Rethinking Ancient Egypt - On Cataclysms, Ancient Technology and Identity Theft

a reply to: Harte

and Marduk, besides his Assyriology expertise, is the meanest a-hole on the internet.

You might be right .:>) ..Then again ,why would he plunk down a C14 document to make a scientific point if it can be clearly shown using other documentation . Is Egyptology and their claims that weak that they have to squeeze out of the C14 data information to convince people that they are correct . It does not bode well for their confidence now does it .

Are they standing on shaky ground or something .Has Zahi Hawass stopped saying that Egypt is the oldest after being told about Göbekli Tepe ....He didn't receive that news very well ... I used to think that these kinds of people had a open mind ..They may have on some things but the dates are like I said earlier " sacrosanct "

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: Harte

and Marduk, besides his Assyriology expertise, is the meanest a-hole on the internet.

You might be right .:>) ..Then again ,why would he plunk down a C14 document to make a scientific point if it can be clearly shown using other documentation . Is Egyptology and their claims that weak that they have to squeeze out of the C14 data information to convince people that they are correct . It does not bode well for their confidence now does it .

Are they standing on shaky ground or something .Has Zahi Hawass stopped saying that Egypt is the oldest after being told about Göbekli Tepe ....He didn't receive that news very well ... I used to think that these kinds of people had a open mind ..They may have on some things but the dates are like I said earlier " sacrosanct "

I see you are sufficiently self-deluded. But I'd already seen that.
Got anything else?

Harte

a reply to: Harte

I was under the impression that you ,Byrd and Marduk were like the go to members on all things Egypt Egyptianism Apologetics does not seem to be a strong suit but I think even the stronger side of academics concerning Egypt may be a compartment you each live in . Shame how education has done that to a lot of probably great minds . What can you do eh . Got to feed the kids .

Being a little thinned skin is no help either I suppose ,but like you say what would I know about anything .At least I have a excuse . I don have a instructor to tell me what my opinion is or should be . Oh wait didn't you just start counselling me and trying to instruct me . Or was that just a diversion away from some of the questions I was asking . At least that way you can pretend that you at least tried .

I am kind of enjoying the ad hominem from you and Marduk .I think it means I am over the target . Please correct me if I am wrong .Oh wait no need to do that you have already said I was ,and will probably for ever be .

Maybe the kind of kool-aid Egyptology is a acquired taste only appreciated by a clicky group .I think that Egypt is not far from the center of the world .Actually only 263 miles SW . I think that the dating is also off by about that much in years too ..funny that .

originally posted by: jeep3r

originally posted by: Byrd

So these would be the roughs that would later be carved out and filled in [...] Are the boxes "older than the graffiti", well, yes, the boxes were made first. But they are not repuprosed. The one they are looking at was, in fact, unused.

One question that comes to mind when considering these "roughs" is why they wouldn't have used paint instead, it would be less intrusive and probably more detailed. The final inscriptions could then have been applied with the proper tools based on the outlines painted on the surface?

Those inscriptions were originally painted and then these were drawn on top of them. The next step would have been to chisel them.

Images of the finished ones show how they look.(click here for example) - that one has goddesses of two nomes (here's another one)

They're worked in granite, which is fairly difficult to work (unless you're doing large inscriptions). The Shabaka stone shows that even royal workshops with the finest tools and materials struggled with granite.

Or are these crudely crafted schemes a fundamental requirement for applying inscriptions? As far as I know none of the boxes at the Serapeum have any of the final artwork on them, which also seems a bit odd.

The one I linked above has final artwork on it, and I gave a link earlier showing a finished interior. The one in the video is called the "unfinished" one and it clearly is by the lack of finish on the decoration. This almost looks as if they started it but something interrupted them and it wasn't finished.

We haven't studied the Serapeumin at all, so I'm not really "up" on it.

One of the standard practices seems to be abandoning the work on a tomb when the owner dies.

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: Byrd

... This tells me that C14 dating was used going "" back to the very beginning of this dating method ""
False because of what the new finding on C14 shows . You can't have it both ways . Especially when entering into as evidence outdated C14 dating as Marduk did . That whole document is not scientific prof as he claims because what they claimed to be true is not true but false .

Let's see if I can sort this out... we appear to be talking about two different things.

Okay... so when someone digs up a tomb like this one the first thing they do is date it. Dating is done by the inscriptions. No one will date these tombs with C14 as a rule because the clues are evident ... they are tombs within the main tomb complex (share a courtyard) of Dheuty who was the cupbearer for Hatshepsut and Thutmoses. Other clues on the walls (their families, position, names of pharaohs) will give us a fairly solid date range without having to harm anything.

C14 would not give a date as accurately as the text does.

Now... they can do C14 dates to broadly confirm that their timeframe for an era is correct. It's expensive, destroys a small part of the sample, and takes time. When you've got textual dating there, redating it with C14 doesn't make any sense since the margin of error for C14 is large but the text will give the EXACT date, down to the year (and sometimes the month and day.)

And let's see if I can make this a little clearer...

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: Byrd

""The earliest experiments in radiocarbon dating were done on ancient material from Egypt. Willard F. Libby’s team obtained acacia wood from the 3rd Dynasty Step Pyramid of Djoser to test a hypothesis they had developed.
Libby reasoned that since the half-life of C14 was 5568 years, the Djoser sample’s C14 concentration should be about 50% of the concentration found in living wood "" [] The results proved their hypothesis correct.

So Libby was testing C14 (he was a chemist) to see if his C14 method came up with dates similar to those derived by archaeology. The test wasn't of archaeological dating, but of radiochemistry.

Is this a bit clearer?

Rohl's chronology involves discounting some fairly well established connections (Shishak with Sheshonq) and making a connection that's not supported by other data (Shishak as Ramesses II.) The reason it's being rejected is that the data simply doesn't match. And he's doing a bit of "hand-wavium" with names.

Names in Egypt are a difficult issue. If you've ever done genealogy, you know how confusing it can be when family names are reused across multiple generations... and if you've got cousins marrying cousins for several generations and using family names, it can be almost impossible (without other clues) to figure out who was doing what and when.

Egyptians tended to reuse names and many names can apply to both males and females. There's a number of cases where there's a lot of argument over who was who and how people were related. However, in the cases Rohl is using, the lineages are generally very clear and there's no 350 year gap there.

I hope this helps.

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: Harte
Are they standing on shaky ground or something .Has Zahi Hawass stopped saying that Egypt is the oldest after being told about Göbekli Tepe ....He didn't receive that news very well .

It didn't bother him as far as I'm aware - he's an Egyptologist, not someone who's aware of the archaeology of other countries. If you ask him about structures in other parts of the world (like the serpent mounds in America) he won't know a thing about it. Likewise, he doesn't know much about Biblical archaeology. He's focused on Egypt.

There's complete agreement on Gobekli Tepe being a significant (and unique) site; the oldest stone structure and (most likely) religious structure in the world. I can't think of anyone who disputes that.

Gobekli Tepe is a culture, not a civilization. Civilizations are marked by large populations living (not nomadic) in cities. They have domesticated animals and have developed agriculture so that their food supply can support a craftsman class that doesn't have to hunt and farm.

a reply to: Byrd

Thank you for your reply's . I took a few notes and will have a few questions and or comments .Its very late here and I am off to bed and will respond tomorrow . peace

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: Harte

I was under the impression that you ,Byrd and Marduk were like the go to members on all things Egypt Egyptianism Apologetics does not seem to be a strong suit but I think even the stronger side of academics concerning Egypt may be a compartment you each live in . Shame how education has done that to a lot of probably great minds . What can you do eh . Got to feed the kids .

Being a little thinned skin is no help either I suppose ,but like you say what would I know about anything .At least I have a excuse . I don have a instructor to tell me what my opinion is or should be . Oh wait didn't you just start counselling me and trying to instruct me . Or was that just a diversion away from some of the questions I was asking . At least that way you can pretend that you at least tried .

I am kind of enjoying the ad hominem from you and Marduk .I think it means I am over the target . Please correct me if I am wrong .Oh wait no need to do that you have already said I was ,and will probably for ever be .

Maybe the kind of kool-aid Egyptology is a acquired taste only appreciated by a clicky group .I think that Egypt is not far from the center of the world .Actually only 263 miles SW . I think that the dating is also off by about that much in years too ..funny that .

I see.
So you recommend that we all celebrate ignorance.
Sorry. Not me.

Harte

a reply to: Harte

So you recommend that we all celebrate ignorance. Sorry. Not me.

This is a good example of what could be wrong . If you can find where I said such a thing in my post then you get a prize .Your taking liberty to infer that may actually be what you do with other data .I wont blame you for that because the few scholarly or scientific documents I have looked at have a lot of if's ,maybe's ,could be's, and assumptions to arrive at their conclusions . We have to assume ourselves that they are correct about these assumptions ,could be's ,and maybes in order to believe the conclusions .

Even if we have to commit to data torture to do it .So torture the data in my post and show us where I recommended you celebrate ignorance .or is this yet another ad hominem

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: Harte

I was under the impression that you ,Byrd and Marduk were like the go to members on all things Egypt Egyptianism Apologetics does not seem to be a strong suit but I think even the stronger side of academics concerning Egypt may be a compartment you each live in . Shame how education has done that to a lot of probably great minds . What can you do eh . Got to feed the kids .
Maybe the kind of kool-aid Egyptology is a acquired taste only appreciated by a clicky group .I think that Egypt is not far from the center of the world .Actually only 263 miles SW . I think that the dating is also off by about that much in years too ..funny that .

Whereas I think that even if you'd been shown scientific evidence which makes a mockery of your belief, that you would be incapable of accepting it..
Because that has happened and has pushed you to the point where you are now attempting to characterise the people who've shown you that evidence as clicky in a way of allowing yourself to ignore the evidence as "tainted". I've also got issues with the stuff that Byrd puts out, sometimes its obviously wrong, and there's never been a retraction, but that's another story and Harte is a Trump flag waving republican whenever he's outside his comfort area, and I can be an overzealous idiot, so to characterise us as clicky, well, its just laughable
I got into history because of Zechariah Sitchin
Byrd got into history because of academic Egyptoogy
Harte got into history so he could educate people on solid facts

So you've got one academic, one ancient aliens devotee and a maths teacher, that's soooo clicky eh lolol, we have never met, we probably never will

I gotta tell you, I can't stand Egyptology, wouldn't piss on the place if it was on fire, but facts are facts, if you need to go through mental flips to ignore data then you have the problem, not Egyptology.


you've got to the point now where I'm not going to post in this thread as you seem unwilling and incapable of learning, so it'll just die like all the others achieving nothing..

a reply to: Marduk

if you need to go through mental flips to ignore data then you have the problem, not Egyptology. you've got to the point now where I'm not going to post in this thread as you seem unwilling and incapable of learning, so it'll just die like all the others

Maybe clicky was too harsh of a word or just a poor choice of words to describe a camp or tribe mentality :>) You do realize that settled science is not the point I was trying to get at . As far as the "scientific data" showing prof goes well the only prof it holds is that people labeled as scientist's produced it. They used methods to arrive at their conclusions .

Speaking of methods especially in the ranks of C14 dating .That discussion hasn't been settled yet as to what camp to use .They (the different camps) chose different methods with differing results . We get to choose a either and or none of them . I haven't made my decision one way or another yet. At present I like to go where they have the best coffee and donuts .

The shape of the objective Bayesian posterior PDF The key conclusions of my original article were: “The results of the testing are pretty clear. In whatever range the true calendar age of the sample lies, both the objective Bayesian method using a noninformative Jeffreys’ prior and the non-Bayesian SRLR method provide excellent probability matching – almost perfect frequentist coverage. Both variants of the subjective Bayesian method using a uniform prior are unreliable. The HPD regions that OxCal provides give less poor coverage than two-sided credible intervals derived from percentage points of the uniform prior posterior CDF, but at the expense of not giving any information as to how the missing probability is divided between the regions above and below the HPD region. For both variants of the uniform prior subjective Bayesian method, probability matching is nothing like exact except in the unrealistic case where the sample is drawn equally from the entire calibration range” For many scientific and other users of statistical data, I think that would clinch the case in favour of using the objective Bayesian or the SRLR methods, rather than the subjective Bayesian method with a uniform prior. Primary results are generally given by way of an uncertainty range with specified probability percentages, not in the form of a PDF.
Many subjective Bayesians appear unconcerned whether Bayesian credible intervals provided as uncertainty ranges even approximately constitute confidence intervals. Since under their interpretation probability merely represents a degree of belief and is particular to each individual, perhaps that is unsurprising. But, in science, users normally expect such ranges to be at least approximately valid as confidence intervals, so that, upon repeated applications of the method – not necessarily to the same parameter – in the long run the true value of the parameter being estimated would lie within the stated intervals in the claimed percentages of cases. However, there was quite a lot of pushback against the rather peculiar shape of the objective Bayesian posterior PDF resulting from use of Jeffreys’ prior. It put near zero probability on regions where the data, although being compatible with the parameter value, was insensitive to it. That is, regions where the data likelihood was significant but the radiocarbon determination varied little with calendar age, due to the flatness of the calibration curve. The pink, subjective Bayesian posterior PDF was generally thought by such critics to be more realistically-shaped.
Underlying that view, critics typically thought that there was relevant prior information about the age distribution of artefacts that should be incorporated, by reflecting through use of a uniform prior a belief that an artefact was equally likely to come from any (equal-length) calendar age range. Whether or not that is so, the uniform prior had instead been chosen on that basis that it did not introduce anything but the RC dating information, and I argued against it on that basis. I think the view that one should reject an objective Bayesian approach just on the basis that the posterior PDF is gives rise to is odd-looking is mistaken. In most cases, what is of concern when estimating a fixed but uncertain parameter, here calendar age, is how well one can reliably constrain its value within one or more uncertainty ranges. In this connection, it should be noted that although the Jeffreys’ prior will assign low PDF values in a range where likelihood is substantial but the data variable is insensitive to the parameter value, the uncertainty ranges that the resulting PDF gives rise to will normally include that range. climateaudit.org...

A comment by wayne Wayne Posted Mar 5, 2016 at 9:02 PM | Permalink Steve, Thanks for hosting this discussion, by the way! You might find this paper by Andrew Gelman instructive: arxiv.org... reading Section 5 first. It’s a very philosophical paper about “Objective” versus “Subjective” in science in general and statistics in particular, so maybe it’s not helpful. My take on your question would be that there are three Bayesian camps: The first camp believes that you choose your prior distribution based on knowledge/beliefs. Your priors reflect your own knowledge, the results of prior experiments, conventional wisdom in your field, the reasonable expectations of your target audience, etc. They are probabilistic in nature. You can perturb your priors to see how that affects your analysis, and you can even adopt the priors of putative opponents in order to show how well your analysis works in “worst case” scenarios. The second camp believes that you create your prior distribution based on somewhat complex methodologies that result in prior distributions that have minimal impact on posteriors.
These priors should not be thought of as probabilistic — no one believes that the distribution reflects any kind of probability — but rather their role is to “let the data speak for itself”, Frequentist-style. The third camp believes that you use sample statistics to create your priors. The data speaks for itself, as long as you use it twice. Which spooks the other two camps. There’s a fourth group that uses uniform priors and therefore believes it’s in the second camp. That is, when you have enough data this tends to overwhelm the uniform prior and often yields results similar to Frequentist methods. The data (if there’s enough of it) speaks for itself, so surely they are in the second camp. The second camp rejects this claim and says that this group belongs in the first camp. The first camp, which believes that priors are probabilistic, laughs at this notion since a uniform prior is improper and cannot reflect probabilities. So the fourth group wanders from camp to camp without being accepted by any of them.

All of that is way over my pay scale and I suspect for the most part of the members . May be you could scoot over and settle the matter for the guys . I am sure they would appreciate it and the coffee and donuts are the best

originally posted by: the2ofusr1They (the different camps) chose different methods with differing results .

You need thousands of years,
Tell us what is the date variation from the different camps ?

a reply to: Marduk

You need thousands of years, Tell us what is the date variation from the different camps ?

That depends on the priors and how many years it imposes on then .Sometimes "it" does need thousands of years ,like you said .

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: Marduk

You need thousands of years, Tell us what is the date variation from the different camps ?

That depends on the priors and how many years it imposes on then .Sometimes "it" does need thousands of years ,like you said .

Well you missed

The results of the testing are pretty clear. In whatever range the true calendar age of the sample lies, both the objective Bayesian method using a noninformative Jeffreys’ prior and the non-Bayesian SRLR method provide excellent probability matching – almost perfect frequentist coverage.

So they are arguing about methodology, but either way its done, the results aren't in question as they are all the same

posting things you don't understand as evidence frequently fails. In this case the paper is saying the opposite of what you hoped for, that will be why you felt the need to post irrelevancy from the comments section

are you smelling the coffee yet ?

a reply to: Marduk

are you smelling the coffee yet ?

I have a fresh cup right here . Byrd mentioned that names are a very big issue and very complicated .Imagine how complicated surrounding the C14 dating is . My link to the above discussion was in part to this study .

Conclusions The application of high-precision radiocarbon dating, Bayesian analysis, and spatial modeling at IA sites in the southern Levant is an important tool for researchers interested in the relationship between ancient texts such as the HB and extrabiblical data including Egyptian, Assyrian, and other epigraphic sources with the archaeological record (15, 34). Given the unambiguous 14C AMS dating evidence presented here for industrial-scale metal production at KEN during the 10th and 9th c. BCE in ancient Edom, the question of whether King Solomon's copper mines have been discovered in Faynan returns to scholarly discourse. The collapse of Late Bronze Age civilizations (35) in the eastern Mediterranean and the Cypriot monopoly on copper production left a power vacuum in the Levant that was filled by emerging IA complex societies such as Edom and Israel as early as the 10th c. BCE.

The abrupt reorganization of metal production at the end of the 10th c. BCE and the discovery of Egyptian artifacts in the basal level of the 9th c. BCE building in Area M may be associated with the Pharaoh Sheshonq I's military campaign in the Negev and Arabah valley that occurred shortly after the death of Solomon (18). Most scholars agree that the aim of his campaign was to disrupt the economic success of local Levantine polities such as Philistia, Israel, Judah, and Edom rather than reestablish an Egyptian colony modeled on their previous Late Bronze Age system (18). The 10th c. BCE KEN fortress (15) and associated copper works may have been another target of Sheshonq's campaign (Fig. 2). For the IA archaeology of the southern Levant the new IA data from the Edom lowlands demonstrate the importance of local 10th and 9th c. BCE Levantine polities in the control of industrial-scale metal production. The dominance of local Edom IA ceramics at KEN during these centuries indicates the centrality of local societies in metal production at this time. The earlier model that assumed large-scale 7th c. BCE copper production in Faynan is no longer tenable. Thus, the rise of IA complex or state level societies in Edom was a cycling process of social evolution that began 3 centuries earlier than currently understood (36). These new data indicate the need to revisit the relationship between the early IA history of the southern Levant before the editing of the HB in the 6th c. BCE, the study of the archaeological record using science-based methodologies, and local models of social change such as those embedded in peer polity interaction studies. Finally, the application of high-precision radiocarbon dating, Bayesian analyses, and digital archaeology methods should be an integral part of all 21st c. research dealing with ancient historical archaeology problems around the world. www.pnas.org...

www.pnas.org...

originally posted by: Byrd
They're worked in granite, which is fairly difficult to work (unless you're doing large inscriptions). The Shabaka stone shows that even royal workshops with the finest tools and materials struggled with granite.

That's quite interesting, although one would assume that the builders of the boxes wouldn't have any problems with the inscriptions.

Does anyone on here know how to explain the distinct patterns on the plateau right next to the unfinished obelisk. These square patches don't necessarily look like the result of pounding (note the obelisk in the lower right corner):


And another artifact mentioned in the video features regular curved striations potentially caused by some kind of tool with an enormous diameter:


I recall that Flinders Petrie did not rule out the possibility of huge circular saws? If those were used, then another question would be if bronze blades with quartz as an abbrasive would do the trick...

a reply to: jeep3r

These two vid are interesting but probably wont help you out with what tools were used but may convince you that tools were used that we don't know about

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
a reply to: jeep3r

These two vid are interesting but probably wont help you out with what tools were used but may convince you that tools were used that we don't know about

The first mystery is why do you need advanced machines to cut limestone
The second mystery is what tool do you think was used to carve the Nazi swastika,

a reply to: Marduk

The first mystery is why do you need advanced machines to cut limestone The second mystery is what tool do you think was used to carve the Nazi swastika,

1...because you cant cut it with a apple . 2 one that would have been around during or after the Nazi's came to be .