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Talk:Pyramid
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Woo[edit]
Is [1] a suitable link? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:39, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that's actually woo - it's not ascribing them special powers or anything, it's just crap history. I suppose, at a push, it does try to support biblical literalism but then that's awfully circular in that it's Biblical Literalism that is used to support the theory that they're granaries. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 18:51, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
- Also, I am not sure anyone but Carson really believes this. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 18:56, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
- This piece of pseudohistory is largely already covered in Joseph was Imhotep, so yes, others than Carson believe this, though it has been such a fringe idea, even within "biblical archaeology", until spotlighted by Carson, that few took notice. However, the woo involved is mainly of the vaguest Goddidit variety (biblical literalism and God sending prophetic dreams, though even that is minor league compared to Joseph's supposed skills in dream interpretation). Whether Carson actually believes this, or is just trying to corner the market on stupid as a Trump-inspired election strategy (see the aptly titled article, "Fuck you Ben Carson", cited in the lead of Ben Carson) is anyone's guess - Hanlon's Razor and all that jazz. ScepticWombat (talk) 23:02, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
- Oh my, well...one could hope fringe ideas like this are limited to a single person... -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 18:18, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
- This piece of pseudohistory is largely already covered in Joseph was Imhotep, so yes, others than Carson believe this, though it has been such a fringe idea, even within "biblical archaeology", until spotlighted by Carson, that few took notice. However, the woo involved is mainly of the vaguest Goddidit variety (biblical literalism and God sending prophetic dreams, though even that is minor league compared to Joseph's supposed skills in dream interpretation). Whether Carson actually believes this, or is just trying to corner the market on stupid as a Trump-inspired election strategy (see the aptly titled article, "Fuck you Ben Carson", cited in the lead of Ben Carson) is anyone's guess - Hanlon's Razor and all that jazz. ScepticWombat (talk) 23:02, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
- Also, I am not sure anyone but Carson really believes this. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 18:56, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Is it a suitable addition as 'a piece of bad/mad/wonky history'? 'Throwing in grain at the top' of a solid construct which would have had a smooth surface back then does sound 'slightly odd.' 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:16, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
- I don't have access to the primary sources, but apparently the idea that the Pyramids were storehouses for grain as ordered by Joseph goes back to Gregory of Tours (6th century) and is in "Sir John Mandeville"'s very popular tales of his tours (14th century). Of course, it is preposterous that such a nearly solid rock structure would be built to contain grain (and imagine the trouble in retrieving ithe grain when needed),. Obviously those European writers had little information about what the Pyramids were other than their shape and being big. TomS TDotO (talk) 14:45, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
- And there were all the 'creative interpretations of hieroglyphs' - for some 1300 years (assuming there were manuscripts for some time after 'the last known inscription' and 'readers and those recognizing some words' for longer).82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:14, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
- I don't have access to the primary sources, but apparently the idea that the Pyramids were storehouses for grain as ordered by Joseph goes back to Gregory of Tours (6th century) and is in "Sir John Mandeville"'s very popular tales of his tours (14th century). Of course, it is preposterous that such a nearly solid rock structure would be built to contain grain (and imagine the trouble in retrieving ithe grain when needed),. Obviously those European writers had little information about what the Pyramids were other than their shape and being big. TomS TDotO (talk) 14:45, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
What about [2]? (Possibly some connection with assorted overt fiction of alien-mummy catacombs/graves most of us have come across.) 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:14, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
At least Gregory of Tours (the originator of the hypothesis) could claim that he was around a time when travel to Egypt was not easy 'even if he wasn't a very busy bishop with much to write.' 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:24, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
- Fordham University has a translation of Gregory of Tours' [https://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/gregory-hist.asp Historia Francorum/History of the Franks (Books I-X) and the association between pyramids and Joseph's granaries is found in Book I, Chapter 10. As even a cursory glance affirms, Gregory had a very shaky grasp of history, events and geography outside his immediate contemporary Frankish surroundings. ScepticWombat (talk) 11:24, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
- Probably to the surprise of no one, crank magnet Immanuel Velikovsky had his own unique brand of pseudohistorical pyramid woo where the pyramids were essentially a pharaonic equivalent to the Vaults from FallOut, built as shelters against the catastrophic impacts Velikovsky postulated in Worlds in Collision and Ages in Chaos. ScepticWombat (talk) 12:44, 25 November 2015 (UTC)