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Title: Egypt's Pyramids Were Grain Silos, Not Tombs
Source:
Lead Stories
URL Source: http://ben-carson.leadstories.com/0 ... ere-grain-silos-not-tombs.html
Published: Nov 5, 2015
Author: Alan Duke
Post Date: 2015-11-05 08:58:10 by Willie Green
Keywords: None
Views: 30382
Comments: 60
Ben Carson, one of the Republican frontrunners in the race to be U.S. president, believes archeologists got it wrong about Egypt's pyramids. The huge stone structures were built to store massive quantities of grain, not to serve as tomb for rulers, according to what Carson said in a 1998 graduation speech at Michigan's Andrews University.
And the remarkable pyramids were built not by the pharaohs, but by the biblical Joseph, son of Jacob, Carson hypothesized.
In the Old Testament book of Genesis, Joseph was said to have "stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it, for it was beyond measure," Carson said in a video of the address. Carson been a popular speaker for conservative Christian groups for years. Here's the speech posted on YouTube:
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 33.
#4. To: Willie Green (#0)
In the Old Testament book of Genesis, Joseph was said to have "stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it, for it was beyond measure," I like a lot of what he says, but on this he's just ignorant. At that time, man did not have the tools or knowledge necessary to build the pyramids. One look at the interior will tell you that the pyramids were not grain silos.
This really is a red-letter day for LF. We finally found just one thing that you won't believe. Would it help if Carson said there was a conspiracy by powerful and cunning Egyptian elites to use the pyramids to store grain? That it was a conspiracy by the Pharaoh and his cronies to perpetrate a pyramid scheme on the helpless citizens of Egypt?
Really? Well, there are many things I don't believe - one of them being that you are anything but a dickwad. And then you ping the police state shill GrandIsland to the thread? Yeh - you're a real class act. Would it help if Carson said there was a conspiracy by powerful and cunning Egyptian elites to use the pyramids to store grain? And your insanity continues unabated.
Well, at least one of you are insane, and perhaps a dickwad as well. "Carson’s claims seem to be drawn in part from Egyptologist Dr Wyatt Thom’s 1984 book Egypt Egypt Egypt. According to Thom, the pyramids were built to house grain, and mummified bodies were placed inside as scarecrows to keep birds away. If you’re wondering how that makes sense given that the pyramids are enclosed structures, Thom claims this is because you’re “hamstrung by a very modern conception of birds”. It is entirely possible that the first pryamids had a dual purpose.
It was not to store grain. Monuments to vanity by long-dead monarchs.
Maybe. Where did they store the grain to feed the tens of thousands of laborers on site?
These pyramids are not hollow. They are solid masses of rocks constructed with a few tiny narrow passages into them. The passages are a tiny fraction of 1% of the pyramid's internal volume. Egypt used granaries to feed the large population of workers in Babylon and other ancient cities across the arid region of the Mideast and northern Africa. Famine was a regular feature of life. Egypt stored grain to feed the masses primarily in ground pit granaries, covered against the weather. Ancient Egypt was wetter than now but it was still a very dry climate so a covered pit of grain might have lasted a decade or more there. For an example of what a wealthy pharaoh would use, the best example is the relatively little-known Ramesseum temple complex with a full set of granaries and warehouses. It was the mortuary temple of Rameses II who was the last of the great pharaohs of Egypt, 13th century BCE. [Another good picture is here (TourEgypt.net).] Civilization.org.uk: Ramesseum But Ramesseum would have been the high-end of the whole granary scene in ancient Egypt. For feeding the masses, it would be large covered ground pits in carefully chosen locations. Naturally, they would try to seal them very tight and put only very dry grain in them. Ancient Egypt had a commodities market of sorts that allowed trading of grain held in storage. After all, Joseph's brothers did travel to Egypt to purchase grain during a famine because Egypt was an agricultural superpower of the era. It is interesting to consider what ancient Egypt was like during the time the Israelites were captive workers there. They would have been fed, like the Egyptian working class, out of these covered-pit granaries. And the Ramesseum's storehouses and granaries would have been reserved for its priests and other staff. The general topic of grain storage and grain commerce and occasional drought/famine and the danger of locusts to food supply, are key elements of a number of stories in the Old Testament.
Like this?
So which came first, the knowledge and technology to build the pit type garineries with supported walls or the pyramids? Would not what was learned from the design of one be incoporated into the design of the other?
Occam tells us that you'd have granaries long before you had a Great Pyramid. The granary system would be needed to support a large civilization through regular periods of drought. You need the granaries for your civilization's stability and survival. Only when you have an adequate system of granaries would you have the kind of resources needed to build hundreds of pyramids. IOW, feeding the peasants is always necessarily going to rank higher than building monuments to dead monarchs.
#34. To: TooConservative (#33)
Then it is totally reasonable to believe that the design, construction technology, building materials, etc. obtained from the construction of the large scale granaries informed the design of the pyramids. Had Carson said this he would have be a safe ground.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestAnd the remarkable pyramids were built not by the pharaohs, but by the biblical Joseph, son of Jacob, Carson hypothesized.
#7. To: Deckard, GrandIsland (#4)
#8. To: TooConservative (#7)
(Edited)
We finally found just one thing that you won't believe.
#12. To: Deckard, TooConservative (#8)
And your insanity continues unabated.
#15. To: SOSO (#12)
It is entirely possible that the first pryamids had a dual purpose.
#24. To: TooConservative (#15)
It was not to store grain.
#25. To: Roscoe, SOSO, paraclete, redleghunter (#24)
Where did they store the grain to feed the tens of thousands of laborers on site?
#26. To: TooConservative (#25)
Egypt stored grain to feed the masses primarily in ground pit granaries, covered against the weather.
#32. To: Roscoe, TooConservative (#26)
#33. To: SOSO (#32)
Replies to Comment # 33. You need the granaries for your civilization's stability and survival. Only when you have an adequate system of granaries would you have the kind of resources needed to build hundreds of pyramids.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 33.
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