If Pyramids not tombs where are the pharaohs?

[Wepwawet]

3 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

I do not believe it was just "decoration", but as I have said and shown many times is representative of a specific building. To be clear there is the serekh, the royal enclosure, but then the "serekh building" inside of it. Above that there is the "name" of the king which standing on the serekh is Horus. 

 

As it relates to funerary architecture I am saying that this building is not one and the same as kingship, or a symbol of the state, and a representation of that specific building which for some reason they equated with being the "way station" between the land of the living and that of the dead in which the king was its "steward", if that's the right word. "I am king of the living and lord of the gateway to the underworld".  

 

In the 1st Dynasty why do you assume Horus sitting atop the serekh served a "religious" aspect and not a political one? Horus represented the north and Set the south. As much as one wants to impose later cultural religious memes of Horus onto these earlier times there is no reason at that time it had anything to do with religion but was rather iconographic of an ideological political state. Look at the many standards of the nomes who had their own iconography like this little fellow you might recognize:

 

This is not to say there was no "religious" component to it but these are more so in these applications iconographic "figure heads" of political states namely representative of land ownership/rule. 

As far as the religious significance of the palace facade it seems clear that it existed as nothing was more paramount in their funerary decoration which though its doors was the threshold to the land of the dead.  

The boats go hand in hand with the serekh building. They are seen in the first Dynasty not around the tombs at Umm el-Qa'ab, but the massive palace facade enclosures at Shunet ez-Zebib and are found there as a fleet. There were also boat burials in the 1st Dynasty for individuals found at the Saqqara palace facade tombs, Helwan (if next to palace facade I do not think was ever published), and near the palace facade mastabas at Abu Roash.  Again, it is tempting to impose later beliefs on this early Dynastic Period, but the fact is that if these later beliefs had any relation we do not know. Though they may have had something to do with a journey in the afterlife, personally, I do not think it meant the same thing then as it did to later Dynasties. 

As boats being there if cenotaphs, if ultimately at this time they are for the kings journey in the afterlife, and if the pyramids were cenotaphs for the kings KA, then which would need the boat more-the body or the spirit? 

Can you provide some evidence to say that the serekh, in funerary terms, equates a "way station", as I have never come across this idea before, and, just to refresh my memory, flicked through the indexes to a number of publications, not least by Kemp, Romer, Assman , Hornung, Morenz, Quirke, Ikram and O'Connor, and cannot find any references to serekhs as being of any major religious importance, only as a symbol of the state, like SPQR, and only in Romer and Kemp, the others not even mentioning the serekh in the works I looked at. Sounds like an "appeal to authority" but if none of those mention the serekh in religious funerary terms, then it's likely there is no relgious funerary function, only state and decorative.

The serdab is the meeting point for the ka of the deceased with the living, and the place where the ba may leave and enter the tomb, so I don't see where the palace facade, in total as it seems you mean, serves the same function. The king lived in a palace in life, so he lives in a palace in death, hence the tomb bult like a palace, with it's facade.

Horus is a god, therefore his, or the presence of any god, has a religious significance. This religious significance is all part and parcel of kingship, in Egypt or anywhere else, for instance in medieval Europe kings ruled by the "Divine right of God", and the Emperor of Japan is the descendent of a god. All the Nomes had their own god, or gods, which can be unique to that nome, Horus transcends this as he is omnipresent over all of Egypt, having a major cult center in Lower Egypt at Buto and one in Upper Egypt at Nekhen. Certainly there is a major political role for having Horus tied to the king, but that role is from the religious myth of how two lands became one, and Horus represents that whether he is wearing the double crown or not. In kingship, there is no divide between the sacred and profane, and that is expressed in the king's Horus name, but beyond that we have the state, expressed by the palace facade, and there is a gap between them. The death and burial of the king is personal to him, but it is not the death of the state and there is a new Horus in the palace, the dead one having the honour of being buried in a fake one.

While the ka can be remote from the tomb at Abydos for the purpose of viewing the great processions of Wepwawet and Osiris, and pre Unas we cannot say that Osiris was present, I find nothing to say that any funerary boat had the purpose of transporting the ka in the afterlife. It's the ba, the consciousness, that travels in the boats, it's the ba of Ra, and hence that of the king, that gets resurrected, and it is the ba of all previous kings who travel on the boat, whether it is Mandjet or Mesektet. What you are proposing is yet a further separation of the tomb from it's ancillary structures, a separation that did not happen until the 18th Dynasty, so you would be transposing the practices of a later period onto the past, not a difficult trap to fall into, and I'll hold my hand up. I also see this occuring in the way you argue for the criticality of decoration in the tomb of a king, when that level of criticality you strongly state does not show itself until Unas, and reaches it's final form in the 18th Dynasty where it cannot be overstated how important the decoration was, even though they didn't always get it all finished, which raises just a little question mark about what really was vital, and I have already mentioned the sah and all the spells accompanying it.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Wepwawet

[Djedi]

2 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

I forgot this turd. Yeah, me and my "weird ploys". What a douche.  I want to "rob" Djedefre of his accomplishments? Pfft. I smell Godwin's law approaching. 

Did Djedefre introduce (presumably) stone 5th Dynasty style columns in the mid 4th Dynasty not to be seen again for nearly 100yrs? Columns that Chassint is the only one that can seem to account for their existence?   

Did Djedefre introduce the Sphinx which was otherwise unknown in Egypt until the MK some 500yrs later, which as noted had a significant presence at Abu Roash as well, which the Sphinx didn't even get a name until the 18th Dynasty?  But by all means-can you please show us one OK depiction or statue of the Sphinx at Giza dated to the OK? Or how about funerary dedications in any Giza or OK tomb that refer to the Sphinx? No? 

Here's some more "weird ploy's for you: Anubis-Lord of the Giza Necropolis.  

Watch Djedi's head explode in 3...2...1...

Apparantly you are also not aware of the concept of "retro-style" (list is getting longer...). Like I said before the 4th dyn was a period of experimentation with architecture and art. Some innovations were picked up immediately others not untill much later. 

An other example: Userkaf used the BP valley temple as blueprint for the valley temple of his sun-temple at Abusir. Same as with Djedefre's columns; something from the 4th dyn is picked up later in the 5th.

Why would there be any depiction, reference to the Sphinx at Giza in any Giza or OK tomb? You gave the answer yourself in the Anubis-Lord of the Giza Necropolis.  : There you quote (From Lehner): "There is archaeological evidence indicating the builders never cleared their construction debris from the insides of the Sphinx Temple. Along with the fact that no titles of priests or priestesses of the Sphinx exist in any of the hundreds of Old Kingdom tombs at Giza, the unfinished state of the Temple suggests that the Sphinx cult may never have been active in the Old Kingdom."

The temple wasn't finished and never used, meaning Khafre's successors weren't interested. Surprising the kings of the MK took up the concept of sphinxes again? Hardly, they looked for inspiration to earlier periods, the funerary complexes of the MK looked back to the Djoser-complex for inspiration.

Maybe you should invent a ploy to date the Djoser-complex to the MK, now that you're on a roll.

BTW, how would your "Anubis temple" have worked since  "There is archaeological evidence indicating the builders never cleared their construction debris from the insides of the Sphinx Temple."

In the Anubis-Lord of the Giza Necropolis.  Kenemet and others have pointed out why Anubis instead of a sphinx is a non-starter. Thank you for mentioning that thread, forgot you picked up that fringe theory too.

Only thing exploding is your overconfidence in being able to re-write AE history. You're trying to create a fantasy version of AE history, a bit like Cladking, way more subtle of course but at the end of the day you're doing exactly the same.

3 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

But let's say Djedefre did "introduce" the Sphinx-do you agree with Dobrev then that Djedfre and not Khafre carved the Sphinx? Or what about Stadelmann who says it was Khufu? If so, it make sense then to you his son would have a few references to it, right? Granted, no one else did for the next 500yrs but that's besides the point. Dobrev, Stadelmann-more of those "fringe" kooks I keep referring to.  

Sphinx carved by Khafre and in the likeness of Khafre is the general agreement. There have always been some minority views within Egyptology some of them making less sense than others so what? No one within egyptology is trying to transform the Sphinx into Anubis or trying to place the first sphinx in the MK.

 

[Thanos5150]

6 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Can you provide some evidence to say that the serekh, in funerary terms, equates a "way station", as I have never come across this idea before, and, just to refresh my memory, flicked through the indexes to a number of publications, not least by Kemp, Romer, Assman , Hornung, Morenz, Quirke, Ikram and O'Connor, and cannot find any references to serekhs as being of any major religious importance, only as a symbol of the state, like SPQR, and only in Romer and Kemp, the others not even mentioning the serekh in the works I looked at. Sounds like an "appeal to authority" but if none of those mention the serekh in religious funerary terms, then it's likely there is no relgious funerary function, only state and decorative.

No Wilkinson? Hoffman? Or how about something a little naughty, like Rice? You keep saying "serekh" but in the post you are responding to I explained its separate components which one is the serekh building. They are not one and the same. Yes, it is part of the serkeh, which is the symbol of the state, but it also has a meaning outside of this in a funerary context. As said I said to you before: "The key to its meaning in a funerary context would appear to be the false door, a door from this building, which is the gateway for the KA between the world of the living and the dead. To enter this door to the land of the dead you are entering the serekh building". You would agree the false door has religious significance? So if the door is the entrance to this building how can it not also have religious significance? Does this building represent the afterlife itself or is it a go between between, a "way station", between the two?  When I first said it I put it in quotes to denote it is just a phrase I am using. Regardless, I am not appealing to authority but appealing to common sense and the ability to think for ourselves without having to parrot the opinions of others.  

Quote

The serdab is the meeting point for the ka of the deceased with the living, and the place where the ba may leave and enter the tomb, so I don't see where the palace facade, in total as it seems you mean, serves the same function.

Again as said before, the false door is the gateway between the two worlds which the KA passes between.  

Quote

The king lived in a palace in life, so he lives in a palace in death, hence the tomb bult like a palace, with it's facade.

Oyy. It is not called "palace facade" because it is an actual "palace"- it is just a term coined back in the day to describe it. In later times it is referred to at the "Great House" which strangely, despite its pervasive representation throughout DE history-Egyptlogists still aren't sure exactly what this building was. And yet once again, as said before, the palace facade building, again-with the false door, is one the most important iconography of DE funeral motifs, ubiquitous on the OK in particular, which given the false door is the doorway to the afterlife I do not think it leads to the "king's palace" do you?  

[snip]

Sorry, but there is diminishing returns in having to repeatedly begin nearly all of my replies post after post point after point with "as I said before". 

 

[Thanos5150]

7 hours ago, Djedi said:

[snip]

 

At least you have finally revealed yourself as the trollish wanna be authority hack you are capable of nothing more than mindlessly regurgitating what someone else told you to think and then weasily presenting this as some kind of "fact". And now when you can't stop making a fool of yourself out come the moronic and dishonest ad hominems. First Creighton, now Cladking. Whose next-Trump? Then Hitler?  I assume its still in that order. You bore me. Shoo. 

 

[Djedi]

56 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

At least you have finally revealed yourself as the trollish wanna be authority hack you are capable of nothing more than mindlessly regurgitating what someone else told you to think and then weasily presenting this as some kind of "fact". And now when you can't stop making a fool of yourself out come the moronic and dishonest ad hominems. First Creighton, now Cladking. Whose next-Trump? Then Hitler?  I assume its still in that order. You bore me. Shoo. 

 

Ah, more typical fringe behaviour, accusing someone else of your own shortcomings, I've seen it countless times before. You come to this forum, presenting your theories as if they never have been debunked before which has happend countless times on the Mysteries forum of the Graham Hancock website and who knows on how many others. Maybe more people on this forum than you think are aware of this and find you boring and might this be the reason for the lack of "likes" for which you went in a childish tantrum some days ago? No doubt you will try to peddle your debunked fringe theories in a couple of years again on another forum, this has also been the MO of Creighton and Cladking so those comparisons were spot on. Looking for gullible people who bow for the "wisdom" of mighty Thanos? You won't find them here. Shoo.

[Wepwawet]

On 4/23/2020 at 5:59 AM, Thanos5150 said:

Is the reason why the chambers of these pyramid are devoid of the required funerary inscription because, in fact, they were not buried there, but possibly underneath or near the mortuary temple itself?

"The required funerary inscription". Before Unas, what was this ?

Why did you not state in the OP that, in your opinion, no false door equals no tomb ?

Edited May 21, 2020 by Wepwawet

[Thanos5150]

2 hours ago, Djedi said:

Ah, more typical fringe behaviour, accusing someone else of your own shortcomings, I've seen it countless times before. You come to this forum, presenting your theories as if they never have been debunked before which has happend countless times on the Mysteries forum of the Graham Hancock website and who knows on how many others. Maybe more people on this forum than you think are aware of this and find you boring and might this be the reason for the lack of "likes" for which you went in a childish tantrum some days ago? No doubt you will try to peddle your debunked fringe theories in a couple of years again on another forum, this has also been the MO of Creighton and Cladking so those comparisons were spot on. Looking for gullible people who bow for the "wisdom" of mighty Thanos? You won't find them here. Shoo.

You lie and then you lie even more. You get called out on your BS then blame the other person for accusing you of their own short comings when you know the exact opposite is true. I've seen it countless times before. And when you can't back up your arguments any more and get called out for the parroting hack you are then that's when the personal insults come. Since you can't attack the ideas your only resort is to attack the person. You are too much of a coward to take responsibility for making a fool of yourself and probably want to blow this thread up with dishonest personal insults so the moderators will close the thread and save your ass.

No one has "debunked" me yet, far better than you have tried, which is not saying much- here or anywhere. And I come to this forum which is what-Ancient Mysteries and Alternative History-and you get all butt hurt that this is what people want to actually talk about? What kind of a d-bag has nothing better to do then troll subjects they do not agree with just to argue? I guess that is an open question to others of you here as well. "Mighty Thanos", huh? So then you do know me and know full well the bald faced lies you tell right now. I take all comers and you have failed miserably and now the best you can do is lie and make personal insults you know could not be farther from the truth. This is what cowards do. This is what wanna be something hacks do when they run out of books to parrot and have to think for themselves. And the only gullible people I have found here so far are those that think d-bags like you are remotely qualified to pretend to be some kind of "authorities" and tell others what is what. Pfft. The only saving grace you have is that most of them have no clue what either one of us are talking about. 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Thanos5150

[Wepwawet]

On 5/21/2020 at 7:28 PM, Wepwawet said:

"The required funerary inscription". Before Unas, what was this ?

Why did you not state in the OP that, in your opinion, no false door equals no tomb ?

Bump

[Djedi]

 

On 5/21/2020 at 10:50 PM, Thanos5150 said:

No one has "debunked" me yet,...

Disregarding the insults and focusing on the bold statement above.

You have been debunked several times in this thread alone and it wasn't difficult at all. The first sentence of the OP made it very, very easy.

On 4/23/2020 at 1:03 AM, Thanos5150 said:

Egyptology holds that pyramids were built as tombs for the pharaohs, yet no royal burial has ever been found in one.

You kept repeating this throughout the OP, how no grave goods were ever found in a pyramid. However I demonstrated that this is a wrong statement and that it should be: "no intact royal burial has ever been found in one". Which is quite normal.

I gave a list with gravegoods found in pyramids, mainly based on the works of Lehner and Verner about the pyramids. Works you well know since you have quoted from them on several occasions.

Two possibilties arise: 1) you knew this and left the "intact" out on purpose

                                    2) you didn't know this and did sloppy research 

Whether the answer is 1 or 2 doesn't really matter; your very first statement in the OP has been debunked! 

Still sure "No one has debunked me yet"? Want more examples? A list could be compiled if you like.

 

[cladking]

On 4/22/2020 at 11:17 PM, Thanos5150 said:

 

You say this as "fact" but it clearly is not which you should ask yourself how you came to state it as such. This idea comes from the MK Ipuwer Papyrus which is thought it may be referring to the First Intermediate Period.  It says:

Behold, he who was buried as a falcon [is devoid] of biers, and what the pyramid concealed has become empty. 

Which you regurgitate from a source to mean:

 "It should also be pointed out that the Great Pyramid was robbed at least once, during the First Intermediate Period (2081-2055 BC), so within 500 years of its construction."

How'd that be? 

 

 

 

There is evidence the tiny little piles of rubble called "pyramids" were actually "tombs".  Logic dictates that it was these that were robbed per the Ipuwer Papyrus.  

Why would anyone rob the the great pyramids if there was nothing in them?  Why is there no evidence any great pyramid was built or used as a tomb other than Djoser's which started out as a mastaba?  Mastaba's were tombs so it's possible THIS great pyramids was a tomb but not the others.   

 

[Hanslune]

1 hour ago, cladking said:

There is evidence the tiny little piles of rubble called "pyramids" were actually "tombs".  Logic dictates that it was these that were robbed per the Ipuwer Papyrus.  

Why would anyone rob the the great pyramids if there was nothing in them?  Why is there no evidence any great pyramid was built or used as a tomb other than Djoser's which started out as a mastaba?  Mastaba's were tombs so it's possible THIS great pyramids was a tomb but not the others.   

 

Why this hatred of the smaller and newer pyramids? Just a general dislike of anything associated with pyramids and Egypt? Bizarre

Quote

Why is there no evidence any great pyramid was built or used as a tomb

You've made the this claim multiple times so why don't you lay out for all the evidence of it being built as an 'x'. I mean there must be SOME evidence you are basing your endlessly made claim on?

....and no I don't expect an answer. You've been asked this many many times and each time you run away.

[Kenemet]

On 5/20/2020 at 11:24 PM, Thanos5150 said:

In the 1st Dynasty why do you assume Horus sitting atop the serekh served a "religious" aspect and not a political one? Horus represented the north and Set the south. As much as one wants to impose later cultural religious memes of Horus onto these earlier times there is no reason at that time it had anything to do with religion but was rather iconographic of an ideological political state. Look at the many standards of the nomes who had their own iconography like this little fellow you might recognize:

 

This is not to say there was no "religious" component to it but these are more so in these applications iconographic "figure heads" of political states namely representative of land ownership/rule. 

Those aren't nome standards that are being carried, and the statement appears to be a political rather than religious one, with the Horus standards preceding Wepwauwet and the king's son-of-the-body standard.

[Wepwawet]

An indicator that the Narmer Palette is of political rather than religious significance is the presence of dead and captive enemies. Smiting scenes  may well be on temple walls, and so could be said to be seen in a religious context, but these scenes are on the outside of the walls, generally, and serve as state propaganda. This also shows the fine line between religion and state in imagery. Gods seem to be present on the palette, and they usually are with the king, but there is no religious act taking place, the king is not before a god making an offering for instance, so what we see is perhaps a victory parade, a political event. Whether this shows an actual event in the unification of Egypt, or a metaphor, or something entirely different, does not alter it's political nature.

On the side of the palette shown above, there is a clear divider between the king's name and the two enigmatic horned faces, who may or may not be Bat, or representing the king as a bull, and I go for the later. The actual meat of the scene does not contain any gods, excepting if you see the king as Horus, but otherwise a god is not depicted. What is seen on top of the poles are figures representing gods, but they are not the god in person. On the other side there is the same divider between the king's name and the main scene. Here we do have a falcon, so it must be Horus, must it not. Well, yes and maybe, because it could be the actual god, or the king represented as Horus carrying out an act. Gods don't often get depicted doing things, they just are.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Wepwawet

[Thanos5150]

4 hours ago, Kenemet said:

Those aren't nome standards that are being carried, and the statement appears to be a political rather than religious one, with the Horus standards preceding Wepwauwet and the king's son-of-the-body standard.

Cambridge Ancient History (I.E.S Edwards):  Both the mace-heads and the Narmer palette undoubtedly display nome-standards, so integrated into the general design as to suggest that their respective nomes played an important part in the main events depicted. 

As noted by Edwards, these same exact standards are found on the Narmer mace heads and are also still most commonly accepted as "nome standards".  Kemp offered an alternative that they may have been the standards of the "Followers of Horus", the Shemsu-Hor, but I do not see that this has widely replaced the notion they are nome standards. 

As I said, this is a political rather than religious statement. 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2020 by Thanos5150

[Kenemet]

5 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

Cambridge Ancient History (I.E.S Edwards):  Both the mace-heads and the Narmer palette undoubtedly display nome-standards, so integrated into the general design as to suggest that their respective nomes played an important part in the main events depicted. 

As noted by Edwards, these same exact standards are found on the Narmer mace heads and are also still most commonly accepted as "nome standards".  Kemp offered an alternative that they may have been the standards of the "Followers of Horus", the Shemsu-Hor, but I do not see that this has widely replaced the notion they are nome standards. 

As I said, this is a political rather than religious statement. 

I stand corrected.  I favor the Shemsu-Hor, but will bow to the current standard since this is not something I have studied extensively.

[Wepwawet]

Edwards is out of date, 1971. It is these days not generally thought that the palette shows an attack on Lower Egypt by Narmer, who anyway wears the crown of Lower Egypt on the side of the palette depicted above, and that of Upper Egypt on the other side, though a convincing alternate is not forthcoming, only opinions. My opinion is that two of the standards are nothing to do with any nome, but are, as has been put forward before, from left to right, the king's ka represented by his placenta. The placenta comes out after the baby and was thought to be a "shadow" of the baby, a ka. Then we have Wepwawet, not Anubis, who as "Opener of Ways" can in this context be seen as a "battle flag" flown before the king and his army. If the two other standards are for nomes, then why are they both the same, and why would two nome standards take the lead, even before Wepwawet and the king's ka. I don't know what they represent, but I would say it is something more important than a nome.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Wepwawet

[Wepwawet]

To late to edit, but I'll add this. It's difficult to to come to a clear decision on the palette and it does come down to opinion. For instance, Assmann sees the two heads flanking Narmer's name as a bull, and Hornung thinks they are Bat, the most commonly held view. I go with Assmann because of the strong association of the king with bulls, "Mighty Bull" etc, the bull on the other side of the palette, the antiiquity of Apis, and the bull's tail hanging at the back of his kilt. Neither describe the standards as being for nomes and both concur with Kemp. Romer, who has the latest in depth history published, manages to avoid a description of the four standards, even though he devotes a short chapter to the palette, how odd.

Also, David O'Connor's view that the palette is of cosmological significance, and may be about the constant rebirth of Ra, so entirely religious in nature, should be noted.

Take your pick....

Edited May 24, 2020 by Wepwawet

[Harte]

3 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

To late to edit, but I'll add this. It's difficult to to come to a clear decision on the palette and it does come down to opinion. For instance, Assmann sees the two heads flanking Narmer's name as a bull, and Hornung thinks they are Bat, the most commonly held view.

I've always gone with Hornung. I doubt Assmann's assessment very much because I don't believe he could have found the time to take a good long look at the matter.

Assmann has other things to do.

Harte

[Wepwawet]

49 minutes ago, Harte said:

I've always gone with Hornung. I doubt Assmann's assessment very much because I don't believe he could have found the time to take a good long look at the matter.

Assmann has other things to do.

Harte

Yes, I see where you are coming from on that. Hornung is a bit more "hands on", while Assmann can be somewhat "distant", even ethereal at times, and too wrapped up in Biblical things. But I'll go with bulls until convincing evidence contra comes to light. Lack of footwear is also of importance, as no sandals means you are on "holy ground", and that would not be a battlefield, hence a reason for O'Connors view on the palette.

[M. Williams]

13 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

To late to edit, but I'll add this. It's difficult to to come to a clear decision on the palette and it does come down to opinion. 

The horns curving inward point to it being Bat and possibly Hathor. Is it a Bull on the bottom or a female? Not sure, but the horns angle inward =Bat. 

Bat and Hathor are the goddess' of the nomes Narmer conquered in Lower Egypt, #6 #7.?  So, while conducting war in the lands of Bat,he and his people are shown barefoot out of respect. Do the standards being carried point to a particular region or nome ?

 

The palette is for mixing makeup for a God King. Id say everything on it is both religious and political by default. 

 

Thanos, 

A couple thoughts: If you build out of mudbrick it helps to have supporting buttresses periodically to support the wall. It's perfectly natural to have niches is what im getting at and they might not have any original religious significance at all and may be purely practical. Therefore the origins of the palace facade could derive from common bricklaying techniques being applied to the first royal/political structures using mudbricks. There might not be a singular original building to point to that inspired it. It may be honoring the use of mudbrick technology, not a building whole.?

[Thanos5150]

1 hour ago, M. Williams said:

Thanos, 

A couple thoughts: If you build out of mudbrick it helps to have supporting buttresses periodically to support the wall. It's perfectly natural to have niches is what im getting at and they might not have any original religious significance at all and may be purely practical. Therefore the origins of the palace facade could derive from common bricklaying techniques being applied to the first royal/political structures using mudbricks. There might not be a singular original building to point to that inspired it. It may be honoring the use of mudbrick technology, not a building whole.?

No, Slingblade.

Palace facade architecture comes from Mesopotamia with mud brick brick examples dating back to at least the 5th millennium. The relevant 4th millennium version imported to Egypt, painted with a mosaic of geometric shapes, are meant to emulate their post and reed mat counterparts. A type of these structures is still used today in Mesopotamia as it has for over 5,000+yrs-the mudhif.

Late Uruk period 4th millenium:

1st Dynasty Egypt non-palace facade buildings:

Hunter's palette, Naqada III Egypt. Common Mesopotamian style art found in Egypt during this period with Mesopotamian mudhif style building:

Note the foreign to Egypt figures on the reverse: HERE.

The palace facade buttresses at various intervals are functional but also decorative, which despite its function its use in Egypt is symbolic. With Egypt, as I have shown many examples of and can show many more, palace facade exists only in a funerary context which repeatedly displays a particular building- the serekh building. There are several pre/early Dynastic building types and they are not built using palace facade and I have yet to see a palace facade building in Egypt not part of a funerary context.        

Edited May 25, 2020 by Thanos5150

[M. Williams]

1 hour ago, Thanos5150 said:

No, Slingblade.

Palace facade architecture comes from Mesopotamia with mud brick brick examples dating back to at least the 5th millennium. The relevant 4th millennium version imported to Egypt, painted with a mosaic of geometric shapes, are meant to emulate their post and reed mat counterparts. A type of these structures is still used today in Mesopotamia as it has for over 5,000+yrs-the mudhif.

Late Uruk period 4th millenium:

1st Dynasty Egypt non-palace facade buildings:

Hunter's palette, Naqada III Egypt. Common Mesopotamian style art found in Egypt during this period with Mesopotamian mudhif style building:

Note the foreign to Egypt figures on the reverse: HERE.

The palace facade buttresses at various intervals are functional but also decorative, which despite its function its use in Egypt is symbolic. With Egypt, as I have shown many examples of and can show many more, palace facade exists only in a funerary context which repeatedly displays a particular building- the serekh building. There are several pre/early Dynastic building types and they are not built using palace facade and I have yet to see a palace facade building in Egypt not part of a funerary context.        

Not sure that's necessary ,toughguy. What do I know, im just mason bricking a five story building right now. 

 

Ya, in the same way pyramids evolved in a similar way around the world so did the buttressed mudbrick wall, buttressed reed wall ,etc.  You're too smart to know you made my point for me, I guess. Im saying it could evolve seperately ,thats all, because it could have. So im not really sure what youre going on about.

[Wepwawet]

8 hours ago, M. Williams said:

The horns curving inward point to it being Bat and possibly Hathor. Is it a Bull on the bottom or a female? Not sure, but the horns angle inward =Bat. 

Bat and Hathor are the goddess' of the nomes Narmer conquered in Lower Egypt, #6 #7.?  So, while conducting war in the lands of Bat,he and his people are shown barefoot out of respect. Do the standards being carried point to a particular region or nome ?

 

Like I wrote, you can take your pick of explanations, and the upwards pointing horns are a factor for Bat or Hathor, as is the full face view. So while it could well be either of those two gods, and my view is not rigid on this, the strong bull imagery associated with the king all through their history should not be discounted as an explanation for those faces.

The 6th and 7th Lower Egyptian nomes do have Hathor and Bat as their goddess, but there is no evidence that Lower Egypt was taken by force by Upper Egypt, and by the time a unified state appears the Two Lands were already mixed as far as populations go, though of course the Upper Egyptian Thinite kings were dominant.

Reasons for the wearing or not wearing of sandals are not fully clear cut, though lack of sandals, and gods do not wear sandals, probably represents the king directly interacting with our world. By that I mean that the use of sandals puts a barrier between the king, the Living Horus, and the mundane world, remove the sandals and it shows an interaction between the sacred world and the mundane, and this shows the king's role as sole priest, sole intermediary between the gods and the people and the only person who can "join" both worlds. How to interpret this on the palette is another matter, and not many try to. Again it's a take your pick. This could show an actual event, and the king smiting enemies as a living god, though the setting will be overall profane, or that the enemies were never real and it just shows that the king has the function of defending Egypt, in other words it's propaganda.

[Wepwawet]

1 hour ago, Wepwawet said:

Like I wrote, you can take your pick of explanations, and the upwards pointing horns are a factor for Bat or Hathor, as is the full face view. So while it could well be either of those two gods, and my view is not rigid on this, the strong bull imagery associated with the king all through their history should not be discounted as an explanation for those faces.

 

And the images of undoubted bulls posted by Thanos have upturned horns, which I would say in frontal view would look the same as the bovines on the Narmer palette.

[M. Williams]

2 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Like I wrote, you can take your pick of explanations, and the upwards pointing horns are a factor for Bat or Hathor, as is the full face view. So while it could well be either of those two gods, and my view is not rigid on this, the strong bull imagery associated with the king all through their history should not be discounted as an explanation for those faces.

The 6th and 7th Lower Egyptian nomes do have Hathor and Bat as their goddess, but there is no evidence that Lower Egypt was taken by force by Upper Egypt, and by the time a unified state appears the Two Lands were already mixed as far as populations go, though of course the Upper Egyptian Thinite kings were dominant.

Reasons for the wearing or not wearing of sandals are not fully clear cut, though lack of sandals, and gods do not wear sandals, probably represents the king directly interacting with our world. By that I mean that the use of sandals puts a barrier between the king, the Living Horus, and the mundane world, remove the sandals and it shows an interaction between the sacred world and the mundane, and this shows the king's role as sole priest, sole intermediary between the gods and the people and the only person who can "join" both worlds. How to interpret this on the palette is another matter, and not many try to. Again it's a take your pick. This could show an actual event, and the king smiting enemies as a living god, though the setting will be overall profane, or that the enemies were never real and it just shows that the king has the function of defending Egypt, in other words it's propaganda.

Thanks for the good info Wep 100%.

 

Some thoughts - The placement of the two horned bovine at the top would indicate they were gods, placed above everything ,right ?  However, the bull at the bottom is side view and not pictured as a god. This leads me to believe they are not representations of the same god or animal. Also, the bull is crushing a rebellion at the bottom indicating this wasn't a time of peace in Lower Egypt and military force was needed to keep it unified ?.