The Ice Age and the Fertile Crescent.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

While everyone's focussing on the Sphinx part of CharlesBHoff's post, the point he makes about Stonehenge is rather weightier. Specifically, the large timber posts found in what is now the visitor's car park that are ridiculously old. I believe they were carbon-dated to 10,000 years old.

[Berzerker]

Hueij - I think you're referring to the "dream" stele of Thutmosis. My mistake, that stele was found between the paws of the sphinx, not the stele I'm talking about. I'm talking about the inventory stele found closer to the Great Pyramid and dates to the saite period ~500 BC.

One of the few written references to Khufu is contained in the 'inventory stele', discovered at Giza in the 1850s. It commemorates the restoration by Khufu of a small temple near the Pyramid, and indicates that the Sphinx, the Sphinx Temple, and possibly the Great Pyramid itself, were already in existence in Khufu's day. The stele is written in a later style of writing and some Egyptologists initially regarded it as a copy of a 4th dynasty original. Nowadays, however, it is dismissed as a piece of fiction as it contradicts current dogmas.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/pyramid.htm

Phase II of the Sphinx conservation:
Saite period (500 BC)

In 1853 A. Mariette found the so-called Inventory Stela, or, the so-called Stela of the daughter of Cheops (Khufu). It was found on the east side of the pyramid of GIC, located on the east side of the great pyramid and dated to the 26th Dynasty. The stela indicates that the Sphinx was repaired in this period. To this period may be attributed the major layer of restoration masonry on the upper part of the Sphinx's body on the south side. This layer, composed of smaller slabs than those of the Old Kingdom, was laid over the earlier (phase I) layer of Thutmosis, the surface of which was cut away in phase II, however, for fitting the new stones. It is important to note here that the restorers did not remove the Old Kingdom stones from the Sphinx. The Saite restoration also focused on the Sphinx's tail and on the (nemes) headdress. The Egyptians of this period may also have painted the Sphinx. There is no evidence, however, of any excavations around the base of the Sphinx in this period. Even Herodotus is silent on the Sphinx, suggesting that it was at least partially obscured with sand.

http://www.guardians.net/hawass/sphinx2.htm

Question: if the information on this stela is accurate, why would the sphinx need restoration in the days of Khufu or his daughter? His second son - Chephren - to succeed him supposedly built it along with the 2nd pyramid. Better question: why didn't Khufu's first son build his pyramid next to his father's where there was supposedly no other structure?

Here is a partial transaltion of the inventory stele:

Horus-Medjed lives, king of upper and lower Egypt. Khufu gives life.

He discovered the temple of Isis, lady of the pyramids, beside the house of Hurun facing northwest to the house of Osiris, Lord of Rosetau (Giza necropolis).

He constructed his pyramid beside the temple of this goddess.

"Hurun" is depicted by the heiroglyph of a Sphinx and is SE of the Great Pyramid, i.e., the pyramid is NW. If his second son carved the sphinx, why is it mentioned as existing during Khufu's reign?

UR -

Granted the oral traditions could go back way back (eh ), unless the ancient Egyptians used the same sort of mapping for the stars as we do, it wouldn't make any sense to refer to Age of Aries. etc. The Chinese had their own system, so did the anicent South American cultures.

True, but these geographically connected cultures used similar terminology/imagery for the Zodiac.

Possibly. It's also possible that oral traditions have a tendency to exaggerate things, esp. heroic deeds The Chinese have stories about heroes killing tigers with their bare hands. I think they can kick Samson's arse

And these may have a celestial connection as well, but I imagine it's possible for a Chinese hero to kill a tiger. We'd have to delve into the story more to see if there are celestial overtones.

Yeah, but those weren't that old

We don't know how old the Mayan Venus calendar is, Mayan civilisation keeps getting pushed back further into antiquity. So far they're approaching the time of the Olmecs - 1500-2000 BC. Nevertheless, it shows just how meticulous ancient peoples could be.

I think even apes could notice the phases of the moon.

And draw them on bone?

Anyway, the point was you need a somewhat advanced society to have free people to do the work. Including dreaming up the idea of building the Sphinx.

Or people who wanted to "remember" something of significance, like the cosmologic age of the Great Flood? According to the Tlingit, the only people I know of who can put a ~year on the event, it occured around the cusp of Leo and Virgo - hence the Sphinx has the body of a lion and the head of a human.

Sand is easier to see through than forests. Geologists used sat images to find evidences a large system of water in Western Egypt, for example.

Identifying ancient river systems is easier than identifying artifacts or even human settlements. Then there is the disparity in erosion patterns at Giza. The Sphinx and it's enclosure have a different pattern typical of rainfall while countless other structures show wind erosion. This is why there is a chasm between egyptologists and geologists wrt the sphinx...

Gatekeeper - not really, I'm going based mostly on memory but I did track down a translation of the Inventory Stela. Also interesting is the appearance of 3 pyramids on the Narmer Palette, a tablet that supposedly dates back to ~3100 BC when upper and lower Egypt were unified. These can mean something else, but it is interesting nonetheless. Then there's the interesting phenomenon not only of the 3 great pyramids lining up ~identically to Orion's Belt, but that other pyramids combined with the great pyramids make it look like the Egyptians had marked out the constellation of Orion on the ground and placed structures/pyramids to represent the stars of Orion. Throw the Milky Way in with the positioning of the Nile as it's terrestial counterpart and we see what may be the Egyptian's attempt to transfigure part of the sky onto their lands. According the Robert Bauval, because of precession and other variations in the Earth's orbit/spin/tilt, these would have all lined up ~10,400 years ago when Orion was at it's lowest point in the southern sky, a time of rebirth as the stars began their journey upward.

[FrostyBoy]

From where did the people spread? Did they spread because of the Ice? Were there any parts of the Earth that were warm?

[Hueij]

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/home...dp5/pyramid.htm

A site that makes references to people like Bauval, Hancock, Von Däniken and, I kid you not, Madame Blavatsky?

Anyway, somehow the only sources that claim (but of course don't prove) that the stele is a copy of a 4th Dynasty one seem to be the usual "The Great Pyramid Was Built By Aliens/Atlanteans."

Btw, what you interpret as a hieroglyphic sign for "sphinx" is actually a lion, which stands for the "rw" in Hwrwn (Hurun)

Take a look for yourself at http://www.creatures-kbc.com/ae_inventorystele.htm

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sn00py
From where did the people spread?

The pervailing theory in anthropology is they started from Africa

Originally posted by Sn00py
Did they spread because of the Ice?

Nah, they were spreading before.

Originally posted by Sn00py
Were there any parts of the Earth that were warm?

Sure. Don't forget, the average surface temperature during the last Ice Age was only 5°C lower.

[Gatekeeper]

Fascinating stuff, Berz. Thanks for the insights.

I like to think that human history and civilization stretches back much further in time than what we think. I'm reasonably sure our civilization is the planet's first modern one (i.e. spaceflight, computers and so on), but that sure doesn't rule out "non-modern" civilizations that could conceivably stretch back to the time of the last Ice Age. After all, modern humans have been around for 40,000 to 50,000 years. Plenty of time to do something other than root around in forests and live in caves for 45,000 years of that time.

Gatekeeper

[Datajack Franit]

New researches suggest that the island of Crete was destroyed by a huge storm probably caused by a meteorite fallen into the Mediterranean Sea, and that could be the flood the scriptures are talking about

[Berzerker]

Hueij -

A site that makes references to people like Bauval, Hancock, Von Däniken and, I kid you not, Madame Blavatsky?

That site merely recounts various theories, it does not endorse them. And I chose it because it has information on the stela, not because I endorse everything these people claim. You did not even address the quote I used from that site, If you have a problem with the quote, challenge it instead of attacking the messenger.
Do you deny some archaeologists initially believed it to be a copy of a 4th dynasty stela? If not, what's your point? That the quote is invalid because you found something else at the site that may be invalid?

Anyway, somehow the only sources that claim (but of course don't prove) that the stele is a copy of a 4th Dynasty one seem to be the usual "The Great Pyramid Was Built By Aliens/Atlanteans."

Egyptologists made the claim it was a copy of a 4th dynasty stela only to conclude it was a ~6th BC forgery because it conflicted with the prevailing theories of the day, did you ignore the second link too? It comes from the head of Egypt's archaeology department and a well known expert in the field.

Btw, what you interpret as a hieroglyphic sign for "sphinx" is actually a lion, which stands for the "rw" in Hwrwn (Hurun)

First, that site is where I got the translation of the stela so of course I'm familiar with the heiroglyph. And lions were considered to be the guardians of secret and sacred places, and the Sphinx has the body of a lion.

He discovered the temple of Isis, lady of the pyramids, beside the house of Hurun facing northwest to the house of Osiris, Lord of Rosetau (Giza necropolis).

He constructed his pyramid beside the temple of this goddess.

Khufu discovered the temple of Isis, the lady of the pyramids at Giza? He built his pyramid next to it? He found this temple beside the house of hurun - the lion/sphinx? So Giza was already in use as a sacred place before Khufu? And it implies the site was already very old, you don't discover New York City unless it's long forgotten, yet here the text says Khufu "discovered" the temple of Isis at Giza and built next to it.

[MrFun]

Re: The Ice Age and the Fertile Crescent.

Originally posted by Sn00py
(Not because of the Day After Tomorrow movie of course).

suuuure -- of course not

[Berzerker]

Hueij, can you find links to the hieroglyphs for the lion and the sphinx? I'd like to see if the hieroglyph on the inventory stela is that of a lion or a sphinx (or if they shared the same hieroglyph), it seems to me there is no house of the lion at Giza but I suspect there is a house of the sphinx (given we find the sphinx there). And please explain why Khufu "discovered" a temple of Isis at Giza if the site was not already a sacred place in use, if not in his time, then in what was already ancient history in his day.

[CharlesBHoff]

The great Pym was make out of concrete block(the concrete was crusk gandite rock) The stone they use to built doesnot match any know stone quarred the ancient use. The stone was too hard for copper or wood tools to cut or shape you needed at least Iron or bronze tools. The inside of the Pym is very humid while the outside is very dry. Instead or cutting over 2 million very hard stone by hands in 20 year time would it be easy to useing wood mold to pour concrete in. The place is right next to the nile river so they have pentryt of water to make concrete. The core stone inside the Pyd weight 250 tons and go up to 1/3 of the height of the pyd how did they lift so stone up so height and place then so accurate in place.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Hueij, can you find links to the hieroglyphs for the lion and the sphinx? I'd like to see if the hieroglyph on the inventory stela is that of a lion or a sphinx (or if they shared the same hieroglyph), it seems to me there is no house of the lion at Giza but I suspect there is a house of the sphinx (given we find the sphinx there). And please explain why Khufu "discovered" a temple of Isis at Giza if the site was not already a sacred place in use, if not in his time, then in what was already ancient history in his day.

The one show I saw pushing the idea that the sphinx is much older than the pyramids put forth the theory that that firt carving was of a lion-that later egyptians recarved the head into a human head form the bigger lions head that was once there-one reason why the head looks awkward compared to the bulk of the body.

[Berzerker]

Yeah, I saw that show but they don't really know what the original head looked like. Although it is interesting that the lion was the guardian of secrets and sacred places to the Egyptians and there's no obvious reason as to why. We can be fairly certain the head has been recarved since it is so much smaller compared to the body. It's claimed by the egyptology community that Chephren re-did the head in his image, well, they claim he made it, but that can't explain why he would have made it with such a small head. Maybe he had no choice but that's quite peculiar given the Egyptian's sense of detail. That show's producers also hired a NYC criminal artist to compare the known image of Chephren to the head of the Sphinx and there were some glaring differences calling into question the notion Chephren had it carved in his image. I suspect the head was larger and repeated re-shapings simply reduced the size and they couldn't figure out a way of making it larger or didn't want to make it larger for some other reason. But the weathering of the Sphinx and it's enclosure is the thing that stands out, the other structures on the Giza plateau show wind erosion while the Sphinx has a different pattern. Maybe the Sphinx and it's enclosure was buried most of the time and wind couldn't attack it like the rest of the plateau... That's the only explanation I can see as viable other than a greater antiquity for the Sphinx. I believe the head of the Sphinx was originally that of a woman because it symbolized the precessional age of Leo and Virgo which would have coincided with the end of the last ice age and the rising sea levels - the Great Flood. And according to Egyptian creation mythology, the "Earth" was raised up out of the water in the form of a mound or hill/mountain and the pyramids may not only represent Orion's Belt but the symbolic rising of a mound from out of the waters with the Sphinx marking the "date". I do think the recent research by people like Bauval (who get's laughed at by Hueij) and John Anthony West are raising questions epyptologists can't dismiss so easily. Dogmas look the same regardless of whether the adherents are religious or "scientists"...

[Sava]

I think we are some sort of alien/primate hybrid. See, alien refugees came to Earth a long time ago... but they had trouble adapting to Earth's environment, so the only way for the species to survive was to use primate DNA to make a hybrid. Their advanced brain, among other things, was integrated into the primate DNA which is how humans came about. We're the product of aliens and dirty apes.

[Victor Galis]

I strongly recommend reading at least the early chapters of Guns, Germs, and Steel. I strongly doubt the idea that civilization arose anywhere before it arose in the Fertile Crescent, simply because we lack evidence that the animals and plants that were domesticated there were actually brought in from somewhere else. I could entertain the notion of an Atlantis-type situation where there was an earlier culture, which vanished beneath the waves, but only because disproving something of that nature is a bit harder.