Tl;dr Everyone knows including your cat that the good doctor Ben Carson is wrong about pyramids. [
ben carson, pyramids]
Experts in the field keep saying "corn" when writing about Egyptian farming and storing and taxation and such, photos of Egyptian art in books depicting fields are labeled as corn fields, and we know that corn is a New World grain. British Egyptologists do this, they say, "corn" instead of "wheat." It would be like mentioning potatoes, chiles, squash, tomatoes, chocolate and vanilla, things that did not exist in that place at that time.
They mean corn as "corm" or any grain or granule. They do not mean maize. They are referring to wheat. It is an important distinction.
Ben Carson thought and when asked still thinks that Egyptian pyramids were actually built to store grain because consider the number of chambers and the chambers being hermetically sealed, and he doesn't care what experts say.
Pyramids are not hermetically sealed, there is a channel for the the pharaoh's ka to escape, and neither are granaries modern or ancient hermetic, vermin do get into them. And the mass area of a pyramid is 95X more stone than space for chambers to store anything so hardly a reasonable storage design. And there is no reason to store grain for centuries.
Carson, you're a
doctor, dammit, not an Egyptologist.
What do doctorates in Egyptology say? Being a medical doctor with reputation and interested in running for president of United States wouldn't he be interested in knowing for certain before mouthing off with assurance outside his area? It is not a matter of having an opinion. It's a matter of being wrong and unwilling to learn.
Lifted from Manual of Egyptian Archaeology and Guide to the Study of Antiquities in Egypt. Document [search: granary] takes you right to this:
The taxation of ancient Egypt was levied in kind, and government servants were paid after the same system. To workmen, there were monthly distributions of corn, oil, and wine, wherewith to support their families; while from end to end of the social scale, each functionary, in exchange for his labour, received cattle, stuffs, manufactured goods, and certain quantities of copper or precious metals.
See, grain is coming and going. Stored, yes, in large amounts, yes, also small amounts, but briefly. It's what do you say, containing oil as wheat does, a perishable commodity.
Thus it became necessary that the treasury officials should have the command of vast storehouses for the safe keeping of the various goods collected under the head of taxation. These were classified and stored in separate quarters, each storehouse being surrounded by walls and guarded by vigilant keepers.
Fig 43.--Cellar, with amphorae. There was enormous stabling for cattle; there were cellars where the amphorae were piled in regular layers (fig. 43), or hung in rows upon the walls, each with the date written on the side of the jar; there were oven-shaped granaries where the corn was poured in through a trap at the top (fig. 44), and taken out through a trap at the bottom. At Thûkû, identified with Pithom by M. Naville,[5] the store-chambers (A) are rectangular and of different dimensions, originally divided by floors, and having no communication with each other. Here the corn had to be not only put in but taken out through the aperture at the top.
Fig 44.--Granary.At the Ramesseum, Thebes, thousands of ostraka and jar-stoppers found upon the spot prove that the brick-built remains at the back of the temple were the cellars of the local deity. The ruins consist of a series of vaulted chambers, originally surmounted by a platform or terrace (fig. 46). At Philae, Ombos, Daphnae,[6] and most of the frontier towns of the Delta, there were magazines of this description, and many more will doubtless be discovered when made the object of serious exploration.
We see the vase-like amphora and the mud brick oven-like silos are sensibly thin-walled and not 95% stone with 5% storage space such as pyramids built like mountains with passageways.
In Egyptian language granary is is written with the consonant sounds "snwt."
Go on and provide your own vowels. Let's say, "senwet" but be open to sanwat of sinwut or anything similar. You will see [s wnt] or any combination with redundancy to invoke those key sounds. [s n nwt w t] for example along with the determinative for granary. Any combination of biliteral or triliteral signs (like nwt) with single signs accompanied with this granary determinative will do, as the determinative all by itself will do. And what does the determinative hieroglyph look like? A truncated pyramid. With grain in it. In its rodent discouraging rimmed platform.
Ipetisut Medu Neter Translator
Models of Egyptian granaries show a dollhouse with rooms and figures at tables. Scribes counting and recording at tables. Models of actual granaries look like beehives.
[
Egyptian granary]
Granary 12 round silos
The silos are not just sticking up, they're walled.
Grain silo reconstruction
Granary Sinai New Kingdom
Granaries do not have temples devoted to them, to specific pharaohs as part of the compound architecture. Granaries are located conveniently, not in the remote areas, and made for repeated access, pyramids seal humans out while allowing the pharaoh's ka a shot at [Osiris] constellation so although difficult of access are not actually hermetic. Granaries do not have obnoxiously heavy granite sarcophagi inside for a king and a queen with access to chambers blocked. Granaries are not slathered with pyramid texts chiseled in painstaking bas relieve into stone and with text detailing the protection of pharaoh's remains and reanimating his body after death.
Carson is not just wrong, he is ridiculously and resolutely wrong.
My own 2¢: I'm stuck on the word granaries needing another i. English doesn't make sense sometimes.
