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Archae Solenhofen wrote:
"I am still waiting for you to provide the quote from GH to the admission that the claims made about the block sizes in the walls of Khafre's Valley temple were in error. Can you provide this please?"
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Dear Archae,
The way you’re approaching this smacks of the Inquisitor totting up confessions. Many months ago my coauthor Robert Bauval accepted clearly, and on the record, that we made mistakes in Keeper of Genesis/Message of the Sphinx about the size of the blocks in the Valley Temple attributed to Khafre. Robert speaks for both of us in this matter. If there is ever the opportunity to bring out an updated edition of KoG/MoS we will correct the relevant passage. I will do the same in Fingerprints of the Gods where there is also reference to 200-ton blocks in the Valley Temple.
You can see if you have checked the references (Note 1 to Chapter 3 of KoG/Message of the Sphinx) that one of the sources given for the incorrect statement that there are many megaliths in the range of 200 tons in the Sphinx and Valley Temples, was I.E.S Edwards, The Pyramids of Egypt, 1949 edition, page 215, where there is a reference to 200-ton blocks in the Mortuary Temple attributed to Menkarua at Giza (as there is also on page 130 of the same edition where Edwards speaks of a block of 220 tons). The mistake here, and it was mine, was to confuse data from the Mortuary Temple with data from the Valley Temple and get the numbers wrong. Mea culpa. But the fact that 200 ton blocks were moved around in this megalithic phase at Giza stands.
Indeed the absence of 200-ton blocks in the Valley temple, about which you are so exercised, does not reduce the force of the argument of either of these books at all. We will simply be saying that there are many VERY large blocks in the Valley Temple, a few perhaps approaching 100 tons, and that in the mortuary temple attributed to Menkaura, and possibly at one or two other Giza locations, there are blocks exceeding 200 tons. We will also be saying that modern technology can lift such weights, but that it’s by no means easy.
For the record I personally remain absolutely convinced that the megalithic temples at Giza, the Great Sphinx of Giza, the Subterranean Chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza, large parts of the Osirion at Abydos, and a number of other structures in Egypt are vastly older -- thousands of years older -- than the Old Kingdom, and do indeed date back to the epoch of 12,500 years ago (give or take a millennium) that Robert and I have suggested the ancient Egyptians knew as the “First Time”. Of course the Valley Temple and other ancient monuments were renovated by the ancient Egyptians, granite facing-blocks installed and so on, but the basic, massive, structures are more than 12,000 years old.
So the not-quite impossible but certainly bloody difficult engineering achievements evident in the megalithic temples at Giza are all the more remarkable when we remember (in my view) that this work was done more than 12,000 years ago, not 4,500 years ago as the Egyptologists tell us.
Archae, it is such fun debating with you, but I am in the last two months to deadline on my first novel and working absolutely round the clock. I’ve done my best to answer you here. I know you’ll understand when I say that the novel has to be my priority right now and that therefore I won’t be adding further to this conversation.
Warm best wishes
Graham
"I am still waiting for you to provide the quote from GH to the admission that the claims made about the block sizes in the walls of Khafre's Valley temple were in error. Can you provide this please?"
**************
Dear Archae,
The way you’re approaching this smacks of the Inquisitor totting up confessions. Many months ago my coauthor Robert Bauval accepted clearly, and on the record, that we made mistakes in Keeper of Genesis/Message of the Sphinx about the size of the blocks in the Valley Temple attributed to Khafre. Robert speaks for both of us in this matter. If there is ever the opportunity to bring out an updated edition of KoG/MoS we will correct the relevant passage. I will do the same in Fingerprints of the Gods where there is also reference to 200-ton blocks in the Valley Temple.
You can see if you have checked the references (Note 1 to Chapter 3 of KoG/Message of the Sphinx) that one of the sources given for the incorrect statement that there are many megaliths in the range of 200 tons in the Sphinx and Valley Temples, was I.E.S Edwards, The Pyramids of Egypt, 1949 edition, page 215, where there is a reference to 200-ton blocks in the Mortuary Temple attributed to Menkarua at Giza (as there is also on page 130 of the same edition where Edwards speaks of a block of 220 tons). The mistake here, and it was mine, was to confuse data from the Mortuary Temple with data from the Valley Temple and get the numbers wrong. Mea culpa. But the fact that 200 ton blocks were moved around in this megalithic phase at Giza stands.
Indeed the absence of 200-ton blocks in the Valley temple, about which you are so exercised, does not reduce the force of the argument of either of these books at all. We will simply be saying that there are many VERY large blocks in the Valley Temple, a few perhaps approaching 100 tons, and that in the mortuary temple attributed to Menkaura, and possibly at one or two other Giza locations, there are blocks exceeding 200 tons. We will also be saying that modern technology can lift such weights, but that it’s by no means easy.
For the record I personally remain absolutely convinced that the megalithic temples at Giza, the Great Sphinx of Giza, the Subterranean Chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza, large parts of the Osirion at Abydos, and a number of other structures in Egypt are vastly older -- thousands of years older -- than the Old Kingdom, and do indeed date back to the epoch of 12,500 years ago (give or take a millennium) that Robert and I have suggested the ancient Egyptians knew as the “First Time”. Of course the Valley Temple and other ancient monuments were renovated by the ancient Egyptians, granite facing-blocks installed and so on, but the basic, massive, structures are more than 12,000 years old.
So the not-quite impossible but certainly bloody difficult engineering achievements evident in the megalithic temples at Giza are all the more remarkable when we remember (in my view) that this work was done more than 12,000 years ago, not 4,500 years ago as the Egyptologists tell us.
Archae, it is such fun debating with you, but I am in the last two months to deadline on my first novel and working absolutely round the clock. I’ve done my best to answer you here. I know you’ll understand when I say that the novel has to be my priority right now and that therefore I won’t be adding further to this conversation.
Warm best wishes
Graham
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