If Pyramids not tombs where are the pharaohs?

[Scott Creighton]

6 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

I wouldn't mind an interjection if it had any value, but yours was simply a distraction.

Yeah well, you won't be surprised to learn that I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment. But you're entitled to your opinion.

SC

[Hanslune]

11 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

Yes, I forgot about them, poor old Pierre Montet, overshadowed by the advent of WWII as G2 is overshadowed by G1.

Exactly, I had no idea Pharaoh P had been found until wandering thru the Cairo museum in the early 90's. Not sure how I had missed that but I didn't pay much attention to Egyptian archaeology until I started working in the ME.

[WVK]

On 4/25/2020 at 1:26 PM, WVK said:

Wikipedia gives the build dates as  2580–2560 BC  for G1,  2570BC for G2. So after learning how to construct the complicated  internal structure of G1 why go back to the much a simpler structure found in G2?. 

 

How is it known that G2 was build after G1 and not before?

[cladking]

3 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Okay, but if you provide evidence for why you think they are not tombs, and by evidence I mean something tangible that can be examined and assesed.

To start things off I will give you the base reason why I think a pyramid is a tomb. We first have the mastaba, without doubt a tomb, and I'm sure you can agree on that. We then have the Step Pyramid, which is clearly a structural evolution of the mastaba, and with elements to it's complex, both under the pyramid and in the enclosure, the serdab and representation of the hed-seb for example, that clearly show the step pyramid to be a tomb for the mortal remains of the king. Over to you with your first piece of evidence that can be analysed, as mine can.

There is extensive DIRECT and indirect evidence that the pyramids were not tombs but this is irrelevant because it is not the topic of the thread.  It is also irrelevant because there is no direct evidence any great pyramid was a tomb.  

You can't have it both ways.  Either there is a mountain of evidence they were tombs and you can produce it so we can get back to talking about where the dead kings are, or there is almost no evidence at all that applies to the great pyramids and it is merely assumption that they were tombs and used the same language as the builders of the tiny little pile of rubble tombs that are merely called "pyramids" despite having nothing in common with the real pyramids.  

I'd love to post a little of the extensive evidence they weren't tombs but such posts are always deleted and I have better things to do, especially in a thread that asks where the kings really are. 

 

So which is it; there's almost no evidence at all or you can find evidence in old books that they are tombs?   

 

The difference between a mastaba and a pyramid is height.  One is a low squat tomb and the other most probably is not.   

[Wepwawet]

23 minutes ago, cladking said:

There is extensive DIRECT and indirect evidence that the pyramids were not tombs but this is irrelevant because it is not the topic of the thread.  It is also irrelevant because there is no direct evidence any great pyramid was a tomb.  

You can't have it both ways.  Either there is a mountain of evidence they were tombs and you can produce it so we can get back to talking about where the dead kings are, or there is almost no evidence at all that applies to the great pyramids and it is merely assumption that they were tombs and used the same language as the builders of the tiny little pile of rubble tombs that are merely called "pyramids" despite having nothing in common with the real pyramids.  

I'd love to post a little of the extensive evidence they weren't tombs but such posts are always deleted and I have better things to do, especially in a thread that asks where the kings really are. 

 

So which is it; there's almost no evidence at all or you can find evidence in old books that they are tombs?   

 

The difference between a mastaba and a pyramid is height.  One is a low squat tomb and the other most probably is not.   

Well I opened the way, but you will not follow, not even to give the smallest piece of what you say is,

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extensive DIRECT and indirect evidence that the pyramids were not tombs

And there's me thinking that the Duat is a strange place, particularly that pesky 4th Hour where the Way twists and turns. However, I congratulate you on your post as at least you have been paying attention to my mentions of the Solar-Osirian Unity, quite, enigmatic.

[Trelane]

3 hours ago, Scott Creighton said:

UM is a public forum, dude. If you want to have control over who responds to your posts, start a blog.

SC

Oh come off it and just answer already. Stop mucking about alluding to things and come out and state your case already. Vague alluding is not very effective in communication. If the pyramids are not tombs, what are they?

[Hanslune]

3 hours ago, cladking said:

Deleted

Translation of Cladking's earnest remarks: "I don't have anything to back up my claim and you refuse to play by my rules ... so I wrote this pompous missive to try and hide that direct fact. Then I tried to change the subject".

LOL

[Hanslune]

56 minutes ago, Trelane said:

Oh come off it and just answer already. Stop mucking about alluding to things and come out and state your case already. Vague alluding is not very effective in communication. If the pyramids are not tombs, what are they?

 

He's found that denial is easier than building an evidence based theory. Long ago he seemed to think Atlantis built them but then he seemed to think they were built around 16,000??? years..... ago or some other time but after I've kinda lost track.His stuff got repetitive and boring and he became obsessive over Vyse and the AE marking in the relieving chambers.

He wants to attack and tear down others ideas because he doesn't like it when it happens to him.

You could root thru his personal sub-forum at Above Top Secret: here: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/162/pg1/srtpages

It might be there but then he doesn't post there much anymore since he cannot stop people from asking him questions.The last thread he started over there was about a year ago (Mar 2019).

Let us know if you find anything.

 

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by Hanslune

[Wepwawet]

17 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

Translation of Cladking's earnest remarks: "I don't have anything to back up my claim and you refuse to play by my rules ... so I wrote this pompous missive to try and hide that direct fact. Then I tried to change the subject".

LOL

That was, I think, the most evasive post I have ever seen. When the time comes, and their hearts are heavy, Ammit will be very busy with the fringe.

[Wepwawet]

12 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

 

He's found that denial is easier than building an evidence based theory. Long ago he seemed to think Atlantis built them but then he seemed to think they were built around 16,000??? years..... ago or some other time but after I've kinda lost track.His stuff got repetitive and boring and he became obsessive over Vyse and the AE marking in the relieving chambers.

He wants to attack and tear down others ideas because he doesn't like it when it happens to him.

You could root thru his personal sub-forum at Above Top Secret: here: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/162/pg1/srtpages

It might be there but then he doesn't post there much anymore since he cannot stop people from asking him questions.The last thread he started over there was about a year ago (Mar 2019).

Let us know if you find anything.

 

 

I believe the aggressive posts are for the benefit of his "flock". The post of mine he responded to was so very clearly intended for cladking, and cladking alone to answer, that it's difficult to think that it was a serious post aimed at me, and it certainly was not serious in content, simply embarrassing really.

[Hanslune]

12 minutes ago, Wepwawet said:

That was, I think, the most evasive post I have ever seen. When the time comes, and their hearts are heavy, Ammit will be very busy with the fringe.

I've seen some worse by our friend but don't have links to them anymore. His thing now seems to try and avoid defending any of his ideas or claims because he gets ripped to shreds each time and - worse - people ask him questions and want data and links to his research - which he doesn't have.

Anyway he is in all matters a spent force, if magic geyser mist had any 'force'.

Anyway reading thru all the relatives of Khufu at Giza sure is a lot of coincidence that they all showed up there.

 

[M. Williams]

2 hours ago, Hanslune said:

I've seen some worse by our friend but don't have links to them anymore. His thing now seems to try and avoid defending any of his ideas or claims because he gets ripped to shreds each time and - worse - people ask him questions and want data and links to his research - which he doesn't have.

Anyway he is in all matters a spent force, if magic geyser mist had any 'force'.

Anyway reading thru all the relatives of Khufu at Giza sure is a lot of coincidence that they all showed up there. 

 Well, at least he's original.

 One pharoah has three tombs ? That's the brilliance of academia on display. Try again. 

[Hanslune]

7 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

I believe the aggressive posts are for the benefit of his "flock". The post of mine he responded to was so very clearly intended for cladking, and cladking alone to answer, that it's difficult to think that it was a serious post aimed at me, and it certainly was not serious in content, simply embarrassing really.

That might be the case. Scott spends a lot of time trying to find people he can talk to about his ideas -  while at the same time trying to lambast them into not disagreeing with him. His clever strategy has made him friends all over the Internet.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Hanslune

[Windowpane]

9 hours ago, Hanslune said:

 

He's found that denial is easier than building an evidence based theory. Long ago he seemed to think Atlantis built them but then he seemed to think they were built around 16,000??? years..... ago or some other time but after I've kinda lost track.His stuff got repetitive and boring and he became obsessive over Vyse and the AE marking in the relieving chambers ...

 

 

It was 19,000 years ...

 

 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Windowpane

[Wepwawet]

7 hours ago, M. Williams said:

 Well, at least he's original.

 One pharoah has three tombs ? That's the brilliance of academia on display. Try again. 

Ramesses XI has two tombs, and who knows, maybe three, but he is only in one of them, as yet undiscovered. KV4 was his original, and never used tomb. Different circumstance in society existed in his times of course, but he still had multiple tombs.

[Wepwawet]

On 4/23/2020 at 12:03 AM, Thanos5150 said:

if the pyramids were not built as tombs, then where are the pharaohs? They had to be buried somewhere, right? There are 37 pharaohs ascribed major pyramids between the first, Djoser of the 3rd Dynasty, and the last, Ahmose I, of the 18th Dynasty. A few, like Sneferu, have been credited with building more than one, and many pharaohs of this period, namely after the 6th Dynasty, didn't build pyramids at all. 37 pharaohs yet not one trace of a royal burial left behind by robbers? Even the unopened ones? 37 pharaohs in a row making the same dumb mistake over and over again knowing full well they would be robbed?

 

 

Surely though, if you do not believe that the pyramids are tombs, you must have some notion of where the mummies are. This is what I mean about you getting answers that you don't seem to like when the question is not quite right. All you have said essentailly is that "The pyramids are not tombs". Yes, you qualify that by asking where the bodies are, but don't provide even the most tentative answer to this yourself. That's why we have all focussed in on, "pyramids not tombs".

So, where do you propose the mummies of the kings are, then we can set aside our beliefs about the pyramids being tombs and enter the land of conjecture, and, perhaps, give the answers that you hoped for.

A discussion based on conjecture could include asking if the mummies are in separate tombs, or in a central one, or several "caches". I would suggest that if in separate tombs then the chances of all of them escaping discovery over the millenia is very low, but we do not have such a single tomb that can be ascribed to a king with a known pyramid. If they were buried in one or more central locations, then a royal burial taking place at such a few locations over many centuries would not have gone unoticed by potential robbers, or anybody else in a time of collapse. However, where could such central burial be located, Abydos? Abusir? Heliopolis? or even an Indiana Jones type mega tomb underneath Giza. There are all sorts of issues with all of them, indeed with much I have written, but it does at least address the OP. clickety clack, clickety clack.

Looks like I opened the way again, so over to you to expand on your OP and make some suggestions as to where the mummies of the kings are, if they had never been in a pyramid.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Wepwawet

[Hanslune]

2 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Surely though, if you do not believe that the pyramids are tombs, you must have some notion of where the mummies are. This is what I mean about you getting answers that you don't seem to like when the question is not quite right. All you have said essentailly is that "The pyramids are not tombs". Yes, you qualify that by asking where the bodies are, but don't provide even the most tentative answer to this yourself. That's why we have all focussed in on, "pyramids not tombs".

So, where do you propose the mummies of the kings are, then we can set aside our beliefs about the pyramids being tombs and enter the land of conjecture, and, perhaps, give the answers that you hoped for.

A discussion based on conjecture could include asking if the mummies are in separate tombs, or in a central one, or several "caches". I would suggest that if in separate tombs then the chances of all of them escaping discovery over the millenia is very low, but we do not have such a single tomb that can be ascribed to a king with a known pyramid. If they were buried in one or more central locations, then a royal burial taking place at such a few locations over many centuries would not have gone unoticed by potential robbers, or anybody else in a time of collapse. However, where could such central burial be located, Abydos? Abusir? Heliopolis? or even an Indiana Jones type mega tomb underneath Giza. There are all sorts of issues with all of them, indeed with much I have written, but it does at least address the OP. clickety clack, clickety clack.

Looks like I opened the way again, so over to you to expand on your OP and make some suggestions as to where the mummies of the kings are, if they had never been in a pyramid.

Hmmm, perhaps those pesky mummies are somewhere east of the moon, north of the sun, atop heaven but below hell.

Some odd places I remember seeing over the years.

Some ancestral home deep in the Sahara - but why weren't the early dynasties there too? The eastern desert for this or that reason, in Nubia, in the Delta, at the bottom of the Nile, Sinai for some odd reason, just a common pit in the desert somewhere west of the Nile (reflecting Islamic practice - a body with no markings placed in the sands). A pit somewhere in Memphis or other place on the Eastern bank of the river. In a different dimension, in space, on the Moon, on Mars, in a spaceship headed/heading for x star, or perhaps in a closet of Zahi Hawass.

[cladking]

2 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Surely though, if you do not believe that the pyramids are tombs, you must have some notion of where the mummies are. This is what I mean about you getting answers that you don't seem to like when the question is not quite right. All you have said essentailly is that "The pyramids are not tombs". Yes, you qualify that by asking where the bodies are, but don't provide even the most tentative answer to this yourself. That's why we have all focussed in on, "pyramids not tombs".

 

I think what he's trying to do is to come up with ideas where the dead kings are if it's true that the pyramids are not tombs as the evidence suggests.  The best guess might be that the builders said the king ascended from the iskn on a cloud of smoke because the "iskn" was a funeral pyre.  Obviously where there is almost nothing known or established almost nothing can be eliminated as a possibility.  Perhaps the kings were all aliens and they just disintegrated at death.  A more prosaic answer is far more probable But the question is certainly legitimate; where are the bodies?  

[Hanslune]

12 minutes ago, cladking said:

I think what he's trying to do is to come up with ideas where the dead kings are if it's true that the pyramids are not tombs as the evidence suggests.  The best guess might be that the builders said the king ascended from the iskn on a cloud of smoke because the "iskn" was a funeral pyre.  Obviously where there is almost nothing known or established almost nothing can be eliminated as a possibility.  Perhaps the kings were all aliens and they just disintegrated at death.  A more prosaic answer is far more probable But the question is certainly legitimate; where are the bodies?  

Why don't you tell us? I mean you claim to understand the AE like no one else on earth and you also claim you are the sole human who can 'really' read what they wrote.

I thought you use to claim they burned the Pharaoh's bodies and the pyramids are simple memorials/cenotaphs or counter-parts to the star in which they are now associated with?

Edited April 28, 2020 by Hanslune

[Windowpane]

56 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

...

Hmmm, perhaps those pesky mummies are somewhere east of the moon, north of the sun, atop heaven but below hell ...

 

 

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I sometimes think that never blows so red

The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled ...  (Fitzgerald)

 

[Thanos5150]

On 4/25/2020 at 10:04 AM, Wepwawet said:

When I ask if you have considered if the shape, and by that I also mean internal layout of the pyramid, particulalry G1, "does the talking", I'm thinking about if these themselves provide, stand in for, religious texts, again particularly with G1.

The idea of a potential path set by the internal layout of G1, which this is the only pyramid it could apply to which should tell us all we need to know right there, does not alleviate the burden of no dedication of any kind.  It may say "something" but it tells us nothing of the person supposedly buried there which is antithetical to DE burial practices. G1 does not exist in a vacuum and whatever scheme one thinks of must apply to all. So if you think G1 is "doing all the talking" then for example what is G3 "saying":

 

 

And regardless, as a matter of common sense outlined in the OP, this does not solve the problem of wanton looting pharaoh after pharaoh after pharaoh. They knew they were going to get robbed, in fact some even supposedly robbed their predecessors, yet they all kept doing the same stupid thing over and over and over again? Come on people. 

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If you take away the Books of the Netherworld from 18th Dynasty tombs and onwards, you will have a rather bare tomb, not totaly bare of course. This is because, as you know, they provide the means of guiding the king through the Duat, and fix, by magical images and text, this cyclical event of resurrection of the king and Ra for eternity. Yes, I hear you grumbling about this example from the future, but, and here is the point, the shape and layout of the pyramid may, in a far simpler manner, have the same effect, not in images and texts, but as it is as this vast edifice of stone representing light, and the journey of the king to "heaven". That is what I mean by the pyramid doing the talking, and used the word talking instead of writing because to an ancient Egyptian, the hieroglyphs and images did talk, Ra chatters away without break during the entire night journey.

But when you look at the totality of interiors this does not apply to any other than G1. Lets take our friend Sahure for example:

 

What magical journey do you think the interior layout is taking Sahure on? If the internal layout is meant to tell us "all we need to know" then why does Menkaure break this rule by adding the palace facade serekh building motif? If there were anything to this idea, though the architecture and expression of this path may be different, we would expect a standard formula for the the layout, much like pyrmaid complexes at large, yet clearly this is not the case. G1 does not exist in a vacuum.

There is a reason to grumble about applying later ideology to the OK not to mention ignoring what came before it. 

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The coffins, stone or wood, of the time don't have much to say in a religious sense as the main motive is of the king being in his "palace of the dead", and then his name and titles. This is why I said that an undecorated coffin, while admittedly odd without even a name, is not crucial as the theology behind coffins at this time is insignificant compared to that which lays behind the pyramid. It is only when we get to the MK that the coffin becomes more important, in fact very important indeed. I supect that if we ever found an OK king untouched in his coffin, we would in fact be rather dissapointed in regards our expectations, guided at least unconsciously by KV62.

This is simply not true with the theology behind coffins not just at this time but long before being quite significant. If we take just a cursory inventory of 4th Dynasty sarcophagi not only do we see the expected norm but a clear ideology being displayed:

Not to mention the pharaoh Menkaure:

The same ideology displayed in sarcophagi going back to at least the 2nd Dynasty:

 

This ideology being the serekh palace facade building dating to the beginnings of Dynastic Egypt:

 

Which is far the most ubiquitous artistic motif found, not just on 4th sarcophagi, but in OK tombs in general if not the whole of DE history.  So many look to the PT to give some kind of meaning to the pyrmaids themsevles but when we look in the burial chamber of Unas himself what do we find it a representation of:

So in Unas's case instead of decorating his sarcophagus as the serekh building- he just made it the whole room.

Though it was part and parcel of DE culture from the beginning to its end, if you take an inventory of the OK in particular you can clearly see there was nothing more ideologically important to them than the serekh building which was also ubiquitously displayed on sarcophagi of the time. 

Regarding your question for the other late 5th Dynasty tombs with decorated burial chambers, those at Giza: Kaemankh, Rawer III, Kakherptah/Fetekti, Senedjemib/Inti, Seshemnefer IV11. 

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2020 by Thanos5150

[Thanos5150]

10 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Surely though, if you do not believe that the pyramids are tombs, you must have some notion of where the mummies are. This is what I mean about you getting answers that you don't seem to like when the question is not quite right. All you have said essentailly is that "The pyramids are not tombs". Yes, you qualify that by asking where the bodies are, but don't provide even the most tentative answer to this yourself. That's why we have all focussed in on, "pyramids not tombs".

So, where do you propose the mummies of the kings are, then we can set aside our beliefs about the pyramids being tombs and enter the land of conjecture, and, perhaps, give the answers that you hoped for.

Like I said, I present the question "If Pyramids are not tombs then where are the pharaohs?" not just as my own personal "belief", but as a thought exercise for others who make this claim more often than not for the wrong reasons. It is swell and all to think pyramids are not tombs but that is not enough leaving the question if no then where are they buried? This is common sense. I have not offered my opinion because I honestly do not know the answer and am not the type to make one up just to have one.    

I do not accept they were made to inter the body and royal burial for the reasons I outline in the OP and believe they were built as cenotaphs.  

No royal burial has been found in any pyramid, which again is not to mean "just" the body but all that goes with it. Again, Lehner has noted this as well.

It makes no sense these pharaohs knowing full well they would be robbed, some robbing each other themselves, that they would just keep doing the same thing over and over and over again with the same results for more than two centuries and at least 37 pyramids in a row.  

So one of the questions we must ask therefore is if there precedent for such a thing, which when we look to earlier dynasties, yes there is. In the 1st and 2nd Dynasties we see the subjects of the king being buried next to monumental architecture with the king buried elsewhere. Since no one will acknowledged this from the OP I'll repeat it. In the 1st and (a few) 2nd Dynasty the kings are buried here at Umm al-Qa'ab, Abydos, which is the location of at least a few of the "kings" of Dynasty 0:

Nearly a mile away we have the Shunet el-Zebib area where we find the monumental enclosures of the 1st Dynasty kings:

  Though certainly older, "Shunet el-Zebib" is this structure attributed to the last pharaoh of the 2nd Dynasty Khasekhemwy:

If we look at the picture above with the yellow squares, these are the remains of 1st Dynasty enclosure walls belonging to the pharaohs buried in the cemetery a mile away in which it is here, and not at the cemetery, that we find hundreds of ritual burials (humans and animals) surrounding these enclosures as well as the boat burials:

So here we have precedent, no small matter, of the cemetery of the kings being located in one place and their monumental architecture and subjects being found at another. This brings to bear the 2nd part of this conundrum which are the 1st Dynasty royal burials as Abydos vs the superior 1st Dynasty palace facade mastaba tombs at Saqqara and elsewhere, including Giza, attributed to these same kings: For example:

 

   

 

To explain this dichotomy, Walter B Emery argued that the southern royal tombs at Abydos were cenotaphs and the northern grand mastabas at Saqqara their actual tombs. A debate not yet settled, though an entirely different can of worms beyond the scope of this thread for now, is that the evidence has increasingly favored the southern inferior tombs at Abydos being the actual burial sites of the kings and the superior tombs at Saqqra and elsewhere belonging to "administrators" and/or queens (perhaps Pharaohs in their own right).  Which also have burials of subjects surrounding them. Remember this:

A discussion for later. 

So while this may turn out not to be the case, the fact of the matter is the idea of royal cenotaphs vs actual burial sites is part and parcel of the history of Egyptological thought none more so than the very foundation of Dynastic Egypt itself which is still wrestled with today.
 

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A discussion based on conjecture could include asking if the mummies are in separate tombs, or in a central one, or several "caches". I would suggest that if in separate tombs then the chances of all of them escaping discovery over the millenia is very low, but we do not have such a single tomb that can be ascribed to a king with a known pyramid. If they were buried in one or more central locations, then a royal burial taking place at such a few locations over many centuries would not have gone unoticed by potential robbers, or anybody else in a time of collapse. However, where could such central burial be located, Abydos? Abusir? Heliopolis? or even an Indiana Jones type mega tomb underneath Giza. There are all sorts of issues with all of them, indeed with much I have written, but it does at least address the OP. clickety clack, clickety clack.

Looks like I opened the way again, so over to you to expand on your OP and make some suggestions as to where the mummies of the kings are, if they had never been in a pyramid.

 

These are all fair questions and unlike some with novel ideas I am not going to invent some solution just to have an answer as the fact is as of yet I do not know. Kind of why I ask the question in the first place, But the fact I do not know does not change the facts either. I have heard some interesting suggestions, like the actual burials are underneath the Mortuary Temple. Others that say in another land all together. Again, when we look to the 1st Dynasty we see these kings buried next to their Dynasty 0 predecessors despite the fact the grandest of tombs also attributed to their reign are found far away in Saqqara and elsewhere. We also must acknowledge, as the latter reminds us, is Egypt is two lands- Upper and Lower Egypt, which the king bore crowns for each. And though "united", though not always, in their own way were separate kingdoms with their own history not lost on those of the OK. If a king is a king of two lands how can his body be at both places at once?      

To quote myself from elsewhere to perhaps give a broader context to all this is some the story or Djedefre:

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Abu Roash has a substantial history, none more so perhaps than the early Dynastic Period, namely the 1st Dynasty. It is in the middle of nowhere and yet it was important to the DE long before Djedefre came and ultimately why I think he went there. There is a reason he forsake Giza for Abu Roash made even more puzzling by the fact he obviously had an amicable relationship with his father, Khufu, yet still choose to build (refurbish as the case may be) far away at Abu Roash. Just as much as there is no reason he would not build at Giza, there must have been a reason he went to Abu Roash which I believe was the history there. I am of the opinion Abu Roash was never meant to be a pyramid and like Zawyet El Aryan was something else, perhaps an observatory of sorts, in which both are older than they are ascribed, something I note appears to be corroborated (at Abu Roash at least) by RCD.  

As I have noted here: G1 and the Boat Pits of Djedefre, and elsewhere, Djedefre was responsible for the boat burial revival, something that had been abandoned since at least the 2nd Dynasty if not the 1st. He is also the 1st pharaoh to incorporate sun god RA/RE into his name, Djedefre, a meaningful shift in ideology. As I said, very early in my research so I could be wrong, but from what I have seen so far, which is kind of a lot, it also appears to me the OK fascination with the palace facade building came to bloom in or around his reign which at the very least I would say it seems clear this happened sometime in the middle of the 4th Dynasty regardless. All things considered, Dejedfre was an odd fellow who obviously followed an unconventional path which I believe was at least in part because of a fascination with, and perhaps new interpretation of, the past. 

I believe it was what he found at Abu Roash from the early Dynastic Period that drew him there-important enough to forsake his rightful burial place at Giza. There is a large 1st Dynasty necropolis at Abu Roash includingpalace facade mastabas, as well as boat burials (there are others, but a few more were recently discovered: HERE). 1st Dynasty artifacts were also found near the "pyramid" itself which gives further credence to the idea at least in some form it is older than attributed.      

From the link above regarding the palace facade mastabas:

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The Early Dynastic tombs discovered at the M Cemetery are elite mas-taba tombs with mud-brick superstructures, their façades decorated with recessed niches (see Tristant 2008a). They are massive structures comparable to fortified walls. Possibly the largest and best-preserved Dynasty 1 mastaba on the plateau, M07, was nearly 30 m long and20 m wide. When Montet excavated it, the walls were partially preserved to nearly 1 m in height (Fig. 4). Niching on the mastabas is similar to that of the earliest serekh panels or stylised representations of the palace façade. The mud-brick walls were plastered with mud and decorated with coloured paintings. The substructures of the tombs were cut into the rock (Fig. 5) and consist of an open pit and side chambers.

 

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Abu Rawash is clearly an important site. If we consider it within the context of the Memphite area during the first half of Dynasty 1, the people buried at the M Cemetery appear to have belonged to the highest class of society. The closest comparable site is North Saqqara, which contained tombs belonging to the very highest rank of people, possibly members of the royal family. In design and arrangement, the palace façade mastabas of Abu Rawash generally follow the better documented examples excavated at Saqqara, although some features give the impression of a less elevated status for those buried at Abu Rawash.

 

   To refer back to post #221:

They did not build buildings like this in the 4th Dynasty which after the early 3rd Dynasty the palace facade motif becomes an artistic motif and not an architectural form which even then was an homage to earlier times. To those of the 4th Dynasty this building is historic and arguably the most important of iconography to them which I am still trying to figure it out the why. The point of all this being is that while the pyramid age no doubt represented significant ideological changes it was clearly connected to a past that they clearly revered though they may not have fully understood which may in fact included the burial practices of the kings before them which suggest a connection to both Upper and Lower Egypt. 

So to answer the question of if the pyramids are not tombs then where are the pharaohs- all I know is that the answer is a lot more complex than we give it credit.      

[M. Williams]

43 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

Like I said, I present the question "If Pyramids are not tombs then where are the pharaohs?" not just as my own personal "belief", but as a thought exercise for others who make this claim more often than not for the wrong reasons. It is swell and all to think pyramids are not tombs but that is not enough leaving the question if no then where are they buried? This is common sense. I have not offered my opinion because I honestly do not know the answer and am not the type to make one up just to have one.    

I do not accept they were made to inter the body and royal burial for the reasons I outline in the OP and believe they were built as cenotaphs.  

No royal burial has been found in any pyramid, which again is not to mean "just" the body but all that goes with it. Again, Lehner has noted this as well.

It makes no sense these pharaohs knowing full well they would be robbed, some robbing each other themselves, that they would just keep doing the same thing over and over and over again with the same results for more than two centuries and at least 37 pyramids in a row.  

So one of the questions we must ask therefore is if there precedent for such a thing, which when we look to earlier dynasties, yes there is. In the 1st and 2nd Dynasties we see the subjects of the king being buried next to monumental architecture with the king buried elsewhere. Since no one will acknowledged this from the OP I'll repeat it. In the 1st and (a few) 2nd Dynasty the kings are buried here at Umm al-Qa'ab, Abydos, which is the location of at least a few of the "kings" of Dynasty 0:

Nearly a mile away we have the Shunet el-Zebib area where we find the monumental enclosures of the 1st Dynasty kings:

  Though certainly older, "Shunet el-Zebib" is this structure attributed to the last pharaoh of the 2nd Dynasty Khasekhemwy:

If we look at the picture above with the yellow squares, these are the remains of 1st Dynasty enclosure walls belonging to the pharaohs buried in the cemetery a mile away in which it is here, and not at the cemetery, that we find hundreds of ritual burials (humans and animals) surrounding these enclosures as well as the boat burials:

So here we have precedent, no small matter, of the cemetery of the kings being located in one place and their monumental architecture and subjects being found at another. This brings to bear the 2nd part of this conundrum which are the 1st Dynasty royal burials as Abydos vs the superior 1st Dynasty palace facade mastaba tombs at Saqqara and elsewhere, including Giza, attributed to these same kings: For example:

 

   

 

To explain this dichotomy, Walter B Emery argued that the southern royal tombs at Abydos were cenotaphs and the northern grand mastabas at Saqqara their actual tombs. A debate not yet settled, though an entirely different can of worms beyond the scope of this thread for now, is that the evidence has increasingly favored the southern inferior tombs at Abydos being the actual burial sites of the kings and the superior tombs at Saqqra and elsewhere belonging to "administrators" and/or queens (perhaps Pharaohs in their own right).  Which also have burials of subjects surrounding them. Remember this:

A discussion for later. 

So while this may turn out not to be the case, the fact of the matter is the idea of royal cenotaphs vs actual burial sites is part and parcel of the history of Egyptological thought none more so than the very foundation of Dynastic Egypt itself which is still wrestled with today.
 

These are all fair questions and unlike some with novel ideas I am not going to invent some solution just to have an answer as the fact is as of yet I do not know. Kind of why I ask the question in the first place, But the fact I do not know does not change the facts either. I have heard some interesting suggestions, like the actual burials are underneath the Mortuary Temple. Others that say in another land all together. Again, when we look to the 1st Dynasty we see these kings buried next to their Dynasty 0 predecessors despite the fact the grandest of tombs also attributed to their reign are found far away in Saqqara and elsewhere. We also must acknowledge, as the latter reminds us, is Egypt is two lands- Upper and Lower Egypt, which the king bore crowns for each. And though "united", though not always, in their own way were separate kingdoms with their own history not lost on those of the OK. If a king is a king of two lands how can his body be at both places at once?      

To quote myself from elsewhere to perhaps give a broader context to all this is some the story or Djedefre:

   To refer back to post #221:

They did not build buildings like this in the 4th Dynasty which after the early 3rd Dynasty the palace facade motif becomes an artistic motif and not an architectural form which even then was an homage to earlier times. To those of the 4th Dynasty this building is historic and arguably the most important of iconography to them which I am still trying to figure it out the why. The point of all this being is that while the pyramid age no doubt represented significant ideological changes it was clearly connected to a past that they clearly revered though they may not have fully understood which may in fact included the burial practices of the kings before them which suggest a connection to both Upper and Lower Egypt. 

So to answer the question of if the pyramids are not tombs then where are the pharaohs- all I know is that the answer is a lot more complex than we give it credit.      

The importance of the ED inspired architecture at Giza has been understood at the very least since Barsanti and Petrie studied Mastaba V with it's niched walls and deep bays. 

 

Lehner calls it a precedent for the KC. Mastaba V had a central chamber with a wooden upright posts . Stains on the KC ceiling are evidence of a similar structure or wooden "shell" inside the KC.

 

So if this is the case, the walls we see today were not meant to be seen and we can't know if writing was on it's walls or if the sarcophagus was also clad . 

The way I see it, the KC perfectly reflects the very earliest of AE royal death rituals. It's not odd to me at all 

Edited April 29, 2020 by M. Williams

[M. Williams]

18 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

Ramesses XI has two tombs, and who knows, maybe three, but he is only in one of them, as yet undiscovered. KV4 was his original, and never used tomb. Different circumstance in society existed in his times of course, but he still had multiple tombs.

That's a stretch to say the least. It wasn't finished according to egyptology as the three pyramids were.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayer_Papyri

Of the top of my head I can think of three other explanations of how KV4 is the way it is. Try again.

[Thanos5150]

2 hours ago, M. Williams said:

The importance of the ED inspired architecture at Giza has been understood at the very least since Barsanti and Petrie studied Mastaba V with it's niched walls and deep bays. 

Lehner calls it a precedent for the KC. Mastaba V had a central chamber with a wooden upright posts . Stains on the KC ceiling are evidence of a similar structure or wooden "shell" inside the KC.

So if this is the case, the walls we see today were not meant to be seen and we can't know if writing was on it's walls or if the sarcophagus was also clad . 

The way I see it, the KC perfectly reflects the very earliest of AE royal death rituals. It's not odd to me at all 

No. The discovery of Mastaba V and other palace facade mastabas at Giza had no relevance on the understanding of the palace facade motifs found later not just at Giza but elsewhere throughout Dynastic history. You'll note that when discussing the Giza finds Petrie refers to the already discovered palace facade mastaba of "queen Mena at Naqada" i.e. Neithhotep whose mastaba I picture above. Regardless, early Dynastic depictions and architectural examples were already known prior to the discovery of Mastaba V et al at Giza. If anything the discovery of this cemetery is an addition to our understanding of the proliferation of the early Dynastic state having nothing to do with our understanding of the motif itself.

Quote and cite where Lehner says this. There is no reason to believe the interior chamber of Mastaba V dated to the reign of Djet had any relation whatsoever to the KC centuries after the fact. Pure gobbledygook. 

Of course we would know if there were things "written on the walls or if the sarcophagus was clad", whatever the latter means. Again, G1 does not exist in a vacuum. 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Thanos5150