Protected: The Edinburgh Casing Stone – A piece of Giza at the National Museum of Scotland
35 new pyramids, some with inner circles:
All of us interested in all things Egyptian will surely have read the news this week about the discovery and excavation of 35 ruined pyramids at Sedeinga on the banks of the Nile, far up the river from Egypt, in Sudan. These are Meroitic pyramids, built by the culture centred on the town of Meroe, and that means that they date to late on in the history of pyramid building, around 2000 years ago. One of the most interesting aspects of these pyramids is that several of them contain prominent circular structures within them, something that the excavators say was not a structural detail and which they have not been able to explain. They mention that only one other such pyramid has been found outside Sedeinga, but in fact there are other earlier examples that predate these, by 1300 years, in Egypt proper. Circular symbolism is a very ancient and central ideology of Egyptian tomb and pyramid architecture. This very subject has been my specialist area of study for ten years, and in 2008 I published a book on this called Egyptian Tomb Architecture: The Archaeological Facts of Pharaonic Circular Symbolism. British Archaeological Reports International Series 1852. It is therefore of interest to consider if these later pyramids were influenced by the same beliefs and architectural concepts that shaped and decorated the earlier tombs and pyramids of Egypt.
One of the main excavators on this new project is Vincent Francigny of the American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West, New York. He works alongside the Sedeinga Archaeological Unit (SEDAU ), a French mission funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the University of Paris-Sorbonne. Their work marked the resumption of fieldwork in the Meroitic necropolis, after a hiatus of seven years. Vincent has been quoted in several of the articles reporting on this project and its discoveries.
SFDAS Section Francaise de la Direction des Antiquities de la Sudan
120 years ago, another French Egyptologist, Gaston Maspero, wrote about the remains of pyramids from the Ramesside period discovered at Abydos that had circular internal elements, and which bear some comparison to these Meroitic pyramids. These were published by Maspero in (1895) Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt for the Use of Students and Travelers Translated by Amelia Edwards:
Chapter III: Section 3: Tombs of the Theban Empire: The Rock-Cut Tomb.
“The necropolis quarter of Abydos, in which were interred the earlier generations of the Theban Empire, furnishes the most ancient examples of the first system. The tombs are built of large, black, unbaked bricks, made without any mixture of straw or grit. The lower part is a mastaba with a square or oblong rectangular base, the greatest length of the latter being sometimes forty or fifty feet. The walls are perpendicular, and are seldom high enough for a man to stand upright inside the tomb. On this kind of pedestal was erected a pointed pyramid of from 12 to 30 feet in height, covered externally with a smooth coat of clay painted white. {146} The defective nature of the rock below forbade the excavation of the sepulchral chamber; there was no resource, therefore, except to hide it in the brickwork. An oven- shaped chamber with “corbel” vault was constructed in the centre (fig. 144); but more frequently the sepulchral chamber is found to be half above ground in the mastaba and half sunk in the foundations, the vaulted space above being left only to relieve the weight (fig. 145).
Fig 146.–Plan of tomb, at Abydos.
Fig 144.–Section of vaulted brick pyramid, Abydos.
Fig 145.–Section of vaulted tomb, Abydos.
Only the bases of these newly uncovered pyramids in Sudan have survived. The pyramidal superstructures have eroded and crumbled away over time leaving only the more substantial foundations for us to see today. The foundations, however, can tell us a lot about the original design, dimensions and proportions of the structure as its builders intended. You can see several of the circular forms in the aerial photos in the articles. The photograph below gives a clear view of one of the more complex circular structures within a mud brick pyramidal base.
Article on the new pyramids excavated in Sudan
Photos of the pyramids and finds
Circular structure within pyramidal base. Sudan.
Since 2004 I have been studying the phenomenon of circular symbolism that the English Egyptologist Professor Flinders Petrie identified in Egyptian royal tomb architecture. These circular proportions were included in the designs of tombs, pyramids and temples to provide a symbolic protective perimeter around the sacred spaces. This protection was first represented iconographically by the royal falcon god Horus holding a ‘shen ring’, symbolising the protective perimeter. In later times, the protection of Horus was also represented by the ‘eye of Horus’, and the wings of Horus. The protective symbolism was most elaborately expressed on the rishi coffins with the symbolic wings of Horus draped around the deceased (rishi is arabic for feather).
Flinders Petrie never made a direct link between the circular symbolism and the protection of Horus, but he was certain that the symbolism had been intentional. In fact he wrote about it in print no less than five times through his long career, in 1883, 1885, 1890, 1925 and 1940. In Wisdom of the Egyptians, published in 1940, he wrote, correctly, that “…these relations of areas and of circular ratio are so systematic that we should grant that they were in the builder’s design”.
This circular symbolism was incorporated into the royal architecture many times and in many ways. It symbolised a protective encircling perimeter surrounding the pharaoh, and the pharaoh’s buildings. While it was clear to Petrie that this was included in the architecture, mainstream Egyptologists have been slow to understand or acknowledge his conclusions on this matter. My work has been to check and verify his conclusions, which have proved to be correct, and to present these again to the Egyptology community, with additional explanation and interpretation.
This new evidence from Meroe is intriguing, and it is certainly worth considering if the same encircling symbolism could have been expressed here as well….
It may seem a stretch to relate these later pyramids to the much earlier traditions, but in fact it is generally acknowledged that this sort of core funerary tradition could be remembered for many centuries. In a recent discussion, the international expert in Egyptian tomb architecture and sarcophagus design, Ed Brock confirmed to me that “I agree that the PT (Pyramid Texts) and later text (s) all show an ongoing tradition of the surrounding ovoid symbolism as a protective motif”. That discussion related to the maintenance of Old Kingdom traditions into the New Kingdom, a period of 1200 years and more. It is surely possible that this ancient tradition of Egyptian tomb protection was being expressed at Sedeinga on the banks of the Nile, another 1300 years later.
Tackling racism in archaeology.
My fiancé Desi and I watched the new Spielberg movie Lincoln recently. It tells the story of the 16th US president’s efforts to abolish slavery by passing the 13th amendment to the US constitution. Daniel Day Lewis was awesome as Lincoln. We were curious to see the movie because the professional work of both of us touches on the topic of racism. A major theme and motivation in my work in archaeology is related to rooting out the remnants of racism in academia. In my opinion, old prejudices and biases still distort mainstream perceptions of the ancient world to some considerable extents.
On the following day, when we were visiting the historical and tourist sites of Edinburgh, we were surprised to discover a fine a statue of President Lincoln in Calton Cemetery. This is a bronze statue, on a layered and polished red granite base, with Lincoln shown in his typical stance. The statue commemorates the contribution made by Scottish soldiers to the Union cause during American Civil War (1861-1865), and the most celebrated result of that war, which was the abolition of slavery. Nowadays it may seem odd that Scottish soldiers should have been fighting in the American Civil War, but many of the founding fathers and signatories of the Declaration of Independence were Scots, and Scots continued to emigrate to the USA during the 19th century. Scottish people take the concept of freedom seriously, and this war was seen as a means to prevent the return of aristocratic dictatorship and royalty as well as free African slaves. Since as far back as 1340 A.D. the Declaration of Arbroath reiterated the value that Scotland placed on independence, her intention to resist invasions, and replace her king when required should he prove ineffectual or corrupt. These are the ideas on which the US was founded.
Dave at the Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh, beside the monument of President Lincoln. It is dedicated to the Scottish soldiers who fought for the Union in the American Civil War. A slave freed as a result of the war is shown.
My archaeological work also has close links with the history of racism. Archaeology has often been used to prove or disprove ideas about race and in particular the history of human ‘races’. Archaeology continues to be used in this way in some regions, and there are numerous cases of artifacts and data being manipulated to support certain ideas about the past, such as to prove that one people has a historical right to inhabit a certain area of land. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, archaeology was often discussed alongside Charles Darwin’s newly developing theory of evolution and alongside associated ideas of human races, civilizations, cultures and nationalism. The theory of evolution has proved to be factually correct, but Darwin’s socially influenced conclusions regarding human beings would be considered racist today. More dangerously, his ideas were misrepresented and misused to interpret history and geopolitical events during the 19th century, and to underpin social and colonial policy.
Rooting out flawed ideas and theories that supported the oppression of people, or are racist, bigoted or political manipulations of history are major drivers of my archaeological research. This has been a core theme in my PhD work which is based on ‘postcolonial theory’ in archaeology. During the colonial period, archaeology and history were often deliberately interpreted and misinterpreted to support political, religious, nationalist and racist agendas. Racism was rooted in the scholarship of those times. Postcolonial scholarship acknowledges the flawed approaches of the colonial period and moves forwards to a new viewpoint on the past. By moving away from the problems of the old fashioned, over-simplified, black and white, ‘colonial’ view of the world, where it was assumed that “the west” or certain races were inherently superior, we can start to view the past from a fresh and more authentic perspective.
For example, my studies have helped to throw light on the ways in which Egypt’s contribution to European intellectual development has often been ignored, or not fully credited, in part because its people were not considered European or ‘white’. Likewise, I have explored the story of how biblically inspired scholars have often misinterpreted the history and archaeology of Egypt and the Holy Land, and how they created false theories that supposedly identified prophesies and messages in the pyramids.
The survey work and publications produced by the great English Egyptologist Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) showed me that he is one of the most interesting people to study in this context. After leaving England to work in Egypt in 1880, his survey results served to debunk many flawed theories of the time, but he was operating in an era of racial and colonial ideas and he was not immune to racist concepts or to using racialist language himself. When observing flints on a 12th Dynasty site for example, he commented that: ‘It seems as if they were the work of some barbarian captives-perhaps Sudanis-who were condemned to hammer the granite blocks into shape”. This shows his lines of thinking whereby oppressed people were referred to as a barbarian race. Nevertheless, I believe that he was concerned about the impact of scientific racial ideas on interactions with real living people. As president of the Anthropological Section of the British Association he wrote (Petrie 1932:157) that “harm was being done by the views of people who were ignorant of the real condition of less civilized races”. At a meeting of the association in Ipswich in 1895 to address relations with races who ‘we controlled’ he deliberately prevented the more zealous amateurs of anthropology from talking by allowing anyone to contribute as long as they first stated in which country their experience had been gained. Thus Petrie was perhaps aware of the ideological movement and dangers behind this racism, and evidently considered that personal experience gained by living, working and, most importantly, being in the ‘east’ was a moderating factor.
He concludes this paragraph in his autobiography with this sentence: “As Cromer said to me one day “I do not know who is the greatest nuisance, the man-and-a-brother or the damned nigger”. When I read this last quote I was a little shocked by the now taboo racist language, and also confused by the terminology. I had not heard the phrase ‘man and a brother’, and so could not fully comprehend the meaning of the sentence. After some further research I now believe the sentence is referring to a biblical quotation from Deuteronomy 1: 16: “And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him” (King James Bible, Cambridge edition). In other translations the word ‘stranger’ is replaced with ‘alien’ or ‘foreigner’, and I wonder if this verse was known to Christians or used at the time to preach against racism and for equality. In this case it was subsequently misused by Cromer and quoted by Petrie. Petrie was a devout Christian and may well have known this passage and understood Cromer’s racist ‘joke’. It is worth noting that in those days the word Nigger was often used when translating hieroglyphs as interchangeable for Nubian or African foreigner from south of Egypt and this quote is perhaps as much a comment on Cromer and the anthropologists, in Petrie’s eyes, as much as a comment by Cromer. Cromer was the British viceroy ruler in Egypt at the turn of the century, and was every bit the colonial white Victorian. He is still remembered with disdain by Egyptians.
In some respects Petrie’s work actually served to debunk racist, nationalist and superstitious ideas. Most prominently, his conclusions showed that Piazzi Smyth’s pseudo-religious nationalist ideas regarding the pyramids of Giza were nonsense. The Scotsman and astronomer-royal Charles Piazzi Smyth was a mid-19th century scientist, pyramidologist and a zealous Christian fundamentalist. Smyth built up theories already being expounded by Englishman John Taylor and Robert Menzies of Leith, both amateurs, that stated that the pyramids were built in units related to the British inch, and that they were built by Hebrews who later founded the British race. The building had been divinely inspired by god and the future of the world had been encoded within its dimensions, and could be decoded if only the exact dimensions of the monument were known. Taylor and Smyth worked in conjunction with an American preacher called Charles Taze Russell to produce a master timeline prophesying the future, and based on biblical quotations and the Great Pyramid’s supposed dimensions. Russell’s timeline for the past and future was called the ‘Divine Plan of the Ages’ and it predicted the return of the Jews to Zion, and the return of Christ, nowadays referred to as ‘the rapture’. His theories were baloney but he published and disseminated them so effectively that they were calculated to be the most widely read printed text after the bible and the Chinese Almanac. Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916) initially predicted that the world would end in 1878. He sold his multi-million dollar carpet business and began publishing pseudo-religious pamphlets showing how and why the world would end in that year. As we now know, the world did not end. Russell was confused and disheartened that the Lord had not returned to earth, but not for long. The next decade he revised his date to 1914 and produced new and more complex prophesies involving the Great Pyramid of Giza. As the world still would not end, Russell set up an organisation in Brooklyn, New York, to manage his growing following. This became what is now known as the Jehovas Witness organisation. Although Jehovas Witnesses now distance themselves from pyramid inspired theology, Russell’s ‘Watchtower’ building, named after his magazine ‘The Watchtower: Herald of Christ’s Presence” is still in Brooklyn, beside the great Brooklyn Bridge over to Manhattan, and his theories are still deeply influential in the world’s cluttered backroom of confused ideas.
In 1883, Petrie’s new high precision survey report from Giza clearly showed that the hard data on which Smyth’s theories were built was fundamentally wrong, and so the prophesies he extrapolated from the data must also be wrong. That discussion and the survey data accompanying it is what helped my work develop, and it was Petrie’s survey work in particular that has stood the test of time. My own archaeological research regarding Egypt builds on that aspect of his work and is not related to the racial or religious discussions, but in order to understand the subject matter properly the colonial, religious and racist contexts must be understood.
In conclusion, Petrie was closely involved with many of the discussions of religion, race, nationalism and eugenics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While his involvement with many problematic people and controversial concepts cannot be denied, I think that it is important to note the differences between someone of Petrie’s ilk and the racists in the US involved in slavery and segregation, or the Nazis. Petrie seems to have been a scientific racist in some respects but in the end, he did help to resolve some important scientific matters.
If you are interested in reading about the links between Petrie, University College London and eugenics this article is an excellent introduction. Petrie and his fellow scholars certainly used the language of race when discussing archaeology and the people of the past, and some of his colleagues such as Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton and Karl Pearson were actively researching eugenics. It is a warning to us all which shows that the US and UK were not innocent of racist ideology, particularly among the ruling classes.
Archaeologists are now more aware that we have a responsibility to carry out ethical research. The concepts of fundamental human rights and equality should always be integrated when interpreting ancient history. Just as professional journalists are expected to maintain objectivity when reporting a story, so must an archaeologist when interpreting archaeological data. It is one thing to put an ‘editorial slant’ on archaeological interpretations, but quite another to misrepresent the basic facts of the matter, or to manipulate data to support flawed agendas, or indeed any agenda.
After the disastrous events of World War II, UNESCO published a document in 1950 that revisited “The Race Question”.
Today many academic and archaeological projects include an ‘ethical statement’ as part of the initial project design phase, and this page provides some guidelines on how to carry this out. This article discusses moral issues of ownership of material excavated from battlefields, and discusses whether we should be excavating the material at all.
In the wider world, one just has to look at the football match reports each week to see that racism is still with us, and so we need to redouble our efforts to discard the flawed ideas, theories, prejudices, bigotry, biases and racial hatred, and be seen to do so.
Finally, here is an interesting NPR discussion of the accuracy of Spielberg’s movie, which has now been nominated for 12 Oscars, and the significance and politics of Lincoln’s momentous act.
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References:
Petrie, W. M. F.
1932 Seventy Years in Archaeology. London: Sampson Low Marston & Co.
Glasgow Giza 3D
On this page are photos of the Glasgow Giza Plateau model that I put on display at the open day of the University of Glasgow Center for Open Studies yesterday. This is a 1:2000 scale model constructed from survey reports and mapping data back in 2006. In all it took around 1 year to build. It has proved very useful as a means to teach information regarding the unparalleled cultural landscape that is Giza. This model shows the plateau as it could have looked around 2,400 B.C. The project also allowed me to develop familiarity with the details of the landscape and the architecture, and I carried out an in-depth analysis of the dimensions of the plateau, in Egyptian cubits. The rule on the right hand side is a replica Egyptian official cubit of 52.35cm, just the size the Ancient Egyptians used to build the architecture on the plateau. This work also allowed me to investigate the evolution of the plateau and eventually served to develop an understanding of the architecture that I included in my 2008 publication Egyptian Tomb Architecture.
But this is not the only 1:2000 scale model of Giza in existence. When I was at the Semitic Museum of Harvard in the summer I took a photo of their own 1:2000 scale model of Giza which is covered by a large perspex dome. While the pyramids and causeways are almost identical, you can compare the different reconstructions regarding what the canal system would have looked like. These are now buried and leave little remnants, but Mark Lehner of Chicago has now found evidence of the harbor reaching right up beside Menkaure’s Valley temple (left of three) and to the foot of Khentekawes’s tomb complex, so both the Glasgow and Harvard models were correct in this respect.
Harvard’s model is joined by a less accurate model of the Giza plateau in the Bible Lands museum in Jerusalem:
and an architectural style model with a very wide and straight edged harbor area at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, (photo by Yair Haklai):
Originally the Glasgow Giza model had a glass pyramid case with electric LED illumination, but the glass was heavy and unwieldy as it was multi-layered and unbreakable. The main issue with these type of models over the long term is that they take up a lot of museum space. Easy storage means that they must be dismantled and stored on end and so the case was not suitable for long term storage.
Most modelling of architectural sites has now transferred over to 3D digital modelling, and again Harvard is at the forefront of this work. They have joined up with the French Dassault Systemes project which has been applying a military sized budget to Giza as a way to test and promote their software systems. The Dassault Systemes project with Harvard now has its own website:
http://giza3d.3ds.com/#discover
One of the amazing aspects of the Dassault site is the ability to visualize the models dynamically in 3D wearing 3D glasses, but here again Glasgow got there first:) As part of the open day yesterday the students brought out some of the collection from the Hunterian Museum, including an early and surprisingly effective 3D viewing machine from the 19th century. Here is a picture of my nephew Gavin having a look at some photos, including a superb image of the beautifully carved interior of Roslyn Chapel, of Da Vinci Code fame.
As well as the monumental architecture I tried to recreate some of the domestic and industrial areas beside the Nile, where the workers lived. This provided scale for the larger monuments.
All in all, Giza is an amazing place to study for an archaeologist, not only because of the ancient remains, but because it has often served as a proving ground for the latest archaeological techniques, from 3D photography to laser scanning surveys.
Visit to Newport Synagogue – in a multicultural cosmopolitan port.
“The Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance”
Last week I visited Touro Synagogue with Desi in Newport, the little east coast US port where she used to work. The Synagogue is the oldest standing in the US, and it is particularly famous because of the role it played in ensuring that multiculturalism became part of US life, at the constitutional level, and for the role it played in standing up against religious bigotry. I am not really a follower of established religion any more, but I do study the history of religion, religious architecture and sacred ideas, and in particular, I am an opponent of religious bigotry. As Voltaire once said “the only thing not to tolerate is intolerance”.
Touro Synagogue Newport. Dave with his Kippah jewish skull cap at the entrance.
This is something I have been interested in ever since growing up in Glasgow Scotland, where anti-religious bigotry was, and still is to some extent, an unpleasant and sometimes violent reality.
Newport is a special place because it was a meeting place for many cultures in the 18th and 19th centuries. People fleeing religious persecution in Britain and the rest of Europe mixed with fishermen and merchants on the US east coast. Newport became a place of diversity and it remains this way today. Others came from Boston, where the Puritans were intolerant of ‘non-conforming’ Christians of other denominations. Some walked to Newport, and joined the growing community. The jews who established the synagogue came from Portugal where they were being forced to flee or convert, and Amsterdam where a growing Jewish community had established itself in the ports where diversity was tolerated.
When the USA was first forming at the end of the 19th century, Rhode Island state where Newport is found was one of the last of the original 13 to join up, and this may be because they were demanding that religious liberty was first enshrined in the new constitution. The First Amendment was proposed in 1789 and adopted in 1791. This ensured the freedom of religious groups to worship, and their protection from oppressive or discriminatory laws. It also established the separation of religion and state, and ensured that people of all faiths could work together and yet continue worshiping in their own particular ways. This is really the core principle of multiculturalism.
We had a very interesting tour of the attached museum of religious liberty, and the ancient synagogue itself .
There is one special document, however, that records these events in more detail. After Rhode Island signed up to the United States, George Washington paid a visit to Touro Synagogue, and in reply to a letter addressed to him by the Hebrew congregation, he wrote a letter that still exists today. This assured them that “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
Touro Synagogue with Desi
The letter in full:
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=21
Loeb visitor centre:
How the pyramids were REALLY built? Really?
English construction man Chris Massey has recently proposed a new theory on how the pyramids could ‘really’ have been built. He has also produced some serious animations and a book to outline his theory. Unfortunately, the laws of physics would not allow his system to work for several reasons.
Here is his theory explained in a short animation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJcp13hAO3U
Here are some reasons it can’t work:
Proposal 1 – The blocks could have been transported by animal skin float rafts.
This part is quite possible, although un-evidenced as far as I know in Egypt. There are records of people and timber and other things being moved by animal skin float rafts in Antiquity. Some of the archaeologists working in Iraq in the late 19th century even used animal skin float rafts to send their finds down the Tigris to the Persian Gulf sea, to be carried back to Europe on larger ships. The volume of floats required, however, for a limestone block, would have to be more than is shown in the animation. The density of limestone is around 2.7 tons/meter cubed, so the volume of water that needs to be displaced to float a 1 meter cubed block is 2.7 meters cubed total, minus 1 meter cubed displaced by the block itself, which totals 1.7 meters cubed (fresh water has a density of 1 ton/meter cubed). So the volume of floats would have to be 1.7 times the volume of the block just to make it float at all [*See update note 1 below]
Proposal 2 – The blocks could float up a sealed inclined channel.
This is not scientifically or physically possible. Unlike the animation where weight is not a problem, the weight of the water pressure acting down these inclined channels would be immense, and would create huge problems that have not been taken into account. Firstly, the pressure at the bottom of a 100 meter shaft like this would be 10 bar, or 140 psi. This is more than the pressure in a fully pumped racing bicycle tyre at high pressure. I once had a bicycle tyre pumped up to this sort of pressure, and it exploded as the bike was sitting outside my apartment. That was while the air was sealed within a specially made rubber inner tube and within a new racing cycle tyre around it. This sort of pressure would send water squirting through between wall blocks like a jet, and would push blocks aside like they were made of balsa wood. The pressure on each 1 meter square block at the base of such a channel would be 10 tons, and the gaps would have to be sealed to withhold pressures in excess of those within a racing cycle tyre. Physically possible using modern materials, but not at all plausible in Antiquity.
Proposal 3 – The blocks could be floated up such a channel using a system of locks.
Once the blocks with skins were entered into this sealed channel, and the locks above opened, the full pressure of the water above would act on the floats. This means the floats would have to resist a pressure of 10 bar or 140 psi just to stay inflated. If they were at a pressure less than this then they would contract and the blocks would sink as less water was displaced. There is no way an animal skin float could be inflated to a pressure of 10 bar or 140 psi. This would make it expand and explode in a second.
Proposal 4 – This system would be efficient.
As each block entered the channel with its floats attached, it would displace an equal volume of water, or 2.7 meters cubed of water from inside the channel, and this would be displaced back down behind it. This means that this volume of water would have to be carried up to the top of the pyramid for each block in the first place, just so the block could be floated up the elaborate and immensely complex channel. The weight of this water would be exactly 2.7 tons, equal to the weight of the block in the first place…
Proposal 5 – Locks could hold back this sort of pressure
The locks would have to be at least 1.5m x 3m in area to allow these blocks to pass through into the channel. The water pressure on these gates from 100m of water above would be 45 tons. This would require immensely thick and incredibly well sealed metal gates/valves, something that is not conceivable or evidenced in Old Kingdom archaeology or texts.
Conclusions
In conclusion then, although Chris’s scheme is just about scientifically possible using the latest materials of our age, it is not at all plausible or evidenced based on the archaeology from Ancient Egypt. The reality is that implementing this scheme would cause more problems than it solved, and even if it ever actually worked, the water would still have to be carried to the top first, meaning that there was no physical benefit to constructing the system in the first place. There are other problems with the system, but these ones above are enough to disprove the theory based on physics and archaeological evidence alone.
The truth is that the Egyptians did know how to manage and use water, but this was not how they did it. In Aswan for example they would load a boat down with sand, maneuver hugely heavy granite obelisks over the boat, then remove the sand. The boats would rise up under the obelisks and lift the obelisks up to float. They carried granite blocks down the Nile for hundreds of miles in this way. Another story from the Old Kingdom tells how the pharaoh’s engineers managed to pump out a lake to find a valued necklace belonging to a girl from the Harem who had dropped it over board. As usual with Egypt, the truth is more fascinating than the fiction.
I have spent 10 years and more now trying to get the real facts about the archaeology and engineering skills of the Ancient Egyptians accepted. These facts were uncovered by Flinders Petrie and others more than 100 years ago, and while they have been accepted and reiterated by modern Egyptologists familiar with scientific principles, they have not been acknowledged by some academic Egyptologists more used to working with texts. I have also tried to get the real facts more widespread coverage through my own publications and videos. If Chris draws more people to study the real history and archaeology of Egypt through his work, then at least that will have been a worthwhile accomplishment. I think many people like to re-visit Ancient Egypt and create these alternative theories in order to engage with the problems again. This is a useful exercise, and allows us to appreciate the true magnitude of what the Ancient Egyptians achieved.
For an introduction to how the pyramid really was really made, this little book is a great starting point:
David Ian Lightbody
Archaeologist/Engineer.
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*1 Mark Heaton checked the density figures. My figure was taken for generic limestone average. For Giza, the 19th century Scottish scientist Piazza Smyth tested the density of the core blocks of the Great Pyramid and found 2.35 tons/metre cubed to be the actual value. With the additional weight of the floats, rope and sheets of fabric the 2.7 x volume I assumed is within the correct range then to float the blocks.
Den’s Shen in the BM. The first known : from 2,950 B.C.
So here’s a new post to keep some blog momentum up, following the excitement of the conference last week and the publication of my latest article (1) related to the shen and the encircling protection of the pharaoh by the falcon god Horus. (The post with the relevant textual proof of concept is here. Check it out if you haven’t seen PT534 before).
I don’t have any particular bee in my bonnet this week to write about to be honest, as I’m winding down after the CREXIII conference, at the end of a verrrry long term and for the Easter holiday, so I thought I would just pick out at random a shen related image from my files and post it and write about it.
So, quite aptly, the first image I found in my shen files was Den’s Shen, the first ever shen known. It comes from the pharaoh Den’s Early Dynastic royal tomb excavated by Flinders Petrie at Abydos. Abydos is in Upper Egypt, about 40 miles north of Luxor. The cluster of royal tombs there are about 1km into the western desert, away from the Nile valley. Abydos is the ancient burial ground of the earliest pharaohs of all Egypt.
The earliest shen ring known in Egyptian iconography. From an ivory tag discovered by Flinders Petrie at the tomb of Den, Abydos.
Petrie found this ivory tag or fragment of a small ivory box lid in Den’s tomb there, and as it carries the king’s name we can date it to the middle of the First Dynasty, about 2,950 B.C. Already we can see that the full form of the shen, with a circular loop and little tied ropes at the base, is shown, alongside a patterned box with the pharaoh’s name inside known as a ‘serekh’. In the First Dynasty and later on, the king’s name was contained inside this ‘palace facade’ decorated rectangle that was used to signify and protect the king’s name, long before the cartouche came into use at the end of the Third Dynasty. The cartouche is of course an extended shen ring, so it is possible that the shen here already represented the same encircling royal protection that the cartouche did later on. The lines on the serekh represent the characteristic niched walls of the palaces and mastaba tombs of the nobles and royals at the time. People would have recognized this as a royal motif and would have recognized the king’s name by it, even if they couldn’t read it. On top of the serekh, as was usual, is the falcon god Horus, protector of the king and emblem of the king’s original center of power, the town of Hierakonpolis, about 40 miles south of Luxor. Although his body has broken off we can still see his characteristic legs and claws on top.
Also here we can see the hieroglyph for gold on the right center ‘nub’. It looks like a basket with a cloth draped over it, and it may refer to an item of king’s gold or to the nearby town of Nubt, the town of gold, as it was close to the gold mines in the eastern desert. The ureaus snake above was another symbol of protection for the pharaoh and of the sun god Ra. It has other meanings as well so it is difficult to interpret exactly what it meant in this context. All in all this is some sort of tag or fragment of a small box lid with many significant symbols related to the pharaoh and protection and gold. Den’s shen. The first ever.
Here is a link to the British Museum catalogue for this item museum number E35552. The description incorrectly refers to the shen as meaning ‘eternity’. The meaning of the shen is in fact closer to ‘enduring royal encircling protection’, or eternal royal encircling protection. The entry is also incorrect as it states that the arrangement on this tag was influenced by similar glyphs at the Step Pyramid, whereas of course the Third Dynasty step pyramid of Djoser was built long after this tag or lid was made.
1.
Lightbody, D.
2012 The Encircling Protection of Horus in Proceedings of the XIIth Annual Current Researches in Egyptology Conference, University of Durham, Oxford: Oxbow
PT534 – Spell of protection for the king’s tomb
As promised, here is the Old Kingdom text that confirms the existence of encircling protective symbolism directly linked to the pyramids themselves. This is from the Pyramid Texts inscribed on the walls of the 6th Dynasty pyramid of Pepi I.
PT 534 – The encircling part of this spell or prayer of protection refers to the ideology of eternal encircling protection, represented by the ‘shen’, for the pharaoh. The shen is usually depicted as being carried by Horus. This text describes the same encircling symbolism as was identified in the pyramid architecture by Petrie. Also re-iterated by Edwards and Verner and others.
Welcome to my archaeology website.
Hi! and Welcome to my webpage.
This new site presents a summary of my research into Ancient Egyptian symbolism, and in particular, the motif of the shen ring. If you click on the link on the top right it will take you to the page that explains the current status of my research into this symbol, and the implications of this for my forthcoming presentation at the CREXIII conference in Birmingham. (Check out the gorgeous CREXIII website here 
http://www.crexiii.co.uk/ )
The information I will make available on Wednesday morning has not been known to the public for over 2000 years. It is only by properly understanding the textual, archaeological and iconographic details that the underlying meanings can be understood, and the evidence correctly interpreted.
Symbols are visual motifs that carry associated meanings in the mind of the artist and the observer. These meanings can be complex, can vary through time, can be manipulated and even combined with other meanings through the combinations of different symbols.
Ancient symbols can be difficult to interpret if we are not familiar with them, but when we are, they can reveal valuable information about what the people in the past were thinking,
These pages are dedicated to the circular protective symbolism used in Old Kingdom Egypt, which was represented by the shen ring.
On the 28th of March this spring at the Current Researches in Egyptology conference at the University of Birmingham I will present the latest and surprising information relating to the shen ring and the meanings it carried in Ancient Egyptian artwork and iconography.
As a direct result of contacts I made at the previous conference in 2011 I have been able to identify a text from the Old Kingdom that conclusively confirms that the Egyptians did use this symbolism, and that it was intimately associated with their architecture. In this text they even detail exactly what it meant within the context of the Old Kingdom pyramids.
Watch this space for updates in the run-up to the CREXIII conference!
David Ian Lightbody
University of Glasgow
