The real reason why they built the pyramids

originally posted by: Kantjil
a reply to: Byrd

So they still worshiped the five visible bodies like all the cultures did?

No. The Sun (Re) was the primary focus of worship. The Moon (associated with Thoth and Knonsu) was a secondary one but beyond having deity names for the other planets, they did not have any temples to them or mark them in any special way.

The other very prominent deities (they had over a thousand gods) had no association with any planet (Isis, Osiris, Hathor, Anubis, Geb, Nut, Anubis, Thoth, Set, Sekhmet, Bast, Sobek, Amun, Amunet, Khonsu, etc)

a reply to: Kantjil

You know, civilization is a form of a zoo. You realize that when you always live in small towns then go to a major airport and sit for awhile. If we weren't aware that we were in a zoo, we would never groom.

I suspect what screwed up their system is what always happens. Greed, oppression, war, diseases, climate. And a law called entropy. That is why we should enjoy the moment.

a reply to: Byrd

Simone whispered in my ear; And said I was a f***** idiot.... And that I should listen, so I got a tip it's something about Orion, could the reference be the three stars.. And they said I should listen to you.... So sorry for my previous posts

a reply to: Byrd

Who are you? Or what do you actually do?

originally posted by: Kantjil
a reply to: Byrd

Who are you? Or what do you actually do?

Just another ATS member.

However, I do have a number of degrees, including a Master's in anthropology and a PhD in Informatics. Right now, I'm getting a University degree in Egyptology (Bachelor's degree.)

I'm retired and old as dirt, which means I have time to indulge myself. I've been on a few digs (not in Egypt; here in Texas.) I've visited Egypt. Here in the states I've helped document rock art, volunteer at two museums, help out on a dinosaur dig site (as well as volunteering at Audubon, helping local environmentalists, and beekeepers. Right now I'm running some data for people concerned about dogs killed and injured in dog fighting rings being dumped.)

So I can answer a lot of really really strange questions and have a big pool of real experts to turn to if I'm curious about something.

I love ATS discussions because they make me go back to my books and re-check things.

For instance (because the Great Pyramid is only mentioned briefly (we study 3,000 years of history)) I didn't realize that the volume of the chambers inside the GP is only around 1,000 cubic feet until I calculated it earlier on this thread.

People ask interesting questions!

originally posted by: Kantjil
a reply to: Byrd

Simone whispered in my ear; And said I was a f***** idiot.... And that I should listen, so I got a tip it's something about Orion, could the reference be the three stars.. And they said I should listen to you.... So sorry for my previous posts

(an interesting question!)

There's still debate about how important Orion was.

The Egyptians called that constellation (or some part of it) "Sah" - a deity that was known as "the Glorious Soul of Osiris." (it may seem odd, but they believed that a human was made up of five parts - so it would have been the Ba or the Ka of the God of the Underworld. "Sah" was part of a triad that included the star Sirius (which is kind of below Orion's heel if you look in the sky) - and it was Sirius that they looked for to tell them when the flood came.

The Great Pyramid's shafts are unique - they aren't repeated in any other pyramid, so they were there for some reason (either king or architect or both commanded it.) The overall layout of the chambers is similar to two of Sneferu's pyramids - the Bent and the North pyramid. Sneferu was Khufu's father.

And all of those are similar to earlier stepped pyramids, including the pyramids of King Djoser and King Sekhemkhet.

It looks like Djedefre *MIGHT* have been following Khufu's plan but it's hard to say because his pyramid is in ruins.

When Khafre built his pyramid at Giza, he opted for a more simple interior design and others (Menkaure and the rest) kept a more simple "corridor that leads to a burial chamber" plan rather than the weird three levels of Khufu's.

Tomb interiors become more elaborate when they went back to burying the kings in tombs cut into the cliffs at Dier El Medina -- the corridors are large enough for three to five people walking along side by side and the chamber with the sarcophagus is a marvel of architecture (they carved pillars underground and the ceilings were ...gosh... 20-30 feet tall. I can just imagine hacking out that interior, 200 feet into the interior of the cliff, that by lamp light!)

Anyway... if you'd like to read more, Touregypt.net is a good place (but it's acting strangely tonight. I hope nothing's wrong.) Digital Egypt is one of the sites for Egyptology students (and everyone else) I'm not real crazy about the site layout (VERY "old school") and you generally get a "for more information" and a pointer to a lot of articles that only come from a university library.

If you have other questions, feel free to send me a note here.

a reply to: Byrd

Well you have "friends" with much influence that respect your opinions..

a reply to: Byrd

Did they had a primus mover? If yes, which deity?

originally posted by: Kantjil
a reply to: Byrd

Did they had a primus mover? If yes, which deity?

Yes and no.

Horrible answer, I know. But there were four main cosmogonies that we know of - and the story of these changes over time. Eventually the Theban version becomes the more prominent...because their priests (around 800 BC, some 1,800 years after Giza) become so powerful that they are the "king makers" and it's impossible to rule without their support.

Re, Atum, Amun, Ptah, Geb, and Min are the main ones. As time goes on, they become blended together and we get gods like Amun-Re and so forth.

a reply to: Byrd

So im gonna make a try; Atum, was the primus? One celestial body within our solar system

When you put a "Ra" afterwards it is a human deity?

a reply to: Byrd

The Egyptians called that constellation (or some part of it) "Sah" - a deity that was known as "the Glorious Soul of Osiris." (it may seem odd, but they believed that a human was made up of five parts - so it would have been the Ba or the Ka of the God of the Underworld. "Sah" was part of a triad that included the star Sirius (which is kind of below Orion's heel if you look in the sky) - and it was Sirius that they looked for to tell them when the flood came.

Do you have any books or source about this? that i can read and catch up?

originally posted by: Kantjil
a reply to: Byrd

So im gonna make a try; Atum, was the primus? One celestial body within our solar system

When you put a "Ra" afterwards it is a human deity?

Atum was a self-created deity, yes, but it gets complicated because what people believed about Atum (and other creator deities) depended on where they lived and which time in Egyptian history we're talking about. Wikipedia has the basics

In spite of what generations of New Age thinkers and mystics say, Egyptian religion really wasn't much like European mysticism. The gods were gods, and could appear as aspects that might be fully animal, a symbol, fully human, partly human, or something else. Like humans, they apparently had a five-part soul, because there are references to the "Ka of Osiris" and the "Ba of Osiris" and so forth.

Re is another deity that was blended in with Amun... kind of like a droplet of mercury absorbing another droplet of mercury to become a bigger drop of mercury. Because there was no "Bible" - no "book of what they believed" and because these beliefs change over the centuries, understanding how they viewed things can be very confusing to a western mind. They saw nothing wrong with believing that Sekhmet, goddess of healing was also a goddess of war and would occasionally stroll around the land with her seven shadows and bring plague - and that Sekhmet was just an aspect of Hathor, the cow-headed goddess of love, music, and motherhood.

Two books in my library about the gods and religion are:
Wilkinson, Richard H. (2003). The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt
Pinch, Geraldine (2004). Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt.

There are earlier versions of this book; those are the most recent. Some of the better works are in German, such as Myśliwiec, Karol (1978). Studien zum Gott Atum. Band I, Die heiligen Tiere des Atum. My German is terrible so I haven't even tried to read about the Holy Animals of Atum (the title of that book)

We don't use Budge as a source (when you learn hieroglyphs you quickly find out why).

originally posted by: Kantjil
a reply to: Byrd

The Egyptians called that constellation (or some part of it) "Sah" - a deity that was known as "the Glorious Soul of Osiris." (it may seem odd, but they believed that a human was made up of five parts - so it would have been the Ba or the Ka of the God of the Underworld. "Sah" was part of a triad that included the star Sirius (which is kind of below Orion's heel if you look in the sky) - and it was Sirius that they looked for to tell them when the flood came.

Do you have any books or source about this? that i can read and catch up?

Nothing easy (like Wikipedia, which is always a good place to start. Look at the bottom for the sources they use.) The real pain is that the best books are scholarly tomes that cost in the $40-$150 range each. The complete dictionary of hieroglyphs called "Worterbuch" comes in multiple volumes in German and costs several thousand dollars. I don't see myself getting those any time soon.

A "reasonably good but awfully lightweight" site is www.experience-ancient-egypt.com... - read for the basics, but understand that a LOT is being summarized, skipped, or glossed over.

Some of the books I enjoyed (I tend to try to buy on Kindle when I can):
Mertz, Barbara. Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt. William Morrow, 2007.

Mertz, Barbara. Red land, black land. Tantor Media, Incorporated, 2008.

Tyldesley, Joyce. Daughters of Isis: women of ancient Egypt. Penguin Uk, 1995.

Tyldesley, Joyce A. The private lives of the pharaohs. TV Books Incorporated, 2001.
(actually, anything by Tyldesley. Not saying that just because she's one of the professors teaching my class and a very nice person but because her scholarship is well respected and she writes interestingly. She and her husband are working to bring digital versions of some of the expensive books out and to make them affordable to the rest of us.)

Authors are probably easier to list than all the books:
Richard Wilkinson (really like his stuff)
Henry Breasted (he's kind of gloomy and pessimistic... but so SO good.)
Ian Shaw (his History is cited by everyone.)
James P. Allen (the "go to" source for most reliable translations in modern language)
Cyril Aldred
James Hornung (actually, I liked his history of Egypt better than Breasted's.)
Donald Redford
Anything by either of the Petries (though realize that the speculative stuff and translations are out of date)
Jan Assmann
Kara Cooney (Although I don't entirely agree with her interpretation of Hatshepsut)
Mark Leherer (I have his Complete Book of Pyramids)

...sorry the list seems vague (and I can give more specific answers if you ask.) There's actually a lot more than this that I have read or will have to read.

I *can* say that it's a grand adventure and that it IS possible for an armchair scholar to make meaningful contributions in the field by studying things in museums. Many of the coffins haven't been completely published and records made of artifacts in the 1800's are often wrong.

I hope this is of some help to you.

a reply to: Byrd

Im getting some assistance from Astronomers in this process, so im just collecting research on advices atm =)

Any help is good..

a reply to: Byrd

If I could give you applause, I would. That's some fantastic information you've given.

originally posted by: Kantjil
a reply to: burgerbuddy

The reason is a foursided structure which actually shows a seasonal equionox for a neolithic society, where one side is always dark during one of the equinoxes, the egyptians practiced a socialistic structure of "taxation" on grain, the Egyptian pharaos were sungods, and if you look to certain elements of how they were built you will see that under certain dates it was actually religious/sacrifical nature during these 4 days and 3 during the winter -solstice.. A trickle down effect where the priest class distributed food through out the Nile area..
Its a huge seasonal calender, the obelisk is a small one, the point is actually a reference point to a fixated celestial body...

Its astronomy.. Now let the Freemason answer, he can probably give a story about something which doesnt even exist in real life.. The structure is built on a golden ratio or a fibbonacci sequence, its observable in nature, we just copied it...

To break it down, its seasonal dial in a agricultural society with humans..

Absolutely and made by a society of people a hell of a lot more in tune with nature than we will ever be...

a reply to: Byrd

I would just like to say thank you, for your interesting replies to this discussion.

But if i may ask, what is your personal thought on the reason, why they were built all over the ancient world?

My thought was that they were "chilling chambers" for deep mind voyagers,
and on the locations.. well, i believe there are certain areas in the world, where the unimaginable will turn even more incomprehensible.

But i am mad as a hatter.

originally posted by: solve
a reply to: Byrd

I would just like to say thank you, for your interesting replies to this discussion.

But if i may ask, what is your personal thought on the reason, why they were built all over the ancient world?

They weren't.

Yes, you can find mound structures all over the world, but there's nothing odd about "heaping stuff up to make a mound." Aztec/Incan/Mayan pyramids were built thousands of years after the Egyptian ones and had a very different structure - one that depended on whether it was a public sacrifice platform or a burial place or something else. Indonesian ones were built after the Mayan ones... and derived from a different design source. Chinese ones are basically "heap lots of dirt over the burial site of a great emperor."

You *could* make a case for "something unusual all over the world" if it was a shape that didn't appear in nature and showed up in a number of cultures rather suddenly. For example, if the Egyptians and the Chinese and the pre-Olmec civilizations suddenly started building tall thin towers with flying buttresses.

My thought was that they were "chilling chambers" for deep mind voyagers,

Egyptian pyramids weren't... the passageways down to the tiny burial chambers (and they are small) are not full of soot (as they would be from lots and lots of people going down for some purpose.) It is so far down that you can't see the light from the mouth of the corridor (I've been in there... it's that dark)

It's tough enough getting out of there with a light. WITHOUT a light, you'd fall and hurt or kill yourself.

Not a real good spot for meditating.

There are no records (or even suggestions) that they used meditation or ecstatic practices - the ancient Egyptians were guided by prayer (at temples in the daylight), by dreams and dream divination and by oracular actions by statues of their gods. The Greeks used a type of trance, but they achieved it by dancing and through lots and lots of wine - their priestesses at Delphi used vapors from a volcano (not very safe, but....)

Of all the cultures around, it's the Chinese/Tibetans who used trances and who actually did it well enough to pass instruction to the rest of the world -- but it's a fairly recent thing and not something from the time of the ancient Egyptians. The Chinese meditation practices did not require any chambers (and they could willingly meditate themselves to death if they so wished). The Aztecs did practice some sort of trance or ecstatic-type state, but that was done through pain (cutting and bloodletting) and sacrifice. Some cultures used drugs (many used alcohol.)

a reply to: Byrd

So i got some help from chronoaut, and figured out where i went on a off trail..
Do you know which deites in which era are assigned to the five naked eye planets?

I got an answer on the Orion thing, that i havent researched further on, but they are really implying that the pyramids line up to the Orion, and that i have to be a retard to think otherwise..

I have a bunch of friendly mentors ... =/

a reply to: Byrd

a little OT; In Sweden we are taught in kindergarden, if we get lost in the forest look for a anthill and follow the direction which it points at, we are taught that these anthills ( tiny mounds ) will always be a true compass..