The Great Pyramid Of Giza And Why It Was Probably Not A Tomb

a reply to: Scott Creighton

SC: It’s not my legal opinion at all. It is the opinion of the Parliamentary Committee of 1842.

Really? Let’s see.

SC: It is a reference you are using to defend Vyse, thus a “defence”.

On the contrary, the statements I’ve quoted are clear indications that anyone studying or practising law circa 1807 would find nothing which needed defending.

SC: The Beverley Bribery Commission took place in 1869 ...

Really? Allow me to remind you (again) that it was my co-author who told you this in the first place.

... Now, unless you can point me to the particular statute with regard to ‘prior promise/contract/understanding’ and show how it was repealed or reformed between 1807-1842, then the comments of the 1842 Commissioners are perfectly relevant to Vyse’s 1807 election. And what they say is this:

This doesn’t even begin to make sense. Do I really need to explain to you that precedent works forwards in time and not backwards? It seems that I do.

You want me to point you to a particular statute? Why not just say that you have no idea what case law is?

What “they” say is not this. What you quote is, again, as already noted, an argument advanced by a Mr. Cockburn, who was counsel for the petitioners. An argument advanced by counsel is not an authoritative statement of the committee: it would not be precedent, even if precedent did work backwards in time.

The discussions of a Select Committee can be informative on past cases and past law, if the remarks are retrospective and historical. Here is an example:

We have seen some text from Barron and Austin (1844).

In Barron and Arnold (1846) we find this - and on the preceding page, this .

The remarks are those of Mr. Serjt. Wrangham. Were you to follow them carefully, you would find that the relevant point of law is explained with great clarity.

The rest is merely fantasy law.

a reply to: Hooke

Vyse perpetrated electoral fraud at the 1807 UK General Election.

How do we know this?

Because a witness in an inquiry 62 years after Vyse's election revealed that Vyse made a 'customary payment' to each of his voters in order to BUY THEIR VOTE. The witness, Joseph Hind, even tells us how many votes were bought and what each voter was paid by Vyse for their vote.

Now, at UK elections in 1807, it was illegal to pay cash for votes either before, during and yes, even AFTER an election. And yet, Vyse PAID CASH FOR VOTES. In Councillor Hind's testimony, a 'prior promise' or 'understanding' between Vyse and his voters is self-evidently IMPLIED otherwise Hind could not have said that Vyse made customary payments to BUY VOTES. Hind tells us the payments Vyse made was payments for the actual VOTES, nothing else. The cash Vyse paid was not for voter transport, lodgings, subsistence, legal expenses or any other legitimate post-election expenditure or philanthropic gesture. The money, Hind tells us, was solely and purely as PAYMENT for EACH ELECTOR'S VOTE.

Which was illegal in 1807.

Vyse.

Bought.

Votes.

FACT.

How much simpler does this have to be made for you to understand it?

SC

a reply to: Scott Creighton

Vyse perpetrated electoral fraud at the 1807 UK General Election.

Your assurance on this point is at odds with the views of those who actually practised the law.

Here we see the exposition of Mr. Austin, Q.C., who was acting as counsel for the sitting member:

The law therefore stood thus. Where there was a previous express promise of reward, whether followed by performance or not, it was clear bribery. Where, without any previous promise, express or implied, there was a subsequent payment, it was not bribery. Where there was no previous express promise, but a practice prevailed of making payments subsequent to the election, so as to give rise to a corrupt expectation on the part of the voter, it was doubtful whether it was bribery or not. It is believed there is no case in which such payments have been decided to be bribery [my emphasis]. At most the practice would have given rise to an implied promise. It is to cases of this latter class that the 20th section applies. The preamble recites that “a practice has prevailed in certain boroughs and places of making payments;” and to that practice the declaratory part of the section points. Any other interpretation of it would be an alteration, not a declaration, of the law. The object of it is merely to clear up the doubts that had been expressed in the preamble. The section says, that “the payment of any money to any voter, &c., on account of his having voted, &c., whether such payment shall have been in compliance with any usage or not, shall be deemed bribery.” ...

Austin was talking about 5 & 6 Vict. c. 102: the Bribery at Elections Act, 1842. So, as late as 1842, Parliament considered it necessary to declare, in statute, that such customary payments as were made at Beverley should be deemed bribery, as in practice they had not been.

Just to repeat: ... in practice they had not been.

a reply to: Hooke

H: Austin was talking about 5 & 6 Vict. c. 102: the Bribery at Elections Act, 1842. So, as late as 1842, Parliament considered it necessary to declare, in statute, that such customary payments as were made at Beverley should be deemed bribery, as in practice they had not been.

Just to repeat: ... in practice they had not been.

SC: Indeed. And I contend that, had the investigating commission of 1807-08, had access to the information Joseph Hind presented to the 1869 inquiry, the 'verdict' of that commission would have gone against Vyse. And around we go again.

Let me try and explain in a different way.



Staples accused Vyse (and Wharton) of paying money and making promises DURING the election, not after it. And then, 62 years later, we find evidence that Vyse did indeed pay money to buy votes. Staples' claim of money being paid by Vyse to buy votes is thus corroborated.

Your claim that this money paid by Vyse was paid only after the election flies in the face of what Staples claimed was actually going on. Just because Dalton provided an account, a tally, on 18th June 1808 (a year or so after the election) doesn't mean or prove that this was the date Vyse's voters were actually paid. If you want to make the claim that this was the date the voters were actually paid, then you will need much more evidence than you have hitherto presented because, quite simply, Staples claimed (presumably under oath) the payments were being made by Vyse (and his agents) during the election.

Let me repeat - Staples said Vyse's payment of money to voters was occurring during the 1807 election. (Vyse could hardly make a promise of anything after the election). Hind's testimony corroborates Staples' central accusation, that Vyse was indeed paying money to voters for their vote. As stated, until you can show that the vote money Hind mentions in his testimony of 1869 was paid by Vyse only after the election, then I believe Mr Staples was robbed in that 1807 election by Vyse's malpractice. Vyse perpetrated electoral fraud and should not have been elected.

SC

a reply to: Scott Creighton

SC: Indeed. And I contend that, had the investigating commission of 1807-08, had access to the information Joseph Hind presented to the 1869 inquiry, the 'verdict' of that commission would have gone against Vyse. And around we go again.

No, Scott: around you go again: “contending” and telling us what you “believe” yet again. As for the sainted Staple:

The Select Committee which examined his petition declined to void the result in his favour and it is mere supposition that it was unaware of these payments. All indications are that it would have made no difference: in no case did it do so, until the Act of 1842.

What we may fairly infer from its decision is that the Select Committee was unconvinced of Staple’s having been any better than Vyse - rightly so, as Major Philip Staple was far from being the unimpeachable character you make him out to be. Second most popular voting choice was a split vote for Vyse and, yes, Staple. You make much of the figures: think about that one.

You wouldn’t have declared in HOAX (p. 36) that

... it also has to be said that not everyone who stood for Parliament was so “morally flexible” or prepared to resort to such unsavory and illegal practices to secure electoral victory. Staple certainly didn’t. ...

- without having researched this, would you?

Invoking Staple contra HInd undermines your claim to have any evidence at all. Allow me to remind you also that Staple’s evidence (if any) did not persuade the Select Committee as you assume Hind’s would have done. By your own criterion, it was of lesser weight, so you cannot coherently give it greater weight ad hoc on the question of timing.

Fact of political life: far from being a disinterested plea for retrospective justice, Staple’s petition was the last-ditch effort of a failed candidate to get into Parliament regardless, possibly the worst political chancing in the whole story. Naturally you see no problem at all in his having adopted the cynical “No Popery” platform of Spencer Perceval, excoriated by Cobbett in these terms:

... I remember, at the canvas of 1807, telling the late Sir Harry Mildmay, that I looked upon the cry of No-Popery to contain the most wicked sentiment that ever issued from the lips of man; and, I must do him the justice, to say, that he did openly disclaim it, though it was trumpeted about the streets of Winchester. Every man of any principle was ashamed of it. Its propagation was left to those only, who were lost to all sense of shame as well as all feelings of conscience. ...

Staple’s subsequent get-rich-quick scheme centred on slavery I merely mention. In the end he only had a few slaves, so please don’t feel a need to take him off the pedestal you’ve put him on.

a reply to: Hooke

H: ...in no case did it do so, until the Act of 1842.

SC: And this was only likely so because no candidate could ever actually prove the money was paid. But that is not what we have here with Vyse's election. Retrospectively we learn that money WAS paid by Vyse to buy votes. And Staples tells us this bribery was occurring during (not after) Vyse's election. This is why I have always held that had Joseph Hind's little black book of Beverley bribery been available to the Parliamentary Committee investigating the 1807 election in Beverley (as per Staples' petition), then they would have come to the opposite conclusion and found Vyse 'guilty' of electoral fraud.

Vyse got away with electoral fraud. THAT is what happened.

SC

a reply to: Scott Creighton

SC: And this was only likely so because no candidate could ever actually prove the money was paid. ...

Scott,

I’m talking about cases in which it was proven that money was paid - after the election - as discussed at length in my earlier posts.

Why on earth would you imagine otherwise? Unless you’ve simply not read them, in which case why are you pretending to be discussing this with me at all?

Your latest ploy - suggesting that Staple’s weaker evidence somehow abrogates Hind’s stronger evidence - is silly. All we have from Staple is the allegations he made in his petition. Allow me to remind you again that the Select Committee rejected his petition: it did not consider his evidence sufficient to warrant voiding the election.

Treating Staple’s allegations as implicitly reliable is not to be taken seriously.

(And the name is Staple, not Staples.)

a reply to: Hooke

H: Allow me to remind you again that the Select Committee rejected his petition: it did not consider his evidence sufficient to warrant voiding the election.

SC: That is not disputed and never has been. Staple(s)* most likely lost because he couldn't prove that Vyse paid the money - as you say his evidence was not "sufficient to warrant voiding the election".

But with the benefit of history, we now know - long after the fact - that Vyse DID pay money to buy votes and most likely, as Staples petitioned, this was occurring during the election campaign.

Which is why I insist that had the investigating committee in 1807-08 had access to the information that surfaced decades later, their decision would have been opposite because paying for votes during an election campaign was clear bribery and they would have had no choice.

Vyse committed electoral fraud but got away with it, the evidence that would surely have condemned him only surfacing decades later, long after his death. How difficult can this be to understand?

*(As for the petitioner's name - in some documents it appears as Staple and in others as Staples).

SC

a reply to: Scott Creighton

SC: ... Staple(s)* most likely lost because he couldn't prove that Vyse paid the money ...

So you say. Have you found a record of the Select Committee’s discussions? Otherwise, we don’t know.

SC: ... - as you say his evidence was not "sufficient to warrant voiding the election".

No, I didn't say that. What I said was this:

H: ... Allow me to remind you again that the Select Committee rejected his petition: it [i.e. the Select Committee] did not consider his evidence sufficient to warrant voiding the election.

So: they did not consider his evidence sufficient.

SC: That is not disputed and never has been. ...

Indeed. How could it be?

a reply to: Hooke

SC: That is not disputed and never has been. ...

H: Indeed. How could it be?

Because had the 1807-08 parliamentary committee been presented with the full facts (i.e. Joseph Hind's evidence) at the time, facts that only surfaced decades later, I suspect a much different outcome would have resulted and that Vyse, almost certainly, would have been found 'guilty' of bribery and corruption as per Staples' petition. In short, Vyse got away with it, most likely, because Hind's evidence wasn't available at the time.

I keep explaining my position on this issue to you in slightly different ways and still you come back with more of your pointless witterings. I have given you my opinion based on the available evidence. It is my view (for a number of reasons) that the money for votes Hind speaks of in 1869, is the same money for votes Staples presented in his petition. Given this, then bribery was committed by Vyse (and his agents) during the 1807 election.

That is my view and I am perfectly entitled to that view. That you do not accept my view is neither here nor there. I accept your absolute right to take a different view on this issue. What I see from you, however, is someone who simply cannot abide anyone who takes a different view to yours on this matter. You simply cannot tolerate it. Because you are intolerant. You seem to think that everyone should simply accept your view on this issue. Such is the disposition of a fascist.

I have one view on the available evidence. You have another. Learn to celebrate the difference and agree to differ.

Now, unless you have anything substantive to add, I think we're done here.

SC

a reply to: Scott Creighton

Because had the 1807-08 parliamentary committee been presented with the full facts (i.e. Joseph Hind's evidence) at the time, facts that only surfaced decades later, ...

We don’t know what “facts” were presented to the committee. We don’t know that evidence of the payments “surfaced” only “decades later” than 1808. There is no record of the committee’s deliberations. All we have is a report of its decision. How hard is it to take in that basic fact of the matter?

I keep explaining my position on this issue to you in slightly different ways and still you come back with more of your pointless witterings. ...

No, Scott: you keep thumping your tub, whereas I’ve explained to you in various ways such verimost basics as what precedent is. That I needed to do so - and your dismissal of my efforts to do so as “pointless witterings” - just go to show how far your are from being able to discuss this question in an informed and adult manner.

... I have given you my opinion based on the available evidence. ...

Not on the available evidence. On the “evidence” you’ve chosen to acknowledge. The evidence on precedent you’ve waved away.

That is my view and I am perfectly entitled to that view. That you do not accept my view is neither here nor there. I accept your absolute right to take a different view on this issue. What I see from you, however, is someone who simply cannot abide anyone who takes a different view to yours on this matter. You simply cannot tolerate it. Because you are intolerant. You seem to think that everyone should simply accept your view on this issue. Such is the disposition of a fascist.

I reproduce this paragraph in full so that readers may fully appreciate its incoherence. You start off pleading “entitlement” to your “view” on a basis of “live and let live” relativism and end up comparing my presuming to argue for a different “view” with fascism.

Your “view” being purely private and not one you’ve tried to propagate in books, articles, lectures, podcasts, TV appearances ...

I think no further comment is needed.

a reply to: Hooke

H: We don’t know what “facts” were presented to the committee.

SC: Exactly!!

And it is my contention that the investigating committee did not get to see, at that time, the evidence that Vyse DID pay for votes (during the 1807 election, as per Staples' petition). And no - we won't ever likely know for certain exactly what was "presented to the committee", but my view that they 'acquitted' Vyse because Hind's evidence wasn't presented to them, is every bit as reasonable and valid a view as any other - regardless of how much you refuse to accept that.

Now you're just back here wasting more of my time. We're done.

SC

You know, even if it isn't a forgery, it still wouldn't necessarily prove anything.

Have you considered just how many people have put grafitti on the outside of the Great Pyramid since it was built?

www.theguardian.com...

mashable.com...



The building of the outer casing stones of the Great Pyramid was almost certainly the work of Khufu, since we have the diary of Merer to back it up (and the nearby work camp city.)

en.wikipedia.org...



But whether the great granite interior structure had previously been a building unto itself, or not, is not certain.

Nobody needs to question whether Khufu's workers could move 5 ton blocks. But moving a 5 ton limestone block and moving an 80 ton granite block (without fracturing it) are very different achievements.



During construction of the casing stones, the relieving chambers would have likely been open enough to be accessible to the work crews.

Why wouldn't they write stuff?

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

...

During construction of the casing stones, the relieving chambers would have likely been open enough to be accessible to the work crews.

Why wouldn't they write stuff?

[From an earlier post]The cartouche names of Khufu as found in the relieving chambers have been shown to fit into a scheme of labour organisation (see Roth, Phyles of the Old Kingdom, pgs. 125-7.)

There would have been little point in placing the names of work-crews, aperu, in the chambers once the stones were in place. The scrawled names - essentially indications about which aper was to handle which stones, and in what part of the chamber they were to be placed - were far more likely to have been added to the blocks while they were on site, waiting to be hauled up to the place where they were intended to go. This would also explain why some of the inscriptions are upside-down or sideways: once the blocks were set in the correct part of the chambers by the right crew, it didn't matter what way up they were.

a reply to: Hooke

...once the blocks were set in the correct part of the chambers by the right crew, it didn't matter what way up they were.

SC: Why do we find these painted marks (i.e. crew names) only in the 'Vyse Chambers' and in no other chamber or passageway within the pyramid?

SC

a reply to: Scott Creighton

H: We don’t know what “facts” were presented to the committee.

Which is the opening sentence of a paragraph:

We don’t know what “facts” were presented to the committee. We don’t know that evidence of the payments “surfaced” only “decades later” than 1808. There is no record of the committee’s deliberations. All we have is a report of its decision. How hard is it to take in that basic fact of the matter?

SC: Exactly!!

Followed promptly by a display of just not getting it:

And it is my contention that ... And no - we won't ever likely know ... but my view that ... is every bit as reasonable and valid a view as any other - regardless of how much you refuse to accept that.

Sorry, no. The reasonable “view” is that we don’t know. Absence of evidence is not an invitation to fill the void with arbitrary assumptions. That is merely argumentum ad ignorantiam raised to the level of policy. We already know from your “proposed secret cache” that you have taken this step: there is no reason for the rest of us to do so.

You used to be fond of telling us that we cannot exclude the possibility of x, y or z. Well then, we cannot exclude the possibility that the Select Committee in 1808 knew all about the post-election payments (and we cannot exclude the possibility that they were post-election). We know from the cited cases of Sudbury and Cirencester and the discussion of the point in later cases that we cannot properly infer from its decision that the Select Committe did not know of them. Follow?

Your assumptions are not warranted by the evidence (and just to head you off here, I’m assuming none of these things: just showing that your assuming their negations is unwarranted).

Now you're just back here wasting more of my time. ...

How long, actually, did it take you to pull one sentence out of context and then repeat your usual recitation?

... We're done.

Is that what you think?

a reply to: Scott Creighton

SC: Why do we find these painted marks (i.e. crew names) only in the 'Vyse Chambers' and in no other chamber or passageway within the pyramid?

Why do you find them in imaginary “secret caches” and nowhere else?

How in all these years has it escaped your attention that the ˤpr names are on undressed limestone surfaces?

Why are you (as usual) ignoring the names of Khufu reported by Goyon and Grinsell?

There is something of interest here in the section headed “Other Marks Inside QCS” (but as usual this is the last we hear of it).

a reply to: Hooke

H: How in all these years has it escaped your attention that the ˤpr names are on undressed limestone surfaces?

SC: The roof blocks of Campbell's Chamber are no less 'dressed' limestone blocks than the roof blocks of the Queen's Chamber. Yet we find no painted crew names on the dressed QC roof blocks but we do find them on the dressed roof blocks of Campbell's Chamber. The blocks of the Descending Passage (before it meets and cuts into the bedrock) are of a similar 'dressed' appearance to the limestone wall blocks in the 'Vyse Chambers'. Yet not a single painted mark has ever been reported on any of the blocks in the DP, and yet they're all over the place in the 'Vyse Chambers'.

Why?

SC

a reply to: Hooke

H: ...we cannot exclude the possibility that the Select Committee in 1808 knew all about the post-election payments (and we cannot exclude the possibility that they were post-election).

SC: And when will you get it into your head that even IF the money Hind speaks of was paid after Vyse's election, Hind still tells us exactly what that money was used for. He tells us it was used to BUY VOTES (which, logically, implies there WAS a pre-election promise - again this was part of Staples' petition). Hind even gives us how many and the price each vote cost!! Hind does not tell us the money was paid as part of any philanthropic gesture on Vyse's part, or paying for any of his voters' legitimate expenses post-election. He tells us unequivocally that the money WAS USED TO BUY VOTES. As such, it doesn't matter if it's pre, during or post election when this money was spent. If that cash was used to BUY VOTES (as Hind tells us IT WAS and thereby implying a pre-election agreement), then THAT WAS ILLEGAL. Alas, Staples likely couldn't get any proof of money changing hands (before or after) nor would it have been likely that he would have managed to obtain any proof of an agreement.

But Hind's statement implies that such an agreement must have been in place because he tells us, unequivocally, that cash was used to BUY VOTES and not anything else - just VOTES. And I am quite certain that any parliamentary committee, being told that money had been paid after the election for the explicit purpose to BUY VOTES (not for expenses or any other legitimate expenditure), could only conclude (even without any evidence of it), that an agreement MUST have existed beforehand and, as such, would have found Vyse 'guilty'. The investigating committee couldn't have known about the post-election cash-for-votes because if they had known, then they most assuredly would have regarded that as blatant fraud, even in the absence of any evidence of a pre-vote agreement because such an agreement is implied in the subsequent, post-election action of paying cash for votes.

SC

Great debate fellas.
I’m not on either of your ‘sides’ so don’t take my question as leaning any way in particular.
As a fabricator I understand fully the reasons why certain blocks would be ‘assigned’ to certain crews possibly working different areas of a project.

Is there a reason we don’t see more of these ‘project/crew’ marks in any other sections/shafts of the GP?
In a project of such scale, much organisation would’ve been required (whoever built it, guys!) and I would assume , much labelling of parts/blocks.

In terms of graffiti, and on a purely mischievous personal note, if I was a builder/common labourer working on the GP, had some red paint to hand, I probably would write my own name rather than the person i was building it for; knowing it was going to be hidden inside- - but I also believe if I was that labourer, I wouldn’t be able to write.
My assumption only, of course.

Has the paint you guys are debating been tested c14 as I can’t find any reference to that anywhere ?

If I was head of Antiquities in Egypt, the dating of the paint could seal the argument once and for all.
... or it could bring down a hammer blow on accepted timelines . Is this why it hasn’t been done?
Surely the only way the debate is settled is this crucial evidence being tested?
Easily done, these days.