Hello Warwick,

You write, 'the example I provided, and the 100's more that anyone is capable of accessing, combined with a liberal helping of the many bibliographies that, again, are easily gotten hold of ...is/are the"'thousands of pieces' like pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle" that provide the context within which we are required to place any and all questions concerning the hows and the whys of the AE's. In the same manner the whynots that so many like to entertain here can only be addressed via that same context.
More than half of what I understand about the AE's is based on that ephemeral "greater than the sum of it's parts"epiphany that prolonged research and reading leads to.

IOW's we, or rather I... cannot answer your questions..to YOUR satisfaction. They are the sort of questions best answered by yourselves.'
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Are you saying that in order to answer questions on the hows and whys of the pyramids of the 4th Dynasty and 5th Dynasties (they go into decline after then – see Lehner) we have to take into consideration data drawn from the whole of Ancient Egypt’s near 3,000 year history?
Perhaps you can give examples of materials found dating from, say, the 26th Dynasty that have a direct bearing on the hows and whys of the 4th and early 5th Dyn. pyramids.

Granted, in the 3,000 years of their history many changes occurred in what the ancient Egyptians believed in, how they lived their lives, etc., but quite a lot of the basic culture, religion, and so on remained much the same (or so I believe).
I agree that the 4th Dyn. Pyramids – the three at Giza in particular – should not be viewed in isolation.
But what is the sense of viewing them in the context of Dynasties two to three hundred years after them - let alone a couple of thousand years later.
The Pyramid Texts of Unas (2350BC?) onwards give us some insight into some of the beliefs prevailing at the start of the Pyramid Age through to Unas, but they tell us nothing about the designing and building of the 4th Dyn. pyramids themselves; and they give no clue as to whether or not Giza was layed out according to some pre-existing plan, or a variation thereof.

You write, ‘There is an observable pattern of developement of the make up and construction methods of Pyramids/Tombs/Cenotaphs throughout the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdoms.
Basically the trick was LOTS of ELBOW GREASE and a WELL FEED ""INSPIRED" work force. ‘

It took a lot more than this, Warwick.
The granite beams over the King’s Chamber weigh an estimated 50 to 80 tons.
They weren’t moved by standing a person at each corner and a foreman shouting: “Right, lads. On the count of three. One… Two… Three… LIFT!”

Some folk, and perhaps you number amongst them, are content with a potted version of why and how the 4th. Dyn Egyptians built there magnificent pyramids – i.e. to help their king on his way to the Afterlife, etc., etc., and all done through the sheer blood, sweat and tears of tens of thousands of loyal subjects quarrying and dragging massive limestone and granite blocks about the place, with how they got them above ground-level being of no concern.
I, and many others here (so I imagine) want to know about it in more depth - preferably without wasting time on studying material left by by a people to whom the pyramids were, as they are to us, ancient history.


You write, ‘You guys, IMHO ,are looking for inspiration in all the wrong places.

Er, what inspiration are these ‘guys’ looking for?


You write, ‘Whatever technology they employed was SECONDARY to the ACT itself.’

Well, I would have thought that fairly obvious.
Tombs (be they actual or spiritual) are usually built with a touch more reverence than you’re ever likely to find in the building of, say, an outside toilet…


You write, ‘PS I'm sure you'll write off the above as just more rhetoric, on my part.’

I haven’t.
But I'm not sure that what you write is immediately relevent.

MJ