cladking

Sorry. I've just been dotting some t's and crossing some i's first. At this late date you'd think I wouldn't be afraid of looking like a fool. Soon. It appears that the stones were almost all pulled straight up the step sides of the five step pyramids. These step sides were filled in last and then finished starting from the top down. Large swaths of the lower reaches were filled in before the entire thing was done in order to have places to put all the tura stone (they simply installed them), but it was completed from the top down. The step sides would have been about 71 degrees so most of the weight of the stone depended on the rope. Their ropes were limited to about 100' in lenght because of the way they were constructed but they could weave them together to make almost any thickness. Ropes up to about 4" actually survive from the era. They used many materials to make these ropes but the most likely at Giza were halfagrass and the lighter ropes in evidence here are of this material. I believe that to lift the 20 ton loads they needed rope nearly 5 1/2" thick. They had a device to change rope direction known as a "dm-sceptre" and these were probably made in an on-site metal shop out of copper or bronze. Most bronze of the time (~2700 BC) was accidental but these were remelted in furnaces so they could have melted bronze rather than copper. Reheating furnaces of the era were limited to about 200 lbs so whatever the dm-sceptre was composed of probably had no metal parts larger than this. I believe this was a pulley and the largest part was well less than the limitation. The wheel had been in existence for over a millineum when construction began and the pulley is simpler in concept so should have been well within their capabilities. The "dm-sceptre" is represented by a staff in the form of a sine curve which can certainly be considered consistent. It appears they used slings (ropes with a loop on the end) and a device called the "tie of isis" to connect to the counterweight; the loop went through the top and wrapped around the arms. #71 above. They also used a kind of belaying loop to join stones together that we know as the "cartouche" and represented the king's ability to join the peoples. Stones were moved multiple times and relayed up the pyramid so quick connects and disconnects were critical. Across the top of the pyramid they appear to have used a chain composed of copper links shaped something like a paperclip. These links are heiroglyphs F46 through F50; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hieroglyphs/F With F50 being a keeper and the others variable lenghts to attain proper positioning of the dndndr-boat (ascender) (lifting sled). They needed to load these sleds very quickly so they invented a device that kept the lifting sled at the proper altitude for loading that worked similarly to the way a plate dispenser in a restaurant works. Each time a stone was loaded on it at the loading station it would sink about the width of the stone and another could be put on very quickly. This device was called the "min" and its invention is recorded on the Palermo Stone as "the birth of min". It used the huge hole on the east side of G1 filled with water to provide bouyancy for the sled. As the sled sank it dispaced more water and allowed a stable level for loading. This also served to reduce wear and tear on the equipment. More pictures of the "whidden hole" (min) here; http://www.gizapower.com/Articles/door.html They could inspect ropes and equipment for damage on a regular basis to prevent breakdowns. They used redundant systems so even the worst breakdowns would have limited impact on "production". Every tenth day was a "down day" used for maintenance. This way every day could be a good day of running on the mountain; 1555b. (is) in the mouth of those who run to them on the good day of running (while running is good). 1556a. "Set is guilty; Osiris is justified," 1556b. (is) in the mouth of the gods, on the good day of the going upon the mountain. Set (standing water from the geyser) is problematical; osiris (water in the geyser) is the solution. By the by; The min is simply enormous because it had to contain over 20 tons of water to compare to the weight of the dndndr-boat so it is visible in most satellite pictures; http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=29.979105&lon=31.135509&z=19&m=bs Note the vertical line in the pyramid pointed straight at it. I think I might be proud to say that no brain cells and no intellence at all were used in the composition of this post. It is all well travelled ground. I could be clever (probably), but thank God, it wasn't necessary.

So far as can be shown the word "ramp" was never used during the great pyramid building age. It does not survive inscribed on stone, inked on papyrus, painted on tombs, recopied from older material in the 18th century BC, Inscribed in ceramic, or in any venue at all of any type. Whether or not a usage in the PT counts is open to discussion. If the term were used in a format like "Thot raises the king to heaven from a ramp" then I would be inclined to say this counts. Even though the PT date to centuries AFTER the great pyramid building age any usage consistent with the concept of lifting something by means of a ramp, I would say does count. It would count because this is the modern understanding of how things were raised in ancient Egypt. It would count because most of the PT was very ancient before our version exists so odds would be very good that the great pyramid builders also thought of lifting things on ramps was a commonplace occurance. But if the word "ramp" is used by one translator or another to refer to something else then, no, I don't believe it would count. Ironically this was the very first word I searched in the PT back in '07 and it actually appears once in Mercer's translation; 1717a. A ramp is trodden for thee to the Dȝ.t to the place where Śȝḥ is. 1717b. The ox of heaven seizes thine arm; In '07 I simply dismissed this as a "walkway" for imaginary beings. Now I believe it might actually kind of count but it is not in reference to men dragging a stone up a ramp. This concept is a modern one. People don't realize how little writing actually survives from the great pyramid building age. Most of what survives is titles and one word sentences. Everything is translated to fit the beliefs of later people because it would otherwise be incomprehensible. Egyptologists recognize that the wording is different in the more ancient language and they say they can only "circumscribe" the meaning but anyone looking for words of science or clues to how they worked or believed will be disappointed by the translations if these translations are actually perfect. They do not make any sense in any language and the word "ramp" is unattested from the great pyramid building age.

There is extensive evidence for most of this but mostly it exists in the words of the builders. There is the physical evidence already provided. There is some more physical evidence (supportive physical evidence) not yet mentioned but implied by the builders. Let me get back to it. This is the sort of stuff I prefer to talk about rather than words and beliefs. All the facts simply support a different way to view all the evidence. All the facts suggest our ancestors were primitive scientists rather than superstious bumpkins.

I simply tried to answer the question as comprehensively as possible. How was I supposed to descibe walkways at Giza from the great pyramid building age that Egyptologists call "ramps"? I couldn't ignore their existence and still be honest nor could I then ignore the existence of actual construction ramps at sites that were not great pyramids. You asked the question and I answered as accurately and comprehensively as I could. If I simply said "yes, there were ramps" then we're right back to having to debunk ramps all over again. I'm not new at this. People have their brains wrapped around ramps and can't seem to untangle. "They mustta used ramps" has been said countless millions of times. They would have had at least three words for "ramp" and, most probably, four. None of these is actually attested. One would be scientific and would be descriptive, one would be colloquial, and one vulgar. The scientific term was, no doubt, represented by a 30 degree triangle that looks like a ramp and probably derived from the words "surface changing vertically" and later became the heiroglyph for the word "ramp". But this is guesswork. My guesswork and I don't know that it is true. This is simply the pattern of the language and there's no reason it should deviate for the concept of ramp. Perhaps they used separate words for a ramp used for dragging and one used as a walkway or even had words for ramps that go down and those that go up. Who knows? All that is known is that the word "ramp" is unattested from the great pyramid building age. It is unattested apparently because it wasn't a very important word and because most all words from this time are unattested. No books survive. There is no cultural context except what's in the mind of Egyptologists. Egyptologists take ideas from later times and extrapolate them to include the great pyramid builders because they believe nothing ever changed. Something did change and all of their extrapolations are illegitimate and anachronistic. Their beliefs are non sequitur and founded on assumption. The word "ramp" isn't attested. My beliefs about the word are merely beliefs just as Egyptological beliefs about the word are merely beliefs. Beliefs don't mean anything and you can't build a theory or a pyramid out of beliefs. Egyptology has nothing but beliefs and I have all the evidence and the ability of the theoiry to make accurate predictions. This suggests my beliefs just might carry a lot more weight than Egyptological beliefs. God knows no ramp ever carried any weight.

Here's another picture of the horizontal and vertical lines; I presume you are aware that virtually every single ancient Egyptian lived in the Nile Valley. There were a few living in the various oases NEAR the Nile Valley but there wasn't extensive trade nor was there extensive trade with the "Libyans" to the west. There simply was no need to be constructing many bridges in the desert and then talking about it in the PYRAMID TEXTS. Incidentally and quite relevantly the Libyan desert does get mentioned in the PT. The Egyptians called the desert adjacent to the valley where the great pyramids were built the "Libyan Desert". They called the desert adjacent to the Nile Valley on the other side the "Eastern Desert". 455b. filled with thy splendour, come forth from the horizon, 455c. after thou hast taken possession of the white crown in the water-springs, great and mighty, which are in the south of Libya, Just note there the author believes there are water springs great and mightly in the dersert!!! Such a great and mighty water spring might certainly have a crown at the top where the water changes direction and falls. Come to think of it in the bright desert sunlight water spraying uplike this WOULD have a pretty spectacular rainbow. 1455a. for N. is a star, the light-scatterer of the sky. 1004b. the double doors of heaven are open for thee; the double doors of the bows are open for thee. 1018c. Thy dismembered limbs are collected, thou who hast might over the Bows. 801b. the ways, of the Bows, which lead up to Horus, are made firm for thee; Of course newer translations call these "sky arcs", but then, this sounds a lot like a rainbow as well. Of course semantics never did mean anything at all and we can just choose to ignore what the builders actually said because Egyptologists believe it meant something else. Believe it or not using water to build pyramids actually did survive the confusion of the language; "8) It ascends from the earth to the heavens (and orders the lights above), then descends again to the earth; and in it is the power of the highest and the lowest." Isn't that remarkable!!! No one ever noticed because they can't see the rainbow or a corrolary to Newton's third law of motion in it. How ironic the Sir Isaac Newton studied the Great Pyramid to investigate his laws of motion and even translated some of this and never saw a rainbow! He never found the solution to his question either even though, I believe, it's written on and in the pyramid. It might not be relevant (maybe it is) that the angle of the pyramid is the color red in the secondary rainbow and the arris angle is the color red in the primary rainbow. Maybe the rainbows are just imaginary sky arcs like Egytology believes but; 1680b. the apertures of the (heavenly) windows are open for thee; 1680c. broad are thy steps of light; Light scatterer of the sky, and "orders the lights above" would almost make a scientist think they are trying to tell us something. I don't know what words it would take for them to have said that could make a modern person change his perspective enough to see. There is even an oblique reference to a rainbow made by the fire-pan in the upper eye of horus but anyone who can't read plain English can't possibly see the oblque reference. Why don't people see this? Even if I'm wrong about everything these are still references to rainbows. You can't see what you don't expect. All anyone can see is a ramp everywhere thy look. They see stumble footed knuckel dragging troglodytes but we're all better now. So when the troglodytes say steps of light, ordered lights, light scattering bubbles, or sky arcs, all we can see is superstitious nonsense.

How many people live in the Gobi or Death Valley? The deserts to the west of Egypt were nearly wholly irrelevant to the Egyptian people. By the time the great pyramids were completed there had been no migration for centuries from the west and the desert was too dry to support much life. Again I would remind you that rivers didn't flow through these deserts. The Nile was the only river in a desert and it wasn't called this even if they did bridge parts of it. The question isn't whether or not people traveled in deserts but whether there was a need for a boat or anything else to build a bridge in the deserts around ancient Egypt. The word ramp is unattested in Egypt during the great pyramid building age. This is a fact. That linguistics is a science is a matter of opinion at best. A scientist doesn't use science to eat his dinner nor can he conduct an experiment or observe the way words were used in the great pyramid building age. Did I mention not one single book survives. How can a scientist compare words when there is no writing, not even the word "ramp"? Of course they had ramps and some survive. Most look like they were walkways and when the word was finally used for the first time 200 years after the great pyramids were built it was in reference to a walkway. There are actually "ramps" in evidence that look like they could have been used to lift stones but NONE of these exist on a great pyramid. It is a virtual certainty they had at least one word for ramps and quite possibly two. But this isn't the point. It is Egyptologists who tell you this is all a done deal. They say "ramps" are the only thing that fits the "cultural context" and that the builders were highly superstitious and banded together in their belief their king was a "god" to build the pyramid "tomb". There's no basis for any of this. There's no physical evidence ramps were used. There's no physical evidence the pyramids were tombs. There's no predictive ability of understanding the only writing that survives as superstitious gobbledty gook. This means there is no cultural context. As proof there's no cultural context of any sort just consider the word "ramp" isn't even attested. Egyptology is a construct. They are completely wrong and proof is visible with the naked eye. Look at the picture above and see the horizontal and vertical lines that are artefacts of the way these were built.

When you quote me you might quote the entire response instead of picking and choosing the sentences that are easy to attack. This is just common sense as well. I don't play semantics but I sure notivce when other people do. There is no scientific method in Egyptyology just as there were no bridges in the desert that required a boat to build. That you can't see this is understandable but just keep thinking the word "ramp" isn't even attested from the great pyramid building age. Common sense still exists it just gets caught up in a lot of confusion. Common sense says ramps are debunked and no one ever built a bridge in a desert using a boat. The only reason the bridge came up was a semantical issue concerning the meaning of the word "boat" in English. These are all irrelevancies and the only things that really matter is the physical evididence and what the builders actually said. Semantics confuse issues and distract attention from those issues. The fact is that the titles of the builders right on site are things like "Boat Operator", "Weigher/ Reckoner", "Overseer of Canals", "Overseer of the side of the Pyramid", "Overseer of Metal Shop", "Overseer of a Boat", etc, etc. There are no jobs associated with ramps or superstitious bumpkins and this is not semantics. You might claim that my understanding of the PT is mere semantics but then I can still point you to the fact ramps are debunked and to the evidence of your own eyes so long as you'll look.

I see. But this is exactly the problem and exactly the reason that Egyptology never "got it" even though it's written in plain English. I often say it's like scholars spent 150 years learning to translate heiroglyphs and then never bothering to read their own translation. The writing just isn't that alien to ours. There are reasons they didn't get it like that this older writing wasn't found until decades after they understood later writing and much of this later writing was derived from the actual texts they found. They naturally believed the older texts meant the same thing and instead this caused them to misunderstand the old text in the exact same way the writers of the later texts misunderstood it. They tried to hammer the meaning of the Pyramid Texts into the "book of the dead" despite them having nothing at all in common except that the writers of the book of the dead were trying to translate the Pyramid Texts. It's rather supremely ironic. There's no doubt that the Pyramid Texts aren't understood and even the translators say that they can only "circumscribe" the meaning. Scholars write massive tomes about the meaning of even the simplest terms from the PT because the referent is ephemeral when you try to understand the work as modern language. One time "eye of horus" means one thing and another it obviously means something entirely different. Rather than trying to simply "read" the PT they are trying to understand the many origins of every single term in it. This is a language that disappears when it's taken apart so there was never any chance they might understand it unless they went back and started from square one as I did. Add in the fact that no one could do this with any kind of specialized knowledge whatsoever and that google was required and the only surprise is it took almost a quarter century since the internet and computers. This is probably reflective of the fact that people tend to trust "scientists" and can't see that much of what we believe is actually a construct. Whatever the case the fact is that my ability to debunk ramps and show how the pyramids were built stems from a different understanding of the PT. This seems to imply there really is anoither language we used to use and it's staring us in the face everytime we look at Giza; A rose by any other name... The PT will be retranslated if I'm right but I'm not sure they'll take out the word "boat" because most of the time the writers used the Egyptian word for "boat" and merely appended a "prefix" to name a specific boat. Sometimes they added a descriptive term like "boat of re", or "two boats tied together" for the pyramid or the Bull of Heaven respectively. This is very much simply common sense. I might add that there actually was one desert road that hugged the eastern edge of the desert above the valley but the nature of rains in the desert mostly precludes the possibility that any bridge would be needed. Rain washes off the desert very quickly and would tend to destroy any bridge. A traveler could simply wait until the water was gone. And note too that the text says a BOAT was needed for the bridge girderers of the desert. This is not consistent with primitive bridge building. They claim to have a mountain of evidence to prove that ancient people were superstitious and changeless bumpkins who dragged tombs up ramps. The fact of the matter is that no cultural context exists because they don't even understand the one book that actually survives. They can't prove any great pyramid was a tomb. And they can't show that the people never changed if they don't understand what they were at the beginning. It's impossible to create using supertsition and magic. Belief doesn't create. Science does. The word "RAMP" isn't even attested. Egyptology is a construct. I can't find a linguist who will swear to much of anything at all from before 2000 BC. Perhaps you can cite someone who can?

Truth to tell I'm not sure what you want to disagree about. Certainly not semantics! The Egyptians were highly dependent on the Nile River and its flood and saw things in terms of "boats" because this was what they knew. They had the most advanced boat building in the world at the time the pyramids were built. They called just about everything a boat, even the pyramid itself was the "boat of re"; 1209a. whilst thou was a soul appearing in the bow of thy boat of 770 cubits (long), 1209b. which the gods of Buto constructed for thee, which the eastern gods shaped for thee. Obviously it was impossible even for the Egyptians to build any kind of boat whatsoever over 1,000 feet long so this can't possibly be in reference to an actual "boat" as you use the term. However it is the exact measure of the pyramid enclosure around G2; They used the term "boat" extensively and the individual who loaded the dndndr-boat was known as the "Overseer of the boats of Neith". It wasn't only the counterweight called a boat (henu-boat) but the pyramid and the lifting sled as well; 445d. It is our brother who is bringing this (boat) for these bridge-girderers (?) of the desert. This states they needed a boat to build a bridge in the desert. Need I even point out that people didn't live or travel in the desert and there was no water to bridge in a desert anyway? This bridge was the means by which the king ascended o heaven; the pyramid and the pyramid wasbuilt in the desert. Even if there were any doubt about this it is stated in another line that specifically states it was in fact Giza where they needed the boat; 445b. bring this (boat) to N. N. is Seker of R-Śtȝ.w. R-St3.w is "Rosteau" which is the ancient name for Giza and meant "Mouth of Caves". This stuff isn't rocket science but people aren't even trying to get it. They are comfortable with superstitious bumpkins dragging stones. I'm not certain what to make of this yet but I believe it's a variable counterweight; The support structure is on the outside so it's built to support weight on the inside. People won't believe the evidence of their own eyes because Egyptologists claim to have all the answers. Just keep thinking; The word "ramp" isn't even attested from the great pyramid building age. This is the fact.

Even if someone doesn't believe I'm right about the existence of an ancient language that had a different way to express meaning it's still not productive to discuss semantics (ancient nor modern language). It doesn't matter what word the pyramid builders used for "bucket" and like almost every most words in their vocabulary in is unattested. The water they used to build was never "hauled out of a well", I believe. It was caught at 81' 3" as it came up through an opening in a specially built structure (mehet weret cow) through an opening (upper eye of horus) at that altitude. This structure evolved a great deal over the centuries according to the Pyramid Texts. Initially it was simply a platform at altitude designed to catch the water. They may well have used a series of "shadufs" in the grand gallery that employed counterweighted buckets to lift water between 70' and 140' but the testing to prove this hasn't been done. Very little f any sort of testing has ever been done because it is simply assumed that they used ramps to build. Perhaps now that ramps are debunked they'll do some real science but I'm not holding my breath.

Yes. Indeed! I believe confirmation bias to a large extent has its basis in language and nowhere is it more pronouned and obvious. People deconstruct everything we read or hear and it's never exactly the same as what the author intended. But when reading something so enigmatic as ancient writings or "gobbledty gook" one has to be suspicious of any sense at all which is made of it. No one should believe I'm right because I say I'm right but I'm surprised the physical evidence which I found only because I understand this "gobblety gook" doesn't give everyone pause. All these characteristics I claim are part and parcel of pyramid building still exist even if I'm wrong about the meaning I found in their words. The words of the builders ryhme with the physical evidence and reality itself. Physical evidence is the very means man has always used to determine reality and it's in agreement with their words as I understand them. Since this understanding preceded finding the evidence it ould certainly seem to follow both that the evidence is relevant to building and that my understanding of their words is relevant to th intended meaning. Don't forget I didn't use hocus pocus or some sort of divination to determine this meaning but simply learned the meaning of the terms from context. This is a perfectly legitimate means to learn the meaning of word. Indeed, using this technique is the only means to discover what a word means to the author since many words are used improperly by some people. I might add as an aside that Egyptologists believe there are numerous grammatical errors that were inscribed in stone and comprised this work. When solving it by this technique every single one of thse errors disappear. In other words my interpretation is a better fit than theirs. Ramps would not have been that hard to work with. All you would need to do is walk down using a basic pulley to translate the force. Set it up in stages so you minimize the risk of a runaway block injuring/killing people. Could have been made functionally similar to a modern conveyor belt. I can compute how much water they'd need. I was pretty naive when I started this and contacted geologists for technical advice etc. They all told me there was no such thing as CO2 geysers and I moved on. The fact is there are such processes today and some exist in limestone. I would point your attention to a picture of what is in a very real way a CO2 geyser earlier in this thread. It is on site and still growing. Egyptologists simply ignore it because it isn't consistent with ramps. If they relifted water their system of lifting stone was still highly efficient and tamed the scope of the job down to a human scale. Relifting water itself would also be very efficient. (It appears they used 28 men and 14 spell men to generate about 5 HP of effective work.) The evidence they actually lifted water is reasonably good but hardly conclusive. There are canals in evidence today that were used to transport the water on the sites. Some of the best evidence for water handling survives at Djoser's Pyramid, the first great pyramid.

This isn't really necessary. So long as they could transfer the forces through ropes they could drop the water from any altitude and lift the weight between any two other altitudes. Two things here though. For the main part they apparently dropped most loads from the height of the first step and lifted loads one step at a time. This was Imhotep's genius; when they got to the height of the geyser, the height of the mastaba, he simply shortened the ropes and built another step on top of it. Secondly is that they used various means to minimize the amount of hooking that was necessary to relay stones up one step at a time and apparently one of these means on G1 was to lift water to 320' for use in making some direct lifts. It would depend on its output. There's lots of writing in the PT about various means to increase output. It appears they also relifted some of this water to increase lifting and decrease hooking. The total amount of water might be somewhat lower than you expect. This system would have been extremely efficient and 50% easily achievable. Since the water was at 80' and the cliff face at 200' they got some 280' of lifting for caught water. This is nearly double th average height of stone that had a density of 2.7 so they needed only about 1.4 times the volume of the pyramid over the 20 years or a mere 7% of the pyramid's volume annually. Building ramps is hard work and using them a million times harder. Why not sit in the shade drinking "water like wine" instead of slaving away dragging tombs?

I've convinced myself of nothing. There are some things I take on faith, or as we modern people say "axiomatically" such as that reality exists essentially as we percieve it. I believe there is a very high probability that the Great Pyramid exists and a nearly as high of one that it is "old". I believe there is an 80% probability that it was built with the use of water and a 65% probability that this water came from CO2 geysers. It is quite obviuous ramps had nothing to do with it and they are debunked but there is still a slim possibility that they did actually use ramps. That they could only have used ramps is disproven to the degree science can disprove anything. You are mistaken about the nature of both modern and ancient language and the modern definition of "boat". 1957 Chevys don't float (long) on water and are often called "boats" because of the way they handle. A large bucket used for mixing concrete is called a "mortar boat". A long thin dish is called a "gravy boat". No doubt there are many others. Some things about language did not change. One of these is most vocabulary but another is the way things get named. And we still use scientific, colloquial, and vulgar words for things but they no longer convey the intended meaning. If anyone could just look at the ancient language and understand it then it wouldn't have become lost. 502b. The double doors of heaven are locked; the way goes over the flames under that which the gods create, 503a. which allows each Horus to glide through, in which N. will glide through, in this flame under that which the gods create. 503b. They make a way for N., that N. may pass by it. N. is a Horus. Every single person who read this before me saw superstitious gobbledty gook. But when you solve each term by context you'll find horus is stone and each stone glides over the way which is under the natural processes creating the pyramid. There's a great deal of information in most lines because the ancient language required knowledge to write and to understand. Modern language requires almost no knowledge and most statements about nature are literally false when made in modern language. You couldn't even make a false statement about nature in the ancient language without breaking multiple rules and turning your sentence into gobbledty gook. Modern language merely requires learning a few grammatical rules and no one will notice they don't understand you usually if you follow these rules. But in ancient or modern language you can modify most nouns to apply to something specific like a row boat or an oar boat. There's a world of difference between these boats even though a single letter ("a" or "w") separates them. One is 35,000 tons and carries oar and the other is little bigger than enough to carry a rower. The question isn't now and never has been what the Pyramid Texts means to Egyptologists, the question is what did it mean to the author!

Thanks for the story. It does sound vaguely familiar. Transporting stones on level surface could have been extremely easy. Well greased skids or water transport would require very little power to move stones. Indeed, the granite simply flowed with the Nile current all the way from Aswan. The total lateral movement of this tonnage was nearly as great as the total pyramid yet required "no" effort at all. In the real world the Egyptians certainly needed to apply power to move core blocks horizontally. I believe these were almost ALL moved with 20 ton counterweights falling down a 40 degree cliff face. Such a drop only pulled stones 300' at a time as ancient reports say but 100 tons at a time would be moved 300' closer. But no matter how they were moved it's simply not difficult to move stones on level ground. One nearly needs to overcome friction and there's no danger of them slipping back if the friction is too low. It appears they built the pyramids as five steps because they had to be built as five steps. They needed the step tops to work. These steps were as important to construction as the stones of which they were built. This simply implies they used the easiest possible means to build; they pulled the stones straight up the seventy degree step sides. With so much room to work they could even have used a brutish means like using teams of men to drag them up the side. This would be far more efficient and far easier than dragging stones on surfaces invented by Egyptologists and which are nowhere evidenced. That they didn't use a brutish means is simply beside the point that all the evidence says they pulled all the stone straight up the side. This is Egyptology's translation and it's almost certainly apt. They simply called it "henu boat" which probably meant "counterweight which employed water". The sled which held the stone was the "dndndr-boat" which meant something like "boat which is lifted by water". Curiously the scientific concept that described this latter boat was "nephthys" which translates as "house basket" which is very apt as well since this is a feminine concept and is the basket which lifts material on the "house" (pyramid). Nephthys was also known as "the Lady of Builders" since she was instrumental in building. "Isis" was the scientific concept which was the counterweight and the location that osiris became "seker" who was he who "towed the earth by means of balance". Isis means "stone seat". To the ancients everything was in balance (maat) and it was ma'at by which seker towed the earth. It was balance or vector sum total of water pressure pushing up on floating objects that kept them up. It was the "seven arrows of sekhmet" (seven power vectors) which lifted the stone. Everything existed in pairs because there were two sexes and all of reality was anthropomorphized. Of course it would be equally legitimate to simply say the nature gave humans natural attributes and humans simply named nature. I often use the term to refer to water or using the pressure or weight of water to work. The ancients referred to "kebehwet" which is more similar to your definition as "she" was expressed in "inches (fingers) of water". However unlike your definition kebehwet was assumed to be measured from the height of heaven or the top of the first step. Kebehwet was the pressure of the water at the bottom of the weir which transferred water to the counterweight. I think I was probably referring to the north side of G2 where they excavated down through stone before building the pyramid. I believe this was necessary to have water flow on all four sides of the pyramid. It would be madness to excavate this stone and then build ramps on it twice. It's triple the work and would lead to ramps built on it being less strong. They had to level the base but there's no known reason they'd have to level around the base. If they had used ramps they would have been removed but the absense of ramps hardly proves they "mustta used ramps" as is so often said. Even after removing ramps there would likely be physical evidence surviving. There would probably be massive bases for ramps which point toward the pyramid and up toward the higher reaches f the pyramids. There would be evidene for ramps all through the culture. With hundreds of thousands of men who toiled their entire lives away on one pyramid or another there would be a "god of ramps" or a "god of not falling off ramps". There would be dozens of "overseers of stone draggers" and many other titles associated with a primitive and brutish society but nothing of this sort exists at all. They've simply been pounding square pegs into round holes. Ramps don't fit and the builders described what actually does fit in a language that can't even be translated into English.

Logical science is not only not as effective (technology) as experimental science but it's not as productive (progress). But more importantly I've done little more in redeveloping it than finding its defining characteristics and getting a peek at what the practitioners knew at a specific point in time and how they deduced it. That this science just happened to be similar to the way I already thought really confers little advantage in making progress in modern science or even my limited understanding of it. I have little doubt that logical science can be developed based on new definitions or old and that it will be more effective in some limited areas of research mostly in the soft sciences and in any area that can someday have its terms defined in a digital form. The primary advantage of logical science is that it's the only tool nature gives to its creations to help survive individually and collectively. As this science advanced people simply obeyed its rules until it was no longer possible to do so as language became too complex. Man didn't thrive and arrive from the caves because he had thumbs, intelligence, or superstitions but because language allowed him to pass knowledge down through the generations. In those days language also fascilitated the ability to work cooperatively but this didn't reappear until the invention of modern scientific language and people could see the technology it spawned. Even if this ancient science were superior I couldn't simply begin explaning things in it that I don't understand in terms of modern science because it is first an foremost just a distinct perspective for viewing reality rather than a look at reality itself. Amun is still hidden no matter what vantage is taken. It is only through observation and experiment, and if I'm right, a specific logic, that reality can be seen. Every once in a while I do get a glimpse of a new way to see a scientific concept but I can't be certain that this is the way the ancients saw it or if it's the way they would have seen it if they were advanced enough. My guess is it's the former since they were apparently rather well advanced (and I'm less so compared to total knowledge). To some extent there is a natural hybridization of ancient and modern science. People use logic at every step of the scientific process and even in observation Itself. But what isn't understood is that this logic is language dependent where ancient language was logic dependent. It's very difficult to even understand the nature of language from our perspective which is why there is the utter nonsense on which a great deal of thought is founded, "I think therefore I am". One thinks in language which he must learn and all animals have consciousness. Our perspective is the best way to view very very few things and language is poor for communication. Simply recognizing these facts will go a very long way toward correcting them. Let me provide an example of this different perspective. Everyone who's ever had a eureka moment knows that an object floating in water displaces its own weight of the water (or only its volume if it sinks). But the ancients wouldn't have seen it this way. They looked at everything from the inside so would have thought of bouyancy as the vector sum total of the increased force of the vessel's pushing back. If you place a weight in a flask of water on a scale the increased weight matches the weight of the object. This object raises the water level but it also pushes down on the bottom of the container which must push back up to contain the water and object. The vector sum total is in balance. They probably couldn't do all the math but this wasn't important because they threw out every thing after the second digit anyway. We understand this as the eye of horus casting off 1/ 64th but this is just a confusion of their beliefs. They couldn't measure most things extremely accurately anyway and in the real world getting things to within 1/ 64th was sufficient. Their math was different than ours and no one has figured it out yet but I suspect it was ordinally based. I believe, as time goes on there will be more ties seen between religious beliefs and modern science because religion is a confusion of ancient science and it studied the exact same thing modern science does: Amun. We mistakingly believe "amun" is "the hidden god" but in actuality "god" meant "natural phenomenon" and "hidden is merely a description of "amun" who was in a sense reality itself. And, yes, there is some reason to believe "amen" is derived from (a confusion of) "amun". edited for minor clarification and typos.

Technological advancement is related to the causes of technology. The two biggest causes are theory and existing technology. That is all true human knowledge is theory and without advancement here technological advancement must stop. Right now technological advancement is primarily the result of new equipment and new learning based on it. It's possible that if a true hurdle exists in attaining the unified field theory then it can be surmounted by means of improvements in technology such as, perhaps, artificial or machine intelligence. Without such advancements in theory technology will stop advancing for most practical purposes within a century probably. Of course, there will always be new means to reinvent the wheel so nothing will ever be static.

It is my considered opinion that logic and facts are a very poor means to learn about nature but they are the only tools we have. As such it's only natural to try to learn about nature in terms of the logic of modern science and the facts that it has discovered. In this pursuit of learning about nature I stumbled on another means and for the main part my interest is in convincing people not only that this other means is viable but that it also once existed as a species wide means to learn about nature. Of course in the process my long held beliefs about the need to focus more on metaphysics and observation in education come to the fore. The natue of knowledge and the nature of what it is to be human are related to this as well. This is why many of my posts are on the philosophy forum and often concern the philosophy of science and the implications of scientific knowledge (especially as it relates to metaphysics). Unfortunately many of my newer ideas are thought to be speculative because of the way they were acquired so many posts are in speculations as well. There is great similarity between scientific and religious precepts which might be caused by the process which I've stated many times; they both originated in observation. Dr Funkenstein is simply acknowledging these similarities. Humans once anthropomorphized nature and the antropomorphization still exists in the perspective caused by language and many people percieve it as "God". In a sense we're hard wired to "believe" but more accurately people need something solid to believe in and many can't find it outside religion. It's extremely difficult to exist at all without beliefs today so most people come to believe in science or religion. The two are by no means mutually exclusive. The biggest difference is to get started in religion you must have a belief but to get started in science you must not have beliefs. But the end points are much less different than people percieve. We percieve a huge difference but only because science casts off technology and religion doesn't. This is a fluke though caused by the nature of modern scientific knowledge and the means to acquire it.

And they can be real wordy, too, eh? This kindda sums up every post I've made here. I use different words but scientists are first and foremost people and what defines people has always been language. It is not consciousness, intelligence, or compassion. It is the ability to pass knowledge across generations through use of a language which becomes the basis of thought as soon as we learn it.

"The above answer is simplistic at best, science is proven through verification, while religion is basically hocus pocus." It's even more ironic from my perspective since I see religion as the confusion of ancient science. It's the fact that its ultimate origin contained science that makes it ring true to people today even though its presentation is usually "hocus pocus". Dr Funkenstein certainly has a point though which is that science is little more able to explain reality than religion. I'd go further and say that in a very real way many people who practice science do it much like religious people practice religion. "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." -Max Planck ...Or as I often say, scientific change is demographic in nature.

You apparently recognize our primary differences are style and semantics rather than any necessary fundamental difference in understanding of facts and science. This is a great basis for discussion! I had mistakingly assumed you were going to relate the story of Smeaton's Tower. I haven't looked it up but will do so before returning to this thread at my earliest opportunity.

I'm actually more famous (infamous) for this than about anything else. But I did come by it naturally. Everytime the subject comes up everyone already knows the answer and I'm berated with it. Most people can't get past my absolute rejection of the subject based on logic and evidence to even look at my proposal. Egyptologists talked to me the first year or two but since then I'm a sort of pariah and I seriously doubt this theory has ever been seriously considered even for a moment. In many real ways our estimation of ancient people defines who and what we are and no ancient people are considered better understyood than the Egyptians. This makes it far more difficult for Egyptologists to take me seriously even when I point out real problems and errors in the methodology. I don't see these errors because I'm smarter than they are (far from it) I see them because the ancient language tells me where to look. Common sense says you measure and test everything you can anyway. It used to be they'd talk to me and I could use the information to fix and adjust my theory to the new facts, so they just quit talking to me. Fortunately there are still some amateurs who'll engage me. But a lot of people simply won't accept or are unaware of the debunkment so they keep using the concept as a weapon. It's not the word itself I find so disturbing as it is the power it has over peoples' minds. It's the concept that my ancestors were so primitive that they could only have used brutish means to create. But worst of all it's the concept that if you're superstitious enough and religious enough, and primitive enough then you can do anything even if it's otherwise impossible. I find these concepts personally insulting so I often take off on a rant. I suppose I interrupted your post. Sorry. This isn't much of a picture but it shows the man made limestone "pavement" was built before the pyramid; You'll see the casing stones are actually resting on this pavement hence the pyramid was built afterward. This has many implications. Even if you assume the pyramid was built almost immediately after the pavement youmust question why they would build this and then bury it under mountains of ramps. Why would they contain a volume or create a space which could hold water and is known to have contained water at some point and then buried it under ramps? It simply makes no sense to lower and improve the ground around the pyramid and then bury it. It is doing th work multiple times especially if they had to rebuild the ramps to install the cladding stones. This is most highly illogical and inefficient use of their time and manpower. How could they lift 6 1/2 million tons to 150' if they are using nonsensical and illogical techniques? They lowered the ground because they needed water to flow freely around the pyramid. People don't appreciate the sophistication of the builders. They reset broken bones and performed at least some brain surgery which the patient survived. The pyramid is eight sided and since it's perfectly aligned N/ S it would flash on the autumnal and vernal equinoxes at sunset. The ancients said the pyramid swallowed its own shadow though this might be an expression in the new langauge.

I should let this pass, I know. But, if you see a contradiction it's probably caused by my trying to force a perspective by using sentence structure. Some people will see a contradiction rather than a perspective. This is one of the greatest weaknessesof modern language; perspective is never defined and is merely assumed. The ancient language defined perspective in every sentence. And it was always redefined when the perspective changed. This is one of the key properties of the language which masks it from us. I'll be happy to explain any apparent contradictions (I'd try anyway ). There are only a couple of new concepts in this whole thread and most of it is things that are well worn in my thinking. I'd have noticed contraditions in the theory. Saying the word "ramp" existed does not make it true. That the word "ramp" is unattested isn't even challenged by Egyptologists. Indeed, this is one of the primary sticking points that cause then consternation. They have long defended their beliefs by saying that alternative ideas do not fit the cultural context and they got away with this because ver few people wanted to try to learn about the actual culture as to what's actually known. To try to study this everyone simply plunged into Egyptological writings and it was like they were taken over by a pod from the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They'd emerge from years of study believing in "cultural context". My education was completely different because I didn't accept any of it so I went straight to the actual writing and translation of the actual writing. Guess what?!? There isn't any. There is virtually nothing at alland the tiny bit that exists is translated and interpreted in terms of later Egyptian beliefs that have nothing to do with the builders. The little bit of writing that exists is exactly what I say and it supports my interpretation and not Egyptological's. Even the PT are anachronistic if you want to be technical about it. This work's earliest version dates to a century after great pyramid building. The word "ramp" appears but is in reference to a walkway rather than a tool. That the word "ramp" is unattested isn't necessarily damning to orthodox beliefs because almost every single other word is also unattested because almost no writing survives. I repeat this unattestation so much not because it's important to disprove ramps but because it is important to understanding he entiure Egyptological paradigm hinges on thin air. There is no "cultural context" except the construct that has been created by the assumption that what applied to later people also applied to the builders. It doesn't matter if you repeat the word "ramp" existed or not. Frankly I have no doubt the builders had a word for ramp and it was the same word used 1000 years later but this isn't the point; the point is the word "ramp" is unattested from the great pyramid building age and you can't prove it is. I've read virtually every single word they wrote and there sure aren't many of them. The bulk appear a single word or phrase at a time and sentences are fewand far between. One that comes to mind is "Nefermaat is he who makes his gods in words that can not be erased". I believe this is a mistranslation but is essentially accurate. I believe that Egyptology misunderstands the meaning of it. Like all Egyptian writing it has no meaning in English because (did I mention) the ancient language can't be directly translated. It is this inability to translate that assured the writing wouldn't survive and erased the actual "cultural context". In the last few years the "they mustta used ramps" has moved to the background a lot but it certainly still exists. Almost any source that pre-dates the debunkment will use the phrase in one form or another more than once. There used to be one short article that used it 14 times! Now it is couched in more "reasonable" terms but they still say hjust about the same thing "they mustta used ramps to build most of the pyramid". This is from the newest wiki; "Most Egyptologists acknowledge that ramps are the most tenable of the methods to raise the blocks, yet they acknowledge that it is an incomplete method that must be supplemented by another device." They're getting closer but ramps are still debunked and this phraseology doesn't recognize the fact either. Virtua;lly none of the ramp proposals can even accomplish the basic evidence such as the fact the casing stone won't support ramps asa they are usually described and most ramping methods would require that casing be applied from the top down which is impossible. Indeed, these proposals were so weak when I started that most didn't even include a means for the poor stone draggers to get back down. All of these proposals arestill highly ephemeral. As soon as you point out a fatal flaw they correct it with a different fatal flaw or a complete redesign. I describe these as "escheresque" because they change as soon as you object. Very very few of the proposals are even possible but they are all debunked. It's ironic that there are several good possible means devised in the last several years but it's too late now. None of these are well evidenced but a couple are lightly evidenced. The question is how were the stones lifted and the answer is right before our eyes but we don't see it. All the evidence that has been cast off as red herrings or was assumed to be "religious" in nature is how they built the pyramids. They used science which we mistake as religion and "metaphysics" we mistake as magic. "Words" in ancient Egypt really were powerful because they contained all human knowledge and science. They were the "words of the gods" (words of science). Science learns and science can create but superstition can not. Egyptologists are behaving superstitiously by not appying science.

The most obvious signs of how the pyramids were built is also the most widely overlooked. These are the numerous horizontal lines left by stones being sequentiually quarried and laid down on the pyramid creating horizontal banding and the vertcal lines that mark the routes of stones straight up the side of the pyramid. When the device is in place lifting stones the position where stones arrive on the individiual course can't be filled with stone or it would interfere with lifting. This creates the visible vertical lines by haviong unmatching stones straight up the side where the lifter had been. There are no (almost none) sloped lines to suggest ramps but there are vertical and horizontal lines everywhere which people can't see because we see only what we expect.

Part of "observation" is knowing there are such things as optical illusions and misobservation. The Egyptians called the ability to make good observations "heka" and what we were seeking to see "amun". The rules of ancient science are mistaken as magic (heka is translated as "magic"), and what science learned is mistaken for religion (amun is the "hidden god") . These pictures I'm posting have all been confirmed by other pictures and the features to which I'm pointing are as real as a heart attack. You can believe your eyes in some cases. The ben ben hasn't been confirmed but the author and photographer have no axe to grind and it's very unlikely to be faked. He takes a lot of great pictures and many are things other people (Egyptologists) just skip right on by.

Thank you for the article. I did glance over it. This is a point that people lose sight of; there is no more difference between the heart and mind than between your brain and your bones. The human animal is complete and each part functions in unison for every single task whether it's emotion or a calculus problem. Some parts are more closely associated or can be percieved as being more closely associated than is generally believed especially in the west. Each part also has more autonomy than people realize and while this autonomy is limited that we don't percieve it doesn't mean that the part can't independently percieve our own reality. The ancient Egyptians equated the heart and mind as well. They knew there was a difference in their heart and I know there's a difference in my bones. I percieve experience in my guts until it becomes "muscle memory" which I experience in my bones. To each his own. The world is far more complicated than science has yet begun to find. And some of the soft science is just simply wrong. I know you believe we have nothing in common but our primary differences are merely semantics and style.