The Great Pyramid Hoax - Episode3 (Signs of the Crime)

[Scott Creighton]

1 hour ago, Scott Creighton said:

Hey UM,

Just when you all thought I'd gone away!

The text extract below is from Colonel Vyse’s private journal from 27^th May 1837, the day he first entered and explored Campbell’s Chamber.  This text shows, imo, that Vyse had markings that were about to be placed into the chamber.

Alternative reading might also be:

It has been suggested that where I have the phrase “to inscribe over any” should be read as “the marks were very”.  The key word difference here is the word “inscribe”.  Should this really be read as “marks” as suggested?  I strongly doubt it as the images below should hopefully demonstrate.

 

 

The lower word (image above) appears to have a different first and last letter and appears also to have a letter ‘i’ in the middle. The word, imo, is “inscribe”. Thus, on this page of Vyse’s private journal we have:

 “…Cartouche to inscribe over any plain…”

The phrase “to inscribe” is, obviously, future tense – it is something that is yet to be done.  It is not “inscribed” – past tense.

Now, I don’t doubt for a moment that the committed Vyse apologists here and elsewhere will prefer to interpret this word as “marks” and not as “inscribe”.   But I leave this evidence here for the silent majority of undecided to come to their own informed opinion on it.

SC

I should have added to the previous post that I do not exclude the possibility that the word I read as "inscribe" could also be read as the word "write".  Colonel Vyse had a peculiar habit of often failing to place a stroke through his letter 't'.

SC

Edited April 23, 2023 by Scott Creighton

[Antigonos]

1 hour ago, Scott Creighton said:

Hey UM,

Just when you all thought I'd gone away!

 

I don’t think anybody really cares whether you do or you don’t. You’ve been posting mostly to yourself.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Antigonos

[cladking]

24 minutes ago, Antigonos said:

I don’t think anybody really cares whether you do or you don’t. You’ve been posting mostly to yourself.

Lots of people read his posts without comment.  

[Antigonos]

51 minutes ago, cladking said:

Lots of people read his posts without comment.  

You know this for a fact?

It’s one thing for people to read someone’s posts without commenting. I’ve done it myself. It’s another for the poster to be talking to himself in multiple posts continuously on a discussion forum. That’s what blogs are for.

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by Antigonos

[cladking]

1 hour ago, Antigonos said:

You know this for a fact?

It’s one thing for people to read someone’s posts without commenting. I’ve done it myself. It’s another for the poster to be talking to himself in multiple posts continuously on a discussion forum. That’s what blogs are for.

 

 

This thread has 7,000 views. 

Edited April 23, 2023 by cladking

[Antigonos]

11 minutes ago, cladking said:

 

This thread has 7,000 views. 

So would a blog. 

Edited April 23, 2023 by Antigonos

[Scott Creighton]

2 hours ago, Antigonos said:

You know this for a fact?

It’s one thing for people to read someone’s posts without commenting. I’ve done it myself. It’s another for the poster to be talking to himself in multiple posts continuously on a discussion forum. That’s what blogs are for.

 

One of the problems of leaving yourself logged out of UM is that you risk seeing posts from those on your ignore list - like the silly post quoted above.

Understand something here. I will post my research where I want to post it and not where you think I should be posting it. If you don't like that I post here, then there's a solution; skip my posts; put me on your ignore list. Read what it says on the tin: Ancient Mysteries and Alternative History. The problem here isn't with me - it's squarely with you.

You don't get to tell UM members that they should or should not be posting here - UM isn't quite the fascist's forum you perhaps think it is. 

SC 

Edited April 23, 2023 by Scott Creighton

[Antigonos]

1 hour ago, Scott Creighton said:

One of the problems of leaving yourself logged out of UM is that you risk seeing posts from those on your ignore list - like the silly post quoted above.

Understand something here. I will post my research where I want to post it and not where you think I should be posting it. If you don't like that I post here, then there's a solution; skip my posts; put me on your ignore list. Read what it says on the tin: Ancient Mysteries and Alternative History. The problem here isn't with me - it's squarely with you.

You don't get to tell UM members that they should or should not be posting here - UM isn't quite the fascit's forum you perhaps think it is. 

SC 

Nice deflection and straw man. I’ve seen you do this over at GHMB too. Same old tactics for anyone who criticizes you. Imagine my surprise.

 I’m on your ignore list? I smell BS. I’m a former lurker who only recently started posting and this is the first interaction we’ve ever had. But nice try attempting to give the impression that I’m some kind of stalker. 

You have a mighty high opinion of yourself and your posts in general. I could care less what you do or don’t do, you’re the one making yourself look silly (to use your own word) by talking to yourself. I was pointing it out because it’s impossible not to notice.  Keep at it, I find your desperate bids for attention amusing. 

And you can drop your tired transparent  holier than thou routine. “Just when you thought I’d gone away!” doesn’t exactly scream intellectual honesty. You know what you do. 

Why not also post this on GHMB? Oh that’s right because then Martin Stower might see it and he’s been exposing and destroying your Vyse nonsense for years upon years. 

It’s spelled fascist, by the way.

Can’t wait for your next post. 

 

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by Antigonos

[Kenemet]

8 hours ago, Scott Creighton said:

I should have added to the previous post that I do not exclude the possibility that the word I read as "inscribe" could also be read as the word "write".  Colonel Vyse had a peculiar habit of often failing to place a stroke through his letter 't'.

SC 

So... the world's Least Competent Forger, who can't capitalize on his forgery, actually writes out that he's forging things in his expedition diary, and then places it in his papers and donates them to the university?

 

[Scott Creighton]

6 hours ago, Kenemet said:

So... the world's Least Competent Forger, who can't capitalize on his forgery, actually writes out that he's forging things in his expedition diary,

 

SC: Yes, it would appear so. These were his private thoughts, for his eyes only. And a fairly competent forger, I would say - he got away with it for nearly 200 years.

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K: and then places it in his papers and donates them to the university?

SC: He didn't donate them to any university.  They ended up in the county archive nearly a hundred years after his death. Who knows - maybe he had thoughts of burning the incriminating pages but just couldn't bring himself to let them go into the flames. "I'll do it tomorrow." And then tomorrow he pops his cloggs.

 

Vyse Drawing Room - Stoke Poges, Bucks (Pic: S. Creighton)

SC

Edited April 24, 2023 by Scott Creighton

[Thanos5150]

On 4/16/2023 at 7:31 PM, Alchopwn said:

The "Great Pyramid Hoax" is itself the hoax.  Conspiratard material par excellence.

The Real Khufu Cartouche HOAX

Edited April 24, 2023 by Thanos5150

[Scott Creighton]

Some more 'spot-the-difference':

SC

[Kenemet]

16 hours ago, Scott Creighton said:

SC: Yes, it would appear so. These were his private thoughts, for his eyes only. And a fairly competent forger, I would say - he got away with it for nearly 200 years.

So this "competent forger" does something that no other forger does - makes a single forgery and actually writes it down.

Just one forgery.  No other supporting material, nothing else to bring himself fame and fortune and attention although he has a lifetime of other opportunities.  And the things that he forged (blindly) turn out to be true.

Kinda pointless, eh?

[Hanslune]

3 hours ago, Kenemet said:

So this "competent forger" does something that no other forger does - makes a single forgery and actually writes it down.

Just one forgery.  No other supporting material, nothing else to bring himself fame and fortune and attention although he has a lifetime of other opportunities.  And the things that he forged (blindly) turn out to be true.

Kinda pointless, eh?

Well you see. He was secretly part of a vast conspiracy dedicated to causing our good fellow here in the future to waste his life - and our time.

[Kenemet]

2 hours ago, Hanslune said:

Well you see. He was secretly part of a vast conspiracy dedicated to causing our good fellow here in the future to waste his life - and our time.

So we should make a meme "feeling pointless, might forge a cartouche today"?

Tempting, but kinda passive-aggressive there.

[Scott Creighton]

16 hours ago, Kenemet said:

So this "competent forger" does something that no other forger does - makes a single forgery...

SC: Well that depends what you mean by “single forgery”.  I suspect there are forged markings in all four chambers, so not a “single forgery”. There is suspicion also that he attempted a forgery in G3 with the mummy board and bones that he ‘found’ there. We further know that in his early career to become a Member of the UK parliament, he committed mass fraud with his electors, bribing the vast majority of those who voted for him (we have the evidence of his paying for votes, even the amount he paid for each of them). Paying a person for their vote (whether the payment is made before, during or after an election) was straight-up bribery and completely and unequivocally against the law at the time (and still is, of course). If the payment was for some other reason (legitimate election expenses etc) then payment for this was fine. But not ever for the purchase of a person’s vote—which is what Vyse did. So, as far as acts of fraud went, Vyse had form. Not to mention the witnesses from the time who actually accused the colonel of perpetrating a fraud inside the Great Pyramid. (Incidentally, Sitchin was not the first to make this accusation against Vyse). 

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K: ... and actually writes it down. 

SC: So, instead of actually trying to properly respond to a piece of evidence that’s been presented here, you resort to trying to discredit it simply because he “writes it down” in his private journal since, in your opinion, that would have been a really dumb thing to do. Well, I suppose if Vyse ever thought that there was a likelihood of being caught, yes it would have been dumb. But clearly he didn’t think that because the incriminating comment is right there in his private journal. As are a number of other incriminating passages. And why would he think he’d get caught when he’d already in his life gotten away with perpetrating a fraud arguably much bigger and worse than this? 

This is a classic example of what I was referring to in an earlier post about the committed (on both sides). Doesn’t matter what evidence you present them with, they will always try to find some way to get around it or find some means to discredit it. I truly suspect that if I presented you with a signed confession from Vyse himself stating that he had perpetrated a fraud in the GP, you and the other Vyse apologists would be claiming he had sunstroke or some other impairment when he wrote the confession. 

You seem to have this strange notion that no one would ever write stuff in their diaries that could later incriminate them in illegal activity. I imagine then that you’ll be totally shocked to learn that many criminals actually have been caught out by a letter they wrote or an entry they had previously placed in their personal diaries. But it happens. FGS – nowadays some criminals even brag about their crimes on Social Media and end up getting caught as a result of it. 

 

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K: Just one forgery.   

SC: He’d done others (see above).  

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K: No other supporting material,  

SC: And how would you know that? You’ve already conceded in this thread that you haven’t watched any of the 3 videos in the OP and it’s highly doubtful that you’ve read any of my books on the matter. There’s supporting evidence in abundance. By your own statement, you've simply chosen to ignore it.

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K: nothing else to bring himself fame and fortune and attention although he has a lifetime of other opportunities.   

SC: Doubtful that he was seeking fortune—he was wealthy enough. Fame? Fame enough would be achieved in being forever known as the person who finally proved that Khufu built the GP. Indeed, your very presence here in this discussion is clearly aimed at trying to maintain Vyse in that lofty position.  

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K: And the things that he forged (blindly) turn out to be true. 

 

SC: He wasn’t forging anything “blindly”. He absolutely 100% knew the Suphis/Khufu cartouche. He finds some authentic ancient gang names among the GP’s northern and southern rubble piles, recognises the Suphis/Khufu name.  He places these gang names (along with other marks found there) into the GP chambers. Job done. It wasn’t complicated. 

And as to whether the crew names he placed within the GP chambers are “true” or not for the 4th Dynasty, is questionable: 

 

Quote

 

 “Ahmed Saeed, professor of ancient Egyptian civilization at Cairo University, supports Abdel Maqsoud, saying that what the German amateurs have claimed [about the painted markings in Campbell’s Chamber] is totally false and nonsensical. 

 

He elaborates on the writing of the King's name in graffiti, maintaining it could have been written by the pyramid builders after construction, which might also explain why the king's short name and not his official title is inscribed. 

 

Alternatively, he suggests the cartouche could have been written during the Middle Kingdom era, due to the style of writing used.” (my emphasis) from here.

 

 

 

SC: And this “style of writing used” is backed up by Hans Goedicke who tells us: 

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"The horizontal arrangement [of hieratic script] evolved slowly . . . the reign of Amenemhet III (1842–1795 B.C.) appears to mark the watershed between vertical and horizontal line arrangement.. . . After the adoption of the horizontal arrangement there were no relapses into the earlier form.” - Goedicke, Old Hieratic Palaeography, xiii–xiv. 

 

SC: How eaxtly do you get Middle Kingdom (horizontal) script into sealed chambers of an Old Kingdom monument?

Without exception, every single marking in the Vyse Chambers (where directionality can be determined) is written horizontally. There is nothing there that can be shown to have been written in the earlier vertical style.  

So, Vyse appears to have found authentic ancient crew names—just not from the right time period. But hey—they were all just hieroglyphics to him. His lack of knowledge between hieratic and hieroglyphic and how the hieratic form changed over time, is what also has caught him out. 

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K: Kinda pointless, eh? 

 

SC: If your desire is to be the person that proves Khufu was indeed the builder of the GP – an important discovery – then this is far from “pointless”. If your desire is to beat all the other international expeditions (Italians, French, Germans etc) in making the biggest, most important discovery of all for good old Blighty, then doing something like this is hardly “pointless”.  

 

                            "...Cartouche to inscribe over. . .” or perhaps “...Cartouche to write over...” 

 

That is what you have to deal with. Pleading that Vyse wouldn’t have been so stupid as to place something as incriminating as this into his personal diary is largely immaterial. Criminals do stupid things and Vyse, clearly, was no exception. (As stated--this isn’t the only thing that he has written and tripped himself up with). You can plead that a criminal wouldn’t have written such a thing down but, at the end of the day, Vyse clearly did write it down: 

That’s what the evidence, imo, says. It’s the evidence you need to deal with.  

SC 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Scott Creighton

[Hanslune]

9 hours ago, Kenemet said:

So we should make a meme "feeling pointless, might forge a cartouche today"?

Tempting, but kinda passive-aggressive there.

I know right? You're excavating and it strikes you that you have the perfect opportunity to fake a meaning piece of graffiti - I mean has anyone at a working archaeological site ever NOT had that thought?

[Kenemet]

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- post removed -

To be fair, you haven't really offered any real proof.

* an accusation from someone he fired
* a supposed letter from someone dead 100 years (discovered only after Sitchin's book and in some unusual circumstances)
* a presumption about how field notes are done
* some "undiscovered material" that happened to have crew signs that he happened to recognize
* cartouches that he happened to recognize as Khufu's in spite there being several versions of the name
* "proof" that Vyse went electioneering (has nothing to do with forgery - many forgers live an otherwise law abiding life) in a style similar to many politicians of the time (who haven't been accused of forgery, by the way)
* a presumption that Ancient Egyptian was only written in vertical format at that time. (clearly false, as seen in many examples on this page: https://www.almendron.com/artehistoria/arte/culturas/egyptian-art-in-age-of-the-pyramids/catalogue-fourth-dynasty/)

What would be convincing?  Wrong crew names (referencing Djedefre, for instance.)  Other proven forgeries and questionable material by Vyse.  Symbols drawn in charcoal (which would be the wrong material.)  Symbols that are backward or not part of the canon.  "words" that don't exist (as shows up in modern art and "artifacts for sale" all the time.)  Incorrectly drawn signs (the hawk instead of the chick, for example, or the owl or lapwing)

(edited to add:  Also, if it was proof, then why didn't he say he found proof of Khufu in his field notes?  Why did he have to send it off to an expert in hieroglyphs to find out what it said?)

I suspect that someone could carbon date the inscription and prove it was from the time of Khufu and you'd still find a way to accuse the lab of malfeasance.

[Hanslune]

On 4/26/2023 at 10:01 AM, Kenemet said:

I suspect that someone could carbon date the inscription and prove it was from the time of Khufu and you'd still find a way to accuse the lab of malfeasance.

That is pretty much a standard M.O. of the fringe. I remember a story before L'anse aux Meadows was found there was a vigorous debate about whether what the sagas said were true or not.After the archaeological report was published a few folks then said that Native Americans had gone to Greenland and Iceland appropriated the Norse culture and technology and brought it back and THEY had made L'anse aux Meadows!

[Antigonos]

On 4/24/2023 at 8:28 PM, Kenemet said:

So this "competent forger" does something that no other forger does - makes a single forgery and actually writes it down.

Just one forgery.  No other supporting material, nothing else to bring himself fame and fortune and attention although he has a lifetime of other opportunities.  And the things that he forged (blindly) turn out to be true.

Kinda pointless, eh?

Sounds like one of Baldrick’s cunning plans.

[Scott Creighton]

On 4/26/2023 at 6:01 PM, Kenemet said:

K: To be fair, you haven't really offered any real proof.

SC: How exactly would you know what I’ve offered by way of “real proof” when, by your own admission, you haven’t watched any of the 3 videos in the OP where some of the evidence that I believe is indicative of fraud is presented? Over and above which, it’s not one single item that I consider to be “proof” of this fraud—it is the sum of all the anomalies we find in Vyse’s alleged ‘discovery’. There are, imo, just too many aspects of his story that are inconsistent, do not stack up or are just plain wrong. I’ve posted some of these throughout the thread but you evidently didn't look at those either.

Here are the links to the videos again (might be helpful to you to actually watch them):

 

 

 

 

 

 

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K: * an accusation from someone he fired

SC: I presume here you’re referring to Captain Caviglia? Caviglia being fired by Vyse is largely immaterial to the fraud allegation, so I’m not quite sure what your point is here? The circumstances around Caviglia’s sacking by Vyse are detailed quite extensively in the colonel’s published account, as are a number of other sackings the colonel made.

What is more interesting to me, however, is the sacking Vyse writes about in his private journal of 10^th May, 1837 but of which he completely fails to make any mention of in his published account. In his private journal, Vyse writes that one of his men (the name is difficult to make out but looks like Musadiq which is the Arabic word for ‘authenticator’) had a dispute with Mr Raven. Vyse does not reveal the nature of this dispute but clearly it was a serious enough issue since Vyse sacked Musadiq on the spot and paid him off. Here’s the May 10^th entry from Vyse’s private journal of this dispute:

What is quite remarkable about this sacking is that it seems to have been the only sacking that Vyse has entirely expunged from his published work and the name of Musadiq has also been removed completely from Vyse’s published account (we see it quite regularly throughout his private account). In his book, the colonel had no qualms in detailing the sackings of several other members of his team due to various misdemeanours (most notably, of course, Capt. Caviiglia). So, whatever the nature of this dispute that involved Mr Raven, it was serious enough to be entirely written out of Vyse’s official account. And with Sir Robert and Lady Arbuthnot in their nearby tent bearing witness to it all, it seems that whatever was said during this May 10th dispute, Vyse afterwards takes a walk with the Arbuthnots, perhaps to clear up any ‘misunderstandings’ that might have arisen as a result of them overhearing the dispute.

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K: * a supposed letter from someone dead 100 years (discovered only after Sitchin's book and in some unusual circumstances)

SC: It wasn’t a letter. It was the amateur radio logbook of Walter Allen (the great-great-grandson of one Humphries Brewer). Allen was an amateur genealogist so investigating his family’s history and keeping records of what he had found out about them, would not have been unusual at all. Here’s the controversial comment from Allen’s logbook:

The Vyse apologists claim this logbook entry dated October 9^th, 1954 was later embellished (in 1980) by Walter Allen to include his great-great-grandfather, Humphries Brewer, working with Vyse at the pyramids and being a witness to fraud in a bid to somehow back up Sitchin’s earlier Vyse fraud claim and achieve some fame for himself. It’s a completely ridiculous notion, of course, because if that were true, then you’d reasonably expect that Allen would at least have tried to make his alleged embellished account consistent with what Sitchin was actually claiming. Sitchin claims the forgers were Perring and Hill while Allen states in his logbook entry of 1954 that the forgers were Raven and Hill.

From my own research it seems to me that Perring was almost certainly not (at least directly) involved in any of the actual forgery shenanigans though perhaps tacitly so in turning a blind eye to what he almost certainly would have known was going on. So, in this regard, I think Walter Allen’s hand-me-down account seems more accurate than Sitchin’s and a certain sign that there was no collusion between them. This is especially so given the dispute involving Raven on 10^th May that Vyse writes about (though only in his private account) that resulted in one of his men being sacked and kicked off the site. Even though the character involved in the actual dispute with Raven looks not to have been Allen’s great-great-grandfather, the young Humphries Brewer could very well have been there, just like the Arbuthnots, witnessing the dispute and learning of the nature of the dispute. And it would seem (as often occurs with these things), the Brewer eye-witness account of the dispute, as it is passed down the family generations, becomes a little garbled/embellished to now become Brewer as the central protagonist that had the dispute and got fired.

So, imo, this May 10^th entry by Vyse concerning a dispute with Mr Raven and the subsequent sacking of one of his men, was likely the very same event (from Vyse’s perspective) that Allen writes of in his radio logbook, having been researching his family history.  However, unlike Vyse’s version, Allen’s account from his great-great-grandfather actually gives us of the nature of the dispute—Raven and Hill painting fake marks into the pyramid and (it seems from Vyse's version) ‘Musadiq’ wasn’t at all pleased when he found out what they’d been doing. Is it any wonder that this dispute (and all of the accusers) was entirely expunged from Vyse’s published account?

(One small additional point here. While Allen’s logbook entry clearly implies that it was his great-great-grandfather who had the dispute with Raven and Hill, the entry doesn’t actually say that it was. “… Had dispute with Raven and Hill…”  Who had? As stated, the construction of this paragraph certainly implies it was Brewer who had the dispute but that might not actually be the case).

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K: * a presumption about how field notes are done

SC: This was 1837. It was Vyse’s private journal. Egyptology or even archaeology weren’t even recognised sciences then and certainly were not in any way organised. In 1837 you’re dealing with antiquarian adventurers and treasure hunters. Flinders Petrie, whom many regard as being the man who brought true science and structured methodology to the study of ancient Egypt, wouldn’t even be born for another 16 years when Vyse was blasting his way with gunpowder through the Great Pyramid, so I don’t quite know what the point is you’re trying to make here about “field notes”.

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* some "undiscovered material" that happened to have crew signs that he happened to recognize

SC: I’ve stated this many times before but it doesn’t seem to register. So, I’ll repeat it again here, just for you.

Why couldn’t Vyse have found “crew names” in the rubble piles at the Great Pyramid that he spent months clearing away, even blowing up stones along the way? Posters in this very thread have pointed out the various crew names found elsewhere around Giza and even at the Great Pyramid itself, so it absolutely is not inconceivable at all that Vyse could have found some other crew names in the GP’s rubble piles, the discovery of which he would keep to himself and his small, inner circle.

Claiming the discovery of these markings outside the pyramid (from the rubble piles) would have been an interesting find but it would hardly set the heather on fire. However, finding these markings inside hitherto sealed chambers of the GP makes these markings absolute dynamite for it then unequivocally proves Khufu’s hand in the Great Pyramid; a truly important discovery and the kind of important discovery Vyse would have hoped to make.

Now, this may surprise you to know, but I do not have to find Vyse’s original source material for his forgery to demonstrate that forgery occurred. That’s like saying police investigators must find the murder weapon to prove someone committed a murder. Imagine the scene: The victim is on the ground with gunshot wounds, there are several empty shell casings around them, there’s shotgun reside, there’s eye-witness accounts that saw it happen. But the shooter ran off with the gun. It seems that in your peculiar world that just because the police cannot find the shotgun (the primary evidence), they cannot actually say a shooting occurred; they have to ignore all the other evidence surrounding the crime scene that points to a crime having been committed.

Seriously?

As for Vyse being able to recognise the Khufu cartouche--he absolutely could. In his private journal he tells us that he bought Rosellini’s book (at considerable expense) that shows the signs for the Suphis/Khufu cartouche. Vyse even refers to the Suphis/Khufu cartouche by name in his private journal (though, oddly, he feigns complete ignorance in his published book - more on this below).

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K: * cartouches that he happened to recognize as Khufu's in spite there being several versions of the name

SC: Consulting Rosellini’s book (which he had with him at Giza in 1837), Vyse could not have failed to notice that both cartouches he was finding in the rubble piles present the name ‘Saophis’. If he’s finding Saophis/Khufu cartouche in the GP’s northern rubble pile but Sen-Saophis cartouches in the GP’s southern rubble pile, this would surely have him wondering if these two similar looking cartouches (both of which carry the name Suphis) might be connected with each other in some way? In 1837 it was believed that the Sen-Saophis cartouche name meant ‘Brother of Suphis’ (which is a pretty daft name to give one of your sons). 

Vyse, pondering this odd discovery of two similar cartouches in the GP’s northern and southern rubble piles, and subsequently consulting Rosellini’s and Wilkinson’s books, may have believed he'd found the answer to this conundrum. In consideration of Wilkinson’s Materia Hieroglyphica, Vyse would have learned of some intriguing aspects of the royal cartouche, or “oval” of which Wilkinson writes:

1. That the phonetic names are always contained in the oval . . . which I shall distinguish by the word “nomen.”

2. That the other oval, or prenomen, always contains a title, derived from the name of one, or more deities, which serves to point out more particularly the king, to whom both the ovals belong. . . . (my emphasis).

3. […]

4. That these prenomens, or titles being sometimes mentioned together with the nomens, have led to that disagreement, which exists amongst ancient scholars, in the names of the kings; they have confounded the prenomens with the nomens, or mistaken the one for the other . . . for it does appear in a few instances that Manetho has introduced both the nomen and the prenomen.

5. The prenomens were often varied, by the addition of other titles, but not by any omission of the original characters; thus, in many of the prenomens, we find more hieroglyphics than usual, and yet, the original title is still traceable.

Thus, through a series of simple deductions from the available knowledge of the time, it was perfectly feasible that Vyse could have (erroneously) concluded that the two slightly different cartouches he had found in the northern and southern rubble piles were not, in fact, two different kings or two brothers at all, but that they may actually have represented the nomen and prenomen cartouches of just one king, Suphis/Khufu.

He would not, however, have known the Horus name was another name of Suphis/Khufu as this name was not contained in the distinctive royal cartouche or serekh. But neither does he recognise any of the crew name (apr) signs (white crown sign etc). But since all these signs would likely have been found together in the same setting, it would not have been unreasonable for Vyse to conclude that all the marks were related to Suphis/Khufu, the one King’s name he could recognise, and as such, has them all copied into the four chambers to make a truly important ‘discovery’.

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K: * "proof" that Vyse went electioneering (has nothing to do with forgery - many forgers live an otherwise law abiding life) in a style similar to many politicians of the time (who haven't been accused of forgery, by the way)

SC: Just because others are breaking a particular law, doesn’t make the act any less illegal and that we should all join in. But more to the point--this wasn’t a simple ‘breach of the peace’ Vyse committed, it was a serious crime that, had he been caught and found guilty, he’d have spent time in prison. (Lucky for him that the proof of his electoral fraud surfaced only after his death). But in perpetrating a fraud of this kind, we see that Vyse was clearly a man who was quite willing to break the law (and subsequently lie about it) in order to get that which he coveted. Which all goes to the character of the man. And we have to ask ourselves, if he was quite prepared to break the boundaries in this instance to get what he wanted, why should we think he would not do likewise in some other walk of life to get what he wanted?

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K: * a presumption that Ancient Egyptian was only written in vertical format at that time. (clearly false, as seen in many examples on this page: https://www.almendron.com/artehistoria/arte/culturas/egyptian-art-in-age-of-the-pyramids/catalogue-fourth-dynasty/)

SC: Why are you linking to a site that shows only hieroglyphics? The question of these chamber markings concerns the evolution of hieratic script, not hieroglyphic script. The late Hans Goedicke, Egyptologist and professor emeritus in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, literally wrote the book on the palaeography of Old Hieratic script; it’s evolution.

When Goedicke and other eminent Egyptologists present us with information that informs us that the style of the markings Vyse presents from the GP chambers are from a later period, then really you should be paying much more attention. It’s not just me pointing out the anomalies with Vyse’s claimed discovery, these renowned Egyptologists are also effectively telling you that the style of the markings in those chambers are anachronistic, that they’re from a later period. But sure—you know better than these scholars.

I await the defenestration of these Egyptologists in the fullness of time by the Vyse apologists.

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K: What would be convincing?  Wrong crew names (referencing Djedefre, for instance.) 

SC: How would that happen if they are copying crew names from Khufu’s pyramid? Khufu’s cult or ‘Companions of Khufu’ who seem to have been making repairs to the monument at some time in the Middle Kingdom, long after Khufu’s death, left their anachronistic crew names on the stones that Vyse would later find and have copied into the Vyse Chambers, because in 1837 these were all just hieroglyphics to him that hadn’t changed over millennia. Over and above which, are you now saying that the Djedfre crew name in the boat pits are a wrong crew name for the GP?

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K: Other proven forgeries and questionable material by Vyse.

SC: He only needs to successfully perpetrate one fraud to gain his place in the world’s history books.  He did it, got away with it, no need to do others. But as previously stated, though not proven, the mummy board and bones found in G3 are suspected by some to have been another attempted forgery by Vyse. And he was clearly a man who was prepared to go beyond the normal bounds to achieve his goals. Not someone you’d easily trust.

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K: Symbols drawn in charcoal (which would be the wrong material.) 

SC: Why would he draw in charcoal when the thing he’s copying is in red ochre paint?

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K: Symbols that are backward or not part of the canon. 

SC: You mean backward symbols like these:

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K: "words" that don't exist (as shows up in modern art and "artifacts for sale" all the time.)

SC: How exactly would that occur if he’s copying authentic ancient Egyptian crew names (though from the wrong period)?

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K: Incorrectly drawn signs (the hawk instead of the chick, for example, or the owl or lapwing).

SC: Again—how exactly would that occur if he’s copying authentic ancient Egyptian crew names (though from the wrong period)?

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K: (edited to add:  Also, if it was proof, then why didn't he say he found proof of Khufu in his field notes?  Why did he have to send it off to an expert in hieroglyphs to find out what it said?

SC: This is an interesting point actually. In reference to the quarry-marks Vyse supposedly found in the four chambers, he doesn’t refer to having found any cartouches/King’s names at all in his published account. It’s just “We found the quarry-marks”.  Never does he say in his published account anything like, “We found the quarry-marks and among them were some cartouches, some king’s names.”  Reading his published account, it’s almost like he doesn’t know anything about the significance of what he had (ahem) ‘discovered’ in these chambers even though his private journal clearly shows that he certainly knew the Khufu cartouche when at Giza in 1837 and would have understood the significance of such a find. And, of course, because of this feigned ignorance in his published account (“It was Mr Birch who recognised the importance of what I’d found”), people reading his published account would never think that Vyse could possibly have faked anything because the impression he gives is that he hadn’t a clue as to what any of these signs were that he had ‘found’. His feigning ignorance about these ‘quarry-marks’ in his published account is just one more of his deceptions.

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K: I suspect that someone could carbon date the inscription and prove it was from the time of Khufu and you'd still find a way to accuse the lab of malfeasance.

SC: And if a C14 test proved the Vyse markings were actually from the early 19th century AD, what would you say? Let me guess--is that “Contamination” I hear you scream?

SC

Edited April 28, 2023 by Scott Creighton

[Trelane]

I repeat, blathering.

[Scott Creighton]

Further to my comments here with regard to the anachronistic style of the fully fledged horizontal hieratic script present in the Vyse Chambers, we find that this is not the only problematic issue with these painted markings - there's something else that is fundamentally wrong with them (image below).

As we can see from the table above, according to Georg Möller’s Hieratische Paläographie, the form of cartouche used in Dynasty 4 was the vertical cartouche (#531). Möller’s study shows also that the horizontal hieroglyphic cartouche sign (from which all subsequent hieratic variations would evolve) appeared only from Dynasty 5 (#532).

Which begs the obvious question - How could Colonel Vyse be finding the horizontal form of a hieratic cartouche in a 4^th Dynasty monument when, according to Egyptology, the horizontal hieroglyphic original source of this hieratic version would not actually be created until Dynasty 5?

SC

(Note: I also cross-checked this with Goedicke's study but, oddly, Goedicke has completely ommitted these cartouches from his analysis).

Edited May 1, 2023 by Scott Creighton

[Wepwawet]

A son of Khufu was Prince Kawab, he was buried in Giza tomb G 7120. As Kawab seems to have predeceased Khufu, his funeral monuments would date from a time when Khufu still lived, and even if made after the death of Khufu, within the 4th Dynasty. In the link below I draw attention to fig E in the bottom right corner. It shows hieroglyphs from the embrasure to Kawab's tomb, including the name of Khufu in a cartouche. The eagle eyed will note that the cartouche is horizontal. The link is taken from a post by Martin Stower at Hall of Maat.

Horizontal cartouche of Khufu

Note, this is not the only example.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Wepwawet

[Hanslune]

7 hours ago, Wepwawet said:

A son of Khufu was Prince Kawab, he was buried in Giza tomb G 7120. As Kawab seems to have predeceased Khufu, his funeral monuments would date from a time when Khufu still lived, and even if made after the death of Khufu, within the 4th Dynasty. In the link below I draw attention to fig E in the bottom right corner. It shows hieroglyphs from the embrasure to Kawab's tomb, including the name of Khufu in a cartouche. The eagle eyed will note that the cartouche is horizontal. The link is taken from a post by Martin Stower at Hall of Maat.

Horizontal cartouche of Khufu

Note, this is not the only example.

OBVIOUSLY Vyse carved it - its the only reasonable answer...