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Curiously, the "Pyramid Texts" the author cites were not incribed in pyramids. The pyramids are all unaccountably blank. The oldest stonework is of best quality

by ncmncm 4y ago

Curiously, the "Pyramid Texts" the author cites were not incribed in pyramids. The pyramids are all unaccountably blank. The oldest stonework is of best quality: mirror finishes, perfect right angles and flat surfaces cut into the hardest of rock. Likewise, the biggest one-piece stone columns and statues are oldest. Later dynasties stacked their columns. All the oldest Egyptian construction was blank, but that didn't stop later pharaohs from tagging them with their own cartouches, chiseling off any older tags. Today, Egyptologists routinely date things to whoever was the last pharaoh to tag it. But there must have been a real taboo about tagging pyramids, because none did them. By the way, the reason noses and right hands of so much statuary is broken is that that was the standard Christian way of neutralizing the powerful magic they had enabled. Without a nose, they could not breathe in altar smoke. Without a hand, they could not bless.

wl 4y ago
Pyramid texts, inscribed inside a pyramid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burial_chamber_in_Unas%27_pyramid.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burial_chamber_in_Unas%27...
generationP 4y ago
> Curiously, the "Pyramid Texts" the author cites were not incribed in pyramids. The pyramids are all unaccountably blank. Not all. See the image caption at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Texts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Texts . You're talking of the Giza ones I assume, which were indeed surprisingly text-free. Might have been a 5th dynasty "invention"? > By the way, the reason noses and right hands of so much statuary is broken is that that was the standard Christian way of neutralizing the powerful magic they had enabled. Without a nose, they could not breathe in altar smoke. Without a hand, they could not bless. This appears to be one of many theories https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/250763/1/2019%20-%20BMPES.pdf https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/250763/1/2019%20-%20BM... . What is definitely known is that Akhenaten would deface images of older gods, and his successors responded in kind; IIRC this would usually manifest in literal defacing rather than de-nosing.
- wl 4y ago
  > You're talking of the Giza ones I assume, which were indeed surprisingly text-free. Might have been a 5th dynasty "invention"? Exactly. Think of the purpose the inscriptions inside a tomb. Nobody is going to see them, so why bother? The Pyramid Texts mark the beginning of an Egyptian magical tradition where writings and images can help the deceased in the afterlife. This tradition apparently started with Unas in the 5th dynasty and developed into the Coffin Texts, Book of the Dead scrolls, and finally hypocephali at the very end of Pharaonic Egypt. With Khufu (4th Dynasty, Great Pyramid), the inscriptions are in his mortuary temple right outside the pyramid because that's where people would actually visit, not the interior of the sealed pyramid.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Still, the proscription against tagging pyramids held, somehow. The Valley of Kings tunnel tombs are lousy with texts, sealed in. So it can't have been meant for visitors. I am always mystified at how there could be never any soot on the ceilings. We look at these things all brightly lit up, but people writing them were in a very deep hole in the ground.
    - wl 4y ago
      I'm not talking about "tunnel tombs." I'm talking about the mortuary chapel probably used during the Sed festival in life and where offerings were made after death. In earlier royal mastaba burials, there was a unsealed portion of the tomb used for these purposes. With pyramid burials, the mortuary temple outside the pyramid served the same purposes as the unsealed portions of the mastabas. A simpler explanation for why the Pyramids of Giza were not usurped: By the time royals began routinely usurping earlier royal tombs (late New Kingdom/early Third Intermediate Period), the pyramids and mastabas of the Old Kingdom were long out of fashion as burial sites.
    - houston_Euler 4y ago
      Just a thought, but isn't it possible they were written while they were still being built, so they would be open to their surroundings and well-lit with natural light?

by ncmncm 4y ago

wl 4y ago

Pyramid texts, inscribed inside a pyramid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burial_chamber_in_Unas%27_pyramid.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burial_chamber_in_Unas%27...

generationP 4y ago

> Curiously, the "Pyramid Texts" the author cites were not incribed in pyramids. The pyramids are all unaccountably blank. Not all. See the image caption at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Texts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Texts . You're talking of the Giza ones I assume, which were indeed surprisingly text-free. Might have been a 5th dynasty "invention"? > By the way, the reason noses and right hands of so much statuary is broken is that that was the standard Christian way of neutralizing the powerful magic they had enabled. Without a nose, they could not breathe in altar smoke. Without a hand, they could not bless. This appears to be one of many theories https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/250763/1/2019%20-%20BMPES.pdf https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/250763/1/2019%20-%20BM... . What is definitely known is that Akhenaten would deface images of older gods, and his successors responded in kind; IIRC this would usually manifest in literal defacing rather than de-nosing.

wl 4y ago
> You're talking of the Giza ones I assume, which were indeed surprisingly text-free. Might have been a 5th dynasty "invention"? Exactly. Think of the purpose the inscriptions inside a tomb. Nobody is going to see them, so why bother? The Pyramid Texts mark the beginning of an Egyptian magical tradition where writings and images can help the deceased in the afterlife. This tradition apparently started with Unas in the 5th dynasty and developed into the Coffin Texts, Book of the Dead scrolls, and finally hypocephali at the very end of Pharaonic Egypt. With Khufu (4th Dynasty, Great Pyramid), the inscriptions are in his mortuary temple right outside the pyramid because that's where people would actually visit, not the interior of the sealed pyramid.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Still, the proscription against tagging pyramids held, somehow. The Valley of Kings tunnel tombs are lousy with texts, sealed in. So it can't have been meant for visitors. I am always mystified at how there could be never any soot on the ceilings. We look at these things all brightly lit up, but people writing them were in a very deep hole in the ground.
  - wl 4y ago
    I'm not talking about "tunnel tombs." I'm talking about the mortuary chapel probably used during the Sed festival in life and where offerings were made after death. In earlier royal mastaba burials, there was a unsealed portion of the tomb used for these purposes. With pyramid burials, the mortuary temple outside the pyramid served the same purposes as the unsealed portions of the mastabas. A simpler explanation for why the Pyramids of Giza were not usurped: By the time royals began routinely usurping earlier royal tombs (late New Kingdom/early Third Intermediate Period), the pyramids and mastabas of the Old Kingdom were long out of fashion as burial sites.
  - houston_Euler 4y ago
    Just a thought, but isn't it possible they were written while they were still being built, so they would be open to their surroundings and well-lit with natural light?