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If Pyramids not tombs where are the pharaohs?


Thanos5150

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3 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

But it really sticks out here that you are comparing burial chambers to chapels, why not compare a pyramid burial chamber to a mastaba burial chamber, maybe because we will see the bare walls in the mastaba burial chamber.

Only one room in a mastaba was the burial chamber. Supposedly this is true also for the pyramids. All the other rooms/chambers in a mastaba tomb were lavishly decorated. So why not decorate the other rooms/chambers in the pyramid 'tomb'? Because they decorated the temples instead? Sure--that explains it.

SC

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9 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

... The Arab ruler at the time mentions nothing. The account you reference was mentioned in 1150 AD. thats a good 300 years after the fact. Not gonna play Chinese whispers but if something was found it would have been big news for its time. 

...

The fact is that there were a great many legends and traditions about the pyramids circulating in the 1st millennium, as shown here. 

None of them can be relied on.

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6 hours ago, Scott Creighton said:

SC: "As stated, many of these myths were preserved and passed down in the oral tradition by the Coptic-Egyptians, the descendants of the original ancient Egyptian people and these accounts were subsequently committed to the written form in the tenth century AD by the Arabic scholar, al-Mas’udi."

Colavito: "The question of oral transmission is uncertain."

Colavito may well find the oral transmission "uncertain" (and he is perfectly entitled to that view) but I have little reason to doubt the Coptic-Egyptian claim. I do accept, however, that some Arabic translators may well have embellished the central premise of the Coptic-Egyptian legend with some of their own fantastical tales. 

 

 

You don't give any source for your “quote,” but evidently you've had problems with formatting.

I think perhaps you meant to quote from this.  You then meant to add the final paragraph as a comment (and not as part of the quote).

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6 minutes ago, Scott Creighton said:

Only one room in a mastaba was the burial chamber. Supposedly this is true also for the pyramids. All the other rooms/chambers in a mastaba tomb were lavishly decorated. So why not decorate the other rooms/chambers in the pyramid 'tomb'? Because they decorated the temples instead? Sure--that explains it.

SC

See my post #125 above yours for an answer. Though I will point out again that you are comparing a mastaba to a pyramid, and while both are tombs, yes, both are radically different from each other.

Edited by Wepwawet
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2 hours ago, Windowpane said:

The fact is that there were a great many legends and traditions about the pyramids circulating in the 1st millennium, as shown here. 

None of them can be relied on.

That might be the case but one thing is for sure that the Arabs were the first to enter the great pyramid after it was sealed shut. Everything else is an educated guess. 

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Just now, Captain Risky said:

That might be the case but one thing is for sure that the Arabs were the first to enter the great pyramid after it was sealed shut. Everything else is an educated guess. 

No that’s not really “for sure” either. Variations of Al Mamun’s and associated Arab texts, as well as earlier non-Arab texts, make your assertion debatable at best. 
 

cormac

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3 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

No that’s not really “for sure” either. Variations of Al Mamun’s and associated Arab texts, as well as earlier non-Arab texts, make your assertion debatable at best. 
 

cormac

Theres a friggen hole in the side of the pyramid that dates back to the Arabs in the 8th century connecting to the upward chambers. The passages leading up have granite blocks as plugs that were smashed form the inside out. There is nothing in the classical history books or writers about chambers leading up nor the kings chamber. 

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4 minutes ago, WVK said:

Yep lots of stories, often contradictory, and NONE contemporary to Khufu’s reign. That leaves them as nothing more than hear-say, if not outright fiction. 
 

cormac

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44 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

Theres a friggen hole in the side of the pyramid that dates back to the Arabs in the 8th century connecting to the upward chambers. The passages leading up have granite blocks as plugs that were smashed form the inside out. There is nothing in the classical history books or writers about chambers leading up nor the kings chamber. 

As mentioned previously Arabic stories are often contradictory and evidence of nothing really. They’re just as unreliable and therefore useless as those of Herodotus or Diodorus. 
 

cormac

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Just now, cormac mac airt said:

As mentioned previously Arabic stories are often contradictory and evidence of nothing really. They’re just as unreliable and therefore useless as those of Herodotus or Diodorus. 
 

cormac

You're just repeating yourself. 

The fact is that there is forced hole in the side of the pyramid connecting to the upward passageways and chambers. The attempt to force a way through the pyramid is well documented by the Arabs. 

You just don't forcible bash a way into to connect with a tunnel you already know about. 

Be smart and think about further...

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Just now, Captain Risky said:

You're just repeating yourself. 

The fact is that there is forced hole in the side of the pyramid connecting to the upward passageways and chambers. The attempt to force a way through the pyramid is well documented by the Arabs. 

You just don't forcible bash a way into to connect with a tunnel you already know about. 

Be smart and think about further...

Nope, but you ARE ignoring the fact that Arabic tales of the GP contradict each other about pretty much every detail of what happened, when and by whom. Which means NONE of the details can be verified as accurate on their part. Nice try though. 
 

cormac

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8 hours ago, WVK said:

Perhaps to insure that G1 remained numero uno Khufu had those with the knowledge whacked .

I suspect he WAS whacked by them (no proof of that at all). Absolute rulers who are nuts often get taken out as they become madder and madder and more and more dangerous to those around them. However that is all idle speculation. Something was whacky about G1 and I'll go with the idea it was the guy calling the shots.

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14 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

 

Quote

W: "...you are comparing a mastaba to a pyramid, and while both are tombs, yes, ..."

That might be because we are constantly being told by Egyptapologists that the pyramid tomb evolved from the mastaba tomb. Well, if that is so, then it is not unreasonable to believe that the AEs might actually have treated them the same way.

Like the mastaba tomb, the so-called pyramid 'tomb' has several chambers. But unlike mastaba tombs none of these other chambers in the pyramid 'tombs' have any decoration. We are expected to believe that the AEs decided it would be better for the deceased king to now have his decorated apartments exterior to the tomb. (Why not just decorate those other apartments inside the pyramid 'tomb'?)

And unlike the sarcophagi in mastaba tombs, the so-called sarcophagi in so-called pyramid 'tombs' are not inscribed.

So sure. That makes a whole bunch of sense.

Quote

W: ... both are radically different from each other.

Indeed they are. And that may simply be because one is a tomb and the other is - something else.

SC

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48 minutes ago, Scott Creighton said:

That might be because we are constantly being told by Egyptapologists that the pyramid tomb evolved from the mastaba tomb. Well, if that is so, then it is not unreasonable to believe that the AEs might actually have treated them the same way.

Like the mastaba tomb, the so-called pyramid 'tomb' has several chambers. But unlike mastaba tombs none of these other chambers in the pyramid 'tombs' have any decoration. We are expected to believe that the AEs decided it would be better for the deceased king to now have his decorated apartments exterior to the tomb. (Why not just decorate those other apartments inside the pyramid 'tomb'?)

And unlike the sarcophagi in mastaba tombs, the so-called sarcophagi in so-called pyramid 'tombs' are not inscribed.

So sure. That makes a whole bunch of sense.

Indeed they are. And that may simply be because one is a tomb and the other is - something else.

SC

Not wishing to seem to be sidestepping your comments, my post #125 gives an answer, even though speculative. Though I will press the point that a pyramid in it's finished state will be far grander than any decoration in a mortuary chapel, and have far greater religious worth. That's why I say that the pyramid is doing the talking, not images and words in a chapel. This also says that the pyramid is indeed "something else", but it is something else besides being a tomb, it's primary function, it serves the same purpose, in simplified form, as the extremely complex Books of the Netherworld in later royal tombs, IMO.

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13 hours ago, cormac mac airt said:

No that’s not really “for sure” either. Variations of Al Mamun’s and associated Arab texts, as well as earlier non-Arab texts, make your assertion debatable at best. 
 

cormac

There is also some scant evidence that the Greeks and Romans knew of the entrance, which is speculated as being a pivoting stone.

Harte

 

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13 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

...a pyramid in it's finished state will be far grander than any decoration in a mortuary chapel, and have far greater religious worth. That's why I say that the pyramid is doing the talking, not images and words in a chapel....

Your post #125 is your speculation. Fair enough. But what I'm trying to do here (and I think what Lee is also trying to do) is to make sense of the mainstream 'explanation' with regards to the meaning and purpose of these monuments. 

If the pyramid 'did the talking' (as you put it), then there would have been little need to have built the external mortuary temple which we are told by the Egyptapologists was the equivalent of the internal mastaba chapel. If the grandness of the pyramid 'did the talking' better than "images and words", then there's not a lot of need for that external temple. 

Whichever way you crack it, it just presents more questions than answers.

SC

Edited by Scott Creighton
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15 hours ago, Windowpane said:

 

You don't give any source for your “quote,” but evidently you've had problems with formatting.

I think perhaps you meant to quote from this.  You then meant to add the final paragraph as a comment (and not as part of the quote).

Yes. (Never did quite get the hang of the multi-quote function on this Forum).

SC

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57 minutes ago, Scott Creighton said:

Your post #125 is your speculation. Fair enough. But what I'm trying to do here (and I think what Lee is also trying to do) is to make sense of the mainstream 'explanation' with regards to the meaning and purpose of these monuments. 

If the pyramid 'did the talking' (as you put it), then there would have been little need to have built the external mortuary temple which we are told by the Egyptapologists was the equivalent of the internal mastaba chapel. If the grandness of the pyramid 'did the talking' better than "images and words", then there's not a lot of need for that external temple. 

Whichever way you crack it, it just presents more questions than answers.

SC

Speculation based on ancient Egyptian culture and religion, if the two can be seperated, difficult, and not speculation based on making stuff up, like "power plants", to mention just one.

No matter what the pyramid represents, there would still be need for a mortuary temple. These people liked to brag about who there were and how important they were, and the MT serves the function as being a billboard to shout out about how great they are, and this never changed, it fact it got "worse", vide Hatshepsut's temple, Medinet Habu and the Ramesseum, of those still extant. Also, while the hed-seb was important all through their history, it was more imortant in the OK, hence the images of Sneferu running his "marathon". While in my previous post I did describe the decoration of the MT as somewhat vacuous in the religious sense, maybe that was too harsh as I was thinking about solar theology, expressed of course in the more important pyramid, so I'll say that the depiction of a heb-sed in an OK MT was important as it meant that the king was performing the rituals for eternity. So even without the MT being a billboard for bragging rights, it did have an important function other than being the place for the serdab and the offerings made there. So yes, a pyramid still needs a mortuary temple, and that they do have one, or at least some parts still remaning, shows that the pyramid was the tomb, but now separated, not by much, from it's mortuary temple, a separation that reached it's culmination in the New Kingdom. If you say that an "external" mortuary temple precludes the pyramid from being a tomb, and that is what it seems you are saying, then on that basis, are the tombs in the VoK actually tombs, as their mortuary temples are far away.

Edited by Wepwawet
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35 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

 

Quote

W: No matter what the pyramid represents, there would still be need for a mortuary temple.

Not if it represented a power plant - or something other than a tomb.

Quote

W: These people liked to brag about who there were and how important they were, and the MT serves the function as being a billboard to shout out about how great they are..

Then you dress up the Grand Gallery like Times bloody Square. You inscribe your achievements on every square cm of the so-called Queen's Chamber, Subterranean Chamber and upon every mm of every passageway. All within the pyramid superstructure just like the other chambers were likewise decorated within the superstructure of the mastaba. Why the fundamental change? And why then go back to doing things the old way (Shepseskaf)?

Quote

W: ...are the tombs in the VoK actually tombs, as their mortuary temples are far away.

So now they are decorating the chambers within the actual underground tomb as well as decorating their mortuary temple? They're painting everything in sight?

Just not any any chamber or passageway within the pyramid's superstructure though, eh?

SC

 

 

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41 minutes ago, Scott Creighton said:

Not if it represented a power plant - or something other than a tomb.

Then you dress up the Grand Gallery like Times bloody Square. You inscribe your achievements on every square cm of the so-called Queen's Chamber, Subterranean Chamber and upon every mm of every passageway. All within the pyramid superstructure just like the other chambers were likewise decorated within the superstructure of the mastaba. Why the fundamental change? And why then go back to doing things the old way (Shepseskaf)?

So now they are decorating the chambers within the actual underground tomb as well as decorating their mortuary temple? They're painting everything in sight?

Just not any any chamber or passageway within the pyramid's superstructure though, eh?

SC

 

 

The first paragraph does not conform to the reality of ancient Egypt, only modern fantasies with no basis in fact or common sense.

Why would the inside of the royal  tomb, which from the pyramids on had an external mortuary temple, need to replicate the decoration of the mortuary temple inside the tomb. The mortuary temple held the serdab and owners biography, the tomb containing the burial chamber, from Unas on, held the serious religious texts enabling the king to ascend/resurrect. G1 had a good size mortuary temple, why would there be any need to decorate inside the pyramid, what images and texts would they use that would not also be in the mortuary temple, given that the PT is still a few hundred years off and it was not the practice to decorate the burial chamber.

The mastaba of Shepseskaf is a bit of a non sequitur as one reversion to the old ways does not alter anything in the evolution of tomb building from pre dynastic times to the end of their history.

You have somewhat avoid an important point. I'll lay it out again. We have in the beginning a mastaba, one structure that contained chapel and burial chamber, of which only the chapel was decorated. Then we have the first pyramid and the separation of burial chamber and chapel into two separate structures, though within one complex. The Step Pyramid does of course, as I have already written in another post, contain some elements of the chapel within it, but this is the first pyramid and is a sort of a hybrid, and not something that we can use as an example for all following pyramids, despite other issues with them. As we do not see the total separation of the mortuary temple from the pyramid/tomb, until the 18th Dynasty, it is quite reasonable to state that when we see a mortuary temple before the 18th Dynasty, then the pyramid/tomb it sits with in the same complex is in fact the burial place for the king's mortal remains. If not, then why is the mortuary temple not with the actual burial? what evidence is there that there was an 18th Dynasty type separation of the two in any earlier period?

 

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46 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

 

I don't buy it. Not at all. If the non-burial chambers within a mastaba tomb were decorated at the time (and we have many examples that they were), then, if the pyramid was merely an evolved mastaba tomb (as Egyptaplogists claim), then I see no reason why they would not also have decorated the non-burial chambers within the pyramid tombs of this period. Nothing you have said convinces me otherwise. 

But thanks for your time.

SC   

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37 minutes ago, Scott Creighton said:

I don't buy it. Not at all. If the non-burial chambers within a mastaba tomb were decorated at the time (and we have many examples that they were), then, if the pyramid was merely an evolved mastaba tomb (as Egyptaplogists claim), then I see no reason why they would not also have decorated the non-burial chambers within the pyramid tombs of this period. Nothing you have said convinces me otherwise. 

But thanks for your time.

SC   

Your post does not really make any sense outside of an evasion, and a very transparent one at that.

Of course there are examples of the inside of a mastaba being decorated, why try to make it seem as if I have denied this, eh, but the decoration was not in the burial chamber, and you know it. Please try to provide an example of a decorated burial chamber pre Unas if such exists.

Of course the pyramid is the evolution of the mastaba in it's structural form. Part of that evolution is the separation of chapel and burial chamber into two distinct structures, this is not in doubt because we have the physical evidence. It is also a fact that the burial chamber was not decorated, while the chapel, either within the mastaba or as a separate structure, was, and again we have the physical evidence. The burial chamber, now separated from the mastaba and it's chapel, has become the pyramid, an expanded burial chamber to conform with evolving theology. We see this in another form in the 18th Dynasty tomb, which is more than just one space to be used for the sarcophagus, but a series of spaces, partly to store burial provisions, partly to hold the texts and images of the Netherworld books. The Grand Gallery in G1 corresponds to the passage in a later tomb from the entrance to the burial chamber itself, but it is still part of the tomb, an expanded burial chamber, and that is why the Grand Gallery has no decoration as it was not the practice at that time.

I'll put it this way. If the pyramid is not the burial place for the mortal remains of a king, why is there a mortuary temple alongside the pyramid and not where the king is actually buried. If, as some say, that a pyramid is a cenotaph, part of the function of an 18th Dynasty mortuary temple, why would it have a mortuary temple with it, and so cause needless duplication. Can you provide any evidence to show that a pyramid was not a tomb, and can you provide at least a suggestion of where, if not a tomb, the king's are buried, with some evidence and not just a "I say it, so it is so" type of answer.

Edited by Wepwawet
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Ok so we're six pages in and at an impasse as to whether pyramids (G1 only apparently following the thread arguments) were tombs. If the Great pyramid was not a tomb as some content or propose then what do you all think was built for then? It is a wonder of organization, architecture and construction. There must be a solid purpose for it's (and the "other" two of course) construction.

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2 minutes ago, Trelane said:

Ok so we're six pages in and at an impasse as to whether pyramids (G1 only apparently following the thread arguments) were tombs. If the Great pyramid was not a tomb as some content or propose then what do you all think was built for then? It is a wonder of organization, architecture and construction. There must be a solid purpose for it's (and the "other" two of course) construction.

If you want some fun ask the folks who think G1 was 'something' else to provide the evidence for that - but they are restricted to putting forth only evidence of G1 being that AND not denying evidence it was a tomb.

I'll wait.

 

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