Lost, unfinished, pyramid in egypt?! +Great pyramid brewery?!

[Arugela]

50 minutes ago, Scotius said:

Beer was not storable in ancient Egypt. It was by modern standards a low quality, low alcohol drink with very short "shelf life". That's why it was produced locally, by local artisans who covered the needs of local population. And it remained that way for thousands of years to come - until pasteurisation and advanced methods of production available to industrialised society allowed it to be brewed in standarised method, from standardised products, with high sanitary standards. And then packaged in metal or glass containers which could be stored and transported over long distances and periods of time.

I repeat: In ancient Egypt no one would brew a batch of beer meant for 10 000 people in one huge facility. Because that huge batch of drink would spoil before it could be distributed to population by porters, rowboats and oxen carriages. It just wasn't feasible.

Unless you consider thick fermented stews. Those could be refreshed like sourdoughs and if you really wanted to watered down into a drink. They could be made then into bottle beer on a daily basis. Those are some of the oldest beers and ferments. Coincidentally always kept by the women just like in Egypt and Japan and other cultures until we dumped it more recently. Japan/korea still has this culture to some extent.

There were distinct female religious groups. I wonder if it's related. Maybe their deity has something to do with these types of things. I think something I read said one of the deities was related to similar agricultural or something and was headed by woman exclusively. Could be a link.

This is post edit from scotius statement. But a thick stew like beer is basically a concentrate and or yeast colony. You don't need a lot of it. And you can make it go very far. Any signs of yeast or similar in this king/queen chamber boxes? Although you may make the ferments in slightly warmer temperature. But you could bring it back in after getting it to the desired stage and store in a cellar environment for production and adding to things to help make beer. I read something about people using heated rocks and similar in reproduction beer from medieval periods to reproduce boiling for beer. Assuming the beer was done that way. maybe they did that in the kings chamber and then sent it on down the line to a different layer. The temperatures might help with cooling.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Arugela

[Scotius]

No. Just... no. Logistics, man. To mass produce whatever, you need to first deliver a mass amount of raw materials. Grain, in this case. Then process it by hand. That would require another, equally large facility with its own workforce quarters, supply lines and army of workers. You would have to feed them, pay them etc. And don't tell me you would pay them with beer - because that is not feasible too.

In reality it probably looked like that:

"Overseers of villages A,B and C - you will make sure workers on my pyramid buildplace will receive 500 casks of beer."

"Overseers of villages D, E and F - you will deliver 500 baskets of bread to my workers."

"Overseers of villages G, H an J - you will provide my workers with fish, onions and oil in sufficient amounts."

And so on and so on.

[Cassel]

28 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Roman Empire and its laws appeared a little later. 

That is interesting.

Quote

Capitalism (i.e power of capital) appears much later. In ancient times and in early medieval they didn't even have real money. So, plowland possession and military hierarchy decides.
And don't forget that most part of Egyptian plowland depend on the royal irrigation.

You are wrong on this one, capitalism is based on private property and the possibility of benefiting from this property.
In capitalism, you can have a farm and sell crops, forest and cut a tree, a piece of land and extract oil, gas or anything else and trade it, because it is yours.

The money only serves to facilitate the exchange, it would be difficult to change the corn cob for a tree trunk if I do not need wood.

Money as such existed even in communist countries like the USSR, after all people bought goods from the state and paid for them with money. According to your concept of capitalism, the USSR can be called a capitalist state, because people were using money.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Cassel

[kerbiloid]

17 minutes ago, Cassel said:

In capitalism, you can have a farm and sell crops, forest and cut a tree, a piece of land and extract oil, gas or anything else and trade it, because it is yours.

That's the very early form of capitalism - "industrial capitalism".
You get some money from trading and buy/build a sawmill. It brings money to you.

Once you have enough money, you build another sawmill.

Then you lend some money to somebody who wants to build a brewery. This brings to you more money.

At some moment you realize that your profit mostly comes from the lent money.
You keep lending moar and moar and sell your own sawmills like a headache.
Now nothing disturbs you from your money counting, and you own nothing except money. You are a pure banker.

A little later you and your colleagues have nothing except money, but everybody needs your money on your conditions.
This is the adult "financial capitalism".

This is impossible until the industrial revolution, as military aristocracy (feudals, kings, etc) is higher than you in social hierarchy, and there is no property except that one which they allow to exist.
If a duke likes you and your gifts, he allows you to have a sawmill. If he needs money, he asks you for this, and try to reject this ask, unless you have another power behind you.

On industrial revolution the feudals loose their military superiority compared to plebs.
So, they have to deal with the plebs (including the bankers), and the most smart of them become bankers themselves.
As the bankers originating from plebs desire aristocratic status equal to their financial abilities, their marriages finish the process.

Edited September 29, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Arugela]

38 minutes ago, Scotius said:

No. Just... no. Logistics, man. To mass produce whatever, you need to first deliver a mass amount of raw materials. Grain, in this case. Then process it by hand. That would require another, equally large facility with its own workforce quarters, supply lines and army of workers. You would have to feed them, pay them etc. And don't tell me you would pay them with beer - because that is not feasible too.

In reality it probably looked like that:

"Overseers of villages A,B and C - you will make sure workers on my pyramid buildplace will receive 500 casks of beer."

"Overseers of villages D, E and F - you will deliver 500 baskets of bread to my workers."

"Overseers of villages G, H an J - you will provide my workers with fish, onions and oil in sufficient amounts."

And so on and so on.

You don't need to pay them in more than beer if they already have what they need from other means. This was not an odd thing in ancient times. It's much simpler logistically. Other cultures did this with building projects or similar also. They would pay in one substance. If you aren't working 24/7 like a slave you don't have to pay them in everything they need. It's literally just a job. Maybe they only worked for 4-6 hours between farm work or some other profession. If they had larger families back then at all I'm sure some could be spared to work and bring back the daily beer. Especially someone relatively younger and healthier you could afford to let go do work for part of the day. it would be very beneficial for the 20+years of construction. That is some pretty solid potential job security. If that was the norm I'm sure people didn't hate the next pyramid project being started up. The pyramid work might have been less rigorous than their farm labor.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Arugela

[Cassel]

10 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

That's the very early form of capitalism - "industrial capitalism".
You get some money from trading and buy/build a sawmill. It brings money to you.

Once you have enough money, you build another sawmill.

Then you lend some money to somebody who wants to build a brewery. This brings to you more money.

At some moment you realize that your profit mostly comes from the lent money.
You keep lending moar and moar and sell your own sawmills like a headache.
Now nothing disturbs you from your money counting, and you own nothing except money. You are a pure banker.

A little you and your colleagues have nothing except money, but everybody needs your money on your conditions.
This is the adult "financial capitalism".

This is impossible until the industrial revoilution, as military aristocracy (feudals, kings, etc) is higher than you in social hierarchy, and there is no property except that one which they allow to exist.

This is a bad way of thinking about ownership. Money is not property, its value is regulated by the state. Therefore, the banks buy gold to protect themselves in the event of a fall in the value of money.

By having a sawmill you do not make money on trade, but on production, that is, on profiting from your property. Your property is forest and wood.
And the government can not regulate your ability to get rich, then it's capitalism. If the government regulates how quickly you can get rich you are not living in a capitalist state.

There is no such thing as financial or industrial capitalism.

Banks can not exist without the participation of state and governmental regulations. Note that banks own property like gold or real estate, that's because bankers understand that money/currency means nothing.

The fact that you will have a ton of papers does not mean that I have to use them to exchange my goods for food. I can sell some boards in exchange for dinner. Without government regulations that prohibit such exchange your bank and your paper money are nothing. When the government regulates how to exchange goods, it also interferes with the value of these goods and capitalism disappears.

You have a very strange look at the property. Kings were chosen to protect the private property of their people, not to take it away. Nobody would listen to the ruler if he would take away his home and source of income.

[Arugela]

3 minutes ago, Cassel said:

This is a bad way of thinking about ownership. Money is not property, its value is regulated by the state. Therefore, the banks buy gold to protect themselves in the event of a fall in the value of money.

By having a sawmill you do not make money on trade, but on production, that is, on profiting from your property. Your property is forest and wood.
And the government can not regulate your ability to get rich, then it's capitalism. If the government regulates how quickly you can get rich you are not living in a capitalist state.

There is no such thing as financial or industrial capitalism.

Banks can not exist without the participation of state and governmental regulations. Note that banks own property like gold or real estate, that's because bankers understand that money/currency means nothing.

The fact that you will have a ton of papers does not mean that I have to use them to exchange my goods for food. I can sell some boards in exchange for dinner. Without government regulations that prohibit such exchange your bank and your paper money are nothing. When the government regulates how to exchange goods, it also interferes with the value of these goods and capitalism disappears.

You have a very strange look at the property. Kings were chosen to protect the private property of their people, not to take it away. Nobody would listen to the ruler if he would take away his home and source of income.

That is only a very modern conception(ant not what is happening now.). Normally land and things are based on material availability and cost based on rarity. Not artificial currency. Currency are based on the other(their circumstances, IE cumulative material realities.). It is always based on material realities. Even if thy are artificially manipulated. People just don't know enough today because on average less people deal with the things related to those materials to know what is really going on beyond the simple reality of currency and similar. It still works exactly as back then.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Arugela

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, Arugela said:

That is why I'm saying it makes more sense if it's about industry or similar. If you consider long term gains it's easier to justify a massive building project made of local to semi local materials if it's going to bring greater ease of living and other things for the entire nation. It's much more justifiable. Especially if it's design is actually completely necessary for the task in the environment and/or there is a massive need for it at the time. If you consider the Nile may have went up to the pyramids at the time(IE it was build on it's banks) you also add the ease of water travel during construction.

It was also a heavy agrarian society. Those tend to not mess around with needless things as much. It would be much harder to justify something wasteful. Even expensive tombs and religious things in older religions had a tendency or beyond to be about education and preserving knowledge or about something very practical otherwise. It would be like if Washington monument were build to be studied by math/history, and other classes for the rest of time. Or much more complicated.

Ancient Egypt had plenty of public work in the case of irrigation, this resource was also used for building temples and the pyramids probably also other stuff. 
Manpower used has been wildly inflated, it was some thousand full time employee, mostly in cutting stone, then you used say 10 K peasant conscripts for the actual building. 

If its an huge brewer close to an pyramid its obviously to feed the workers, that is if its from the same time period.
Regarding history of the ancient Egypt its so long its easy to mess up stuff like that and do mistake like assuming the Maginot line was to defend against the roman empire. 

[Arugela]

I see what is happening. Yea I mean great pyramid brewery as seperate from the other small site. I was assuming the pyramid was a brewery for fun. I'm assuming that site might also be for purposeful work of some sort. Like the one guys idea of water storage. I'm assuming pyramids were used in general for practical purposes. I also wonder if the pyramid didn't make beer or something itself and it's religious purposes were combined with practical as is easy to assume of ancient religions. I'll have to change the name a little. I'm really bad at making titles sometimes. I can't think out other ways to take them often. I started with just the one subject then added the great pyramid onto it as my idea kept expanding.

Although that is just as much an idea depending on their time periods.

I'm assuming pyramids might be really good/necessary use of localish materials to accomplish very practical things(as opposed to tombs) and wondering the potentials of that.

Unless they were good for embalming... That could also be something useful. Maybe they are designs to aid in embalming and then after those processes are finished the take they bodies to their formal tombs. Cellar temperatures are also used in corpse preparation if I'm not mistaken. Probably for preparing materials too.

Could explain why it's tomb like but not an actual tomb. maybe they build new ones as circumstances changed. Like possibly the river moving or something odd. it's probably easier to take it straight from a boat to the next destination. Could explain the boats buried next to it also. Boats specifically related to the kings afterlife.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Arugela

[kerbiloid]

43 minutes ago, Cassel said:

is regulated by the state.

"L’état c’est moi" ("I am the state")
Louis XIV knows better  . That's XVII AD, France, almost modern days, not Ancient Egypt.

43 minutes ago, Cassel said:

. Therefore, the banks buy gold to protect themselves in the event of a fall in the value of money.

Money until modern days were just precious metal ingots with the emitent stamp, with highly volatile rate, mass, and composition.
Money in the modern sense have appeared... (Well in fact they have really appeared in XX when they finished being precious metal ingots!) ... a little earlier than the mentioned Louis.

Until that you could own just metal ingots called "money", but their rates were too fuzzy, and yor possession was guaranteed only on the feudals' desire. So, they were treasures but not real capital.

Money became money when personal receipts became bearer certificates, banknotes.

Until that - no capital, only treasures.

43 minutes ago, Cassel said:

There is no such thing as financial or industrial capitalism.

Hm...

43 minutes ago, Cassel said:

Banks can not exist without the participation of state and governmental regulations.

When source of the right and power is the feudal, then he is the sovereign, state, and government. Personally.

43 minutes ago, Cassel said:

Note that banks own property like gold or real estate, that's because bankers understand that money/currency means nothing.

Gold means nothing since 1970s, just one among many goods.

And no "property" exists itself. Any "property" is a guarantee that nobody can operate with "your" property without your agreement.
Always there should be the guarant of this, the sovereign. And the soveregign decides what, how, and how much will it guarantee.
In capitalism this is "state" (a specific form of self-organized society).
In feudalism it's the highest feudal (you can call his land holdings "a state" if you like).

Say, you can consider as "yours" the leaves aside the road, but if the sovereign (say, a state) doesn't ensure this, everybody can take or burn them without asking.

43 minutes ago, Cassel said:

The fact that you will have a ton of papers does not mean that I have to use them to exchange my goods for food. I can sell some boards in exchange for dinner. 

How many boards can you carry at once?
Your boards can wet and rot. Your bank account can't (if you choose a reliable bank).
"Why should I take your boards? Aren't they rotten? Should I call an expert just to look at them? No. Just sell your boards and bring me money."

43 minutes ago, Cassel said:

When the government regulates how to exchange goods, it also interferes with the value of these goods and capitalism disappears.

If it doesn't, several monopolists make a cartel, and prices raise up.
A balanced state regulates prices always but softly. Nobody needs drama.

43 minutes ago, Cassel said:

Kings were chosen

Kings were being chosen in barbarian tribal kingdoms.
Once the kingdoms got costing something, the kings were chosen from the highest military aristocracy. And not from traders.
Since that their right and power was based not on money itself but on military force, when the money is just one of the ways to get an army.

43 minutes ago, Cassel said:

Kings were chosen to protect the private property of their people

The property and the people were the king's family property, and he was protecting it.

Edited September 29, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Arugela]

What if this is depicting one king embalming the other in regards to his passing and not something related to war. This could be what the pyramids were for. Cellar temperatures could also be for embalming and related activities. Maybe they were only temporarily held there and then moved to a more permanent tomb. Explaining why they are all not decorated but have aspects of a tomb.

Also, if food and organs were stored in the same types of containers with the same general technology from cellar temps that could make it useful for almost anything. We know they did this for tombs with food and organs. Maybe they applied it to more at different times. Why waist a massive building if you don't need to.

Plus that falcon look a lot like he's pulling out the brains for what we normally think of as Egyptian embalming methods. This guys other videos was wondering if the falcon tribe wasn't a Babylonia tribe from Ur that took over before or at the 1st dynasty and brought some stuff to Egypt with them related to beer and embalming or something.

https://youtu.be/seVieyiTBbk?t=210

 

Edited September 29, 2018 by Arugela

[Scotius]

There was no embalming in Mesopotamia, as far as i know. And frankly, it would be hard  to do on the low lying, muddy ground between Euphrates and Tigris. Egyptians had it easier - a stone throw away from the Nile there was bone dry desert and rocky hills. Same in Americas. Aztecs and Mayans did not practice embalming. Aztecs lived mainly on the shores of a great lake, Mayans in a tropical jungle - both environments aren't really conductive for long preservation of bodies. Incas on the other hand lived in dry, mountainous areas - for them keeping their dear departed as mummies wasn't hard.

[Vanamonde]

Firstly, a number of posts about religion have been removed from this thread. You know it's off-limits here, guys, because of the arguments it causes. 

Secondly, I'd say please stick to the topic of this thread but I'm not clear about what the topic is. What is the original discovery that is being discussed? 

Thirdly, the pyramids were most definitely burial monuments. There is no doubt about it. They are referred to as such in Egyptian documents, they were decorated as funeral moments, 

they contain sarcophagi and other funereal items although the bodies and most of the valuables were long ago stolen, 

 

and the sphynx serves no "practical purpose" because statuary, as a rule, does not. It's decorative. 

Oh, and the idea that the pyramids were built by slaves is a very old misconception. They were paid artisans, and the village where they lived has been excavated to show how they were paid, fed, and housed. 

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/gizavillage.htm

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Thirdly, the pyramids were most definitely burial monuments. There is no doubt about it. They are referred to as such in Egyptian documents, they were decorated as funeral moments, 

Iirc, their typical burial monuments are like modern burial crypts, with a room inside, a table for gifts, a door, an entrance.
Sometimes with a statue of the buried one behind the table for gifts. a normal door, a normal passway of normal height and angle.
Sometimes this statue stays in a small room with a small window right in front of the statue's eyes allowing the buried one (when his spirit lands in the statue) to watch at the gifts and the comers.
So, totally dull and functional, without topological tricks. Just to allow the living ones be coming here with gifts and have a talk with the crypt dwellers, Absolutely sober and usual architecture.

Afaik, nothing of that can be said about, say, Hufu pyramid.
No doors, a moronic entrance at the several meters altitude, a tilted passway too small to walk normally, but enough large to get in for robbers. Never been just closed with another heavy stone block.
No tables, statues, hieroglyphical walls. Just a big and useless stone shed.

Iirc, their temples and burial places usually have a road of processions.
They were fond of processions, probably as they were fond of the earthy and celestial Niles moving along the Egypt nomes with their different nature and economics. So, they always made the roads,
A natural and obvious form of roads decoration were columns along the road, and they were fond of colonnades.

Iirc, a typical Egyptian spiritial architecture was being developed like that.
There is an ancient sacred place (sanctuary or burial sanctuary)..
The 1st king wants to do something pious. He bulds a wall around the sanctuary, creating a yard.
The 2nd king wants to do something pious. He adds pylons to the walls.
The 3rd king wants to do something pious. He builds a good road to the pylons.
The 4th king wants to do something pious. He puts columns aside the road.
The 5th king wants to do something pious. He lengthens the existing walls along the existing road, making another yard with those columns inside.
The 6th king wants to do something pious. He adds pylons to the new walls.
The 7th king wants to do something pious. He rebuilds the sanctuary making it bigger.
The 8th king wants to do something pious. He builds a good road to the new pylons.,,
Et caetera.

If a king is enough rich, he fulfils several steps himself.

So they get a chain of yards with columns along the procession road inside.
Is there something like that near the Great Pyramides? Are they surrounded by walls? Do these walls have pylons? Are there columns along the road to their entrances?
Looks like like they are just standalone.

Presuming Hufu and others were sober realists in this questions, and there was no Dali and Picasso around, looks like the typical Egyptian burials copy the great pyramids shape rather than vice versa.

Edited September 30, 2018 by kerbiloid

[Vanamonde]

The pyramids were not typical tombs. They were the deluxe models for the kings. Also, it's difficult to say what is a "typical" Egyptian tomb given that the country's history encompasses about 2500 years, so burial customs changed over time. Yet the pyramids did have a number of the features you list, though only the pyramids themselves are easily visible in modern times. In antiquity the pyramids themselves were surrounded by additional tombs, temples, walls, causeways, and so on. 

So there is absolutely no question that they are tombs. 

No question. 

At all. 

Not even a little bit. 

Zero. 

[Cassel]

57 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

The pyramids were not typical tombs. They were the deluxe models for the kings. Also, it's difficult to say what is a "typical" Egyptian tomb given that the country's history encompasses about 2500 years, so burial customs changed over time. Yet the pyramids did have a number of the features you list, though only the pyramids themselves are easily visible in modern times. In antiquity the pyramids themselves were surrounded by additional tombs, temples, walls, causeways, and so on. 

So there is absolutely no question that they are tombs. 

No question. 

At all. 

Not even a little bit. 

Zero. 

There is no proof that the Great Pyramid had a pyramidion.

Also is it more advanced than any other building.

 

Now, I should start to put strange arguments in the thread about the blue origin, I wonder if then information about this company would be banned in this forum just as it is forbidden, even in the historical debate, to mention religions as a source of events.

[Vanamonde]

3 minutes ago, Cassel said:

There is no proof that the Great Pyramid had a pyramidion. 

And what conclusion are you drawing from this? 

Quote

Also is it more advanced than any other building. 

It is unusually sophisticated for a large stone assemblage,  it's true, but more than "any other building" is a pretty sweeping statement. 

[Cassel]

6 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

And what conclusion are you drawing from this? 

This pyramid shows an perfect hierarchy in the kingdom. At the top there are rich families of whom the king is chosen, but even then they are all equal, because God stands above them all (the only element of the pyramid, which was not created by man).
 

6 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

It is unusually sophisticated for a large stone assemblage,  it's true, but more than "any other building" is a pretty sweeping statement. 

Is there any other than have so many layers and interpretations hidden in it's geometry?

[Green Baron]

The main problem is that people tend to believe in silly youtube videos that weave mysticism, invent alternatives to the observed facts and published analyses and interpretations, mix cultures, times and places and deduct weird conclusions. Another more psychological problem may be that reason and real world findings do not serve the human imagination as well as fantasy and conspiracy does.

In combination, this apparently disables the mind from accepting what science has found out and published. I can imagine, that if one did a self experiment with watching hours of youtube videos on conspiracy stuff and alternative interpretations, starting with the above linked dismal one on the "Water pump" nonsense, that after a while one could have difficulties recalling the real world.

My humble suggestion would be to move the thread out of science & space flight into the lounge because science is little in here.

Another equally humble suggestion would be to my colleagues to do a similar self experiment as the above, but with reversed polarity :-) Go out on an internet research on pyramid construction, Egyptian history, Egyptian every day life through three millennia ignoring youtube, wikipedia and any other social network stuff on the matter for lets say a day. Use an independent search engine - i use duckduckgo but there others, do not use google or yahoo (if that still exists).

(National) Museums are a good place to start for example.

If all goes well, you may be surprised about what you learn ;-)

-------------

@Vanamonde: you asked about the original discovery. If i understood it right, the op is based on the misinterpretation of an unfinished pyramid (a burial place for a high official as you have correctly written) as a brewery for the workers. Is that correct @Arugela ?

I repeat: the edifice was not finished for unknown reason. What could have happened (and had happen in ancient Egypt) is that the forces could not be paid any more or a doctrine changed and somebody else drew the construction forces on him or her. But this is just my interpretation, i have no sauce for that.

The link behind "Skull" in my reply to the op has a somewhat humorous but well founded description on beer use in ancient times.

-------------

Over & Out

gb

Edited September 30, 2018 by Green Baron
Grammar

[Cassel]

11 hours ago, Green Baron said:

The main problem is that people tend to believe in silly youtube videos that weave mysticism, invent alternatives to the observed facts and published analyses and interpretations, mix cultures, times and places and deduct weird conclusions. Another more psychological problem may be that reason and real world findings do not serve the human imagination as well as fantasy and conspiracy does.
 

If you have not noticed that from the beginning of humanity, mysticism, faith and service to the higher purpose were the sense of people lives and the binder of civilization, you can not interpret historical facts excluding them.

You may consider this a conspiracy theory, but the Maya, Aztecs, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Chinese, Indians, Persians, Europeans ... they all had one thing in common. Mysticism and faith in God or gods, this indicates that in their opinion man was better than an animal, capable of achieving higher goals.
 

[snip] If you want to understand ancient civilizations, you will not succeed without mysticism and understanding of faith. Without understanding what these people were guiding, you will not understand what the purpose of their life and work was.

Edited September 30, 2018 by Vanamonde

[Vanamonde]

Moderator part of the post: 

Guys, you really need to leave religion out of discussions on this forum. We've banned the subject because of the arguments and hard feelings it brings up. Some posts have been edited or removed. 

Forum member part of the post: 

Quote

This pyramid shows an perfect hierarchy in the kingdom. At the top there are rich families of whom the king is chosen, but even then they are all equal, because God stands above them all (the only element of the pyramid, which was not created by man).

I'm sorry, but I don't know what meaning you're attaching to this with regard to the pyramid's capstone. 

Quote

Is there any other than have so many layers and interpretations hidden in it's geometry?

A pyramid is one of the basic 3 dimensional geometrical shapes. You can find ratios of proportions and whatnot in the others, too, but the main reason several civilizations made monuments in pyramid form is not magic, but rather that they are conceptually simple to construct (though laborious), and perhaps more important, so stable as to resist erosion for thousands of years. 

[Green Baron]

2 hours ago, Cassel said:

If you have not noticed that from the beginning of humanity, mysticism, faith and service to the higher purpose were the sense of people lives and the binder of civilization, you can not interpret historical facts excluding them.

Well, in case of the Cheops pyramid the purpose is exactly 146.7 meters high. Tendency shrinking ....

Yes. I can. It took me 5,5 years and is already 15 years ago and wasn't the only thing i learned, but then i finished with a master degree (specialized in paleolithic stuff, Egyptian archeology is very is different, a former friend of mine was in that department, though).

Quote

You may consider this a conspiracy theory, but the Maya, Aztecs, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Chinese, Indians, Persians, Europeans ... they all had one thing in common. Mysticism and faith in God or gods, this indicates that in their opinion man was better than an animal, capable of achieving higher goals.

I consider the "somebody is hiding something" as conspiracy stuff. The peoples you listed had a very much more interesting thing in common. They lived in a material world and left material things that can be studied, measured, compared, sorted in and out and, when available in sufficient masses and found under well documented circumstances, interpreted to give a picture.

Quote

[snip] If you want to understand ancient civilizations, you will not succeed without mysticism and understanding of faith. Without understanding what these people were guiding, you will not understand what the purpose of their life and work was.

Yes. We do. In fact, digressing to things we have no idea from must be handled with great care. Nobody knows what those people thought, it is gone with their bodies. But we know when, where and how they lived, what some of them wrote up (called early history, not pre-history)*, what they ate, what tools they used, partly what the fashion was, what they died from, what they grew and what they bread, whom they beat up and by whom they were knocked around, how climate was, what grew there, with whom they traded and what. And many things more. In the end, if done rightly, it'll be presented in a museum for the public to view and remember.

That.is.archeology.

*hough*

 

*Edit: i must add, that once one gets the chance to check written stuff against observation, the tendency goes in the direction to give observation (like measurement of a physical date) precedence over the traded written text. Am ready to explain when asked :-)

Edited September 30, 2018 by Green Baron
8-2=6 *blush*

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I've been watching this thread since I was invited by someone on the thread to follow along. I have no "dog" in this fight, although I do have a Ph.D. in history and have been teaching classes on the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, India, and the Mesopotamian era for nearly ten years now. I have a M.A. in American History, but following the advice of Thomas Jefferson, spent my undergraduate in pursuit of the ancient world, the secondary field for my M.A. was also in the ancient world with tools in Anthropology and Archeology. The one thing all three fields have taught me is to approach the ancient world with an open mind when it comes to ideas...

About the Great Pyramid:

• There is no proof it was built to be a tomb. It is missing the hieroglyphics on its inner walls and chambers nearly every other Egyptian pyramids have. There's no "burial chamber" but there are large vaulted rooms. There's no writings (as yet discovered) to explain its purpose. Early Western European explorers (think Greeks and Romans here) attributed the Great Pyramid as being similar in nature as to its larger mausoleums constructed in the Mediterranean basin. We simply do not know what its purpose was and anything we say is based on our knowledge of the much smaller pyramids (even the stepped ones) along both the Upper and Lower Nile.
  • We know that the pharaoh, Khufu , commissioned its construction as a possible burial tomb, but again, this is up for debate in the scholastic world. There are dozens of theories to explain why there is not a burial chamber as other pyramids used for burials have (see https://www.ancient.eu/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza/ for a discussion on why the Great Pyramid is not a tomb). Some suspect it was designed to be a memorial for his mother, others say it was to aid in land navigation. Point is we simply do not have enough data to pass off anything as fact with it.
  • Imhotep (I am leaving religion out of this, @Vanamonde) designed the first pyramid - according to legend and some religious writings and hieroglyphics found within it. It was designed to be a tomb for the ancient pharaoh, for Zoser (Djoser) around 2750 _BCE/BC. Every bit of the early scholastic attempts to explain every pyramid in the world is based off this early observation. Even Egyptian and Babylonian  ziggurats - clearly not designed to be burial temples but for religious and archeo-astronomical observations - are still recovering academically for being identified as burial tombs. This has only been accepted into anthropological and historical research within the last seventy years that not all pyramids and ziggurats were not burial chambers. I expect as we begin to use technology to discover more sites of antiquity, we might begin to unravel the reasons for the Great Pyramid and many of the other non-tomb structures.
• It most definitely was not for the production of ale, spirits, or beer. The Egyptians had accidental fermentation at first - in other words, they made juices and teas out of fruits, different roasted grains. Anything made for the burial chamber was considered as sacred and not to be consumed by mere mortals. We know that Egyptians didn't begin to intentionally ferment until sometime around 2000 _BCE/BC, - after the Great Pyramid was built (2560 _BCE/BC). But here's a catch to this idea - it seems that a small portion of what was brewed was consumed by the royal family, priest class, and upper aristocracy/nobility of Egypt. The remaining was more commonly used as a trade good item.
• Um, the whole slave labor thing? More than likely not. Even in the Upper Nile pre-Egyptian society of Nubia and Cush, which really had a profound impact on the Lower Nile, slaves were not commonly used for public works projects such as temples or burial tombs. While these projects required a lot of manpower, using labor of people who had been defeated in battle to build monuments to the gods or to a beloved king would have been considered disgraceful for Egyptians. Besides, most agriculture took place within a 70 mile area of the Nile and was highly seasonal. Once farmers planted their crops, women and children normally would tend the fields while the men did the business of the state - meaning military, public works projects, and construction projects led by either the royal family or the priests. Slave labor would be used to tend the animals being used for the project, to repair equipment being used, and for preparation of foods, produced goods, etc. But not on the direct construction itself.

A little more about brewing and intentional fermentation:

There is significant proof of lateral trade between Egypt - Mesopotamia - Hindi India - and Indochina around this same time. The Hindi Indians were busy brewing and fermenting ales and beers intentionally about 500 to 700 years before they were doing it in the Mediterranean, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian ancient societies. The Hindi Indians probably fermented rice or barley first, since those are the grains that were in the greatest quantity during the ancient era. Also, each of the major deities had their own particular "brew" preferred by the deities and anything not consumed by the deities were open for consumption during festivals celebrating that particular deity.

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2 hours ago, Green Baron said:

Yes. I can. It took me 5,5 years and is already 15 years ago and wasn't the only thing i learned, but then i finished with a master degree (specialized in paleolithic stuff, Egyptian archeology is very is different, a former friend of mine was in that department, though).

Cool, never knew that about you. you ought to give the newer emerging field (since the 1970s) of archeo-astronomy a look. There has been a lot of work by well-known scholars in the field.

2 hours ago, Green Baron said:

I consider the "somebody is hiding something" as conspiracy stuff. The peoples you listed had a very much more interesting thing in common. They lived in a material world and left material things that can be studied, measured, compared, sorted in and out and, when available in sufficient masses and found under well documented circumstances, interpreted to give a picture.

I do too. But here's the thing about it... it's not really a conspiracy, per se. It is just that mankind has gotten dumber over the millennia. Just think of this - just 500 years ago, we had men who could sail the ocean and end up more or less where they intended to with just the stars and sun to go by. If, for some reason, the GPS network system were knocked out, we have people sailing the oceans right now who could not find their way. We've become too reliant and too comfortable with technology. And if that system were to collapse, anyone who "discovered" stories of this knowledge in the future would declare "a conspiracy theory" to keep people from using GPS...

One of the things I enjoy the most is the study of the changes technology brings to society. And often what is discovered and held in awe in one generation becomes commonplace by the third after its discovery. And when that technology changes or disappears from society, then those who seek to find some "sinister" element of society always turn to the conspiracy theories to paint the loss as something caused intentionally rather than to seek any other explanation.

To a point, this is how I handle most conspiracy theories from students when it comes to the ancient and classical world stuff. It blows their minds when I show them how the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Babylonians knew the Earth was a sphere long before Columbus... And you can always throw in the Chinese maps from the 14th century, too... 

2 hours ago, Green Baron said:

Yes. We do. In fact, digressing to things we have no idea from must be handled with great care. Nobody knows what those people thought, it is gone with their bodies. But we know when, where and how they lived, what some of them wrote up (called early history, not pre-history)*, what they ate, what tools they used, partly what the fashion was, what they died from, what they grew and what they bread, whom they beat up and by whom they were knocked around, how climate was, what grew there, with whom they traded and what. And many things more. In the end, if done rightly, it'll be presented in a museum for the public to view and remember.

Yes, but there was such a rush to discover in the 19th and 20th centuries by tomb raiders and amateur archaeologists (think those real life "Indiana Jones" types), that any artifact they didn't consider as valuable was tossed in a refuse pile. Unfortunately, as my archeology professor, Dr. Gregory, once said, "all the secrets we lost because someone decided that clay pot was just a clay pot, unworthy of serious study..." Oh, and let's not forget the artifacts destroyed in war, natural disaster, and the intentional purging of historical and religious relics when the desire is to eliminate a public record of the past - much what we saw with ISIS in parts of northern Iraq and Syria. Oh, the Babylonian treasures which were forever lost...

[Green Baron]

49 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Cool, never knew that about you. you ought to give the newer emerging field (since the 1970s) of archeo-astronomy a look. There has been a lot of work by well-known scholars in the field.

Well, i didn't hold that back, i thought :-)

Never heard of archaeo-astronomy, though people i knew made for an exhibition in Bonn, Germany 200...7 (?) a movie projection that showed the development of the northern hemisphere's night sky over the last 250,000 years, as was known by then from the relative movement of stars. Very impressive that was ... you wouldn't recognize some parts ...

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I do too. But here's the thing about it... it's not really a conspiracy, per se. It is just that mankind has gotten dumber over the millennia.

I do not know. I tend to agree, but that is pure speculation. No data except for shrinking brains and dwindling senses ....

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Just think of this - just 500 years ago, we had men who could sail the ocean and end up more or less where they intended to with just the stars and sun to go by.

Well, not exactly, but well enough. I must boast that i too have a recreational license to sail the high seas . It is not difficult to stay on a latitude and go east or west. Though, if one wants to deviate from that, one needs an exact clock and something better than a Jacob's staff to measure angles. Or take a certain error into account, depending on distance. Charts were valuable and those guys were aware. Or they sailed close to the coast.

But i admire the captains of the age of exploration, navigation, team leaders, scientific knowledge of their time, and so on. Impressive achievements.

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If, for some reason, the GPS network system were knocked out, we have people sailing the oceans right now who could not find their way. We've become too reliant and too comfortable with technology. And if that system were to collapse, anyone who "discovered" stories of this knowledge in the future would declare "a conspiracy theory" to keep people from using GPS...

Well, GPS (and the electric winch) is the reason why 15 year young girls can do a single handed ocean crossing these days ... *devilkerbal*.

And the knowledge to handle a sextant is still mandatory, at least for sailors. It'll be foolish to try a crossing from the mainland to here without one. Lightning strikes on a plastic boat and the electronics go head first. 5° off course and you're lost on great blue waters.

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One of the things I enjoy the most is the study of the changes technology brings to society. And often what is discovered and held in awe in one generation becomes commonplace by the third after its discovery. And when that technology changes or disappears from society, then those who seek to find some "sinister" element of society always turn to the conspiracy theories to paint the loss as something caused intentionally rather than to seek any other explanation.

This is far beyond my scope. I was mostly under way in the (European) paleolithic. Though the neolithisation thing as well as the pre-roman bronze- and iron age had a grip on me for almost 2 years. I had the reputation of having read it all. I must add, i was a senior student and the young guys and gals always saw me in the morning sitting in the library. Which i simply did because i had to come early (before 6 in the morning) because of traffic around Stuttgart, Germany.

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To a point, this is how I handle most conspiracy theories from students when it comes to the ancient and classical world stuff. It blows their minds when I show them how the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Babylonians knew the Earth was a sphere long before Columbus... And you can always throw in the Chinese maps from the 14th century, too... 

Hehe. We've been though that here in this forum several times as well. Eratosthenes. Ptolemaios' cheating 600 years later nearly cost him his reputation.

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Yes, but there was such a rush to discover in the 19th and 20th centuries by tomb raiders and amateur archaeologists (think those real life "Indiana Jones" types), that any artifact they didn't consider as valuable was tossed in a refuse pile. Unfortunately, as my archeology professor, Dr. Gregory, once said, "all the secrets we lost because someone decided that clay pot was just a clay pot, unworthy of serious study..." Oh, and let's not forget the artifacts destroyed in war, natural disaster, and the intentional purging of historical and religious relics when the desire is to eliminate a public record of the past - much what we saw with ISIS in parts of northern Iraq and Syria. Oh, the Babylonian treasures which were forever lost...

Yes, exactly, i wanted to take on that on request. This is actually the most important point not only but specially in Egyptology. Many things were not removed and documented properly because of fear of robbery and fencing. In part, that combined with vandalism is still a problem today. There are only few opportunities for a modern excavations of what is left and wasn't ransacked.

Which brings us back to the Great Pyramid. What exactly is the base to not assume that Great Pyramid is or was a burial place ? Hieroglyphs and their meanings change, as well as doctrines and rites, as well as the will to give an emperor what he/she deserves after his/her demise. Afaik the consensus is it is a burial place, the arrangements are congruent with that, Khufu's sarcophagus was/is there (?) but the whole thing was totally cleared out of anything valuable, probably having been "visited" several times after the closing. Is that correct ?

 

 

Edit: question to the advocates of spiritual things: What is the difference between an urn and a just a bowl ?

Edited October 1, 2018 by Green Baron