If a Lost Civilization Built the Great Pyramid(s) How did the AE Build the Rest?

[Antigonos]

14 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

Cool photos of the Pepi I complex (last two links above) showing the tower core sequence of construction:

 

Absolutely fantastic, a great example.

[Thanos5150]

On 12/10/2023 at 8:56 AM, Thanos5150 said:

Cool photos of the Pepi I complex (last two links above) showing the tower core sequence of construction:

 

LP Lauer, Djoser Saqqara:

The "mastaba" at the base as noted several times before is not a mastaba, but a square structure (M1 with the expansions to its sides being M2 and M3). Regardless, we can see the two different pyramid building phases, P1 and P2, both began with a large tower core whose sides were expanded by adding vertical columns of blocks to create a stepped pyramid appearance, again, known as the accretion layer method. 

This is how pyramids were made in the 3rd Dynasty which changed in the 4th when the tower core at Medium, itself partially expanded using accretion layers, was later converted into a true pyramid. This time the outer pyramid layer blocks were laid in horizontal courses rather than vertical and the accretion layer method was not used again.  

Edited December 19, 2023 by Thanos5150

[Antigonos]

48 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

LP Lauer, Djoser Saqqara:

The "mastaba" at the base as noted several times before is not a mastaba, but a square structure (M1 with the expansions to its sides being M2 and M3). Regardless, we can see the two different pyramid building phases, P1 and P2, both began with a large tower core whose sides were expanded by adding vertical columns of blocks to create a stepped pyramid appearance, again, known as the accretion layer method. 

This is how pyramids were made in the 3rd Dynasty which changed in the 4th when the tower core at Medium, itself partially expanded using accretion layers, was later converted into a true pyramid. This time the outer pyramid layer blocks were laid in horizontal courses rather than vertical and the accretion layer method was not used again.  

Though separated by time and circumstances the similarity between the core of Meidum and the P1/P2 stages of Netjerikhet’s  Step Pyramid to Mesopotamian ziggurats is interesting. I wonder why no attempt was made to convert the latter to a true pyramid given that it was tried at Meidum.

[Trelane]

2 hours ago, Antigonos said:

Though separated by time and circumstances the similarity between the core of Meidum and the P1/P2 stages of Netjerikhet’s  Step Pyramid to Mesopotamian ziggurats is interesting. I wonder why no attempt was made to convert the latter to a true pyramid given that it was tried at Meidum.

I'm sure there's an answer I haven't seen but have there been ziggurat styled structures found in Egypt further out in the desert? Maybe early on attempts at recreating or copying that occurred far back in dynastic times or possibly earlier? My apologies if I've missed it if it has already been presented.

[Thanos5150]

22 hours ago, Antigonos said:

Though separated by time and circumstances the similarity between the core of Meidum and the P1/P2 stages of Netjerikhet’s  Step Pyramid to Mesopotamian ziggurats is interesting. I wonder why no attempt was made to convert the latter to a true pyramid given that it was tried at Meidum.

Convert Mesopotamian ziggurats to true pyramids? 

Edited December 20, 2023 by Thanos5150

[Thanos5150]

19 hours ago, Trelane said:

I'm sure there's an answer I haven't seen but have there been ziggurat styled structures found in Egypt further out in the desert?

That would be cool, but no.  

Quote

Maybe early on attempts at recreating or copying that occurred far back in dynastic times or possibly earlier? My apologies if I've missed it if it has already been presented.

HERE. And HERE

A bit later, but HERE. 

[Antigonos]

33 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

Convert Mesopotamian ziggurats to true pyramids? 

Sorry, I worded that wrong. I meant I wonder why there was no attempt to convert the Stepped Pyramid to a true one given that it had been tried at Meidum.

[Thanos5150]

On 12/20/2023 at 8:33 AM, Antigonos said:

Sorry, I worded that wrong. I meant I wonder why there was no attempt to convert the Stepped Pyramid to a true one given that it had been tried at Meidum.

Interesting thought. 

[Thanos5150]

On 10/27/2023 at 4:45 PM, Thanos5150 said:

I agree something is missing from the DE tool and materials kit though whatever these were was little to no different than has been used for thousands of years to the present day. 

Roman Stone Cutting Machines

19th Century Stone Working- Secrets of the Ancient World Revealed

Funny thing about saws. Talked about often, there are many instances of the use of large saw blades, most likely pendulum saws, namely found at Giza and Abu Roash on igneous rock (basalt/granite) which to my knowledge no examples have been found on limestone. The paradox, however, is that they clearly did not use saws to make the exterior finished surface which begs the question if they even used saws to make the blocks at all. This will cause some heads to explode, but again if we look at casing stones they are not cut into shape but installed with their outer faces uncut and planed after the fact by the "place and shave" method: 

G3:

Meidum:

http://egyptphoto.ncf.ca/meidum north face detail8_640.jpg

Giza mastaba (right corner):

Osirion:

 

On and on it goes. The faces are basically installed as "boulders" then are rough shaped further and further then the fine finishing begins where they start at the top or side and just shave them down to create a uniform flat surface across all the blocks. Were the sides, top, and bottom cut with saws, maybe, but this is not how they made the exteriors. In fact, not only am I convinced this is how they did just about all of the exterior surfaces we see in Egypt but also as did much of the ancient world as well. 

Ollanytambo, Peru:

 

Cusco:

Peru:

The same. Which we note all of the blocks made using the "place and shave" method the common artifact are the much ballyhooed "knobs". It is a much discussed "mystery" what they are for, some suggest lifting bosses which in some cases they certainly were, but we note [] most unfinished blocks do not have the[m] and the more they are whittled down like magic the "knobs" begin to appear, almost always at the bottom of the block and in pairs. If the blocks are fully finished, as evidenced for example by the picture directly above, the knobs are systematically removed. What are they for-perhaps nothing. What we can say for sure is that they are artifacts of the place and shave method.

[A few typos corrected above]

So, did the OK DE use saws to cut stones? We take it for granted that they did, but did they...? If we look at G1 for example, as this is all anyone seems to care about anyways, none of the 2+ million core blocks are cut with saws. The blocks were split from the quarries and shaped with chisels. The casing stones as noted above were not made with saws but rather the place and shave method. None of the interior limestone blocks were cut by saws. Which leaves the interior granite blocks which do not appear to be cut by saws either:

    

We do not see the clean cuts of saws but rather the pitted and polished surface of hand tools (some of the polish being from the hand grease and breath of millions of tourists) which I am left to wonder if the chamber walls were shaped using place and shave and the floor and ceiling beams shaped off site, perhaps staged as a group and shaped to spec using the place and shave method as well. Regardless, these beams are over 25ft long. Its just not happening that this much of a length is going to be cut with a non high speed powered saw, let alone all 4 sides, which doesn't show any evidence this was the case anyways. RC, QC, GG-on and on it goes which extends to all the stone working of the OK if not the entirety of Dynastic Egypt. One thing yet to be figured out, and perhaps the greatest mystery of them all, is not only the precision of the joints over such lengths but the precision placement of the blocks. 

At any rate, the rub is we see all these amazing saw marks in the OK: HERE, and others, but what is interesting to me is all of these blocks are not in situ. Where is one installed block that has evidence of a saw mark? I don't remember ever seeing one. Though much later, analogous to this are obelisks (Here and Here for example) which obviously were not cut or finished with saws yet regardless of the stone their faces are planed all the same. They didn't use saws to cut and shape large blocks in the 19th century either, for example: Here and Here. 

Many conversations about saws in Egypt. Here and Here for example. No stone cutting saws have been found in the OK and none were ever depicted. Quoting Archae from the oft debunker cited article:

In ancient Egyptian art no representations have been found of the sawing of stone by means of a copper blade and an abrasive (Lucas & Harris 1962, Stocks 1999), nor has any lapidary slabbing saw been found in the archaeological record (Arnold 1991).

I have argued for the use of saws and what types at the very least they needed to be, they have to be because the saw marks are there, but the more I think about it over the years the more I am coming to the possibility the reason why no stone cutting saws ever been found, or depicted, despite numerous carpentry examples from the beginnings of Dynastic Egypt, is because they never used them in the first place and that all of these amazing saw cuts are later from the wonton pilfering of stone from Roman to Medieval times who we know if fact did have such tools. So when we see the saw marks, like say Abu Roash and others, on the loose blocks lying about-how do we know when these cuts were made? Is this just an assumption which in reality they were not made by the DE at all....?   

 

Edited January 21 by Thanos5150

[Kenemet]

On 12/20/2023 at 10:33 AM, Antigonos said:

Sorry, I worded that wrong. I meant I wonder why there was no attempt to convert the Stepped Pyramid to a true one given that it had been tried at Meidum.

Possibly because the Stepped Pyramid was a tomb.  They did improve and rebuild temples and took material from older tombs that no longer had a priesthood to protect them, but they don't seem to have gone back and reworked or improved tombs.

[Thanos5150]

15 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

So, did the OK DE use saws to cut stones? We take it for granted that they did, but did they...? If we look at G1 for example, as this is all anyone seems to care about anyways, none of the 2+ million core blocks are cut with saws. The blocks were split from the quarries and shaped with chisels. The casing stones as noted above were not made with saws but rather the place and shave method. None of the interior limestone blocks were cut by saws. Which leaves the interior granite blocks which do not appear to be cut by saws either:

    

We do not see the clean cuts of saws but rather the pitted and polished surface of hand tools (some of the polish being from the hand grease and breath of millions of tourists) which I am left to wonder if the chamber walls were shaped using place and shave and the floor and ceiling beams shaped off site, perhaps staged as a group and shaped to spec using the place and shave method as well. Regardless, these beams are over 25ft long. Its just not happening that this much of a length is going to be cut with a non high speed powered saw, let alone all 4 sides, which doesn't show any evidence this was the case anyways. RC, QC, GG-on and on it goes which extends to all the stone working of the OK if not the entirety of Dynastic Egypt. One thing yet to be figured out, and perhaps the greatest mystery of them all, is not only the precision of the joints over such lengths but the precision placement of the blocks. 

At any rate, the rub is we see all these amazing saw marks in the OK: HERE, and others, but what is interesting to me is all of these blocks are not in situ. Where is one installed block that has evidence of a saw mark? I don't remember ever seeing one. Though much later, analogous to this are obelisks (Here and Here for example) which obviously were not cut or finished with saws yet regardless of the stone their faces are planed all the same. They didn't use saws to cut and shape large blocks in the 19th century either, for example: Here and Here. 

Many conversations about saws in Egypt. Here and Here for example. No stone cutting saws have been found in the OK and none were ever depicted. Quoting Archae from the oft debunker cited article:

In ancient Egyptian art no representations have been found of the sawing of stone by means of a copper blade and an abrasive (Lucas & Harris 1962, Stocks 1999), nor has any lapidary slabbing saw been found in the archaeological record (Arnold 1991).

I have argued for the use of saws and what types at the very least they needed to be, they have to be because the saw marks are there, but the more I think about it over the years the more I am coming to the possibility the reason why no stone cutting saws ever been found, or depicted, despite numerous carpentry examples from the beginnings of Dynastic Egypt, is because they never used them in the first place and that all of these amazing saw cuts are later from the wonton pilfering of stone from Roman to Medieval times who we know if fact did have such tools. So when we see the saw marks, like say Abu Roash and others, on the loose blocks lying about-how do we know when these cuts were made? Is this just an assumption which in reality they were not made by the DE at all....? 

Unfinished sarcophagus, schist, Wadi Hammamat. Probably NK or later, no saws.  

But then there is the infamous unfinished sarcophagus of Hordjedef (Djedefhor), son of Khufu no less, notable wise man long after his death, that of course could have only been made by the LC with a high speed circular saw:

But when we pan out it tells quite a different story:

Great series of old photos that are required to look at for those interested: HERE maybe easier to view for some HERE.

Unless drunken children were operating it, obviously it was not a saw that cut this block, LC powered or no. But also the saw marks on each side are not from a single blade being not long enough and having to come in from the sides. To make matters worse, this whole sarcophagus is a train wreck for several reason starting with this is not the top, but rather the "bottom":

A mistake was made when making the lid and the block was flipped over and reused. A recycled mistake from the quarry and yet there it is found like this in situ-an unfinished mess jacked up on blocks on one side installed well before the mastaba was completed. Khufu's son? Name even found in a cartouche? The prince and potential heir to the throne, maybe even a king for a little while? So janky was this whole operation if you look you can see the (perfectly straight) mason's lines (and some numbers) still on the block corresponding with the interior. And by the by you can also see the chisel/adze marks all over the chamber walls just like on the core blocks of G1 etc, etc. 

So, here are some saw marks of some sort on an in situ piece of stone dating to the 4th Dynasty, but the purpose was not to cut the block to shape but rather to trim away an apparent mistake. Job never finished but installed anyways. What to make of this? 

As an aside, another in situ place and shave photo from Peru: 

 

Edited January 21 by Thanos5150

[Thanos5150]

15 hours ago, Kenemet said:

Possibly because the Stepped Pyramid was a tomb.  They did improve and rebuild temples and took material from older tombs that no longer had a priesthood to protect them, but they don't seem to have gone back and reworked or improved tombs.

But that is is exactly what happened with it regardless of whether it was a tomb or not: HERE:

M1 was built as a finished stand alone structure that was expanded twice, M2 and M3. M3 was added to accommodate another shaft system. At some point later it was expanded again into a stepped pyramid then again into an even larger one. 

 

[Kenemet]

5 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

But that is is exactly what happened with it regardless of whether it was a tomb or not: HERE:

M1 was built as a finished stand alone structure that was expanded twice, M2 and M3. M3 was added to accommodate another shaft system. At some point later it was expanded again into a stepped pyramid then again into an even larger one. 

 

I was under the impression that all of this occurred while he was alive.

[Thanos5150]

12 hours ago, Kenemet said:

I was under the impression that all of this occurred while he was alive.

For all of it? I don't know, was he? And if so, was it just within his lifetime or when he was actually king?    

[Kenemet]

4 hours ago, Thanos5150 said:

For all of it? I don't know, was he? And if so, was it just within his lifetime or when he was actually king?    

As far as I know, this was constructed during his reign.  Before he was crowned, he might not have had the resources (i.e., he might not have been the designated crown prince from the moment of his birth) and if it follows other patterns, he might have started a tomb as an adult (before being crowned) which was then given to other family members. 

 

[Thanos5150]

17 hours ago, Kenemet said:

As far as I know, this was constructed during his reign.  Before he was crowned, he might not have had the resources (i.e., he might not have been the designated crown prince from the moment of his birth) and if it follows other patterns, he might have started a tomb as an adult (before being crowned) which was then given to other family members. 

....The questions are rhetorical. 

Edited January 23 by Thanos5150

[Thanos5150]

[snip]

Duplicate post. 

Edited March 27 by Thanos5150

[Trelane]

5 minutes ago, Thanos5150 said:

I have argued for the use of saws and what types at the very least they needed to be, they have to be because the saw marks are there, but the more I think about it over the years the more I am coming to the possibility the reason why no stone cutting saws ever been found, or depicted, despite numerous carpentry examples from the beginnings of Dynastic Egypt, is because they never used them in the first place and that all of these amazing saw cuts are later from the wonton pilfering of stone from Roman to Medieval times who we know if fact did have such tools. So when we see the saw marks, like say Abu Roash and others, on the loose blocks lying about-how do we know when these cuts were made? Is this just an assumption which in reality they were not made by the DE at all....?

That certainly makes sense.

Thank you for continuing on with this thread.

[Oniomancer]

On 10/16/2023 at 12:53 PM, The Puzzler said:

Many animals also can produce a mucus, I bet it certainly was used a lot for pushing, pulling moving objects and a very old concept word.

So, the ancients built everything with spit and elbow grease....

[Thanos5150]

5 minutes ago, Oniomancer said:

So, the ancients built everything with spit and elbow grease....

And lasers. 

[Thanos5150]

On 10/27/2023 at 4:45 PM, Thanos5150 said:

I agree something is missing from the DE tool and materials kit though whatever these were was little to no different than has been used for thousands of years to the present day. 

Roman Stone Cutting Machines

19th Century Stone Working- Secrets of the Ancient World Revealed

Funny thing about saws. Talked about often, there are many instances of the use of large saw blades, most likely pendulum saws, namely found at Giza and Abu Roash on igneous rock (basalt/granite) which to my knowledge no examples have been found on limestone. The paradox, however, is that they clearly did not use saws to make the exterior finished surface which begs the question if they even used saws to make the blocks at all. This will cause some heads to explode, but again if we look at casing stones they are not cut into shape but installed with their outer faces uncut and planed after the fact by the "place and shave" method: 

G3:

Meidum:

http://egyptphoto.ncf.ca/meidum north face detail8_640.jpg

Giza mastaba (right corner):

Osirion:

 

On and on it goes. The faces are basically installed as "boulders" then are rough shaped further and further then the fine finishing begins where they start at the top or side and just shave them down to create a uniform flat surface across all the blocks. Were the sides top and bottom cut with saws, maybe, but this is not how they made the exteriors. In fact, not only am I convinced this is how they did just about all of the exterior surfaces we see in Egypt but also as did much of the ancient world as well. 

Ollanytambo, Peru:

 

Cusco:

Peru:

The same. Which we note all of the blocks made using the "place and shave" method the common artifact are the much ballyhooed "knobs". It is a much discussed "mystery" what they are for, some suggest lifting bosses which in some cases they certainly were, but we note the most unfinished blocks do not have then and the more they are whittled down like magic the "knobs" begin to appear, almost always at the bottom of the block and in pairs. If the blocks are fully finished, as evidenced for example by the picture directly above, the knobs are systematically removed. What are they for-perhaps nothing. What we can say for sure is that they are artifacts of the place and shave method.

G3 Mortuary Temple:

Not saws. Place and shave with bosses.

G1 satellite pyramid casing stones no different than G1: HERE. Unfinished in situ place and shave. 

G2 granite casing:

Not saws. As an aside, interesting the faces have a taper at the tops and bottoms. 

 

 

Edited March 27 by Thanos5150