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Ancient Egypt Magazine Issue Eight - August/September 2001 Netfishing
by Hapy The
thing about the web is that one never knows where it might lead. One starts out
with the best of intentions. to seek out some sites relating to Egyptian gods
and goddesses (always a popular topic with students, and newcomers to the
subject in particular) and very soon arises the opportunity to look at all sorts
of things that one shouldn't. Such
as geopolymers and concrete. A casual browsing led to a site called 4-D::Club
Egyptology at http://www.gunn.demon.co.uk/4D/4d30.htm.
The headline was appealing: Denial isn't just a river in Egypt. You will have
gathered that it's not a mainstream site. From this, the Google
search engine threw up some interesting suggestions which led irresistibly to
more outlandish distractions. Firstly,
the concrete. It's on http://www.geopolymer.org/archaeo.html
where you can find outlined the ideas of Prof Joseph Davidovits that have
received an airing at various Egyptological conferences. Davidovits' theory
suggests that the ancient Egyptian pyramids were constructed. sensibly enough,
out of ancient Egyptian concrete, proving that, if there's any truth in his
theory, there's nothing wrong with concrete as a material - it just lasts and
lasts! The pyramids would be a pretty good advertisement for the concrete
industry, and that in fact is just what the last page of the web site is, a
pretty good advertisement for the geopolymer industry. If it's good enough for
Khufu... The
theory, which involves the casting of agglomerated limestone in moulds using
kaolin clay and natron, has been dismissed by Mark Lehner, amongst others.
However, if the mysteries of pyramid building are your interest, this site is
probably worth a visit. It
was but a short float on the stream to http://crystalinks.com/ancientaircraft.html
where ancient Egyptian bombers and helicopters can be viewed. not to mention an
archaic version of the Bluebird vehicle or something similar. These hieroglyphs
come from Abydos, and have a supporting commentary by D Hatcher Childress which
gallops quickly through any lingering doubts in the opening paragraph: 'Many
researchers into the UFO enigma tend to overlook a very important fact. While it
is assumed that most flying saucers are of alien, or perhaps Governmental
Military origin, another possible origin of UFO's is ancient India and
Atlantis.' Thoroughly convincing. It certainly persuaded me to dump the alien
origin theory right away, but my colleague Horns is still not entirely in
agreement - and he should know. But
back to the deities. One of the most frequently asked questions of AE is where
to obtain reading lists or suppliers of books on ancient Egypt, and a good
starting point is http://www.ptahhotep.com/gods1.html,
where there's a listing of suitable books including George Hart's standard Dictionary
of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Geraldine Pinch's Votive
Offerings to Hathor and An Illustrated
Dictionary of the God and Symbols of Ancient Egypt by Manfred Lurker, along
with other more eclectic items such as Great
Goddess: Reverence of divine feminine from Palaeolithic to the Present by
Markale. And back on the subject looking at things one shouldn't there's The
God Min to the End of the Old Kingdom by McFarlane, published by The
Australian Centre of Egyptology. More
gods and goddesses next issue, when normal service will be resumed.
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