Warwick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Egyptology's consensus opinions, Wilkinson's
> opinions and mine do not exist in a vacuum.

I don't think anyone here has contended otherwise. The problem isn't how many people believe and write the same thing. The problem is whether what they believe and write is actually true. As has been said before, "Practice makes permanent, it does not make perfect".

There are so many beliefs in Egyptology that simply have not been proven to be true, and yet virtually everyone continues to present them as facts. Pointing out an incident involving Wilkinson, or Reisner, or whomever is simply to exemplify the phenomenon.



> Wilkinson's "Early Dynastic Egypt" is the best
> example of this. Each and every 'opinion' offered
> is supported by 23 pages (in the soft cover) of
> bibliography that insurmountably support all said
> opinions.

Again, the problem is that opinions are presented as facts that seem to be supported merely by others' opinions and not always by definitive evidence. How can the reader be sure that the author is citing physical evidence when it is so common to find opinion or traditional belief masquerading as proven fact?


> It's existence has precluded my needing
> to suggest a reading list to those who wish to
> learn of this era and the Old Kingdom.

I didn't follow your logic there. How does the existence of a lengthy bibliography imbue a factual basis into an author's statement? Many if not all luminary Egyptologists have written that Hetepheres was the wife of Sneferu and the mother of Khufu (e.g., Lehner, Romer, Edwards), but the source of that information invariably points to Reisner's initial reporting of G7000x which was great data reporting but not so great regarding the conclusions that were drawn from that data.



> Lehner's Complete Pyramids is at the very least an
> excellent source of things...

The "things" I find excellent from Lehner is his reporting of the physical evidence. But I find many of his conclusions to be "possiblity", but not "conclusive", and I often disagree with his conclusions mainly because of how he gravitates to the mainstream position regarding the funerary context and the traditional timeline, neither fundamental tenet having been proven as fact up to this point. So any conclusions that depend on those assumptions remain tenuous.



> In fact all the best known Pyramid Authors on
> everyside of the debates offers up the known
> opposition to their own ideas within their works
> Edwards...Lehner...Stadelmann...

Can you cite a traditionalist author who openly acknowledge that any fundamental tenets of Egyptology, such as the funerary context, huge construction ramps, and the traditional timeline, are only possibilities and not conclusive?



> Someone should set up an experiment whereby
> someone arranges stonework exactly as we find
> above the KC, and then tries to reproduce the Glyphs.

Why do you suppose that hasn't been done yet?