part of a complex of course, though, particularly with the Gizamids, we cannot see what was on the chapel walls, if we could, there would be nothing like as much discussion over them as there is. So when I see reference to the pyramids, before Unas, being bare of any writing or decoration showing religious funerary belief, and that this is used to try and say that the pyramid was not, or may not have been a tomb for the burial of mortal remains, then I cannot accept that as a valid argument, particulalry when used with the phrase, "Abhorrent to their religion", as it clearly was not. This is why I say you are taking practises from the time of Unas and transposing them back hundreds of years.

Late edit:

Let me put it this way then. What evidence is there to say that any pre Unas pyramid ought to have religious funerary texts and images, and if there is no such evidence, how then can it be said that lack of such decoration casts doubt on whether the pyramid was the tomb for mortal remains.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Wepwawet
Clarity

[cladking]

1 hour ago, cormac mac airt said:

Except that there is no way for anyone to know that since there is no evidence AFAIK, textually or physically extant, as to what 'may' have been interred in the GP other than the sarcophagus. You're complaining about others while making unsupported claims of your own IMO. 

 

Actually the Pyramid Texts in reference to the dead king said "He is the pyramid".  

Perhaps the Khufu isn't IN the pyramid but rather he IS the pyramid.  

 

They also said he ascended to heaven on the smoke of incense and his tomb is in the sky which could make finding the body impossible. 

[Wepwawet]

27 minutes ago, Scott Creighton said:

I always found it highly peculiar that sarcophagi contemporary with Khufu and Khafre are found fully inscribed with the deceased's name/titles etc but that the so-called sarcophagi of Khufu and Khafre are entirely uninscribed. This is doubly peculiar given the importance of the king's soul to reach the heavens and ensure Ma'at is preserved. The simple expedient act of inscribing the king's name (which was itself an aspect of the king's soul) upon the sarcophagus would have assisted the King's Ba in finding the sarcophagus in order to unite with the Ka to create Akh and go onwards to the afterlife. But, oddly, we find the opposite is true. Those who were not expected (at this early time) to have an afterlife DID have their names inscribed on their sarcophagi but the very one (the king) who WAS supposed to receive an afterlife and preserve Ma'at has a totally plain granite box with no inscriptions whatsoever.

 

All the elements that we typically associate with an ancient Egyptian burial were not present during the OK. Certainly the building blocks that informed later customs did exist within the PT, for instance the very important Nut, and I'm sure you know that in later times you simply cannot be buried without Nut. But where is Nut outside of the PT at this time ? is she in the sarcophagus and coffin where she belongs, no. Does the ba of an OK king need to return to his tomb, considering that he "lives" with Ra on the solar barque. If his name is not on the sarcophagus, will that prevent his return, if he feels the need? I'm sure his coffin would have his name, and it only needs his name written once, not the OTT belt and braces replication we usually see, particulalry with kings. Now many times do we see Nebkheperure Tutankhamun written in KV62 and what it contained ? yet to comply with their religious beliefs, only his mummy needed to have his name, and only once. Lack of what we see, say, in the MK, let alone the NK, is not proof that an uninscibed sarcophagus equates to a burial that never was. Again, it is transposing the future onto the past.

[Scott Creighton]

22 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

Again, it is transposing the future onto the past.

These were Khufu's children (and siblings of Khafre). Kawab even died before Khufu. Thus these burials with their names inscribed on the actual sarcophagi can be seen to be a practice that was entirely contemporaneous with the time of Khufu and Khafre and, as such, is not "transposing the future onto the past".

SC

[Wepwawet]

25 minutes ago, Scott Creighton said:

These were Khufu's children (and siblings of Khafre). Kawab even died before Khufu. Thus these burials with their names inscribed on the actual sarcophagi can be seen to be a practice that was entirely contemporaneous with the time of Khufu and Khafre and, as such, is not "transposing the future onto the past".

SC

We have no idea why these two sarcophagi are uninscribed. We do not know the circumstances of either burial, so to say that they must have had to be inscibed, otherwise they are not real sarcophagi, is making far too bold a statement. As I said, in religious terms it makes no difference if they are inscribed or not.

You wrote about the king's ba needing to find his sarcophagus to unite with the ka and so form the akh to go to the aferlife. Does any king need to return to his mummy, and it is the mummy that is important, not the sarcophagus or coffin. The king in death, as in life, is not the same as the rest of us, he does not even stand before Osiris in judgement, and could not in the Fourth Dynasty anyway. The king ascends to join with Ra, not pop back every so often to have chat with his worshippers, or have a conversation with his ka. It was important that his mummy remain intact and be named, but even so, there was provision for continued existance even after destruction of the mummy, though whether Horus ran his "soul rescue service" in the Fourth Dynasty is not known, and I would not want to transpose later beliefs onto the past.

[Kenemet]

Aha.  Found what I was looking for.-- the Abbot and Amherst papyri. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_Papyrus)

A quick review: this is the judicial process against a very organized group of tomb robbers where they specifically mention that pyramids are tombs.  It's in the manuscript... the word for 'pyramid'.

So, from Wikipedia: ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobekemsaf_II)

Quote

This document relates that a certain Amenpnufer, son of Anhernakhte, a stonemason from the Temple of Amun Re "fell into the habit of robbing the tombs [of noblemen in West Thebes] in company with the stonemason Hapiwer" and mentions that they robbed Sobekemsaf's tomb along with six other accomplices in Year 13 of Ramesses IX.[9] Amenpnufer confesses that they

...went to rob the tombs...and we found the pyramid of [king] Sekhemre Shedtaui, the son of Re Sebekemsaf, this being not at all like the pyramids and tombs of the nobles which we habitually went to rob.[9]

In his trial, Amenpnufer testifies that he and his companions dug a tunnel into the king's pyramid with their copper tools:

Then we broke through the rubble...and we found this god (king) lying at the back of his burial-place. And we found that the burial-place of Nubkhaes, his queen, situated beside him...We opened their sarcophagi and their coffins in which they were, and found the noble mummy of this King equipped with a falcon; a large number of amulets and jewels of gold were upon his neck, and his head-piece of gold was upon him