Thanos5150 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I do not respect your opinion as despite all that has
> been said you still have it.

More Thanos signature charm.

Yes, I still have my opinion because despite all that has been said, the evidence is not conclusive.



> Reisner was no more trying to "deceive the world"
> as Lehner was about the worker's town.

Not quite. According to your opinion, Reisner knew that the notion of a "displaced tomb" from the "original" at Saqqara to the secret pit at G7000x was pure speculation as a way to explain the artifacts in G7000x, and assuming that he monitored the acceptance of his hypotheses, he surely noticed that the field interpreted his speculation as being "historical fact" as observed by Lehner. And yet even though Reisner was quick to correct the media from initially erroneously reporting that G7000x was the tomb of Sneferu, Reisner apparently took no corresponding action to correct the misconception that Hetepheres' alleged original tomb in Saqqara was established historical fact rather than merely his speculation.

Not sure how that substantially differs from what you're objecting to.


Let's revisit Reisner's account of this episode in bmfa25_1927_01to36.pdf and see how clearly he made it known that he was merely speculating and not stating fact (bold emphasis is mine):

"...the accumulated evidence permitted us to draw certain definite conclusions, many of which have been outlined in the preceding chapters. The intact tomb at Giza, which bears on our map the number G 7000 X, was a secret tomb made during the building of the pyramid of Cheops, and by its position could only be the tomb of a favored member of the family of that king. The deposit in the tomb was a reburial brought from another tomb. The great golden canopy, a magnificent example of the metal working of Dynasty IV. and the accompanying inlaid box, bore the name of Sneferuw, the predecessor and father of Cheops. Four other objects, the carrying-chair, the jewel box containing the inlaid silver anklets, an inlaid panel, and a gold disc, bore the names and titles of the Queen Hetepheres, a mother of a king of Upper and Lower Egypt ... The queen was buried by Cheops in her original tomb, for the broken seals of his storehouse were in the rubbish gathered up from the floor of that tomb. Therefore, in all reasonable human probability, Hetepheres was the mother of Cheops and a wife of Sneferuw."

Reisner clearly and unconditionally presents that Hetepheres was relocated from her original tomb at Dashur and reburied at G7000x. There is not a hint of speculation in his narrative on that point. Further along, Reisner states:

"In accordance with Egyptian custom the original tomb of Hetepheres was at Dahshur beside the pyramid of her husband Sneferuw..."

"...and I have no doubt that Queen Hetepheres inspected her tomb [in Saqqara] repeatedly during its construction and after completion. She outlived her husband and was buried by her son Cheops in the tomb prepared by Sneferuw."

"We have no definite evidence of just when the queen-mother died, probably in the first half of the reign of Cheops. Nor have we any proof of how long a time elapsed before the royal police discovered that the tomb had been broken open by thieves, but it was certainly no great number of years after the burial."

"The anger of the king can be imagined and the penalties meted out to every one who came under the suspicion of guilt or negligence. Resolved to place the burial of his mother beyond the reach of further desecration, Cheops ordered her body with the alabaster sarcophagus and all that remained of the equipment, to be transferred to a secret grave in the precincts of his own royal cemetery at Giza. One wonders whether the “annals of the Old Kingdom’’ ever showed any record of this event."

"The Dahshur tomb of Queen Hetepheres after the plundering was left in great confusion. If there is one thing with which the Egyptian field archaeologist is familiar it is the state in which thieves leave an ancient tomb. Originally the floor of the Dahshur tomb was completely covered by the burial equipment. The alabaster sarcophagus stood in the southwestern quarter of the room under the cloth-lined gold canopy presented by Sneferuw. In the southern part of the room, in front of the canopy, the gold-cased furniture was set, together with the gold-cased boxes which contained the more valuable objects, the toilet-boxes, and the copper ewer and basin."

"The doorway was blocked with rectangular blocks of fine white limestone set in plaster. The thieves forced a way through this masonry block, no doubt near the top, so that a part of the plaster and stone fell within the chamber. These men were probably of the cemetery workmen or guards and knew exactly where the valuables in a grave were to be found. In this case, they seem to have paid little attention to the deposit on the floor but made for the sarcophagus itself. They trampled over the pottery and the furniture to the canopy which they must have upset to the east or taken down to afford room for getting at the coffin lid. They were unable to lift the lid by the four short projections, two at each end, which served as handles, for they attempted to force the lid by driving wedges, probably of metal, between the box and the lid. The edges are chipped on all four sides by these efforts, and one corner of the lid is broken off. Whether the thieves succeeded before they were discovered we shall not know until we open the coffin."

"We do not yet know the state in which the thieves left the mummy of the queen, but probably at this point the mummy of the queen was taken out and placed on a bier or in some temporary receptacle for transport. Finally the lid and then the sarcophagus would have been manoeuvred out one at a time and taken up the sloping entrance corridor.[/b]"

"The heavy coffin was loaded on a wooden sledge. That was the method used in transporting heavy blocks of stone in the Pyramid Age. It was probably dragged by large gangs of men from Dahshur to Giza, but whether by the desert or some valley road is uncertain. The sledge with its load might even have been carried part of the way by water. The time required would be measured by weeks, not months."

Nowhere does Reisner clarify that "what follows is my speculation that Hetepheres was originally buried in Dahshur and that her original tomb was plundered by contemporaneous robbers and so she was then reburied in Giza." Rather, throughout his report he repeats what clearly are factual decrees of her reburial. It seems obvious that he felt the need to do that because:

1. he believed his team was the first to breach the G7000X Old Kingdom tomb of Hetepheres I.
2. her body was missing from g7000x,
3. he believed she was the wife of Sneferu, mother of Khufu,
4. he believed she definitely was buried next to Sneferu in Dashur.
5. decreeing the reburial reconciled what appeared to be her tomb in Giza rather than Dashur.

Regardless of the specific details he offers, there is nothing in his report that would lead anyone to believe he is merely speculating that Hetepheres' original tomb is in Dashur. Rather, he repeats several times that there is no doubt that she was first buried there and then her tomb was relocated.

So sure, there are a few "probablies" and "would have beens" inserted here and there in an attempt to fill in the details, but Reisner also is teaching a series of decrees that can be reasonably inferred to be accepted as fact. And it was indeed accepted as fact for 60 years until Lehner called him on it in 1985.

To say that Reisner wasn't trying to "deceive" anyone implies that he didn't realize how baselessly dogmatic his statements were. And while that's a possibility, it only means that he would then be guilty of lacking objectivity in reporting the results of his investigation. And that leads us back to it being another example of the far lower standards of proof that were tolerated in reporting facts vs. speculation back then.




Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08-Jun-16 03:27 by Origyptian.