Origyptian wrote:

> Well, I read the chapter you marked at pg 448 in that 589 pg
> book that you cited, and it was very interesting. In truth,
> while the site is reported to be "100 km sq", in reality it is
> only a very spotty set of small sub-fields totally a few square
> km within a larger 10km x 10km circumscribed area. But the vast
> majority of that area has not been excavated or designated as a
> quarry. And the quarry itself simply looks like a flat field of
> rough boulders and not much evidence of systematic quarries of
> bulk blocks of stone.

It looks like this was a not a huge quarry, but used for a long time nonetheless.
There are other sources of gneiss so given its isolated location may not have been all that popular.

> While the gneiss that was used to make that Khafre statue may
> have arisen from Gebel el-Asr, it is not known whether it was
> actually carved during the 3rd millennium BC. And as I said,
> the carving of "Khafre" appears to be grafitti that may have
> been applied long after the original statue was created.

We talked about this statue a while ago and then you said you thought it must have dated much later as you thought the 4th Dynasty couldn't do such things, now you are saying it is much older because the 4th Dynasty couldn't do such things. Looking at the whole of the ancient world, then looking at Egypt, I am curious when you think the AE were capable of doing anything?

> In fact, since artifacts have been found in that quarry that
> have been dated over many centuries, it's clear that untold
> generations have traversed and/or occupied that same site, and
> so it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that it may have been
> used far earlier but no artifacts have been retrieved from that
> earlier time (as a general observation, the older the site, the
> fewer the number of artifacts associated with it from that
> period).

Early Dynastic artifacts were found there as well so people were digging around there for well over 1,000yrs.

> LIkewise, it's not clear when the Khufu Stela was engraved.
> It's only clear that the stone is gneiss and could have
> originated from that area, and was likely not standing in the
> position Engelbach found it for the past 4500 years.

I agree with this, but I see no reason it couldn't be from the 4th Dynasty either. At any point in time someone could have come across the stele in the rubble and thought it would be cool to prop it up there. Assuming of course it was not made by "antiquarian forgers", a question to ask if not from the 4th Dynasty then why would it be there at all? What would possess someone say in the MK to engrave Khufu's name on it or even worse bring it that location already carved?

> From what I've gleaned from posts in this discussion, there is
> not enough data to reliably assign provenance to the quarry,
> the Khafre statue, or the Khufu Stela.

Its a particular kind of gneiss though. The answer to this question is geologically could it have come from somewhere else.

> If anything, the
> scarcity of artifacts in the quarry dating it at least across a
> several millennia of the dynastic period, and the out of
> character engraving on the Khafre gneiss, and the unlikely
> positioning of the Khufu Stela, all cast a strong doubt on
> their alleged provenance.

But there are artifacts representing this whole time period, regardless of how scant, implying it was used throughout this time. Khufu's name is found as far afield as Byblos among others so finding it at an AE gneiss quarry shouldn't be all that mysterious. The positioning of the stele doesn't mean it wasn't from there just that it is unlikely that was its original position. The Khafre engraving isn't out of character as on many statues from this period and later you find this kind of work. The quality of working in raised relief doesn't seem to translate well with engravings on some kinds of stone.

Though my head spins a little bit, I understand the argument you are making, but it seems unbelievable to say the least to think that for at least 2,000yrs years one pharaoh after another just so happened to adopt all the stuff and likenesses of an individual king from a lost civilization from thousands of years before their time. So, you have Khafre who has to find his own stuff, then Menkaure finds another kings stuff including as luck would have it several statues of what are obviously the same individual. On and on and on and even by the time of Ramses II there is still enough left over that he can even find 1,000 ton virgin statues to put his name on. And not only that, but according to you all the buildings as well. Every amazing stone vase or bowl or statue or building or laser like engraving. For thousands of years these stumbling bumbling ignorant squatters just keep on squatting completely oblivious to the how of the world of artificial stone they enveloped themselves in.

There is no doubt to me Dynastic Egypt is the product of an earlier foreign influence, but there is nothing in reality to separate them so far in time as to be completely disconnected from one another particularly throughout the whole of AE history as you wish to do.



Post Edited (21-Jan-15 17:41)