quote:

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While the ancients were much smarter than modern man...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:

quote:

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While the ancients were much smarter than modern man...

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This makes no sense. How can the ancients be "much smarter than modern man" when modern man knows a heck of alot more things than the ancients. In fact, going by Egyptian thought, it is modern man that is the 'ancient' one since we have been around much longer. The Egyptians would refer to themselves as young while us as old.

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In man's early days individuals had to be very quick and be able to communicate with rudimentary language skills or he would be trampled by a mastodon. As language developed it required less ability to communicate but importantly even the most complex tasks could be described and passed down from generation to generation. This quickly gave rise to civilization as men began farming and producing more than he consumed. During this period intelligence was not as important but was still useful for competing against others and wrenching a living from the Earth even during the worst years.

But then came written language. Now anyone could become expert on nearly any subject just by finding the books and manuscripts. It was obvious almost immediately that each generation would build on the efforts of preceeding ones and that knowledge would explode. Intelligence would no longer be a great asset and lack of it would no longer be a liability of enough significance to affect reproductive potential. Men could operate machines and do the other myriad tasks needed to maintain and expand the cities.

Man may or may not be truly devolving but there is little doubt that the "typical" intelligence is not so high as in the distant past.

It is likely the advent of written language which cause these people to want to build a reminder of their age. It is to tell us that they weren't so stupid as we'd come to believe. It is probably intentional that so few details of construction were preserved.
 

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Posted by Wally (Member # 2936) on :
 
Topic: The Great Pyramid Construction

There is a disproportionate interest in "The Great Pyramid" when there are African pyramids all the way up the Nile Valley and into Sudan; not to mention the other two that cluster nearby "The Great Pyramid"! The focus on this one structure is, to be polite, specious and juvenile, but there's tons of literature and videos on the subject.

The pyramids are all built on the same principles, some are simply larger than others...

The Taipei 101 tower in Taipei, Taiwan is formally recognized as the worlds' tallest building, so I guess having the same mentality, if the world ended today and future intelligent life were doing research on earth, all other tall structures would simply be ignored and the question would be "Who built the Taipei 101 tower, and how did they do it???"
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by sam p:

In man's early days individuals had to be very quick and be able to communicate with rudimentary language skills or he would be trampled by a mastodon.

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quote:

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As language developed it required less ability to communicate but importantly even the most complex tasks could be described and passed down from generation to generation. This quickly gave rise to civilization as men began farming and producing more than he consumed. During this period intelligence was not as important but was still useful for competing against others and wrenching a living from the Earth even during the worst years.

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quote:

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But then came written language. Now anyone could become expert on nearly any subject just by finding the books and manuscripts. It was obvious almost immediately that each generation would build on the efforts of preceeding ones and that knowledge would explode. Intelligence would no longer be a great asset and lack of it would no longer be a liability of enough significance to affect reproductive potential. Men could operate machines and do the other myriad tasks needed to maintain and expand the cities.

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quote:

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Man may or may not be truly devolving but there is little doubt that the "typical" intelligence is not so high as in the distant past.

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quote:

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It is likely the advent of written language which cause these people to want to build a reminder of their age. It is to tell us that they weren't so stupid as we'd come to believe. It is probably intentional that so few details of construction were preserved.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Wally:
Topic: The Great Pyramid Construction

There is a disproportionate interest in "The Great Pyramid" when there are African pyramids all the way up the Nile Valley and into Sudan; not to mention the other two that cluster nearby "The Great Pyramid"! The focus on this one structure is, to be polite, specious and juvenile, but there's tons of literature and videos on the subject.

The pyramids are all built on the same principles, some are simply larger than others...

The Taipei 101 tower in Taipei, Taiwan is formally recognized as the worlds' tallest building, so I guess having the same mentality, if the world ended today and future intelligent life were doing research on earth, all other tall structures would simply be ignored and the question would be "Who built the Taipei 101 tower, and how did they do it???"

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LOL Indeed, Wally hit the mark!
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Wally:
Topic: The Great Pyramid Construction

There is a disproportionate interest in "The Great Pyramid" when there are African pyramids all the way up the Nile Valley and into Sudan; not to mention the other two that cluster nearby "The Great Pyramid"! The focus on this one structure is, to be polite, specious and juvenile, but there's tons of literature and videos on the subject.

The pyramids are all built on the same principles, some are simply larger than others...

The Taipei 101 tower in Taipei, Taiwan is formally recognized as the worlds' tallest building, so I guess having the same mentality, if the world ended today and future intelligent life were doing research on earth, all other tall structures would simply be ignored and the question would be "Who built the Taipei 101 tower, and how did they do it???"

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quote:

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Originally posted by sam p:

It is probable that it was the mutation of a more developed speech center which gave rise to man in the first place. There were various hominids which died off or failed while man thrived. It was not intelligence which set man apart, it was the ability to communicate which led to greater cooperation and to the accumulation of knowledge. Early humans were "selected" by their ability to hunt and avoid carnivores.

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quote:

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Today there is very little "survival of the fittest" for humans. Other than the random Darwin award winner and those killed in traffic accidents we almost all survive and procreate. Intelligence is not as important as it was before language or even before written language.

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quote:

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Oh Pluueeeeze! Gimme a Break! You've simply succumbed to the hype;

> By the way, what do you think of China's Great Wall, the only man made object to be seen from space, will it still be "there" as well?

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The Great Wall is no more viewable from space than other large projects like the Panama Canal or the Great Pyramid. This statement that it is, has been repeated many times but is simply not true. It also will not last 5,000 years without extensive maintenance. Water and wind are extremely erosive and freezing even moreso to this type of structure. Plants would be growing in it very quickly transporting water where freezing would break it up.

If the casing stone hadn't been removed the pyramids would have lasted 100,000 years without showing more than minimal wear. Barring a significant earthquake it will probably still be standing in 100,000 years.

While there are other pyramids and impressive structures created in the past none are so tall or massive as the great pyramid. It is the top 250' or so that become and impressive feat. If ramps were used it is at this point that the ramps begin turing into enormous projects in their own right. The organization required gets exponentially more difficult. How would they even get 100,000 men on or near the pyramid? There's no room to work.

Certainly all practical problems were solved but the concept of dragging around millions of stones weighing a ton or more each is very difficult to fathom. It is far easier to imagine that stones flew up the side of the structure in sleds and brakes had to be employed to slow them down near the top.

It's apparent there was a great deal of water in this area. There is extensive water erosion at the base of the Sphinx and the causeways apparently contained water. The chamber under the pyramid has severe water erosion. Early historians say that there was water all around the pyramids. They were certainly constructed by water even if not "for" or "with" water.
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^^Wally is right though. You do seem to be caught up in this hype about the "ancients" and that they were somehow more 'enlightened' than we are today.

Such a notion is just plain ridiculous pure and simple. If an ancient Egyptian were to brought to our time and heard what you said, he'd most likely laugh at your face and think you're crazy!
 

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Posted by herukhuti (Member # 11484) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
^^Wally is right though. You do seem to be caught up in this hype about the "ancients" and that they were somehow more 'enlightened' than we are today.

Such a notion is just plain ridiculous pure and simple. If an ancient Egyptian were to brought to our time and heard what you said, he'd most likely laugh at your face and think you're crazy!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
^^Wally is right though. You do seem to be caught up in this hype about the "ancients" and that they were somehow more 'enlightened' than we are today.

Such a notion is just plain ridiculous pure and simple. If an ancient Egyptian were to brought to our time and heard what you said, he'd most likely laugh at your face and think you're crazy!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
The predecessor of the great pyramid was the step pyramid, and the predecessor of that was the mastaba. Does this help?

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Thank you very much. It would appear you're right that the mastaba was a direct predecessor of the step pyramid and this would tend to destroy the linearity of the concept at the least.

I still wonder if counterweights weren't used and that the structure of the great pyramid itself might not have been employed to lift water for use in the counterweights. They certainly had water and sand in abundance for such uses. There is little evidence that they had ramps at all (at least for this structure). There also remains the improbability that they had the muscle power for other means.

Other facts still seem to point in this direction.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
Perhaps I was a little over quick in giving up on the linearity of the argument.

Perhaps the earliest attempts to contain the water resulted in a structure resembling the mastaba. As time went on the mastaba became a symbol of the culture so it was maintained by building a second level and hence was born the step pyramid. It appears that an underground chamber is a common element in most mastabas.

It's mere evolution just like all technology and ideas.
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
Are you thinking of an engineering career? If you are, there are plenty of engineering programs that take trips to different parts of the globe to study famous historical architectural feats. The Pyramids of Giza are at the top of the list.

If you are interested in how things are built so much, I suggest you look into these programs.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
Somehow I missed the existence of the grotto in the Great Pyramid. This area is usually not open to visitation because of the small access to it and is relatively small. This makes it rarely reported apparently.

The pyramid was constructed on a small hill. Most of the site was leveled but some of the center of the hill was not. (It probably had a little step pyramid on it ). It is here directly under the bottom of the grand gallery and a little below the top of the original hill where the grotto lies. This "workmen's escape route" is a tortuous and narrow tunnel with airtight stones which connects to the descending passageway.

This escape path widens right above the grotto (water erosion?). There is a cavern off to the side which is relatively small and contains a stone which can block the opening.

I suspect this was the the original source of the water in the very earliest times. Before anyone ever even thought of piling stones around the upwelling, people would climb back in here when it dried up each year. Only later when they had more need to regulate pressures and flows did they expand this and tunnel further down to the "subterrainian chamber".
 

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Posted by Myra Wysinger (Member # 10126) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by sam p:
Somehow I missed the existence of the grotto in the Great Pyramid. This area is usually not open to visitation because of the small access to it and is relatively small. This makes it rarely reported apparently.

The pyramid was constructed on a small hill. Most of the site was leveled but some of the center of the hill was not. (It probably had a little step pyramid on it ). It is here directly under the bottom of the grand gallery and a little below the top of the original hill where the grotto lies. This "workmen's escape route" is a tortuous and narrow tunnel with airtight stones which connects to the descending passageway.

This escape path widens right above the grotto (water erosion?). There is a cavern off to the side which is relatively small and contains a stone which can block the opening.

I suspect this was the the original source of the water in the very earliest times. Before anyone ever even thought of piling stones around the upwelling, people would climb back in here when it dried up each year. Only later when they had more need to regulate pressures and flows did they expand this and tunnel further down to the "subterrainian chamber".

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What's your take on this?

The Hypothesis: The Grotto



The Grotto is a tiny space located at the upper edge of the foundation rock of the Great Pyramid. Thus the lower part is made of the rock, while the upper part is consisted of small stones. The floor has a deep hole, and a granite block is left on its edge.

The Grotto is also located in the middle of so called the well shaft connecting the floor of the Grand Gallery and the Descending Passage. The well shaft is formed as rectangle by the walls and has an opening at the Grotto.

So far, its objective is not known.

The Hypothesis

It is thought that the stone left on the floor was placed in the well shaft as shown in the figure (hatched by red lines). Also there should be water remaining at the level of the boundary between the small stone wall and the foundation rock, which was as the planned water level.

When the pressure above the stone was higher than that of the lower, then the stone located in the lowest position, plugging the shaft underneath. When water came from above (blue arrow), it was lead to the Grotto, then to the outside of the Great Pyramid through the gaps between the small stones.

On the contrary, when the pressure below the stone was higher than that of the higher, then the stone located in the highest position (red thin lines), allowing air (red arrow) to be supplied from the lower to the upper. There is a projection at the upper left of the opening, which acted as a stopper to keep necessary area for the air to pass.

In this relation, it is thought that 45m of very accurately made portion at the Descending Passage acted as injector of the air with another moving wall.

At the very end of operation of the Pyramid system, the stone was moved from the well shaft to the current position to allow discharging of the entire water of the system to the outside of the Great Pyramid through the Subterranean Chamber. Since then the stone has been there. [Source]


Animations of hypothesis

.
 

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Posted by Supercar (Member # 6477) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by sam p:

Somehow I missed the existence of the grotto in the Great Pyramid. This area is usually not open to visitation because of the small access to it and is relatively small. This makes it rarely reported apparently.

The pyramid was constructed on a small hill. Most of the site was leveled but some of the center of the hill was not. (It probably had a little step pyramid on it ). It is here directly under the bottom of the grand gallery and a little below the top of the original hill where the grotto lies. This "workmen's escape route" is a tortuous and narrow tunnel with airtight stones which connects to the descending passageway.

This escape path widens right above the grotto (water erosion?). There is a cavern off to the side which is relatively small and contains a stone which can block the opening...

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Sometimes words can be better understood, when complimented with images ...


 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 

quote:

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What's your take on this?

The Hypothesis: The Grotto

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quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:

quote:

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Originally posted by sam p:

In man's early days individuals had to be very quick and be able to communicate with rudimentary language skills or he would be trampled by a mastodon.

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A broad and somewhat inaccurate description. Modern man, including his advanced mind developed in Africa where there were no 'mastodons'. On the contrary, modern man (both men and women) surely had to use their brains to survive.

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There were elephants, and still are.
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^^Besides, the point. The point I am trying to make is that human ingenuity has not changed much at all since paleolithic times. Whereas the human mind used complex thought back then to survive, it is merely used today to make life easier.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
The Sphinx is downhill from the great pyramid. If there was water coming from this site it would have carved a channel through the weakest rock lying most directly downhill. The Sphinx is limestone and marl which is mostly considered unusable for quarrying but if the adjacent area were mostly marl it would have been eroded away leaving a massive "island" in the center of the channel. It may have required very little effort to carve this beast.

As evidence note that the causeway to the great pyramid runs directly adjacent to this structure. They would naturally have paralleled the natural gradient in the design of this to minimize the amount of work necessary to its construction. Note, too, that the removal of stone runs in a line from the pyramid. Even the shape of The sphinx conforms to a rock that was naturally eroded along an east/ west line.

If this structure pre-dates the the work that controlled flooding and provided irrigation for the desert then it's likely that there were accidents that resulted in huge amounts of water flowing by. They likely would have shunted any excess water down this channel before the existence of the causeway.
 

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Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
 
^I believe the Sphinx and other megalithic structures, including the pyramids were originally based on natural features like massifs and mesas.

In fact, studies show the rocks or stones were an important aspect of early Afrasian belief.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
I understand there is a movement to deconstruct one pyramid for archeological research. They say the lower chambers are full of water anyway and they've been pumping for a long time but they just keep filling in.

If the water were even higher in ancient times it could have been a nightmare for the builders.
 

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Posted by Myra Wysinger (Member # 10126) on :
 
Research: Pyramid's Building Blocks
Published: December, 2006

A controversial paper may explain the longtime archaeological mystery of how huge bricks were carted to the tops of the Great Pyramids of Giza: Some were cast onsite using a concrete-like substance rather than cut from rock.

How they did it (pdf): The Great Pyramids of Giza; Evidence for Cast Blocks

Graphics and text by materials engineer Michel Barsoum of Drexel University

.
 

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Posted by Robbie (Member # 12588) on :
 
Myra Wysinger Hi,
I have no doubt at all the GP's blocks were poured, at least the close fitting ones it's to obvious, however I can't go along with the Geo-polymer theory. The time factor involved in setting to the strength of concrete would be to great.
The AE's new how to make plaster (Calcined Gypsum) or (Plaster of Paris) by heating Gypsum then adding water to set it off so why not do the same thing with Limestone?
The "trial passages" are a perfect example of a drawn kiln and the "Trenches" are a good example of a Lime Pit kiln.
The fact that the AE's dug trenches into the quarry face or sedimentary layers shows the material was reasonably soft, so why do they look like "rock"today?
Well quarry into the face with passages 2.5 feet wide creating cubes with cross trenches and leaving 3 feet of the ceiling material overhead. (shade)
Fill the passages with wood, coal and or animal manure and using a controlled burn situation by choking down the entrances and exhaust vents over a period of 7 days or so the material would be calcined.
No doubt they would have pulverised the first 12 inches or so then added it to the rest of the cube material to form a concrete blend, the remaining surfaces we see today would have been calcined as well and by absorbing moisture from the atmosphere and surrounding material would have set like rock.
 

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Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
Blocks or mixing concrete, one is as hard to pull
off as the other considering the logistics of the
construction site.

But weren't the sides of some pyramids done in
"rough cast" so as to present a finished smooth
plane instead of gawky stacked block appearance?
 

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Posted by Robbie (Member # 12588) on :
 
alTakruri Hi,
I have done my homework on this one, there is no need to mix the concrete as we do today just deliver the dry mix to moulds formed by smaller blocks adding water as the mould is filled with dry mix.
The material is very absorbent and as long as plenty of water is added to the mixture it will set the block off in 20 minutes.
The reason for very small gaps if any is the AE's would have added Calcined Gypsum to the blend.
Calcined Gypsum has a unique property of expanding while setting thus canceling out the shrinkage in the Clay and Calcined Limestone.

If you want to go to "rough cast" so you can dress it off for up to 7-14 days like the Granite casing on the 2nd pyramid all that is required is to add extra Iron Oxide to the mixture.
Have you noticed the large amount of pink material in this Granite?
With the core blocks every alternate block would be formed then the gaps between them filled in requiring only 2 stop ends per block.
Regards,
Robbie.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
The limestone is very soft.

The pyramids sit on geological structures that look a great deal like what's left after a messy candle burns down. This stone is like stalagmite which is being quickly deposited by water. This would be consistent with them being able to learn how to make concrete by simply observing the conditions which caused more of this material to form. These structures were carved apparently to distribute water to various locations.

http://www.wikimapia.org/#y=29574306&x=31224818&z=17&l=0&m=s

This is the most dramatic of these carvings. It would appear that the mortuary temples were actually waterworks and the valley temples were swimming pools and recreation areas.
 

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Posted by Robbie (Member # 12588) on :
 
sam p,
I use the process of tracking the Ancients by studying the ware marks from the R/Chambers down to the Quarries.

You wrote;
"I've come to this theory only recently and have been investigating it for a few weeks now."

Well to each his own:

Regards,
Robbie.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
Robbie; I'm interested in your point but don't know what "R/Chambers" are. I also don't know to what quarries you are referring or what "ware" marks might be.

Are you implying that you believe I'm wasting my time and if so, why? I'm interested in any facts and most opinion on the subject.


It's interesting that most all the pyramids have the entrance on the north side. While this could have some religious significance it is the south side which would have direct sunlight which could be reflected with copper mirrors for the easiest communication with the ground. This might well imply the lifting was only from the south side as well. This might even leave the passageways as conduits for weights to slow the sleds.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
There's not much new.

I've been working on the piece of pie shaped wooden "proto-pulleys" that have been found littering the desert. These have two grooves around the arc and a vertical hole near the tip. They were probably used to cinch ropes or to apply pressure gradually to the stone as it was pulled.

ttt for supercar.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
There were probably three lifting sleds (counterweights) on the north side of the incomplete Great Pyramid. The center one would have been used to lift six or eight stones up the side while the smaller ones were used for men, supplies, and moving stones up out of the quarry and up to the base of the structure.

There is a small wooden block that has been found all over the desert in the vicinity of the pyramids. Their exact location is of great interest to me but I've not been able to find any information on this. I'm guessing most are on the south sides.

These blocks are shaped like a pie segment (~1/6 of a pie). They are about one foot across and 2" thick. The outer arc has two grooves going long ways and there is a vertical 1" hole near the tip. No one knows what these were used for. They are referred to as "proto-pulleys" because they look very much like a pulley segment.

I'm beginning to suspect that they served a very similar function to the couplings on railroad cars. Each of these couplings has a couple inches of play in them. The engine would have great difficulty trying to accelerate an entire train if it had to pull each car all the way to the caboose. But with this play the cars are pulled from a stop one at a time.

The primary lifting sled was used almost solely for picking stones right up the side of the uncompleted pyramid but the smaller lifting sleds were often pulling stones along level ground or up a gentle slope from the quarry. Pulling them one at a time would have been inefficient so several stones would be lashed together. As the sled filled with water, if the stones moved as a single unit they would suddenly let go as the coefficient of friction was overcome. Since friction is a larger component of the total force required than on the straight lifts this would result in excessive strain on the ropes and, more importantly, a much greater acceleration of the line of stones.

I'm beginning to believe that these "proto-pulleys" were used like the couplings on a train. A complete one would have a peg through the hole in the center about 7" long. The stones were lashed together so that these devices were near the front of the stones on each side. Slings would go over the pegs to connect it to the stone in front. When they began to move these would tilt forward as the tension increased and slowly apply forward forces to each stone in order. All the ones which didn't break would be recovered for reuse at the base of the pyramid. If the peg broke it could be repaired but some would be thrown and lost. Hence no intact coupling/ cinchers are known.
 

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Posted by Ephestion (Member # 12836) on :
 
And on the points made about enlightenment and its significance to building: If God is on your side you can move mounatins. The mountains(Pyramids) came to the Egyptians.

As to how could they physically handle the task? any number of machines could move stones around. The problem is identifying which of all possible machines was used. Archemidean screw to move rocks? COnveyor on rollers? Lifting via Hydraulics?
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ephestion:
And on the points made about enlightenment and its significance to building: If God is on your side you can move mounatins. The mountains(Pyramids) came to the Egyptians.

As to how could they physically handle the task? any number of machines could move stones around. The problem is identifying which of all possible machines was used. Archemidean screw to move rocks? COnveyor on rollers? Lifting via Hydraulics?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
The predecessor of the great pyramid was the step pyramid, and the predecessor of that was the mastaba. Does this help?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
Tell me, what do you agree and disagree with mainstream Egyptology with regards to pyramid construction?

What do you think of Jean Pierre Houdin, the French architect's latest pyramid construction theory

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quote:

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There is a disproportionate interest in "The Great Pyramid"

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Hey People you know they sent a robot into the
Great Pyramid alwhile back it's the same one they sent to Mars


Refenece




From what I heard they found Orisis picture and Statue inside of it




Note: This is not the actual picture inside the pyramid just a sample


I been trying to buy the back issue of the Time Special Report Issue but I can't find online.


Maybe Mya can help us with the details

find those Photos taken inside of Osiris

The only other Reference I have is Ashra Kwesi
he spoke about this
 

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Posted by King_Scorpion (Member # 4818) on :
 
Atlanteans built the pyramids...didn't you guys know?
 

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Posted by Myra Wysinger (Member # 10126) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Masonic Rebel:

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quote:

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Originally posted by Masonic Rebel:

quote:

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There is a disproportionate interest in "The Great Pyramid"

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Hey People you know they sent a robot into the
Great Pyramid alwhile back it's the same one they sent to Mars


Refenece




From what I heard they found Orisis picture and Statue inside of it




Note: This is not the actual picture inside the pyramid just a sample


I been trying to buy the back issue of the Time Special Report Issue but I can't find online.


Maybe Mya can help us with the details

find those Photos taken inside of Osiris

The only other Reference I have is Ashra Kwesi
he spoke about this

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quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
I'm not sure it was Giza, but there was some grotto with "naughty" grafitti depicting a man bent over about to get 'penetrated'.

I don't mean to sound perverted, but I heard such grafitti represented the light-hearted veiws on sex the Egyptian had and was made to tease or mock their contractor or something.

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quote:

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Originally posted by djed:
389b. the two dd-pillars are standing, the broken steps are falling down.
The djed!! said to represented strength, stability and balance, and that it also symbolized the backbone of a god king called Osiris.
My research will demonstrate the djed is a winch or windlass.

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quote:

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Originally posted by sam p:
I'm interested in opinions on the possibility of this being the means that these were actually built.

There seem to be a lot of very expert individuals here so opinions are most welcome.

TTT- - for relevance.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
Are you thinking of an engineering career? If you are, there are plenty of engineering programs that take trips to different parts of the globe to study famous historical architectural feats. The Pyramids of Giza are at the top of the list.

If you are interested in how things are built so much, I suggest you look into these programs.

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quote:

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...and the did have technology remember look at the writing on the walls

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I do tend to agree.

They most probably used some motive force. The question is what that was.

It's interesting that there are many still suggesting spiral ramps despite the fact that of the dozens of lines visible on the great pyramids all of them are horizontal or vertical to the face. I doubt it's possible to use a spiral ramp and not have sloped lines.

So what was this motive force?
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
A couple of writers have discovered a cave network hidden in plain site under Giza. It is reportedly partly caves, partly passages, and partly caves expanded into passages. There is even a spot which appears to branch off in all different directions.

There's little hard evidence of anything so far and Zahi Hawass has denied these are anything new. I'd like to give a lot more detail (there isn't much) but I haven't gotten permission to use the authors' words and simply refuse to plug there book for this reason.

I've long been sure such caves existed under here since they are the "arm and legs" of the Gods; the conduits which brought water high into the air. It seems pretty likely that even the Osiris shaft which contains flowing water at the bottom and erosion in man-made passages high above this was probably carved out of caves and fissures. It's far easier to mine stone along a cave than to simply excavate a tunnel. Hawass has been exploring a cave in the bottom of this shaft for several weeks now and has gotten a camera 150' in before it bogged down in mud.

Hawass has also spent a great deal of time down under Saqqara until a couple months ago. Reports here were even slimmer but there was a report of a "well" inside of it.

The Pyramid Texts are not very full of references to caves but there is one very intruiging reference;

1551a. To say: This thy cavern there is the broad-hall of Osiris N..

Apparently it means that a cave is the passageway for Osiris.

I hope to have a minor breakthrough soon. It would break open a lot of the PT for me but most will find it pretty unbelievable.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
Manetho said the stones were moved up to the pyramid a bowshot (300') at a time. While the evidence insists that the great pyramids were all built with counterweights to lift the stones, it was never clear to me how it was possible to have a counterweight move so far in a single cycle. If ballast had simply been carried up to the unfinished pyramid top then the counterweight travel would increase with the height rather than consistently being 300'.

I believe this 300' travel is still visible in the center of this photo;

http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=29.9805733&lon=31.1365682&z=19&l=0&m=b

This is almost exactly at the point where a sophisticated drainage system emerges from the basalt pad at the east side of G1. This system reused the water that was used as ballast and it fell exactly a bowshot down the cliff while pulling stone up from the Sphinx quarry. (probably to the G1 causeway where it was pulled directly to the eastern ascender).

From Pyramids and Temples of Egypt;

"The N.N.E. trench was traced by excavations along the whole length of 2,840 inches, up to where it is covered by the enclosure wall of the kiosk. It is fairly straight, varying from the mean axis 2.1, on an average of five points fixed along it. The depth varies from 14 to 20 inches below the general surface. It is 38, 40, 39.2, and 36 in width, from the outer end up to a point 740 along it from the basalt pavement; here it contracts roughly and irregularly, and reaches a narrow part 18.2 wide at 644 from the pavement. The sides are built about here, and deeply covered with broken stones. Hence it runs on, till, close to the edge of the basalt pavement, it branches in two, and narrows yet more; one line runs W., and another turning nearly due S., emerges on the pavement edge at 629.8 to 633.4 from the N.E. corner of the pavement, being there only 3.6 wide. From this remarkable forking, it [p. 50] is evident that the trench cannot have been made with any ideas of sighting along it, or of its marking out a direction or azimuth; and, starting as it does, from the basalt pavement (or from any building which stood there), and running with a steady fall to the nearest point of the cliff edge, it seems exactly as if intended for a drain; the more so as there is plainly a good deal of water-weanng at a point where it falls sharply, at its enlargement. The forking of the inner end is not cut in the rock, but in a large block of limestone."

http://www.ronaldbirdsall.com/gizeh/index.htm

The line seen in the picture isn't the exact course of the counterweight because 4750 years of erosion and foot traffic has changed it. The very bottom is likely spot on though. Another similar line just to the east might be for a secondary counterweight or possibly a backup.

If these trenches were enclosed it might be possible to release water down them intermittently so as to pull large amounts of air down it as well. The ridging described by Petrie could serve to impart a spin to the water which would make it act more cohesively and drag more air behind it. There were two inlets at the basalt pavement so one would be for water the other for air. Using this air pump they could suck dust and the workmens' CO2 out of the pyramid.

1162a. To say: My father made for himself his heart, after the other
(heart) was taken from him, since it was opposed thereto,
1162b. as he ascended to heaven,
1162c. and traversed the billows of the Winding Watercourse.

"Billows" also means "waves" in the 19th century parlance used by Mercer but this system might well have been an air/ water hybrid.

This may seem out of context but it's not so bad as is apparent since it appears that the kings internal organs were committed to the winding watercourse which powered and built the great pyramids.

Even the kings innards went to lift the stones which built his ka and provided fresh air to the workmen.

There's another 300' run a couple hundred feet west of these. This is fed by yet another trench with a more complicated design.

This counterweight probably pulled stone up out of the main quarry when the pyramid was very small and the rope could pass over the top nearly unencumbered. It is in these early stages when the most stones can be placed since there is far less lifting to do and a huge work area for large numbers of men putting the stones in place. There were three ascenders on the south side lined up perfectly with the horseshoe shaped quarry. The main ascender was in the center and did most of the lifting to the top and all of the lifting to the top once the []b[]w was achieved (the height of the geyser). The western auxiallary ascender was used primarily to lift men, tools, and supplies but when it wasn't employed at this it was pulling stone from the quarry to the base. The eastern auxiallary ascender pulled stone up from the quarry except in these early stages when it pulled a few light lifts (10 tons) to the pyramid top. The counterweight fed by this new trench for water just to the north of the NE corner pulled stone up from the western side of the horseshoe quarry.

In the early stages of construction the needs were much different. They needed vast amounts of stone and very little lifting since the stone was coming from the tops of the quarries and didn't have far to go up the pyramid. This meant the need to have a large surface area being quarried so more workers and more masons. Once they built to the []b[]w the work would begin slowing as stones had to be lifted multiple times to reach the top and there was less room to work in the quarry and on the pyramid. By the end most of the work was rigging and maintenance.

Trains of stone moving to the pyramid would have consisted of only three stones probably but there would be multiple trains pulled in each cycle 300' apart. They could reset the counterweights every 7 or 8 minutes if they had ample water. So they should be able to keep about six stones every eight minutes to the eastern main ascender and 7 or 8 stones to the southern main ascender which was probably larger. As time went on the eastern ascender would probably have done less work.

There seems to be a little deficiency in their ability to feed the southern ascender in later stages so my understanding can't be complete. It's not impossible that they used the Sphinx quarry counterweights to work on the main quarry. It's just a little different run and they could have pulled them up to the causeway to more fully utilize the eastern lifter. This system would have plenty of work as the pyramid was nearing completion since it would be used to pull fine tura limestone all the way up from the river for the final cladding. This cladding was done from the top down so they would always have a surface from which to work.

Of course one of the last steps would be filling in the areas where the counterweights were filled and the M[].t-wr.t-cow had been. Once it was cladded down to the []b[]w everything got trickier. I suspect that methods would be more apparent if the cladding were still there but then there would be almost no other clues.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
Here's an interview with Andrew Collins and some pictures on uTube about 13 minutes long. I find it most fascinating and with incredible pictures.

He and Skinner have a book recently released called "Beneath the Pyramids".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec8K366fu1E
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
I have a possible explanation for almost all the features of the pyramid but here is some older tangental stuff that ties in loosely with the new concepts.


http://s8int.com/phile/page52.html

Egyptologists are inclined to refer to this as a "ceremonial bowl".

I believe I know what it really is though. Part of the problem is that they have it displayed upside down. It's actually made to float in water with a a little oil on top such as in a small lake or where a water is falling and is being drawn off with a weir leaving behind the oil and this lamp floating on it.

It's a truly remarkable and ingenious design. A wick is saturated with oil and pushed through the center opening and the ends bent up into the cavity and held in position with a band. When it's lighted it sucks up the oil under the cavity and quickly burns out unless it is rocked by turbulent water and then oil gets in to refuel it. This allows the turbulent water to be seen from many miles away and those even at great distances know if it stops.

558a. To say: Bdš.t comes; the fire-pan burns.
558b. Those with (ready) hands stand to give an offering to N.

This was called the fire-pan apparently. Those with ready hands are the pyramid builders who report for work so long as the lamp burns.

It's not symetrical so can be oriented in the water to best effect. The narrow rims are to tie it so it can't sink and break on the bottom.

Here's something else that may or may not be related.

I'm told the roots of the word God in some of the major branches of languages go back to words that mean "opening the mouth", "pouring a libation", or a shining light.

This is pretty interesting to me since the Pyramid Texts would lead one to believe that the Gods were divine when a libation of natron was added to them. This would be an opening of the mouth. If natural phenomena were divine and the fire-pan burned when Osiris stood then certainly the God would be associated with a shining light.

Pouring natron into a cold water geyser's vent would create an eruption. Natron is an alkaline salt of some sort. It's a carbonate of soda and salt. It would be like pouring salt into a two liter bottle of soda.

This fire-pan just might be more important than is realized. It might represent the origin of the word "God".


Utterance 669.

1961a. To say: A prince ascends --- a great burnt-offering on the interior of the horizon;
1961b. he has seen the preparation of the feast, and the preparation of the fire-pan,
1961c. at the birth of the gods, on the five epagomenal days, who are before thee,...

This is when and where the fire pan is used; At the interior of the horizon at the birth of Osiris.

Utterance 690

...2118b. at the (feast of the) month, at the (feast of the) half month, at the (feast of) covering the fire-pan, at the (feast of) Thot, at the wȝg-feast,...

This is not definitional but is the only other use in the PT. Apparently there was a feast at the end of the building season as well. This was
when the fire pan was stored away.

It's also mentioned here;

Utterance 233.

237a. To say: The serpent which came forth from the earth is fallen; the flame which came forth from Nun is fallen.
237b. Fall; glide away.

The serpent is the column of water and Nun is the God of water.

And here;

502a. To say: The phallus of Bȝ-bii is drawn; the double doors of heaven are opened.
502b. The double doors of heaven are locked; the way goes over the flames under that which the gods create,
503a. which allows each Horus to glide through, in which N. will glide through, in this flame under that which the gods create.
503b. They make a way for N., that N. may pass by it. N. is a Horus.

The ways of Horus go over the flames under that which the Gods create!!! The PT say the Gods create the pyramids. The way of Horus goes over the flame of the fire-pan under the pyramid which the Gods of Horus create.

It's all really pretty simple if you can believe what the ancients said and don't try to parse their words too much.

The orthodox explanations for most of these lines is exceeding complicated. Orthodox understanding is that these are incantations which the king needed to attain heaven. They don't read this way though. They read like words for the living. These were easily understood by the average man and were primarily written to remind everyone that the new king could make the sun shine and that they had lost a great king. These aren't spells. These are closer to poems or hymms than spells.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
OK, this is pretty risky since there are likely a few flaws. I've attempted similar things in the past that haven't withstood the evidence well.

One of the difficulties is getting really good schematics of G1. Hard information is very difficult to obtain especially when it's as esoteric as what I need.

It appears that G1 is a five step pyramid. This can be seen in the horizontal lines still visible on the surface. It can also be seen in the placement of the chambers. The water pressure that was harnessed to build this structure (Osiris) took the water to only 85' on the best days.

The first order of business was to construct the M[].t-wr.t-cow which held the "upper eye of Horus" which was the collection device for the water. This was the []b[]w which properly translates to height (specific). In this case 80'.

What's been throwing me is that it never occurred to me that they might be using the upper and lower distribution nodes simultaneously. These were the kings and queens chambers which grew higher in the pyramid as construction proceeded. The queen's chamber was likely much larger at lower levels since it could collect lots of water at night for usage during the day. This was where the fire pan burned during much of the construction.

The floor of the queens chamber is at the []b[]w (80') or almost exactly one sixth the height of the pyramid. Once the pyramid got to this level it became possible to begin lifting the water higher and this was the birth of the grand gallery which held a system of 14 shadufs or similar devices which raised the water higher. It was also the start of the kings chamber which would grow higher right along with the grand gallery. The existing floor of the kings chamber is at almost exactly 2 x []b[]w (160'). This is the bottom of the third step. Water at this higher level was channeled to counterweights that could lift stones all the way to the top of the growing structure. But the queens chamber was still being used to lift stones to the first step of the pyramid.

And herin lies the reason for the air shafts. The shafts in the kings chamber are obviously necessary for inlets for air for the 42 workmen in the "grand gallery" and their relief. But they couldn't always keep up with the water flow and sometimes most of it would flow into the lower chamber. There was maintenance necessary in this lower chamber which was primarily removing sand carried up in the water so the CO2 had to be vented. Hence the airshafts in this chamber. The southern one was likely failed one and superfluous to the needs so was sealed when it was determined.

The southern upper shaft was largely used as a brake in all likelyhood. There was a counterweight rope running right in the middle and it would catch a long log on a pivot which lifted a weight out of the shaft. It get's farther from the centerline as the altitude increases because the braking force was greater.

Of course it was the "billows" of the winding watercourse" that provided the suction which pulled air down these shafts and took it out to the cliff face. There was probably even a small inlet in "hidden place" under the M[].t-wt.t-cow to keep the accumulation of Osiris' efflux from reaching too high a level.

This really isn't much different than any of the other great pyramids except the water was "pumped up" internally. This no doubt was to provide comfort for the pyramid builders who were able to work in air conditioning! One imagines that only the finest athletes worked in the grand gallery since a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. They could probably maintain nearly 5 HP nearly consistently.

After completion of the fifth step the air shafts in the queens chamber were sealed because they were not water tight and water would leak out. The chamber would be still able to hold water at night so sealing it off maximized the amount it would hold.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
The water from the Eye of Horus was used and reused. It shouldn't be surprising if some fraction of it went to the "Great Saw Palace".
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
I'd like to thank Andrew Collins for sporeading information about the existence of these photos from the tomb of the birds.

OK. Almost got this fixed I think. You have to follow this link and then near the top of the page follow the link at #11.

http://www.richardgabriel.info/

...and thanks too to Richard Gabriel.

Mr Collins says that there is a great deal of bat guano in these caves. I don't know if there are any areas where it is several feet deep but this wouldn't be unusual in caves.

You might have to copy and paste the link. There's some sort of incompatablity.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
Here's another update from just yesterday;

http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/news/experts.htm
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
Andrew Collins has another update on the Tomb of the birds;

Cairo: The entrance to Egypt's cave underworld has been sealed shut just two years after its modern day discovery. Access to the tomb leading to these natural caverns, located beneath the famous Pyramids of Giza, is now blocked by a metal gate set in concrete.

The move follows recent work to clear the interior of the tomb known as NC2 or the "Tomb of the Birds", and located in the plateau's north cliff.

This came in the wake of revelations in the press last summer that British explorer and writer Andrew Collins had in March 2008 located a previously unknown opening into a natural cave system long thought to exist at Giza, but never before explored in modern times.

The excavations inside the tomb - coordinated by Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities - uncovered a series of subterranean rooms and galleries thought to have been used in the past as a necropolis for the interment of bird mummies.

Despite these recent discoveries, Dr Hawass has publicly denied that any natural cave system extends from the tomb, stating that what exists beneath the ground are catacombs carved by human hands, something that Mr Collins disagrees with strongly.

"We have dozens of clear photos, along with film footage, that make it clear that extending from the Tomb of the Birds is an extensive series of cave passages that almost certainly reach beneath the main pyramid field," Collins said.

"These caverns are natural, and must not be confused with the subterranean galleries entered by Dr Hawass and his team, which are accessed elsewhere in the same tomb."

Collins backs up his claims by producing radar satellite imagery that shows geological faulting coinciding precisely with the position and orientation of the caves explored so far. This faulting is seen to extend hundreds of meters from the position of the tomb to beneath the plateau's Second Pyramid, the site of the fabled Cave-tomb of Hermes according to ancient Arab sources.

Collins's evidence is supported by the memoirs of British explorer Henry Salt who in 1817 records how he gained access to the same cave system, and explored them for a distance of "several hundred yards" before coming up four spacious chambers, from which went various labyrinthine passages.

With the sealing of the entrance to the tomb, any hope of further exploration in the caves now becomes impossible.

"It is sad that we won't be able to continue our investigations in the caves," Collins admitted. "Now only Dr Hawass's promised report on his clearance of the tomb can throw any further light on the caves, and their possible usage during an age even before the building of the pyramids some 4,500 years ago."

http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/sealed.htm
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
Of much greater interest to me is a brief excerpt from Romer's book in regard to the grotto of the Great Pyramid. Remember I believe this was the natural vent of a cold water geyser and the above ground accretions had to be removed in order to drill the "arms of Nut" which was the geyser opening or Eye of Horus. Ben ben stones were accretions of very similar material upon this conglomerate.

On page 325 he says that in reference to the opening which is the grotto;

"The cave in which he sits was once a naturally formed hollow of limestone that had been filled with hard conglomerate."

http://books.google.com/books?id=ag_blaOMgDUC&pg=PA346&lpg=PA346&dq=%22post+holes%22+egypt+pyramid&source=bl&ots=nwUua6-6oZ&sig=MzOXZxCoa_--pf6Kz5rOjv6v8OU&hl=en&ei=BNrES_iADoaSNrb Aua0O&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CCAQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false

You can get a feel for what the conglomerate might have been and see a ben ben here;

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fly_geyser.jpg
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
I've found that this "hard conglomerate" is acually common in depressions in this part of the desert. It is composed of clays, marly sandstone, and sand that can set up as hard as concrete in some instances. It is most assuredly not similar to calcium carbonates deposited by accretion nor to geyserite.

I've found a lot more information on the grotto though.
 

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Posted by NonProphet (Member # 17745) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by sam p:
I believe that in ancient times there was a massive flow of water during the flooding season from the future site of the great pyramid. This water came from a place about 30 miles SW. The ancients built a step pyramid for the purpose of distributing this water for irrigation. It's probable this structure still stands and its top extends to the bottom of the grand gallery. The queen's chamber is a distribution node to carry this water to various points on the pyramid where its weight was used in counterweights to lift stones up the south side.

The grand gallery was a series of fourteen shadufs to lift water to the upper chamber while the chambers were still under construction. In total these chambers and passageways were used as a pump to get water to the higher levels to complete construction.

I've come to this theory only recently and have been investigating it for a few weeks now.

Does anyone believe this is possible or impossible?

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quote:

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Originally posted by NonProphet:

quote:

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Originally posted by sam p:
I believe that in ancient times there was a massive flow of water during the flooding season from the future site of the great pyramid. This water came from a place about 30 miles SW. The ancients built a step pyramid for the purpose of distributing this water for irrigation. It's probable this structure still stands and its top extends to the bottom of the grand gallery. The queen's chamber is a distribution node to carry this water to various points on the pyramid where its weight was used in counterweights to lift stones up the south side.

The grand gallery was a series of fourteen shadufs to lift water to the upper chamber while the chambers were still under construction. In total these chambers and passageways were used as a pump to get water to the higher levels to complete construction.

I've come to this theory only recently and have been investigating it for a few weeks now.

Does anyone believe this is possible or impossible?

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Check this theory out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6xjcKaTSW8

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quote:

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Originally posted by NonProphet:
The French team found a low density spiral on a 7-10 degree incline to the top. No parallel lines were found? Maybe Sand was used instead to position the Granite beams and Obelisks.

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It's interpreted as a spiral but it is not. I've spent a lot of time with compass and calipers measuring these and virtually every line is parallel to the base. There is a slight tendency for some to spiral but any voids near the surface should exhibit much more than a tendency. Some of these should be quite visible near their lower ends.

There's still grave doubt that any kind of ramp could be sufficient to deliver a stone every minute to the pyramid top. It's very difficult to imagine a stone moving around one these corners only a minute behind the one in front.

Internal ramps is a great idea but it's probably not possible in the real world on a structure so massive.

And the evidence is still quite weak.
 

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Posted by alTakruri (Member # 10195) on :
 
See this website Theories of pyramid ramp systems refuted
and click this image for the rope roll.
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by alTakruri:
See this website Theories of pyramid ramp systems refuted
and click this image for the rope roll.

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quote:

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Originally posted by sam p:

quote:

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Oh Pluueeeeze! Gimme a Break! You've simply succumbed to the hype;

> By the way, what do you think of China's Great Wall, the only man made object to be seen from space, will it still be "there" as well?

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The Great Wall is no more viewable from space than other large projects like the Panama Canal or the Great Pyramid. This statement that it is, has been repeated many times but is simply not true. It also will not last 5,000 years without extensive maintenance. Water and wind are extremely erosive and freezing even moreso to this type of structure. Plants would be growing in it very quickly transporting water where freezing would break it up.

If the casing stone hadn't been removed the pyramids would have lasted 100,000 years without showing more than minimal wear. Barring a significant earthquake it will probably still be standing in 100,000 years.

While there are other pyramids and impressive structures created in the past none are so tall or massive as the great pyramid. It is the top 250' or so that become and impressive feat. If ramps were used it is at this point that the ramps begin turing into enormous projects in their own right. The organization required gets exponentially more difficult. How would they even get 100,000 men on or near the pyramid? There's no room to work.

Certainly all practical problems were solved but the concept of dragging around millions of stones weighing a ton or more each is very difficult to fathom. It is far easier to imagine that stones flew up the side of the structure in sleds and brakes had to be employed to slow them down near the top.

It's apparent there was a great deal of water in this area. There is extensive water erosion at the base of the Sphinx and the causeways apparently contained water. The chamber under the pyramid has severe water erosion. Early historians say that there was water all around the pyramids. They were certainly constructed by water even if not "for" or "with" water.

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quote:

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Originally posted by dana marniche:
I think your theory might have some validity if we look at the possibility of the Great pyramid complex being a lot older than modern Egyptologists say it is.

These people or persons talk about water levels being a lot different than they are now.

What i find interesting is what Dr. Van Sertima said in some lecture that the great pyramid was built to such a degree of exactness in alignment that when it was discovered certain measurements were slightly off they went and examined the cause and found it was the earth itself that had tilted slightly off its axis rather than a mistake with the pyramid construction. [/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by kburns626:
What if the Egyptians used the shape of the pyramid itself and gravity to construct the pyramid? Blocks could be pulled up the pyramid slope by using people as counterbalance on the opposite slope. A rope would connect the bottom of the block, to rollers on the top of the pyramid, and down to a group of people on the opposite slope of the pyramid. Gravity is used to lift the block. It is a simple, elegant solution that does not require advanced engineering.

Look at it from the perspective of the workers. If slaves had to push or pull blocks up slopes all day every day for months, they would run away or pass out. If you told slaves that all they had to do was act as a counterbalance and let gravity do the work, it would be a lot easier to get workers to show up day after day.

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quote:

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Originally posted by userman:
Stanley Crouch

The Afrocentric Hustle

Though their claims have little intellectual substance, advocates of Afrocentrism press their agenda by appealing to resentment and guilt.



Our democracy is founded in tragic optimism, an acceptance of human frailty that is not defeatist. Like the blues singer, our American job is to address the universal limitations of life and the foibles of human character while asserting a lyrical but unsentimental high-mindedness. Like the doctor, our democracy must face the unavoidable varieties of disease, decay, and death, yet maintain
commitment to birth, to health, to the infinite possibilities and freedoms that can result from successful research and experimentation.

It is, therefore, our democratic duty to cast a cold eye on the life of our policies. We have to weed out corruption whenever we encounter it and redeem ourselves from bad or naive policy, either by making fresh experiments or by returning to things that once worked but were set aside for new approaches that promised to do the job better. If we don’t accept these democratic duties, we will continue to allow intellectual con artists and quacks to raise their tents and hang their shingles on our campuses.

The emergence of Afrocentrism has revealed a continuing crisis in the intellectual assessment of race, history, and culture in our nation. It is another example of how quickly we will submit to visions that are at odds with the heroic imperative of uniting our society. Quite obviously, when it comes to skin tone and complaint, we remain ever gullible, willing to sponsor almost any set of conceptions that makes fresh accusations against our society. In that sense, Afrocentrism is also a commentary on the infinite career possibilities of our time. Just as almost anything can be sold as art, almost any idea capable of finding a constituency can make its way onto our campuses and into our discussions of policy.

In the interest of doing penance, we will accept a shaky system of thought if it makes use of the linguistic pressure points that allow us to experience the sadomasochistic rituals we accept in place of the hard study and responsible precision that should be brought to the continuing assessment of new claims and new ideas. Our desperate good will pushes us to pretend that these flagellation rituals have something to do with facing the facts about injustice in our country and in the history of the world. The refusal to accept the tragic fundamentals of human life has led to our bending before a politics of blame in which all evil can be traced to the devil’s address, which is, in some way, the address of the privileged and the successful. We have borrowed from the realm of therapy the idea that our parents are to blame for our problems, and projected it onto the larger society, absolving the so-called oppressed from responsibility for their actions. We don’t understand—as did the geniuses who shaped the Constitution—that we must always be so cynical about new ways of abusing power that we remain ever wary of intellectual and political pollution.

As a movement, Afrocentrism is another of the clever but essentially simple-minded hustles that have come about over the last 25 years, promoted by what was once called “the professional Negro”—a person whose “identity” and “struggle” constituted a commodity. James Baldwin was a master of the genre, as a writer, public speaker, and television guest, but he arrived before his brand of engagement by harangue was institutionalized. Now, as for most specious American ideas claiming to “get the story straight,” the best market for this commodity is our universities, where it sells like pancakes, buttered by the naive indignation of students and sweetened by gushes of pitying or self-pitying syrup.

Though at its core Afrocentrism has little intellectual substance, it has benefited from the overall decline of faith that has caused intellectuals to fumble the heroic demands of our time. The discontinuity of ideals and actions and the long list of atrocities committed in the name of God and country have convinced many Western intellectuals that the only sensible postures are those of the defeatist and the cynic. Like the tenured Marxist, the Afrocentrist will use the contradiction to define the whole; he or she asserts that Western civilization, for all its pretty ideas, is no more than the work of imperialists and racists who seek an invincible order of geopolitical domination, inextricably connected to profit and exploitation of white over black. The ideals of Western democracies that have struggled to push their policies closer to the universal humanism of the Enlightenment are scoffed at. Where the Marxist looks forward to a sentimental paradise of workers uber alles, the Afrocentrist speaks of a paradise lost and the possibility of a paradise regained—if only black people will rediscover the essentials of their African identity.

For all its pretensions to expanding our vision, the Afrocentrist movement is not propelled by a desire to bring about any significant enrichment of our American culture. What Afrocentrists almost always want is power—the power to be the final arbiter of historical truth, no matter how flimsy their case might be. Like most conspiracy theorists, Afrocentrists accept only their own sources of argument and “proof”; all else is defined as either willfully flawed or brought to debate solely to maintain a vision of history and ideas in which Europe is preeminent. Thus, the worst insult is that critics are “Eurocentric.” Further, when charged with shoddy scholarship, the Afrocentrist retorts that his purportedly revolutionary work uses means of research and assessment outside “European methodology.” However superficial that defense might seem, an important tradition in our country’s history makes it seem at least plausible at first glance. Americans have, from the sciences to the arts, as often as not had to invent the forms that allowed for the purest expressions of our political imagination, national sensibility, and multiethnic history. The Gettysburg
Address, the Second Inaugural of March 1865, the electric fight, the phonograph, the motion picture camera, the grammar of film, and the improvisational riches of jazz are the creations of homegrown geniuses such as Lincoln, Edison, Griffith, and Armstrong, who made it abundantly clear that the academy isn’t the only path to grand accomplishment.

Jazz is one of the most important examples of this. It is a perfectly democratic music that reached its peaks outside of “European methodology. “ It has both intuitive geniuses like Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday and unarguable intellectuals like Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. Both were rejected by the academy once upon a twentieth-century time. Those with a simple explanation attribute it all to race, which can by no means be left out of the discussion. But we must remember that white jazz musicians were not embraced either, no matter how popular, and that most major aesthetic movements of this century were controversial worldwide. In short, the academic and critical resistance met by jazz musicians was also met by Picasso, Joyce, and Stravinsky.

Jazz musicians weren’t initially accepted in academic circles because, though they could hear harmonic structures perfectly, the intuitives didn’t use theoretical terminology. The intellectuals could, but it took both to make jazz. The intuitives and the intellectuals had one thing in common, however—the ability to achieve objective aesthetic logic. That is why the music grew with such speed and drew depth and breadth from every kind of talent.

So when Afrocentrists defend low-quality work with assertions about the limitations of “European methodology,” they arc drawing upon the American tradition of achievements in political thought, technology, cinema, and jazz that were developed outside the academy to defend themselves. They ignore, however, the objective quality of those achievements. As Gerald Early points out, Afrocentrists have bootlegged the deconstructionist idea that there is no such thing as objective value; a thing’s “value” is merely the reflection of a cultural consensus.

Afrocentrists also reject education as “Eurocentric indoctrination.” They maintain that Western history as written is an unrelenting cultural war that aims to justify and maintain the subjugation of African peoples, and, when literal subjugation is not the goal, to impose upon them a self-hating idolatry of all that is European or European-derived. Afrocentrism, then, presents itself as ethnic liberation, a circling of the wagons within the academy, a bringing down of Eurocentric authority by black intellectual rebellion.

At the same time, Afrocentrists—like those who promote other protest versions of study—want the respect given to traditional disciplines without having to measure up to the standards of traditional research. Though ever scoffing at the academy, they want the prestige and the benefits that come of being there. Thus, Afrocentrism is the career path of a purported radical who seeks tenure. Its proponents justify this on the grounds that the campaign is at least partially one of evangelizing black people about their African heritage. What better battlegrounds than the campuses of tenuring institutions?

A central tenet of Afrocentrism is that Egypt was black and that Greco-Roman civilization was the result of its influence. The foundation of Western civilization, therefore, is African. This is a relatively sophisticated version of Elijah Muhammad’s Yacub myth in which the white man is invented by a mad black scientist determined to destroy the world through an innately evil creature. Why this obsession with Egypt being African and black? Firstly, monuments. There is no significant African architecture capable of rivaling the grand wonders of the world, European or not. Secondly, Africa has no body of thought comparable to that upon which Western civilization has developed its morality, governmental structures, technology, economic systems, and its literary, dramatic, plastic, and musical arts. None of these facts bespeaks an innate black inferiority, but they were used to justify the barbaric treatment of subject peoples by colonial powers waging ruthless campaigns for chattel labor and natural resources.

In fact, the Afrocentrist argument is not with the Western tradition of inquiry, not with the democratic belief that greatness can arise from any point on the social spectrum, and not with the ideas of the Enlightenment that led to the abolition of slavery. Afrocentrism is a debate with the colonial vision of non-Europeans as inferior that has long been under attack from within Western democracies themselves. The Afrocentrist arguments, which are rooted in nationalism, pluralism, and cultural relativity, have their origins in the Western tradition of critical discourse. Afrocentrism is absolutely Western, despite the name changes and African costumes of its advocates.

Afrocentrism benefits from the obsession with “authenticity” of this mongrel nation of ours. More than a few of us yearn for an aristocratic pedigree. If family won’t do, then we might snatch the unwieldy crown of race to distinguish ourselves. This has been the appeal of both the Ku Klux Man and the Nation of Islam. Membership allows one to rise from the bottom and suddenly become part of an elite. Poor “white trash” become “real” white men when performing violent acts in defense of “white civilization.” Negro criminals, embracing a distorted version of Islam, come to understand that the white man is “the devil” and that the black race is the original parent of humankind. College students swallow Afrocentrism and conclude that all their problems are the result of not possessing an “African-centered” worldview.

These are also responses to humiliation. That humiliation is the source of the hysteria that gives such a terrible aspect to the desire to be done with all niceties, to utterly destroy the structure that has engendered the feeling of inferiority or of helplessly being had from the first encounter up to the present. Such response is an expression of having taken the insults of the opposition too seriously, a retreat from engagement, a dismissal of complexity in favor of the home team, a racial isolationist policy.

To justify the myopic vision that emerges requires a list of atrocities—real, exaggerated, and invented. The great tragedies of the white South were the loss of the Civil War and the humiliations of Reconstruction; for the black nationalist, the great tragedies were slavery, the colonial exploitation of Africa, and the European denial of the moral superiority of African culture and civilization, beginning with Egypt.

Our list of grievances may be specific to our particular ethnic or regional history, but the ideas that lie beneath our response evolved from the conflicts between the French and the Germans following the Thirty Years War. When Frederick the Great invited the French into Germany in the eighteenth century, French culture was the most admired in Europe, while Germany had contributed very little to the Renaissance. In today’s terminology, Germany was “underdeveloped.” Eventually, a whole school of rebellious German thought came into being, attacking the French worship of reason and the idea that there was one cultural standard by which all good, mediocrity, and baseness could be judged. When Isaiah Berlin describes outraged German thinking in The Crooked Timber of Humanity, he could be speaking as easily of Afrocentrism and the cultural relativism that has been absorbed by Western society in general from the discipline of anthropology:

The sages of Paris reduce both knowledge and life to systems of contrived rules, the pursuit of external goods, for which men prostitute themselves, and sell their inner freedom, their authenticity; men, Germans, should seek to be themselves, instead of imitating—aping—strangers who have no connection with their own real natures and memories and ways of life. A man’s powers of creation can only be exercised fully on his own native heath, living among men who are akin to him, physically and spiritually, those who speak his language, amongst whom he feels at home, with whom he feels that he belongs. Only so can true cultures be generated, each unique, each making its own peculiar contribution to human civilization, each pursuing its own values its own way, not to be submerged in some general cosmopolitan ocean which robs all native cultures of their particular substance and colour, of their national spirit and genius, which can only flourish on its own soil, from its own roots, stretching back into a common past.

Afrocentrism’s success is due to the fact that it reiterates those arguments, which have become central to the Western cultural debate. But we fail ourselves if we give in to the idea that because all human communities have equal access to greatness all cultures are equal. They are not, and the ignorance, squalor, and disease of the Third World make that quite obvious, just as the rise of the Third Reich and the recent slide into overt tribalism in Eastern Europe prove that no ideas or traditions make us forever invincible to the barbarian call of the wild. Yet if there were not something intrinsically superior about the way in which the West has gathered and ordered knowledge, other cultures wouldn’t so easily fall under the sway of what André Malraux called “The Temptation of the West.” The West has put together the largest and richest repository of human culture, primarily because the vision of universal humanism and the tradition of scientific inquiry have led to the most impressive investigations into human life and the natural world. It is Western curiosity and the conscience of democracy that have made so many inroads against barbarism within and without.

This is obvious to Afrocentrists, but it is not in their career interests to look with equal critical vision at the West and the rest of the world; it would make things less reducible to soap opera politics, to the maudlin elevation of simplistic good and evil. Then the real question of bringing together one’s ethnic heritage with one’s human heritage would need to be addressed. It wouldn’t be so easy to manipulate the emotions of administrators and insecure students. Embracing a circumscribed ethnic identity wouldn’t be seen as a form of therapy, a born-again experience enabling one to cease being an American shackled by feelings of inferiority and to become a confident, wise African.

The Afrocentrist goal is quite similar to that of the white South in the wake of Reconstruction. Having lost the shooting war, white racists won the policy war, establishing a segregated society in which racial interests took precedence over the national vision of democratic rights. The result was nearly a century of struggle before the Constitution—through blood, thunder, and jurisprudence—took its rightful place as the law of the land, with no states’ rights arguments accepted. Knowingly or not, the Afrocentrist responds to the fact that black nationalists and their “revolutionary” counterparts lost the struggle for the black community in the Sixties. In the wake of submission at a latter-day Appomattox—the dissolution of black nationalism and groups like the Black Panthers—the Afrocentrist wishes to replicate the success of white segregationists. Like the segregationist, the Afrocentrist wants to benefit from the power and prosperity of the country while holding at arm’s length anything incompatible with a vision of race as a social absolute. The Afrocentrist is waging a policy war through a curriculum that preaches perpetual alienation of black and white, no matter how far removed from the truth it may be. By attempting to win the souls of black college students and to fundamentally influence what is taught to black children in public schools, the Afrocentrist seeks a large enough constituency to bring about what white segregationists once promised—a society that is “separate but equal.”

Yet the central failure of Afrocentrism is that it doesn’t recognize what Afro-Americans have done, which is to realize over and over, and often against imposing obstacles, the possibilities inherent in democratic society. Lincoln recognized this when he told his secretary that, given his point of social origin, Frederick Douglass was probably the most meritorious man in the entire United States. Originating in tribes whose levels of sophistication were laughable compared to the best of Europe, black Americans have risen to the top of every profession in our society—as scientists, educators, aviators, politicians, artists, lawyers, judges, athletes, military leaders, and so on.

This achievement was hard-won. At its root was a cultural phenomenon. Instead of expressing their submission to white people by embracing Christianity, as black nationalists always claim, Afro-Americans recognized the extraordinary insights into human frailty that run throughout the Old Testament, and the fact that the New Testament contains perhaps the greatest blues line of all time—”Father, why hast thou forsaken me?” In essence, the harsh insights of the Bible were perfectly compatible with the cold-eyed affirmation of the blues, and from those spiritual and secular foundations an indelibly American sensibility evolved, one perfectly suited to the demands of this society. The result is an incredibly long line of achievements that predate the narrow black nationalism that would segregate the world and its culture into the Eurocentric or Afrocentric, and which are the very best arguments against all forms of prejudice.

We all deny that tradition of hard-won achievement whenever our conciliatory cowardice gets the best of us and we treat black people like spoiled children who shouldn’t be asked to meet the standards that the best of all Americans have met. When the records need to be set straight, set them straight. When there is new information that will enrich our understanding of human grandeur and human folly, make that information part of the ongoing dialogue that has shaped Western civilization’s conscience and will. But we can never forget that our fate as Americans is, finally, collective, and that we fail our mission as a democratic nation whenever we remake the rules or distort the truth in the interest of satisfying a constituency unwilling to assert the tragic optimism so intrinsic to the blues and to the Constitution.

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Originally posted by userman:

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Originally posted by userman:
Stanley Crouch

The Afrocentric Hustle

Where the Marxist looks forward to a sentimental paradise of workers uber alles, the Afrocentrist speaks of a paradise lost and the possibility of a paradise regained—if only black people will rediscover the essentials of their African identity.

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Originally posted by sam p:
^ I believe your post is relevant to this thread.

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Originally posted by userman:

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Originally posted by userman:
Stanley Crouch

The Afrocentric Hustle

Where the Marxist looks forward to a sentimental paradise of workers uber alles, the Afrocentrist speaks of a paradise lost and the possibility of a paradise regained—if only black people will rediscover the essentials of their African identity.

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The author makes numerous insightful comments but unsurprisingly I see all this as neither black/ white, Greek/ African, or even in the same terms the author does. I believe the issue is more one of words and the nature of modern language than any single thing. To a huge extent language has come to be used to shape thought or influence ideas than to communicate but this is the nature of all modern languages. People used to shape thoughts based on communications but now the communication shapes the thought. Many of the ideas in the words weren't even intended by the author but are still accepted or rejected by the reader based on his experience and beliefs.

It's not black people who need to rediscover their heritage but all people and that heritage is black. It's not black because it's what afrocentrists want it to be but because in the real world most of the philosophy of the Greeks came from the Egyptians and western civilization is founded on Greek thought. The Greeks adopted and borrowed ideas from all cultures and borrowed more from Egypt than elsewhere simply because Egyptian philosophy was far more advanced than anywhere else. They incorporated what was essentially Egyptian; the Egypt that built up from 3000 years of trade and progress (interrupted) and they made it Greek. They didn't know the basis for the ideas they were adopting because even the Egyptians had forgotten that since the old writing was no longer translatable.

Language went through a painful reorganization which is only dimly remembered as the story of the Tower of Babel. Words came to take their meaning from context and nature was removed from grammar. Complex ideas became easy to render in few words but understanding was greatly diminished.

It might not be possible or advisable to go back to the old way of communication but it is critical we come to understand the massive superstition that has infected us all. Superstition is deadly to individuals and entire cultures and the modern world is likely becoming more fragile to its influence.

We have a choice of all men getting back to paradise or nobody getting back. We must cast off all forms of superstition or at the very least, try. "Faith" isn't necessarily a problem but believing in things that aren't consistent with nature or the nature of man is. Believing that we know everything is the most serious threat and the most widespread superstition. Some worship at the altar of science and some at the altar of the Creator but all men must come to realize that even in aggregate we know virtually nothing at all.

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Bar none one of the best post I have read on these boards!
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
The first book suggesting CO2 geysers were used to construct pyramids is in print. I have no financial interest of any sort in the book.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/276831
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
There may be confirmation that there actually were geysers used to build the great pyramids.

This shot is from Robert Temple's site and shows an accretion in the valley temple area;



http://www.egyptiandawn.info/chapter7.html

This appears to be caused by water seeping through the ground and coming up in this area since it's so much lower. I believe it is the smoking gun I've been looking for all these years.
 

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Posted by Amun-Ra The Ultimate (Member # 20039) on :
 
Here's what Herodotus says about it in his Histories:

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The pyramid was built in steps, battlement-wise, as it is called, or, according to others, altar-wise. After laying the stones for the base, they raised the remaining stones to their places by means of machines formed of short wooden planks. The first machine raised them from the ground to the top of the first step. On this there was another machine, which received the stone upon its arrival, and conveyed it to the second step, whence a third machine advanced it still higher. Either they had as many machines as there were steps in the pyramid, or possibly they had but a single machine, which, being easily moved, was transferred from tier to tier as the stone rose- both accounts are given, and therefore I mention both. The upper portion of the pyramid was finished first, then the middle, and finally the part which was lowest and nearest the ground.

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http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/herodotus-history.txt


Maybe machines formed of short wooden planks such as these (or maybe some other kind):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPnkr4EmLtQ
 

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Posted by sam p (Member # 11774) on :
 
^ I believe Herodotus' account is exacvtly and literally true and is the only well evidenced means that the pyramids were built. Indeed, I believe it is the only means of building that actually makes sense. One could find fault with him for the way he describes the counterweight; "machines formed of short wooden planks.", but this is probably just the way it was described to him. It probably was described this way because once the function of the counterweight was described to people the first question would be how was it built and the answer was short wooden planks that composed a boat and tarred on the inside. This boat is described as "being like the dorsal carapace of a grasshopper".



All the great pyramids appear to be five steps as revealed by visible lines and the gravimetric scan of G1;

http://hdbui.blogspot.com/

These are the "battlements" or "steps" referred to by Herododtus. Logically if they lifted the stones this way then they'd have to start finishing operations at the top or they'd have nowhere to work. They simply lifted all the stones one step at a time all the way to the top.

The answer was right in front of our eyes the whole time but no one could believe the builders were so capable or weren't superstitious. They were believed to be backward and doing things the mpost brutish way so it was said "they mustta used ramps". Essentially geysers appear only when you make the assumption that the builders must have been intelligent and highly capable. When you solve the Pyramid Texts for referents then you see the geysers.

I was hoping to wait on this post until something new was up but all's quiet on the western front. There is an interesting news item out today that they have a sewage geyser in the boat museum threatening the so called solar boat. I have no idea what's really going on but I don't believe in sewage geysers. Their sewage should all be gravity operated here.
 

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