A trend away from Pyramids? I don't think I buy that one. The last pyramid was built by Ahmose I, the founder of the 18th Dynasty (and thus by extension, the New Kingdom.) After that, the break was sudden. No kings built pyramids anymore but instead began carving tombs into the Valley of the Kings. That means that the pyramid phase lasted through the Old Kingdom, the First Intermediate Period, the Middle Kingdom, the Second Intermediate Period and finally to the first Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty before being put on the scrap heap. That's a long time.

Again, we are both proceeding from the assumption that the Egyptologists have it right and I'm not so sure about that idea but for the sake of argument I'll continue. With that background I can agree with your timeline from Djoser to Khufu but there are still anomalies. One, why did Sneferu build 3 pyramids can be explained by accepting the view that Meidum was actually built by the last king of the 3d dynasty, Huni. There is some speculation about that. The second, more problematical anomaly is, why did they finish the Bent Pyramid? Was this some sort of PH. D. course for engineers? Still going by the "tombs and tombs only" concept why would Sneferu continue work on a project when he clearly had decided to move on and build the Red Pyramid? What's the point? He could only be buried once.

We can agree to disagree about the technical improvements that are evident between the Red Pyramid and the Great Pyramid. We still haven't talked about ramps though. But it's the divide between the 4th Dynasty and the 5th that disturbs me. Yes, I can agree that if there were economic hardships a pharaoh might be persuaded to build a smaller pyramid. But why toss out all the allegedly accumulated knowledge of HOW to build them and build something that is both smaller and shittier?

The one point where I categorically disagree with you is the idea that the religious aspects were declining. It is in the 5th Dynasty pyramid of Unas that we begin to see the Pyramid Texts carved into the burial chambers. The practice continues into the 6th Dynasty which suggests to me that the religious aspect was growing after the 4th Dynasty. It is well attested that the internal passages of the Great Pyramid have all the decorative flourishes of a New York subway tunnel. I recall dear old Zahi Hawass who defends the lack of ornamentation as a "stylistic choice" standing beside the grave of a foreman at Giza who he asserted was responsible for building the pyramid. Right on the tomb was a laudatory inscription about what a great guy the overseer had been. So, a guy who oversaw the workers gets a commemorative inscription and the Pharaoh who commissioned it gets oogatz? Sorry. That makes no sense.

For the record, Old Kingdom Egypt continued along through the 6th Dynasty with no obvious internal or external issues until the 22d century BC when a stunning drought throughout the whole region seemingly brought them down (along with Sumeria) a fact which annoys the piss out of fundies because they love to try to shoehorn their damned 'flood' in there but it was an absence of water which did in the Early Bronze Age cultures. Nonetheless, the Egyptians picked up the pieces during the First Intermediate period and started right back in building pyramids when the Middle Kingdom got going. This suggests that the problems of the First Intermediate Period were political rather than cultural, as opposed to the Second Intermediate Period when Egypt was overrun by the foreign "Hyksos" dynasty.

There is also the Inventory Stele but I'll skip that for now. In fact, I'll break off so this does not get too unwieldy.

The 3 pyramids under Sneferu might be explained by the proposition that Meidun was begun first, and the design change from a step to a smooth pyramid by the expedient of filling in the steps resulted in the failure of new casing. So Meidun was abandoned. A replacement was then begun as a steep sided true pyramid without the weaknesses exposed in Meidun. But when the construction of the replacement reached the point of the later bend the pyramid suffered internal subsidance. By this time Sneferu's reign must have already lasted a long time and it would be uncertain whether he would live long enough for yet another replacement pyramid to be built. So a parallel program was instituted where the existing pyamid was completed to an abbriviated design with reduced top weight so that it would be ready to receive the pharoh should he die prematurely. An entirely new pyramid was also started so the pharoh would have an unblemished pyramid available should he live long enough. I think this is at least a workable hypothesis. This hypothesis doesn't require that Maidun be started under Sneferu. It having been started under Huni, or even collapsed under Huni, makes no difference.

A trend away from the pyramid is seen in the reduced effort being put into pyramids, not in a stop to pyramid construction all together. They might have tossed out the style of highly refined pyramid building found on Giza simply because they no longer have the same faith in the utility of truly monumental pyramids for serving whatever purpose previous pharohs might have deemed them to be indispensible to serving. But tradition, even not as respected as it once was, can linger in diluted form for a long time.

As to the ramps, I see not monumental difficulty. So what about the ramp? I suspect the really large pyramid were built in such a way that originally there was an integral ramp that spirals up the sides of the pyramid. The corner of the pyramid might have been rounded a little to allow the material on the ramp to round each corner. As the pyramid neared completion, the corners were squared, the dressed stone for the casing laid, and finally the support for the ramp beveled off, from top down. This way the ramp requires very little additional material that doesn't eventually get incorporated into the pyramid. The general efficiency is thus not compromised by the need to provide additional material for a massive ramp that must later be disposed of.

For me, the engineering aspects of the pyramid, while impressive, is not demanding of extraordinary assumptions. I see no difficulties with pyramid that a copper age civilization blessed with good agricultural conditions and food surpluses could not ovecome. The only thing that appear to stand out about the great pyramid stand out is why such a civilization would choose to focus so much of its disposible effort on one monumental project of no comprehensible operational utility to the modern eye. But looking further afield, one sees a lot of ancient civilization must have invested a comparable amount of its disposible labor on similar monumental projects of no operational utility to the modern eye. Look for example at the Monk's mount in Kahokia, or the Pyramid of the sun and moon in Teotahucan. Even more extreme, look at the great wall of China, considering how long the thing is and how difficult the terrain it went through, the GW must have presented a logistic and organizational challenge even greater than the pyramid, yet no one said that was built by aliens.

Take a look at this video of Egyptologist Bob Brier discussing the various ramps. Give it a few minutes to get to the point.

(January 28, 2011 at 3:47 am)Tracyt90 Wrote: I'm not to sure which section of the site this should be in, hopefully I'm in the right place though.

Ancient Astronaut Theory is something that I have been learning more and more about for the past 6 years, and thanks to more convenient access to the internet and some recent breakthroughs in liberal television ( Ancient Aliens on History Channel) I have began to vastly expand my knowledge. And I would like to expand my knowledge more on the subject, so I would like to start a thread for peoples opinions, or questions on the subject from both sides.

The public interest in stuff like this is proof that the decline of Christianity does not led to rationalism and skepticism. However it leads to a lot of people in believing all kinds of other non-sense.

Yet all this rediculous nonsense merely adds a lot of disjointed junk to the public discourse, and as such is still infinitely preferable to the organized, purposed and coercive christian garbage.

(February 5, 2011 at 11:35 am)Chuck Wrote: Yet all this rediculous nonsense merely adds a lot of disjointed junk to the public discourse, and as such is still infinitely preferable to the organized, purposed and coercive christian garbage.

i doubt i can agree more

No one ever killed another person because their healing crystals were disrupting his crystal ball's aura

(February 5, 2011 at 7:50 pm)Rwandrall Wrote: No one ever killed another person because their healing crystals were disrupting his crystal ball's aura

Give it time.

One day someone will.

(February 5, 2011 at 12:18 am)Minimalist Wrote: Take a look at this video of Egyptologist Bob Brier discussing the various ramps. Give it a few minutes to get to the point.

Watched the whole series of the above...interesting theories....nothing proven as yet but certainly didn't involve ETs just some very clever humans.

Quote:A trend away from the pyramid is seen in the reduced effort being put into pyramids, not in a stop to pyramid construction all together. They might have tossed out the style of highly refined pyramid building found on Giza simply because they no longer have the same faith in the utility of truly monumental pyramids for serving whatever purpose previous pharohs might have deemed them to be indispensible to serving. But tradition, even not as respected as it once was, can linger in diluted form for a long time.

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you, Chuck. Busy weekend.

Anyway, let's assume for the moment that what the Egyptologists say is correct. These pyramids were the egotistical expression of reverence for the pharaoh and meant to be his tomb for eternity. We already see, in the Pyramid of Menkaure, a smaller version of a pyramid. It's about half the size of the two large Giza Pyramids but every bit as technically proficient in execution. The last two rulers of the 4th Dynasty ( Shepseskaf and Khentykawes) built mastabas not pyramids. Then comes Userkapf founding the 5th Dynasty and we are back to pyramids and by the end of the 5th Dynasty we see the growth of the cult in the form of the pyramid texts being written on the walls and ceilings. Put yourself in Userkapf's position. He's the KING. He's got legions of priests telling him that he's a god. Perhaps they lacked the resources to build a pyramid as big as the earlier ones but why would they build a pile of junk? Could the knowledge have dissipated that quickly? The presumption is that there were masters teaching apprentices and in such a way maintaining the knowledge of the craft. It could have been written down but we have no example of such a document but it was a literate society so it is not impossible. I don't see the "trend away" from pyramids. They became more closely identified with the cult of the pharaoh in the 5th ad 6th dynasty and cultures usually waste lots of time and treasure on 'holy buildings' that could be better spent on other tasks. The apparent rise in the religiosity of the pyramids is in contrast to the poor quality of the buildings themselves and that is a mystery.

Quote:For me, the engineering aspects of the pyramid, while impressive, is not demanding of extraordinary assumptions. I see no difficulties with pyramid that a copper age civilization blessed with good agricultural conditions and food surpluses could not ovecome.

I agree completely...especially since we have the marks of copper chisels on the stones themselves. The only problem I have is the time constraint. There is no way in hell that the GP and the Khafre pyramids could have been constructed in 20 years unless they had a fleet of helicopters ferrying the stones in. As Brier says, there are significant impediments to every ramp idea, even though he was pushing for an internal ramp which has some pretty serious problems, too.

We don't need aliens to explain the GP. We just need a lot more time to do the job.

(February 7, 2011 at 12:33 am)KichigaiNeko Wrote:

(February 5, 2011 at 12:18 am)Minimalist Wrote: Take a look at this video of Egyptologist Bob Brier discussing the various ramps. Give it a few minutes to get to the point.

Watched the whole series of the above...interesting theories....nothing proven as yet but certainly didn't involve ETs just some very clever humans.

The most damning criticism of the theory is that the Khafre Pyramid, right next door, shows none of the outer signs that are claimed for the the GP. Both are astounding pieces of construction and similar, if not identical, methods must have been used in their construction. Yet, Khafre has no internal chambers.

Also, think about the Egyptian sun. They are proposing a cramped, stone, oven for crews to pull these sleds with 2.5 ton stones. When Brier climbed up to the supposed "notch" which was theorized to be a turning point to get the stones around the corners, he found no evidence indicating it had ever been suitable for that purpose.