Lee Wrote:
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> It was clearly still in situ, closed at
> one end with a sliding stone panel plastered into
> position. When opened, it was empty. It is not
> the only example of a sealed-but-empty
> sarcophagus, and it’s sealing while empty must be
> taken as deliberate. The reason, without more,
> simply cannot be known at this time. I think it
> useless to pretend otherwise.
The reasoning is fairly obvious, I think. A sarcophagus that is known to be empty because its intended occupant was lost in a highly publicized event would be the ONLY sarcophagi that would have been left untouched. However... there were no valuable grave goods found in this tomb. They probably robbed the room in antiquity, but left the empty sarcophagus untouched.
I think this serves as better evidence in favor of non-symbolic sarcophagi than against it.
>
> I want to be very clear here that I fully believe
> pyramids were used to bury kings; at least I
> believe that was their primary function. Anthony
> argues that it was their only function and that
> they were never, ever, on no occasion – it would
> be unthinkable – used intentionally as cenotaphs.
Not true. Since Sneferu built three, I'd be crazy to make such a claim.
> It may be true, but the Egyyptians built
> cenotaphs, and I simply do not think, based on the
> evidence we have, that we can say unequivocally
> that pyramids were never used that way.
I completely agree.
> The
> Snefru example may or may not be anomalous, but he
> couldn’t be buried in all three pyramids, and, as
> I have pointed out, Lehner believes that all three
> pyramids were finished. A finished, but empty
> period must a fortiori have had a use.
Not necessarily, if it was abandoned for a better pyramid.
However, the stelae in the temple next to the Bent clearly indicate it WAS used as a cenotaph of some sort.
> In this
> respect, at least, it does not matter for a moment
> whether the mummy in the Red was Snefru or not.
Correct.
> Intelligent people do not waste labor finishing
> something useless (we have examples of incomplete
> abandoned/construction), and the AE were not
> stupid.
Unless they finish it before starting another one. The Bent may have been completed by OUR standards, but it may have just been the "contingency" pyramid in case they didn't finish the Red in time... which, of course, they did.
>
> By the way, the robbery you are referring to was
> that Sekhemre Shedtawy Sobekemsaf's so-called
> pyramid, in which there clearly was a burial.
> This, however, was a 17th Dynasty structure, and
> is a saff tomb or row tomb (from 11th Dynasty
> practice), not really a pyramid in the sense we
> are discussing at all. These sometimes had
> pyramids placed in a yard, but the tombs
> themselves were actually cut into the
> mountainside. None of these small pyramids had
> any substructures, since the burial chambers of
> the kings were cut into the rock at the end of the
> yard, where the rest of the royal family also had
> their tombs of a similar size. That makes these
> “pyramids” more than a bit dicey as evidence for
> OK royal funeral practices, which obviously
> changed markedly over time.
>
I agree with that assessment. However, I cannot rationally entertain the idea that the big pyramids were originally NOT intended to be the burial edifice of the king who supervised their construction. What they ultimately ACTUALLY ended up being would sometimes be the "symbolic" burial place (since the body was not available for real interment in the designated sarcophagus/structure), but that was a contingency for which they would not have been hoping.
The ultimate goal was King's Mummy ----> King's Sarcophagus -----> King's Pyramid
Exceptions would have happened, and in a case where the king was known to have died and his body was NOT interred in his sarcophagus, we would expect that sarcophagus to have remained untouched during the centuries subsequent to its burial.
As a tomb was left untouched, as with Tut's, it would eventually become forgotten, and could be preserved until modern discovery. Remember, Tut's tomb was "forgotten" because his name was erased... and because Ramesses II unknowingly had tomb workers build a stone hut on top of the entrance.
But a tomb that had yielded up valuable grave goods... we can expect those to have been known about in the immediate aftermath of the king's death (and this is when much of the looting of pyramids actually occurred, by the original workers who BUILT the tombs so they knew how to access them better than anyone) and these tombs would be famous, and empty, for all time.
It really is a quite a tidy logical package, when you put all the pieces together. I've yet to see another package that can compete with the amount of supporting evidence this one has, so I don't see any reason to discard it.
Until, of course, the next spade is turned...
Anthony
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.