Did the ancients know more than we do?

[Duchess]

Here, honey, do your I Ching. Take five minutes to yourself:

The master knows me.

The master said: "Danger and opportunity grow on one stalk." They are inseparable from the perspective of growth. Do not be frightened of how life cultivates your strength of purpose.

[Cracker]

The I Ching does know...

Taoism has some beautiful and powerful concepts. I respect that philosophy. Go with the flow. Don't bitch about what you don't have because emptiness is the begin-state of fullness. Trust that good things will happen and they will. All good ideas.

[cladking]

Puma Punku amazes me as much as anything the ancients did. How the hell did they do that? They say the edges on the stones are so sharp they will cut you.

I confess that I've skipped right over dozens of threads about Puma Punku because it doesn't much interest me and I had to check wiki just to get an overview. I have seen pictures of the closely fitted stones though.

It's a matter of what we have time for and what we are willing to make time for. Until I saw a picture of G1 with a bus at the bottom to provide scal I had no interest in the pyramids. But that picture showed me that it was simply too big to have been made with brute force. I made time to try to figure out how it was actually done.

We all should pay more attention to things. I've been surprised how much some of my friends already knew about pyramids. My excuse is that I never really was interested in history because it was always told from the perspective of leaders and it's the common folk who make history and leaders. History is about trade. It's about demand and not dates.

I'm still working on the write-up. I got distracted by doing the math which I'll probably delete anyway once I find the error in it.

I'll give everyone a clue; the Palermo Stone named the years after the amount of water they had with which to build.

[Cracker]

You are probably an engineer and know all about this stuff, but it still sometimes helps to let somebody else run your numbers:

Hydraulic Calculators http://onlinecalc.sdsu.edu/

[Lady Cop]

you math types may like this article, or find it amusing.--->

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...e-tau.html

[cladking]

The []nw-boat is specifically the counterweight where Osiris the geyser turns into Seker the ballast. Isis oversaw the northern counterweight on all the great pyramids while some also had a western counterweight belonging to Serket and her corresponmding Goddess on the ascender on the east side; Neith. So the one marked grave in the workmen's cemetery oversaw the loading of the eastern ascender on G1. This would have been a relatively minor job which would explain why he's in the workers cemetery rather than the nobles'.

While the “[]nw-boat” referred to the counterweight in the pyramid building age it came to be something slightly different as time passed. It became not only an object of veneration paraded about at ceremonies but it became a composite of all the pyramid boats; it took on aspects of both the counterweight and the ascender. You can see these changes all through the culture and why they have been misunderstood. Just as the D[].t which meant live Gods below and standing above the plateau came to mean dead gods under the ground the []nw-boat became the “henu boat”. Here you can see the henu boat with all the characteristics of the counterweight and ascender as well as a few you probably wouldn’t think of;

http://carrington-arts.com/seshat.html

It’s the second picture down.

Notice it even has a stone in it overseen by Horus. The animal in front is a bull since the contrapion is known as the “bull of heaven”. Opposite it is an oryx which can smell rain from a hundred miles away and go weeks without drinking water. It’s just the Egyptian way of saying “we don’t need no stinkin’ water”. It sits on runners because it is not intended to float on water but to go up and down the pyramid side. The djeds under it are what allow it to operate. The swallows in front represent stones since the stones are said to fly like the fledglings of swallows. I believe the elaborate fan shaped thing in front is their attempt to represent the side of the pyramid. Notice also the structural of the boat appears to be on the outside just as any boat made to contain water would have to be.

[cladking]

There's extensive reason to believe that the inundation mentioned in the Pyramid Texts is not the annual Nile flood. Most of these reasons are quite obvious since they refer to this inundation as cool effervescent water that tosses on the Giza Plateau. The Nile flood would never have been so high. They also hardly make mention of the Nile River at all implying that this work isn't about the Nile. Only one time they mention the flood in the valley and then they call it "high Nile".

One thing that gets no attention is the way the early dynastic Egyptians named their years as revealed by the Palermo Stone. Each year was named after a unit of lenght from 1" to 12'. These could not be Nile floods because the Nile floods were far deeper than this;

" A footnote in Beloes' translation of Herodotus [11] mentions that during the Roman occupation Trajan struck a medal which attests to a height of 16 cubits (8 metres), under Julian a height of 15 cubits (7½ metres) was recorded, and in modern times (before the damming of the Nile of course) a height of eight metres was considered to be plentiful. He also gives 24 cubits (12 metres) as the highest recorded rise of the Nile. The lowest Nile on record is dated by Martineau [13] to the year 966 CE and amounted to six and a half metres. Budge wrote in 1885 that a rise of 25 to 26½ feet (about 8 to 9 metres) was enough to water the whole country in modern times [12].
Taharka recorded an inundation of the unprecedented height of 21 cubits, 1 handbreadth, 2½ fingers at the quai of Thebes,[18] after he had implored Amen-Re for a flood...to prevent drought in his time, and which may have caused quite a bit of havoc, though that is not recorded on his stela. The following harvest appears to have been especially bountiful: "

http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/geography/nile.htm

This leaves the PT which merely states that the "king's year is calculated for him" and this from an utterance (577) which apparently takes place at Giza.

[cladking]

There is a 37 acre enclosure Djoser’s Pyramid and it is surrounded by a “moat”. Part of the area inside this enclosure is called the courtyard today and has a type of sand which is not indigenous to the area. I believe it was the depth of water in this enclosure, the output of the geyser, by which the years were named prior to the 4^th dynasty. This wasn’t a simple measurement because water was being drawn off for other uses;

1524b. His year is calculated for him; his hour knows him.
1524c. N. is known by his year which is with him;

The water flowed starting on the five epigominal days between the years which marked the beginning of the rising water in the valley as well.

1520a. To say: Osiris dawns, pure, mighty; high, lord of truth
1520b. on the first of the year; lord of the year.

This was the start of the new year to the Egyptians whose close observation of the stars allowed the invention of the calender.

120a. To say: O ye who preside over food, ye who are attached to plentifulness (ȝgb)
120b. commend N. to Ftk.tȝ, the cup-bearer of Rē‘, that he may commend him to Rē‘ himself,
120c. that Rē‘ may commend him to the chiefs of the provisions of this year,

Mercer variously translated “ȝgb” as “violent”, “inundation”, and “abundance” but it actually was a reference to the “tossing inundation” in the “Land of Horus”. The amount of water was critical for not only building purposes but for drinking water.

In time the amount of water inside the enclosure decreased so it was possible to build other buildings here which were partially buried to stop them from flooding. The moat caught more water which was used for other purposes. The amount of water was from what they called the []b[]w or “the height of heaven”. This is the height at which the water could be collected in the upper eye of Horus in the Mehet Weret Cow presided over by Khenty Irty. These early structures probably didn’t havwe a well defined Upper Eye so there was no cow and Khenty n Irty without two eyes (one eyed). This system was more efficient at low levels but less efficient at higher levels and reduced total planned size.

1785b. N. conducts Rē‘ into his two boats of mȝ‘.t
1785c. on the day (of the feast) of the end of the year

“Mȝ‘.t” means “balance”.

1375c. Neit is behind him; Śrḳt-ḥtw is before him.
1376a. The ropes are knotted; the boats of N. are tied together

Neit is the Goddess of the ascender and Serket the counterweight.
Eventually building activity shifted to Giza;

1209a. whilst thou was a soul appearing in the bow of thy boat of 770 cubits (long),

This is the exact N/ S dimension of the G2 enclosure!

1195c. "If the year's yield is welcome, how welcome is the year's yield; the year's yield is good, how good is the year's yield!"
1196a. N. has descended with the Two Enneads in ḳbḥ.w;
1196b. N. is the measuring line of the Two Enneads,
1196c. by which the Marsh of Offerings is established.

“Kbh.w” is the height of heaven; the height to which the water sprayed and could be caught with the shm-sceptres in the upper eye. It is the height of each step of the various pyramids and varied from 32’ at Saqqara to 80’ at G1. Most of the great pyramids are actually five step pyramids.

All the evidence appears to support this contention from the historical accounts as well as the Palermo Stone, Pyramid Texts, titles of nobles, titles of workers, names of work gangs, as well as the art and iconography.

[cladking]

The previous post is the one I've been working on and is new. I think it might be startling to experts because of two things; more importantly is that I believe it explains most of the features at Saqqara in terms of water pressure. I don't know nough about this site to have great confidence. Secondly is that the measurement of the Giza second pyramid enclosure wall is exactly 770 cubits. While this could be mere coincidence it does strongly support my contention. The pyramids are considered a sort of boat by the builders and even the work crews were named after parts of boats.

In a later work there is mention of a "sandbank of 440 cubits bringing water and of horrible face". This is consistent with water in the walls of the horizontal passage at 80' in G1 whose dimensions are 440 cubits by 440 cubits.

I got your horrible face right here;

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



I'm just sitting on the post for right now and posted it on only one Egypt site. I just want to see if it attracts attention.

I don't know about "tau". I think pi are squared but two pi be better. I used to be good at math but no more. It took an hour just to calculate the amount of water needed and to determine that they needed a bigger lake than the courtyard or auxilliary power.

[IMaDick]

I figure after reading clads answers and short books, that the ancients did indeed know more than we do , they know how they built this stuff, and for what reason, no matter who you talk to about it today, it's pure speculation.

case closed.

[Duchess]

They are enjoying their discussion, that's reason enough to continue it.

Case open.

[cladking]

I figure after reading clads answers and short books, that the ancients did indeed know more than we do , they know how they built this stuff, and for what reason, no matter who you talk to about it today, it's pure speculation.

case closed.

What makes it speculation is that there is very little that survives from before the 5^th dynasty when the great pyramids were built. But egyptologists have been using this vacuum to insert their own ideas about who these people were and what they believed. Essentially ideas from later times have been pushed backward onto the great pyramid builders and several assumptions made to make this a smooth fit.

One of these assumptions is that the great pyramids were tombs but there is very little evidence to support this notion. They also assume that there was no change in the religion as this is necessary in order to view the ancients in terms of later people. There is lots of evidence that there was a very massive change. Specifically the pyramids suddenly got far smaller. Later pyramids required less than 2% as much lifting of material as the early ones. They assume that the great pyramids were built with ramps yet no evidence at all supports this contention. I have disproved to a reasonable degree that ramps were not used to build G1 (and probably none of the great pyramids).

It's not merely the fact that the facts don't conform to the assumptions. If this were the only difficulty one might just write it off as an anomaly of one sort or another. The real problem is that ALL the little evidence which survives points directly at the use of pressurized water to build the great pyramids. There are warm springs in the vicinity and lightly carbonated water under the plateau today. Moreover the words of the builders survive and they said the Gods built the pyramids as the ka of the king and that Osiris was cool effervescent water that tossed on the Giza Plateau.

I am quickly coming to consider this overwhelming evidence and it is on the shoulders of egyptology to prove or disprove the contention. This is easily enough done and it is their job.

Until them it is dishonest to continue to tell people and teach children that "they mustta used ramps". They did not use ramps and it's our job to find out what they did. I'd suggest starting at looking for evidence of CO2 geysers since this is what the builders believed.

[Maggot]

Makes ya wonder what those libraries held before they burned eh?

[cladking]

I figure after reading clads answers and short books, that the ancients did indeed know more than we do , they know how they built this stuff, and for what reason, no matter who you talk to about it today, it's pure speculation.

case closed.

Damn straight they knew more than us. Even if the egyptologists are mostly right the ancients sure as hell knew that moving around a few million 2 ¹⁄₂ ton stones is really hard work and lifting them is far harder yet. Egyptologists don't seem to have a clue how hard this sort of work is. The ancients also knew it took a huge amount of planning and math to build these. Egyptologists say everything they did was for for religious reasons but they sure didn't arrange and execute building G1 with only religious principles; somebody probably even sweated.

[cladking]

They are enjoying their discussion, that's reason enough to continue it.

Case open.

Very few people enjoy a discussion with me indefinitely.

Mebbe it should be closed.

[Maggot]

...........Bitch!

[cladking]

Makes ya wonder what those libraries held before they burned eh?

The answer was in the Library before it burned but there were probably no original sources even back then. The old heiroglyphs were mostly unreadable and the Greeks had rewritten most of the secondary sources.

It's very curious all of the ancient writers are consistent with the idea that water was used! Horapollo said the ancients believed water sprayed from the ground. This would be impossible in the valley since it's 8000' of fill. Manetho said stones moved toward the pyramid 300' at a time which is the exact lenght of the cliff face counterweight runs. Herodotus said that machines were moved from "battlement" to "battlement". These were the ascender/ counterweight systems and the "battlements" were the steps of the pyramid before they were filled in. He said the machine was composed of short pieces of wood though. I believe this was the description of the counterweight which was essentially a boat with its ribbing on the outside and "short pieces of wood" comprising the inside.

It's only been in modern times that ramps have come into favor with the only argument to support them being; they mustta used ramps.

Not one single piece of papyrus survives from the great pyramid building age. I suspect that when it was no longer readable it was no longer well protected.

[Cracker]

Is this similar? http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2250719/bu...terweight/

Did they have to use water? Could they not have used sand to fill the counterweight?

[IMaDick]

Sand is heavier than water in just about all of its forms, wet dry packed, loose, it doesn't matter if you wanted to minimize the container to achieve the greatest amount of lift by volume sand would make more sense.

as for hauling sand to use it would be much more labor intensive water flows on its own once the route is built, and to release it just pull the plug, and it disappears, sand on the other hand would need to be moved a second time doubling the handling time and labor.

water could also be recycled and used in other ways if they so desired, sand is always just sand.

In my mind water makes way more sense even though more of it would be required to do the same job as sand.

[Lady Cop]

Clad, i think you'll like this article--->

Seen for the first time in centuries, a 1,500-year-old tomb comes to light via a tiny camera lowered into a Maya pyramid at Mexico's Palenque archaeological site in April. The intact, blood-red funeral chamber offers insight into the ancient city's early history, experts say.


link:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...9news-tomb