Spot the Deliberate 'Error'.....

Hi,

Thanks to everyone who responded to my little puzzle and well done CLPrime - 10 kudos points to you since you were first to spot that Lehner's map is actually inverted to our modern convention with south to the top of the map. However, it was not a frivolous question - there was actually an important point to it all which I hope to now explain.

For the best part of two decades, Robert Bauval has argued that the pyramids at Giza were built to correlate with the asterism of the Orion Belt stars. Yes, I know - old news. But hear me out.

The image Bauval and Gilbert presented in their book, The Orion Mystery, is shown below:



The image above was seized upon by archaeo-astronomer, Dr Ed Krupp, to attempt to dismiss the correlation. Krupp had a 'feeling' that something was not quite right with Bauval's proposal. And then it dawned on Krupp. He argued that the smallest pyramid Menakure (G3) was placed furthest south on the Giza plateau and, according to Bauval, was to 'mirror' the Belt star Mintaka which Krupp declared was actually furthest north. In effect, what Krupp was trying to argue was that for the correlation to work, the Giza pyramids would have to be rotated 180 degrees. This erroneous 'krupp-side down' disinformation has been peddled ever since.

Now, in spite of Bauval and Gilbert (and latterly Graham Hancock) presenting numerous Professors of Astronomy who supported their view, STILL the detractors (on this Forum and elsewhere) insisted that the correlation did not work because Giza would have to be rotated 180 degrees (as per Krupp's argument). For the best part of two decades, Bauval, Gilbert and Hancock had to argue and argue their case in the face of hostile Egyptologists, archaeo-astronomers - and even the BBC. This argument from the detractors, as I will shortly show, was nothing but two decades of complete and utter disinformation in order to try and discredit the correlation.

These detractors were wrong and their disinformation should stop now.

Bauval and Gilbert (and latterly, Graham Hancock) were absolutely 100% correct in presenting the above inverted image of the Gizamids. How do we know this?

Because they are supported by none other than one of the world's foremost Egyptologists, Dr Mark Lehner.

In his book, The Complete Pyramids, Dr Lehner presents the following image:



In the diagram above, you will see that I have now included the cardinal direction indicator Dr Lehner placed in his original diagram (p.83, TCP). As you can see, Dr Lehner presents the image of an 'inverted' Saqqara pyramid field. This is to say that Dr Lehner presented the image of the Saqqara pyramid field with SOUTH to the top of his map - which, of course, is the complete opposite to our modern cartographic convention that would place north at the top of a map.

But why would Dr Lehner have inverted this map to present SOUTH at the TOP of the map (just as Bauval and Gilbert had done with their original image of Giza in The Orion Mystery that caused all the controversy)?

Here's why:

”…If we look at the map of Saqqara [above] with south at the top as the ancient Egyptians viewed their world….” (Emphasis mine) - Dr Mark Lehner, TCP, p.82

Dr Lehner also produces other maps showing various pyramid sites in Egypt with SOUTH to the TOP of the map ("...as the ancient Egyptians viewed their world..."). He presents the Dahshur pyramid site (page 101, TCP) in similar fashion.

Now, given what Dr Lehner has stated (and, indeed, illustrated with a couple of map diagrams), we have to conclude that were the good Doctor to have presented a map of Giza in such a manner (i.e. observing the AE worldview where south=UP), he would undoubtedly have presented Giza not unlike this:



Now, let us ask ourselves - how is the above orientation of the inverted map of Giza that Lehner would surely have presented any different to the inverted image Robert Bauval presented?

The fact of the matter is, there is no material difference (other than different pyramid sites) to what Dr Lehner has presented with his maps in TCP and what Robert Bauval had presented almost two decades ago in his book, The Orion Mystery.

So folks - next time those of you who wish to argue the Ed Krupp upside-down nonsense, have a consideration to what one of the world's foremost Egyptologists tells us - the AEs regarded SOUTH as UP. The AEs viewed the Gizamids as Bauval did and as Dr Lehner also did.

I sincerely hope we can now put this nonsense and bogus argument to bed once and for all.

And thanks again to you all for participating in this little exercise.

Very best wishes,

Scott Creighton

you still missed the crop circles

Just because the guy likes standing on his head doesn't make him wrong ya know

the AEs regarded SOUTH as UP. The AEs viewed the Gizamids as Bauval did and as Dr Lehner also did.

How about providing some ancient Egyptian evidence...?

reply to post by Kantzveldt


Hi Kantzveldt,

There's little point in attempting to shoot the messenger. My statement merely paraphrases what Dr Lehner, one of the world's foremost Egyptologists, has stated in his book The Complete Pyramids. If you require evidence of Dr Lehner's statement then I would suggest the best way forward is to ask Dr Lehner himself.

Have you ever asked in the past for evidence that proved Dr Ed Krupp's view i.e. that the AEs would have had the same north-looking cartographic convention as we do? Or was it simply expedient never to bother asking for such, thereby allowing this bogus Krupp-side nonsense to propogate?

Best wishes,

Scott Creighton

When you said a 'Deliberate 'Error'' ! We all looked at the image as if it was an original. Fool us!

YOU removed something from the image:

In the diagram above, you will see that I have now included the cardinal direction indicator Dr Lehner placed in his original diagram (p.83, TCP). As you can see, Dr Lehner presents the image of an 'inverted' Saqqara pyramid field. This is to say that Dr Lehner presented the image of the Saqqara pyramid field with SOUTH to the top of his map - which, of course, is the complete opposite to our modern cartographic convention that would place north at the top of a map.

Guess what, I removed something from this post so 'Spot the Deliberate Error'

reply to post by Scott Creighton




You miss the point, i'm aware the Egyptians didn't share our cartographic conventions and that Lehner has drawn attention to this, what i asked though are you aware of any Egyptian evidence that the Egyptians considered South as 'up'...?


In my opinion the sky of both the Northern and Southern hemispheres were considered up, above, with the Underworld down, beneath, i could cite plenty of evidence which wouldn't involve someone turning a modern cartographic illustration upside down...

reply to post by Scott Creighton


Very good very good.

In your opinion, what do you believe the pyramids are or what where they used for?

Originally posted by Kantzveldt
reply to post by Scott Creighton

 

You miss the point, i'm aware the Egyptians didn't share our cartographic conventions and that Lehner has drawn attention to this, what i asked though are you aware of any Egyptian evidence that the Egyptians considered South as 'up'...?

In my opinion the sky of both the Northern and Southern hemispheres were considered up, above, with the Underworld down, beneath, i could cite plenty of evidence which wouldn't involve someone turning a modern cartographic illustration upside down...

SC: South=UP as when placed onto a map or drawing (see below), just like Dr Lehner's pyramid site maps in TCP and Bauval's photo of the Gizamids in his book, 'The Orion Mystery'.



Imagine the Gizamids are on the ground - if the AEs were to then make a drawing of them onto a board (similar to above) then the small pyramid of G3 would be top-right on their board and G1 would be bottom-left. UP on the board is south. G3's stellar counterpart would also be the uppermost star in the Belt asterism and the rightmost whilst G1's stellar counterpart is the lowestmost and leftmost start in the Belt asterism


Regards,

SC

reply to post by Scott Creighton



Like i said, i'm aware that Egyptians orientated themselves in terms of the compass to the South, this paper considers the evidence;



www.press.uchicago.edu...




So yes, South is at the TOP of their paper when they make orientation, but i don't think that should be described as 'up' in terms of the South being in some way higher, as it's just the manner in which they have orientated themselves.

Originally posted by Kantzveldt
reply to post by Scott Creighton

 

Like i said, i'm aware that Egyptians orientated themselves in terms of the compass to the South, this paper considers the evidence;



www.press.uchicago.edu...




So yes, South is at the TOP of their paper when they make orientation, but i don't think that should be described as 'up' in terms of the South being in some way higher, as it's just the manner in which they have orientated themselves.

Hello Kantzveldt,

I've read this paper before.but nevertheless, thanks for the link.

Yes, south is at the TOP of their drawing board and Mintaka is the TOPmost star in the sky ergo Mintaka will undoubtedly be the topmost star on the drawing board. When the planners then place that drawing board (plan) on the ground they will most certainly align south/top of their drawing board to their south cardinal direction. It would be completely illogical of them to rotate their south/top direction of their drawing board to the north cardinal direction as this would then be incorrectly aligned. As such, when the drawing board plan is laid out flat on the ground, G3 will end up furthest south and to the right whilst G1 will be furthest north and to the left (looking south).

Giza-Orion 3D Correlation

Regards,

SC

Mountains - High.
High - South. South - Up.
Rivers flow down. Down - North.
Nile flows South to North.

Difficult to imagine or accept that such a simplistic argument like this holds a whole theory as prisoner for so long! referring of course to "you have to turn the map 180° for you to be correct, ...thus you're wrong".
Inflicts perhaps not to the whole theory of Bauval and others but the correlation to the stars. The basis of it.(?) So lets hope some credits returned to the theory.

they have question marks behind the names of lakes and the nile LOL maybe they are not to sure where they really go!! hahaha

Originally posted by EllasArchaiaDynamis
Difficult to imagine or accept that such a simplistic argument like this holds a whole theory as prisoner for so long! referring of course to "you have to turn the map 180° for you to be correct, ...thus you're wrong".
Inflicts perhaps not to the whole theory of Bauval and others but the correlation to the stars. The basis of it.(?) So lets hope some credits returned to the theory.

Hi,

Yes, it truly is incredible that Krupp's nonsense argument has been seized upon by the skeptics as a flaw in the Giza-Orion concordance. What's even more remarkable is that some on this Board (and elsewhere) continue to blindly trot it out as if longevity of the rebuttal somehow gives it legitimacy.

To such people if a particular objection is raised to rebut a controversial idea that does not 'conform' to mainstream thinking and if that objection has even the slightest illusion of being credible then the skeptics will happily trot it out as a means to obfuscate and discredit a theory. It does not seem to matter to such people what the actual truth of the matter happens to be - if the perceived flaw is good enough to cause confusion then it will be used as mud and to hell with the true facts of the matter.

My hope is that anyone who receives this erroneous 'Krupp-side down' nonsense in any future discussion can simply redirect the objector to this thread to demonstrate the truth of the matter i.e. that this objection is as bogus now as it was when Krupp first raised it.

Best wishes,

Scott Creighton

reply to post by Scott Creighton


A quick question would the AE have viewed south as up and important because that was the direction of the source of the nile? And there was an upper and lower kingdom in egypt with upper being to the south am I correct? good post

Originally posted by cookiemonster32
reply to post by Scott Creighton

 

A quick question would the AE have viewed south as up and important because that was the direction of the source of the nile? And there was an upper and lower kingdom in egypt with upper being to the south am I correct? good post

Hi,

Here are some citations from academia that supports the south-looking view of the ancient Egyptians:

“…(the Egyptian) took his orientation from the Nile River, the source of all life. He faced the south, from which the stream came. One of the terms for ‘south’ is also the term for ‘face’..."

- Henri Frankfort and John A. Wilson, Before Philosophy, Pelican Books, 1961, p. 51.

"Contrary to modern usage the Ancient Egyptians orientated themselves to face southwards. At their back lay the Mediterranean and the rest of the ancient world. The west was for them the right, and the east the left."

- J. M. Plumley, Ancient cosmologies, Carmen Blacker and Michael Loewe (eds.), George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1975 p. 19).

“From the Egyptian viewpoint, the concepts of what was in front and rear also led to the extending beliefs of “left” or ”right” as value-laden concepts. Since the ancient Egyptians oriented themselves within their country from the direction of the Nile’s origin point (the south), the positive aspects of “front” and “back” also took on cardinal directional indicators from these basic physiological orientations, being south and north, respectively. Similarly, based upon the physiological orientation of front/rear, the right and left of the body also came to signify certain values in the Egyptian mind – based from the continuing flow of logic of directional bearings.”

- (Frankfort, Frankfort et al. 1977 : 43).

”Cardinal directions – that is, north, south, east, and west – were, as noted above, derived as objective points from the original physiological orientation of the body in space. The function of cardinal directions is to define places external to the body at far points. However, defined directions are more than functional: they are the “...zones which serve for orientation within the world of empirical perception: each [direction] has a specific reality and significance of its own, an inherent mythical life” (Cassirer 1955: 98). For the ancient Egyptian, such directions were terms used for the limits of creation, drawing of borders between the inhabited and controlled lands of divine creation and the world’s original undefined state (Brunner 1957: 614).

In the Egypto-centred universe, the definition of the four cardinal directions was originally conceived in relation to geographic and physiological indicators, as we have shown (See Fig.1, supra). Orienting themselves in their land from the direction of the Nile River’s flow, the “top of the map” for the ancient Egyptian world view began from the south.

From this facing direction, body directional values were associated with the corresponding cardinal directions, which later took on symbolic, cultic and ritual dimensions as the reflection of the cosmos was extended to major aspects of Egyptian life (Brunner 1957: 617; O'Connor 1995: 274; Wilkinson 2000: 62 ff.) (See Fig. 2, supra). Thus, “west” was deemed as a “positive” direction linked with the right hand, while “east” was linked to the left hand, with a less favourable status, particularly in the New Kingdom (Morenz 1975: 281). The direction of “north” seems to have held a negative or ambivalent position in value, although it was relegated to the idea (following from the Egyptian southerly orientation of direction), as a direction behind a person’s orienting perception (Frankfort, Frankfort et al. 1977 : 43).

As Frankfort further notes, it should be taken as significant that elements for the phrase for “northernmost border,” /pHww/ are also to be found in the expression of /Xr pHwi/, also has the meaning of “behind” and “subordinate,” while the phrase /Hr pHwi/ carries the sense of being “behind one’s head”

- (Frankfort, Frankfort et al. 1977 : 43; Hannig 2000: 914a, 633a and 633b, respectively). (Griffis 2002: 13-16)]

'subordinate', of course, means 'lower' ergo 'north' is subordinate to south thus lower. It is also worth noting here that the AEs most important god, Re/Ra, was reborn in the east, reached his maximum power in the sky in the south and died in the west. This applies also to their most important star, Sirius.

Regards,

SC

thanks for the notable insight, creighton. good stuff.

I just wanted to point out that those who still think the pyramids are aligned to Orion's Belt are mistaken. We all know that the alignment was slightly off, and just assumed this was an error. But that is what we get for assuming I suppose. In actuality, the pyramids are aligned to the wings of Cygnus, with the other star positions matching up to other important locations, including the Bird Tomb, the Well, etc...It has to do with the whole underground cave system supposedly, which seems to be the most logical conclusion. So anyway, I just wanted to set some of you guys straight, as I don't like to see people keep spreading false information. Thanks, and good thread. Interesting map as well.