This story is from the WIRED World in 2023, our annual trends briefing.

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Life expectancy in the best-performing countries has been increasing by three months per year every year since the early 1800s. Throughout most of human history, you had a roughly 50–50 chance of making it into your twenties, mainly due to deaths from infectious diseases and accidents. Thanks to medical advances, we’ve gradually found ways to avoid and treat such causes of death; the end result is perhaps humanity’s greatest-ever achievement—we’ve literally doubled what it means to be human, increasing lifespans from 40 to 80 years. On the other hand, this has allowed one scourge to rise above all the others to become the world’s largest cause of death: aging.

 

Aging is now responsible for over two-thirds of deaths globally—more than 100,000 people every day. This is because, counterintuitive though it may sound, the chief risk factor for most of the modern world’s leading killers is the aging process itself: Cancer, heart disease, dementia, and many more health problems become radically more common as we get older. We all know that factors such as smoking, lack of exercise, and poor diet can increase the risk of chronic diseases, but these are relatively minor compared to aging. For instance, having high blood pressure doubles your risk of having a heart attack; being 80 rather than 40 years old multiplies your risk by ten. As the global population ages, the magnitude of death and suffering caused by aging will only increase.

 

But this isn’t my prediction—apart from being depressing, extrapolating a two-century trend for a further year is hardly groundbreaking. What’s far more exciting is that, in 2023, we may see the first drug that targets the biology of aging itself.

 

Scientists now have a good handle on what causes us to age, biologically speaking: The so-called “hallmarks” of the aging process range from damage to our DNA—the instruction manual within each of our cells—to proteins that misbehave because of alterations to their chemical structure. Most excitingly, we now have ideas of how to treat them.

 

By the end of 2023, it’s likely that one of these ideas will be shown to work in humans. One strong contender is “senolytics,” a class of treatments that targets aged cells—which biologists call senescent cells—that accumulate in our bodies as we age. These cells seem to drive the aging process—from causing cancers to neurodegeneration—and, conversely, removing them seems to slow it down, and perhaps even reverse it.

 

A 2018 paper showed that in experiments in which mice were given a senolytic cocktail of dasatinib (a cancer drug) and quercetin (a molecule found in colorful fruit and veg), not only did they live longer, but they were at lower risk of diseases including cancer, were less frail (they could run further and faster on the tiny mouse-sized treadmills used in the experiments), and even had thicker, glossier fur than their littermates not given the drugs.

 

There are more than two dozen companies looking for safe and effective ways to get rid of these senescent cells in people. The biggest is Unity Biotechnology, founded by the Mayo Clinic scientists behind that mouse experiment and with investors including Jeff Bezos, which is trialing a range of senolytic drugs against diseases like macular degeneration (a cause of blindness) and lung fibrosis. There are many approaches under investigation, including small proteins that target senescent cells, vaccines to encourage the immune system to clear them out, and even gene therapy by a company called Oisín Biotechnologies, named after an Irish mythological character who travels to Tir na nÓg, the land of eternal youth.

 

Senolytics aren’t the only contenders, either: Others currently in human trials include Proclara Biosciences’ protein GAIM, which clears up sticky “amyloid” proteins, or Verve Therapeutics’ gene therapy to reduce cholesterol by modifying a gene called PCSK9. The first true anti-aging medicine will very likely target a specific age-related disease driven by a particular hallmark, rather than aging writ large. But the success of a drug targeting an aspect of aging in clinical trials will allow us to consider this loftier goal in the not-too-distant future.

 

In 2023, early success of these treatments could kickstart the greatest revolution in medicine since the discovery of antibiotics. Rather than going to the doctor when we’re sick and picking off age-related problems like cancer and dementia in their late stages when they’re very hard to fix, we’ll intervene preventively to stop people getting ill in the first place—and, if those treadmill-shredding mice are anything to go by, we’ll reduce frailty and other problems that don’t always elicit a medical diagnosis at the same time.

Late-night extrapolation. I should be sleeping.

A complete contrast to the yellow Fiesta in previous photos! A real bangernomics sort of car which I'd guess from extrapolating the MOT history had covered 163,000 miles at the last MOT.

With all the rust visible I wonder how much longer it will last.

 

In the early 2020s, the United States Department of Defense began studies to determine where the future of American security lies. Part of this undertaking involved studying rising technologies and addressing the threats and opportunities they would purportedly generate. One of the key players therein was automation, both of information systems and actual physical platforms. To extrapolate--and if the experts are to be believed--automation would offer the ability to streamline logistics, keep C4ISR assets synchronized in real time, keep warfighters further removed from danger and tedium, and generally make the audacious undertaking of war less taxing on humans themselves. Running with this idea, the Army published the Army Evolved 2040 initiative which signaled the branch's intention to integrate cutting edge technologies of all sorts: Robotics, AI, railguns, energy weapons, etc. To say defense firms were over the moon at this announcement would be an understatement and a half.

 

Indeed, many firms began producing private ventures in an attempt to cultivate the sustained attention of the Army until the golden date of 2040. An example of this is the Oshkosh Corporation's Future (Autonomous) Cargo Truck [or F(A)CT], an optionally-manned cargo vehicle capable of taxiing supplies to and fro of its own accord. To achieve this, Oshkosh partnered with the growing self-driving technology company, Waymo, to integrate off-the-shelf sensors and software capable of following designated routes and/or mapping terrain when obstacles arise. Typically, when the F(A)CT is operating in autonomous mode, the cab is folded down and the sensor suite comes to life. As an added bonus, the collapsible cab allows the F(A)CT to be easily transported by aircraft or tucked away aboard ships.

 

Furthermore, when given a mission, an unmanned F(A)CT is often fed a pre-designed route to follow. This route can be updated at any point via datalink and the truck will naturally set down its new path. Alternatively, the F(A)CT can use a designated database to create and map its own route as the crow flies. The terrain-mapping sensors atop the cab are key to this task. Additionally, they can also supplement allied ISR operations as the F(A)CT continues about its business. When manned, the truck's cab is naturally unpacked. What's more, any unmanned vehicles remaining in the caravan can slave themselves to a designated (often manned vehicle), thereby reducing the manpower necessary to keep landborne supply chains operational. This latter bit is consistent with the aims of the Army Evolved 2040 initiative as the US Army seeks to counterbalance demographic and manpower concerns by pulling able-bodied persons from the rear and closer to the frontlines. Why waste tactical brainpower fiddling with trucks when you can let bots do the work? Additionally, as the USR expands its martial zone of exclusivity in the Pacific, allied outposts are likely to be isolated. Thus, maintaining as many hands on deck is a dire necessity. And this is exactly what Oshkosh aims to achieve with the F(A)CT.

[update in 2015: the hardware curve that is "Rose's Law" (blue diamonds) remains on track. The software and performance/qubit (red stars, as applied to certain tasks) is catching up, and may lag by a few years from the original prediction overlaid onto the graph. Updated Graph here]

 

When I first met Geordie Rose in 2002, I was struck by his ability to explain complex quantum physics and the “spooky” underpinnings of quantum computers. I had just read David Deutsch’s Fabric of Reality where he predicts the possibility of such computers, and so I invited Rose to one of our tech conferences.

 

We first invested in 2003, and Geordie predicted that he would be able to demonstrate a two-bit quantum computer within 6 months. There was a certain precision to his predictions. With one bit under his belt, and a second coming, he went on to suggest that the number of qubits in a scalable quantum computing architecture should double every year. It sounded a lot like Gordon Moore’s prediction back in 1965, when he extrapolated from just five data points on a log-scale (his original plot is below).

 

So I called it “Rose’s Law” and that seemed to amuse him. Well, the decade that followed has been quite amazing. I commented on Rose’s Law four years ago on flickr, but I share this graph and some potential futures for the first time today.

 

So, how do we read the graph above? Like Moore’s Law, a straight line describes an exponential. But unlike Moore’s Law, the computational power of the quantum computer should grow exponentially with the number of entangled qubits as well. It’s like Moore’s Law compounded. (D-Wave just put together an animated visual of each processor generation in this video, bringing us to the present day.)

 

And now, it gets mind bending. If we suspend disbelief for a moment, and use D-Wave’s early data on processing power scaling (more on that below), then the very near future should be the watershed moment, where quantum computers surpass conventional computers and never look back. Moore’s Law cannot catch up. A year later, it outperforms all computers on Earth combined. Double qubits again the following year, and it outperforms the universe. What the???? you may ask... Meaning, it could solve certain problems that could not be solved by any non-quantum computer, even if the entire mass and energy of the universe was at its disposal and molded into the best possible computer.

 

It is a completely different way to compute — as David Deutsch posits — harnessing the refractive echoes of many trillions of parallel universes to perform a computation.

 

First the caveat (the text in white letters on the graph). D-Wave has not built a general-purpose quantum computer. Think of it as an application-specific processor, tuned to perform one task — solving discrete optimization problems. This happens to map to many real world applications, from finance to molecular modeling to machine learning, but it is not going to change our current personal computing tasks. In the near term, assume it will apply to scientific supercomputing tasks and commercial optimization tasks where a heuristic may suffice today, and perhaps it will be lurking in the shadows of an Internet giant’s data center improving image recognition and other forms of near-AI magic. In most cases, the quantum computer would be an accelerating coprocessor to a classical compute cluster.

 

Second, the assumptions. There is a lot of room for surprises in the next three years. Do they hit a scaling wall or discover a heretofore unknown fracturing of the physics… perhaps finding local entanglement, noise, or some other technical hitch that might not loom large at small scales, but grows exponentially as a problem just as the theoretical performance grows exponentially with scale. I think the risk is less likely to lie in the steady qubit march, which has held true for a decade now, but in the relationship of qubit count to performance.

 

There is also the question of the programming model. Until recently, programming a quantum computer was more difficult than machine coding an Intel processor. Imagine having to worry about everything from analog gate voltages to algorithmic transforms of programming logic to something native to quantum computing (Shor and Grover and some bright minds have made the occasional mathematical breakthrough on that front). With the application-specific quantum processor, D-Wave has made it all much easier, and with their forthcoming Black Box overlay, programming moves to a higher level of abstraction, like training a neural network with little understanding of the inner workings required.

 

In any case, the possibility of a curve like this begs many philosophical and cosmological questions about our compounding capacity to compute... the beginning of infinity if you will.

 

While it will be fascinating to see if the next three years play out like Rose’s prediction, for today, perhaps all we should say is that it’s not impossible. And what an interesting world this may be.

They were in a very privileged state. Of all the multitudes of spiritual beings in the universe, how many of them are able to have such a close and daily contact with the Creator God? Just very few — probably those associated with the throne itself such as the Cherubim and the twenty-four elders. But in the Garden were two human beings in the closest of association with God Himself. It must have been like a heaven on earth! And indeed, that’s just what it was, in a symbolic way. It was as if God’s celestial palace temporarily had come to earth. Even the Garden, the Cherubim of the Garden, the altar built by Cain and Abel, the land of Eden, and the land of Nod are all connected with the temple symbolism and are direct images of God’s heavenly abode. And for the brief period of time before the sin of Adam and Eve, "heaven” was really here on earth. In the Garden our first parents were able to talk face to face with God. But note an important point. They only had conversations with Him at certain times of the day. They did not see Him on all occasions. It was “in the cool of the day” that they came into “the presence of the Lord” (Genesis 3:8). The expressions “cool of the day” and “the presence of the Lord” were a part of temple language. 7 “The cool of the day” was the period when the Sun got lower in the sky and the cool sea breezes normally swept over the Palestinian region. This was the time of the evening sacrifice (1 Kings 18:36; Daniel 9:21) — about three in the afternoon. This was the time when the animals were being regularly sacrificed (and also in the morning about nine o’clock). At these times the people were then reckoned as being “in the presence of God” (2 Chronicles 20:19). As the Kingdom of Heaven is increasingly seen as a highly advanced extraterrestrial/alien civilization from a scientific perspective, so too will the collective ...... These so-called extraterrestrial "aliens" have been known to reveal that they originate from the Pleiades, Zeti Reticuli, Arcturus, Aldebaran and Sirius, among others.. Arian allegedly is the name of a planet that circles Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri), and that’s inhabited by a humanoid civilization. Arian would be the 4th planet circling Aldebaran. Older estimates situate it approx. 60 LY away, which is in line with the 59 LY Martin Wiesengrün mentions. Note that there are – thus far unconfirmed reports – of a possible brown dwarf companion, in which case Aldebaran would be a binary system. Allegedly the natives call their sun Raula. Arian’s orbit around it would take approx. 20.2 earth years to complete.Thus Jerusalem's holiest spot is a rock that the ancient Jews saw as the center of the Earth, the axis of the universe, the pivot that joined Heaven and Earth, and Earth with the ..... DOME: The dome over the Temple Mount, Old Jerusalem, and the entire city corresponds to Aldebaran, the alpha star and eye of the bull Taurus.

The term New Jerusalem occurs twice in the New Testament, in verses Rev 3:12 and Rev 21:2 of the Book of Revelation. A large portion of the final two chapters of Revelation deals with John of Patmos' vision of the New Jerusalem. He describes the New Jerusalem as "'the bride, the wife of the Lamb'", where the river of the Water of Life flows.After John witnesses the new heaven and a new earth "that no longer has any sea", an angel takes him "in the Spirit" to a vantage point on "a great and high mountain" to see the New Jerusalem's descent. The enormous city comes out of heaven down to the New Earth. John's elaborate description of the New Jerusalem retains many features of the Garden of Eden and the paradise garden, such as rivers, a square shape, a wall, and the Tree of Life.ccording to John, the New Jerusalem is "pure gold, like clear glass" and its "brilliance [is] like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper." The street of the city is also made of "pure gold, like transparent glass". The base of the city is laid out in a square and surrounded by a wall made of jasper. It says in Revelation 21:16 that the height, length, and width are of equal dimensions - as it was with the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and First Temple - and they measure 12,000 furlongs which is approximately 1500.3 miles). John writes that the wall is 144 cubits, which is assumed to be the thickness since the length is mentioned previously. 144 cubits are about equal to 65 meters, or 72 yards. It is important to note that 12 is the square root of 144. The number 12 was very important to early Jews and Christians, representing the 12 tribes of Israel and 12 Apostles of Jesus Christ.Part of Jerusalem's significance and holiness to Muslims derives from its strong association with Abraham, David, Solomon, and Jesus. They are all regarded as Prophets of Islam and their stories are mentioned in the Qur'an. Jerusalem served as the first qibla (direction of prayer) for Muslims. Whilst Muslims were in Mecca, and also for 17–18 months in Medina, Muslims prayed towards Jerusalem. Early mosques in Medina were built to face Jerusalem. In 625, the qibla was changed to the Kaaba in Mecca.[21][Quran 2:142–151] After Muhammad, many of his Companions lived in Jerusalem, and upon their death they were buried there The four sides of the city represented the four cardinal directions (North, South, East, and West.) In this way, New Jerusalem was thought of as an inclusive place, with gates accepting all of the 12 tribes of Israel from all corners of the earth.There is no temple building in the New Jerusalem. God and the Lamb are the city's temple, since they are worshiped everywhere. Revelation 22 goes on to describe a river of the water of life that flows down the middle of the great street of the city from the Throne of God. The tree of life grows in the middle of this street and on either side, or in the middle of the street and on either side of the river. The tree bears twelve fruits, or kinds of fruits, and yields its fruit every month. According to John, "The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." This inclusion of the tree of life in the New Jerusalem harkens back to the Garden of Eden. The fruit the tree bears may be the fruit of life. John states that the New Jerusalem will be free of sin. The servants of God will have theosis, and "His name will be on their foreheads." Night will no longer fall, and the inhabitants of the city will "have need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light." John ends his account of the New Jerusalem by stressing its eternal nature: "And they shall reign forever and ever."There are twelve gates in the wall oriented to the compass with three each on the east, north, south, and west sides. There is an angel at each gate, or gatehouse. These gates are each made of a single pearl, giving them the name of the "pearly gates". The names of the twelve tribes of Israel are written on these gates. The (four) New Jerusalem (cardinal) gates may bear some relation to the gates mentioned in Enoch, Chapters 33 - 35, where the prophet reports (from four) "heavenly gates opening into heaven;" {(like) the extremities of the whole earth (reaching)}, "three (more gates) distinctly separated." [33, 3.] (All four of the gates) of the four major compass directions (are involved in the separating into 3 more gates, thus giving 12 gates total).[ref. Laurence translation, Book of Enoch.]The wall has twelve foundation stones, and on these are written the names of the Twelve Apostles. Revelation lacks a list of the names of the Twelve Apostles, and does not describe which name is inscribed on which foundation stone, or if all of the names are inscribed on all of the foundation stones, so that aspect of the arrangement is open to speculation. The layout of the precious stones is contested. All of the precious stones could adorn each foundation stone, either in layers or mixed together some other way, or just one unique type of stone could adorn each separate foundation stone. This latter possibility is favored by tradition, as each gate presumably stands on one foundation stone, and each of the twelve tribes has long been associated with a certain type of precious stone. These historical connections go back to the time of Temple worship, when the same kinds of stones were set in the golden Breastplate of the Ephod worn by the Kohen Gadol, and on the Ephod the names of each of the twelve tribes of Israel were inscribed on a particular type of stone.

It is interesting to note that the translated meanings of the various sorts of foundation stones have varied through the centuries: those in King James Version are differently named in later translations. "18: And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. 19: And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; 20: The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst." Rev 21:18-20 with the more modern, New Jerusalem Bible version, "18 The wall was built of diamond, and the city of pure gold, like clear glass. 19 The foundations of the city wall were faced with all kinds of precious stone: the first with diamond, the second lapis lazuli, the third turquoise, the fourth crystal, 20 the fifth agate, the sixth ruby, the seventh gold quartz, the eighth malachite, the ninth topaz, the tenth emerald, the eleventh sapphire and the twelfth amethyst." In 21:16, the angel measures the city with a golden rod or reed, and records it as 12,000 stadia by 12,000 stadia at the base, and 12,000 stadia high. A stadion is usually stated as 185 meters, or 607 feet, so the base has dimensions of about 2220 km by 2220 km, or 1380 miles by 1380 miles. In the ancient Greek system of measurement, the base of the New Jerusalem would have been equal to 144 million square stadia, 4.9 million square kilometers or 1.9 million square miles (roughly midway between the sizes of Australia and India). If rested on the Earth, its ceiling would be inside the upper boundary of the exosphere but outside the lower boundary.. By way of comparison, the International Space Station maintains an orbit with an altitude of about 386 km (240 mi) above the earth.The Book of Revelation was composed during the end of the 1st century AD, sometime during the later end of the reign of Emperor Nero Domitius (54 to 68 CE). The work is addressed to the “seven churches that are in Asia” (1:4). Revelation is normally broken into three sections: the prologue (1:1-3:22), the visions (4:1-22:5), and the epilogue (22:6-20). This study is principally concerned with chapter 21. The author of Revelation was both a Jew by birth and a believing Christian. For the author and the addressees of Revelation, they are searching for the Lord to vindicate them and judge the “inhabitants of the earth,” for their suffering (6:10). The fall of Jerusalem coupled with the Neronian persecutions form the tension within the subtext of Revelation. Throughout Revelation, several references to the Temple are made REV 3:12,7:15,11:19,14:15,16:1. This Temple appears to be of heavenly origin. When the eschaton arrives in REV 21:1, the reader expects the temple to come down from heaven with the New Jerusalem. Revelation 21 even contains typical New Jerusalem terminology that accompanies a restored Temple. Specific measurements are given for the new city (Ezekiel 40-48, 4Q554), and the city is built with gold, sapphires, and emeralds (Isaiah, Tobit). In addition, 21:21 references the “twelve gates.” Revelation maintains another typically aspect of New Jerusalem tradition – the reunification of the twelve tribes of Israel (Ezekiel 48:33-34, 4Q554).

Verse 22 marks a sudden and remarkable shift in New Jerusalem apocalyptic rhetoric: “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb.” Following with the tradition of 3 Baruch and 4 Sibylline Oracles, Revelation foresees an eschaton without the Temple. Why has the Revelation suddenly denied an eschatological Temple? Verse 23 sheds light on this disparity. Verse 23 proclaims, “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is the light, and its lamp is the lamb.” For the author of Revelation, there is no need for a Temple because the Lord will be the New Jerusalem’s eternal light and Jesus (the lamb) will be its lamp. This re-interpretation utilizes Isaiah to make its case: “The LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.” (Isaiah 60:19) The Temple is discarded in the eschaton because the Lord will provide illumination for the New Jerusalem, and Christ will be the glory for its residents. Henceforth, Christians believed that the New Jerusalem no longer required a Temple. For Christians, their Lord sufficiently replaced the Temple.The Babylonian threat to the Kingdom of Judah began as the Babylonian Empire conquered Assyria and rose to power from 612-609 BCE. Jerusalem surrendered without major bloodshed to Babylon in 597. An Israelite uprising brought the destruction of Nebuchadnezzar’s army upon Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The entire city, including the First Temple, was burned. Israelite aristocrats were taken captive to Babylon. The Book of Ezekiel contains the first record of the New Jerusalem. Within Ezekiel 40-48, there is an extended and detailed description of the measurements of the Temple, its chambers, porticos, and walls. Ezekiel 48:30-35 contains a list of twelve Temple gates named for Israel’s tribes. The Book of Zechariah expands upon Ezekiel’s New Jerusalem. After the Second Temple was built after the exile, Jerusalem’s population was only a few hundred. There were no defensive city walls until 445 BCE.[7] In the passage, the author writes about a city wall of fire to protect the enormous population. This text demonstrates the beginning of a progression of New Jerusalem thought. In Ezekiel, the focus is primarily on the human act of Temple construction. In Zechariah, the focus shifts to God’s intercession in the founding of New Jerusalem.

New Jerusalem is further extrapolated in Isaiah, where New Jerusalem is adorned with precious sapphires, jewels, and rubies. The city is described as a place free from terror and full of righteousness. Here, Isaiah provides an example of Jewish apocalypticism, where a hope for a perfected Jerusalem and freedom from oppression is revealed. As the original New Jerusalem composition, Ezekiel functioned as a source for later works such as 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, Qumran documents, and the Book of Revelation. These texts used similar measurement language and expanded on the limited eschatological perspective in Ezekiel.Judaism sees the Messiah as a human male descendant of King David who will be anointed as the king of Israel and sit on the throne of David in Jerusalem. He will gather in the lost tribes of Israel, clarify unresolved issues of halakha, and rebuild the Holy Temple in Jerusalem according to the pattern shown to the prophet Ezekiel. During this time Jews believe an era of global peace and prosperity will be initiated, the nations will love Israel and will abandon their gods, turn toward Jerusalem, and come to the Holy Temple to worship the one God of Israel. Zechariah prophesied that any family among the nations who does not appear in the Temple in Jerusalem for the festival of Sukkoth will have no rain that year. Isaiah prophesied that the rebuilt Temple will be a house of prayer for all nations. The city of YHWH Shamma, the new Jerusalem, will be the gathering point of the world's nations, and will serve as the capital of the renewed Kingdom of Israel. Ezekiel prophesied that this city will have 12 gates, one gate for each of the tribes of Israel. The book of Isaiah closes with the prophecy "And it will come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, all flesh will come to worship before Me, says YHWH"

 

At the core, apocalypses are a form of theodicy. They respond to overwhelming suffering with the hope of divine intercession and a perfected World to Come. The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 meant an end to Second Temple Judaism. Naturally, apocalyptic responses to the disaster followed. This section will first cover 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. Fourth Ezra and 2 Baruch are important for two reasons. First, they look for a Temple in Heaven, not the eschaton. Second, these texts exhibit the final new Temple texts in Judaism. Jewish texts like 3 Baruch began to reject a restored Temple completely. However, these texts were deemed to be apocryphal by the Rabbis who maintained the belief in a Third Temple as central to Rabbinic Judaism. The Jewish apocalypse of 4 Ezra is a text contained in the apocryphal book 2 Esdras. The genre of 4 Ezra is historical fiction, set thirteen years after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. Fourth Ezra is dated approximately in 83 CE, thirteen years after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. The story follows Ezra’s period of mourning following Jerusalem’s fall. Ezra is Job-like in his criticism of God’s allowance of Jerusalem’s downfall. In Ezra’s deep state of grief, he meets a woman lamenting over Jerusalem. Ezra consoles the woman, and tells her to, “shake off your great sadness, and lay aside your many sorrows… the Most High may give you rest.” (4 Ezra 10:24). Suddenly, the woman is transfigured in an array of bright lights. She transforms into the New Jerusalem being rebuilt. As a bereaved widow she convinced Ezra to apply solace to himself through the image of a New Jerusalem. Fourth Ezra has two clear messages. First, do not grieve excessively over Jerusalem. Second, Jerusalem will be restored as a heavenly kingdom. Fourth Ezra also uses the title “Most High,” throughout the apocalypse to emphasis that the Lord will once again reign and reside in Jerusalem. The apocalypse of 2 Baruch is a contemporary narrative of 4 Ezra. The text also follows the same basic structure 4 Ezra: Job-like grief, animosity towards the Lord, and the rectification of Jerusalem that leads to the comfort of the Job-figure. Second Baruch is historical fiction, written after the Roman destruction but set before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. Baruch is distressed when the Lord informs him of Jerusalem’s impending doom. Baruch responds with several theological questions for God. For this study, Baruch’s inquiry about the future of Israel and the honor of the Lord are most pertinent (2 Baruch 3:4-6). Baruch learns that the Lord will destroy the city, not the enemy. Baruch also learns of a pre-immanent heavenly Temple: “[The Temple] was already prepared from the moment I decided to create paradise.” And I showed it to Adam before he sinned.” (2 Baruch 4:3). This Temple was created before Adam, and shown to him before Adam’s fall.

Two important conclusions come from 2 Baruch. First, the author dismisses hopes for an earthly re-built Temple. The focus is entirely on the heavenly Temple that pre-dated the Garden of Eden. This may be a device to express the supremacy of the heavenly Temple as a sanctuary built before Eden (the traditional location of the earthly Temple). Second, Baruch believes that restoration for the people of Israel exists in heaven, not on earth. The apocalypse of 3 Baruch is the anomaly among post-revolt New Jerusalem texts. Unlike 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra, the text exemplifies an alternative tradition that lacks a restored Temple. Like other apocalypses, 3 Baruch still mourns over the Temple, and re-focuses Jews to the heavens. Yet 3 Baruch finds that the Temple is ultimately unnecessary. This move could be polemical against works which afforded the Temple with excessive veneration. In the passage, an angel comes to Baruch and consoles him over Jerusalem: “Where is their God? And behold as I was weeping and saying such things, I saw an angel of the Lord coming and saying to me: Understand, O man, greatly beloved, and trouble not thyself so greatly concerning the salvation of Jerusalem.” (3 Baruch 1:3) Third Baruch certainly mourns over the Temple. Yet 3 Baruch is not ultimately concerned with the lack of a Temple. This text goes along with Jeremiah and Sibylline Oracles 4 to express a minority tradition within Jewish literature. In the first Christian apocalypse, the Book of Revelation coincides with this perspective on Jerusalem. The study will now move to early Christian perspectives on the Temple and the apocalyptic response in Revelation.Since Christianity originated from Judaism, the history of Jewish places of worship and the currents of thought in ancient Judaism described above served in part as the basis for the development of the Christian conception of the New Jerusalem. Christians have always placed religious significance on Jerusalem as the site of The Crucifixion and other events central to the Christian faith. In particular, the destruction of the Second Temple that took place in the year 70, a few decades after Christianity began its split from Judaism, was seminal to the nascent Christian apocalypticism of that time. In the Olivet discourse of the Gospels, Jesus predicts the destruction of Herod's Temple, and promises that it will precede the return of the Son of Man, commonly called the Second Coming. This prophecy of the renewal of Jerusalem by the messiah echoes those of the Jewish prophets. John of Patmos' vision of the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation draws on the Olivet discourse and all the historical precursors mentioned above.

Based on the Book of Revelation, premillennialism holds that, following the end times and the second creation of heaven and earth (see The New Earth), the New Jerusalem will be the earthly location where all true believers will spend eternity with God. The New Jerusalem is not limited to eschatology, however. Many Christians view the New Jerusalem as a current reality, that the New Jerusalem is the consummation of the Body of Christ, the Church and that Christians already take part in membership of both the heavenly Jerusalem and the earthly Church in a kind of dual citizenship.In this way, the New Jerusalem represents to Christians the final and everlasting reconciliation of God and His chosen people, "the end of the Christian pilgrimage." As such, the New Jerusalem is a conception of Heaven, see also Heaven (Christianity).Christianity interprets the city as a physical and/or spiritual restoration or divine recreation of the city of Jerusalem. It is also interpreted by many Christian groups as referring to the Church to be the dwelling place of the saints.

John of Patmos describes the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible, and so the New Jerusalem holds an important place in Christian eschatology and Christian mysticism, and has also influenced Christian philosophy and Christian theology. Such a renewal of Jerusalem, if a reconstruction, is an important theme in Judaism, Christianity, and the Bahá'í Faith. Renewed Jerusalem bears as its motto the words Ad librum (Latin: "as by the book".) Many traditions based on biblical scripture and other writings in the Jewish and Christian religions, such as Protestantism, and Orthodox Judaism, expect the literal renewal of Jerusalem to some day take place at the Temple

 

The dome over the Temple Mount, Old Jerusalem, and the entire city corresponds to Aldebaran, the alpha star and eye of the bull Taurus. The Foundation Stone within the Dome of the Rock is the center of this dome. Aldebaran, the thirteenth brightest star in our galaxy, is a first magnitude star located sixty-eight light years from Earth, forty times larger than our Sun and 125 times more luminous. It's usually described as rosy or pale reddish-orange in color, a quality the Hindu astronomers noted in their name, Rohini, which means "the Red One" or "the Red Deer." In Hindu star myths, Rohini is the female antelope, the daughter of the male antelope, Prajapati, the Lord of Generation (the constellation Orion). Its name, from the Arabic Al Dabaran, means "the Follower," or "Bright One of the Follower," a reference to how its appearance in the sky follows just after the rising of the Pleiades or perhaps the Hyades, both in Taurus; it also sets immediately following the setting of these two star clusters. To the Mesopotamian astronomers, Aldebaran was one of the four royal stars, or "Watchers," along with Antares in Scorpio, Regulus in Leo, and Fomalhaut in Piscis Austrinus (the Southern Fish). The Babylonians knew it as Ikuu, "the Leading Star of Stars," the Akkadians as Gisda, "the Furrow of Heaven."

Appropriately, with respect to the attributions of the Flood, tehom, and the cosmic waters to the Foundation Stone, in various cultures Aldebaran was associated with the gods of the rain and the Earth's fertility. An interesting astronomical aspect of Aldebaran is that it is one of the few first-magnitude stars that are eclipsed regularly by our Moon, sometimes, as happened in 1978, every month for a year. It would be a useful study to correlate the schedule of occultations by the Moon of Aldebaran with political events in Jerusalem to see if the astronomical events coincide with earthly happenings. GRAIL CASTLE: To understand what is meant by the statement that the Even HaShetiyah was set over the tehom to keep the waters of chaos from inundating the land, you need to reverse the relationships. The physical stone, which is part of the rock outcropping of Mount Moriah, is not the issue or the important player in this activity; it marks the spot.

The Foundation Stone does not keep the subterranean waters below the Temple Mount from rising up and flooding Jerusalem; rather, the Stone, which is an astral device, is the "plug" on the cosmic bathtub upstairs in the higher worlds. It is the realm of the ether, the primordial "waters" of creation, in which water is an esoteric code word for ether and primeval creative substance or matrix, for a level of undifferentiated consciousness-surely chaos to us.

The Temple Mount on Mount Moriah is the equivalent of Mount Ararat, the legendary resting place for Noah's Ark after the Deluge. There are in fact 144 such resting points for the Ark, for the resting place, the "Mount Ararat," is the staging ground for the ascent into the Grail Castle which is the same as the Ark. There the Ark floats, high above us, in the exalted dimensions, floating safely on the top of the Flood waters released in the interregnums between vast periods of creation and destruction Days and Years of Brahma, in the Vedic time system. The Ark, or Grail Castle, is the repository of all the information from the previous epochs of cosmic existence; the extent of this knowledge is almost unfathomable, almost incomprehensible, almost unattainable-except it isn't. The attainment of this inestimable, mind-dilating knowledge is the goal of the Grail Quest; it is the riches in the Celestial City of Lord Kubera of the North; it is the diverse contents of Noah's Ark; it is the cosmic wisdom of the Fish that towed the boat of Matsya-avatara to the northern mountain as the Flood subsided. The real Foundation Stone is the regulator for the flow from above to below of the cosmic waters, which when they flow, inundate human consciousness with the living, consciousness energizing wetness of the spiritual worlds. You could say that this Stone regulates how much deep cosmic memory and awareness can enter the human continuum at a given time without driving people mad. Too much transcendental knowledge is like chaos; it can be a deadly poison. But when the land has gone dry with an intellectualism and atheistic materialism, when it has become the Wasteland, as periodically happens, then it's appropriate to let a little water moisten the land. One master of this water-world was King Solomon, who, with his wife, fashioned the Ship of Time, using wood from the original Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. Solomon placed King David's sword (the one he claimed from giant Goliath after he slew him) on the Ship of Time, which was an Ark, or repository, outside of space-time, to arrive, much later in planetary history, at the Celtic King Arthur's Camalate in England to be used by the Christed Knight, Sir Galahad."'

The connections will not be clear yet, but this is about the alpha and omega of the Temple of Jerusalem, the original Jerusalem temple in that holy city in the planet's early days, and the New Jerusalem to come at Glastonbury in England. King David's "sword" is the knowledge of how to activate and use the Jerusalem temple; this knowledge was obtained from the giant Goliath, who is a symbol for the Elohim, the angelic family whose members were the consummate masters of the geomantic temple and conservators of its mysteries. MYSTERIES OF THE EMERALD: As Jacob and Muhammad discovered, the Stone is also the launching pad for a remarkable Miraj into the higher spiritual worlds. The Stone itself-the real Even HaShetiyah-is the ladder into the higher worlds. It is the emerald, the true foundation and Foundation Stone of Jerusalem. It is the green stone brought by the angels from Heaven to Earth, the Stone by which the Phoenix is burned to ashes and restored to life, the stone that is "forever incorruptible" and whose "essence is most pure," known as the Grail, as Wolfram von Eschenbach wrote. The emerald is the Heart within the heart chakra, an esoteric dimension between the outer and inner aspects of this chakra. It is a six-sided double-terminated green stone standing vertically on one of its terminations; seen from the bottom up it is also a green cube. The entire Earth energy matrix is bounded by this emerald; it exists within every human; and it is one of the jewels from the crown of the Lord of Light. It is the essence of the Jerusalem temple as an archetype of the consummate heavenly city, the divine ideal.

In practical terms, the emerald as a subtle light form sits magnificently upon the physical Foundation Stone within the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount. Its size is irrelevant and flexible; it is easier to interact with if you allow yourself to see it as perhaps the size of a skyscraper. That way it is easier to enter, which you may do through any of its six fluidic, permeable walls. There are other geomantic emeralds like this around the planet, but this one is special because its location is special. Only two places on Earth have the right combination of geomantic elements that allow this emerald (meaning, this emerald's special functions) to operate as intended. Only two places are designated for this seed to sprout: the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Tor in Glastonbury England. These are the Old Jerusalem and the New Jerusalem, both based on what we might call the once and future archetype of Jerusalem. Here I mean not the physical Israeli city, nor the architectural details of the First and Second Temple of Jerusalem, but the celestial original for this temple, from the light pattern library from which our reality is created. The existence of the two physical Temples of Jerusalem for a time embodied and grounded this heavenly ideal, enabling it to function in the material world, and that was centrally important for the Earth. Here is one reason why. The planet's twelve Vibrating Stones all lead here, to the Jerusalem temple archetype grounded at Temple Mount. Each stone grounds one of the Oroboros Lines that encircle the planet; each stone is coordinated with the celestial Jerusalem as overlaid on the Earth at the Temple Mount. There is one stone per one-twelfth division of the planet's surface, each of which is a Pentagon. To each Pentagon was assigned one of the twelve tribes of Israel; this was not a diaspora, but rather a code, a metaphor, for energies and holders of those energies assigned to each of the Earth's pentagons. If you were standing by one of the stones-at Delphi in Greece or in Glastonbury-you could follow its energy connections and find yourself in the original Temple of Jerusalem. That temple, and its archetype, had twelve gates: the twelve Vibrating Stones are also twelve gates, and lead into the archetype of the Temple of Jerusalem, which for a time was coincident with the two physical Temples. In practical geomantic terms, this meant that the twelve Oroboros Lines and the twelve zodiacal energies they represented were grounded at the Foundation Stone. Insofar as the twelve lines comprise twelve out of the fifteen prime energy lines that are the armature of the Earth's energy matrix, this central grounding point was potentially pivotal for the health, welfare, and destiny of the planet. A paradise on Earth-or something less exalted and uplifting-could be created or sustained from here. The myths are true in saying the world was created from this Foundation Stone, with all things spreading out from this point. Energetically the Earth is inside the emerald, the original Foundation Stone. Every aspect of the planet's complex geomantic structure is subsumed in this single planet-sized emerald; everything that comprises the Earth's geomythic matrix comes out of the emerald, and returns to it. When the Temple of Jerusalem is physically grounded on the Earth, things are in the process of returning to their source within the emerald; everything that spread out from the Foundation Stone at the beginning of creation is now magnetically being recalled to its point of origin. Seen over vast stretches of Earth time, it is like a shape turning itself inside out, over and over, cycling in on itself like a torus, Jerusalem manifest, then unmanifest, then manifest again."'

THE ARK OF THE COVENANT. What about the Ineffable Name of God inscribed on the Foundation Stone and the Ark of the Covenant, which resided in the Holy of Holies (the Devir, a perfect cube of twenty cubits), said to be over the Stone? Jewish belief says that the location of the Ark "marks the exact center of the world, or God's footstool. The Ark is understood to have been a container, a portable rectangular box or wooden chest lined with gold with long parallel handles, measuring about four feet long, two feet high, and two feet wide. It held the tablets of the Ten Commandments, both the shattered first version and the intact second one, as well as Aaron's magical rod and a small quantity of manna (a miraculous angelic food). At the time he received the Commandments while on Mount Sinai, Moses received instructions from God to construct the Ark of the Covenant to house the tablets. In many respects, Solomon built the Temple of Jerusalem to house the Ark. The Ark was the holiest of objects, said to possess extraordinary magical powers capable of protecting the Jews from danger. Biblical references–the Old Testament has two hundred–indicate that the Ark blazed with fire and lightning, emitted sparks, produced tumors or severe burns, could stop rivers, blast armies, destroy cities, and level mountains. It issued a moaning sound and was capable of rising off the ground and rushing at the enemies of the Jews in battle. God was said to descend and sit in the miniature Mercy Seat atop the Ark. The Ark of the Covenant is one of the mysteries of the Earth, and it is presumptuous to speculate as to its true nature. However, it was a device that had to do with a combination of sound and energy, and there was only one Ark. We can try approaching the matter sideways, as it were, through metaphor. The Ark was the voice of magic, the Word, the Ineffable Name uttered, all the living letters of the Hebrew alphabet spoken correctly, at once, the electric current that turned the system on. The system was the Earth grid, its armature of Oroboros Lines, its multiple linked emeralds-the "modem." It could make twelve Oroboros Lines into a single twelve-stringed instrument, played from here at the Foundation Stone. It could make all the elements of the Earth's energy matrix cohere, turn inside out, and become part of the Temple of Jerusalem. It was perhaps like a recording of the Word that was in the beginning, all the sacred syllables and sounds in perfect pronunciation-a magic wand of sound. When this sound touched the Even HaShetiyah, it animated the Earth's spiritual body and remarkable things happened and were possible.;When it was "on," it made not just the Temple but the entire Earth the Morning and Evening Star, the Foundation of Venus-Heaven on Earth realized, the celestial Jerusalem Temple fully manifest in matter. The downside was misuse, as J. R. R. Tolkien said of another unique magical device in The Lord of the Rings, "One ring to rule them ... and in the darkness bind them." The Earth had witnessed such a misuse, a malfeasance remembered in Grail myth as the Dolorous Stroke by which the Fisher King had misused the Sword of David (the Elohim's celestial codes for operating the system), wounded himself, and precipitated the Wasteland, The plug was put back in securely to block the flow of the tehom into the human world. Access to the Grail Castle was curtailed, and its reality eventually disbelieved, forgotten. INIMICAL ENERGIES AT THE TEMPLE MOUNT- We should not be surprised to find a fair concentration of what we could label dark and negative energies marshaled at the Temple Mount to block or distort access. Two giant astral beings are locked in mortal battle atop the Mount, swords clashing, wounds gaping; they are primitive beings of a male valence, and all they do is fight, striving to kill each other. This energy permeates Jerusalem. Numerous alien ships high above the city quarantine the Mount in a ring of beams broadcast like laser shafts. These energies help maintain the energies and functions of several circles of reptilian beings and giant astral snakes that surround the Mount, facing outwards into Jerusalem, discouraging access, keeping the energies combative, fragmented, bent on isolation and conflict. Behind them and also facing away from the Mount is another circle of large demonic control beings; their function too is to dissuade the fainthearted, to inflame those on the edge, to confuse or scare the rest, to keep the Mount and Stone from being used again as intended. The dome directly over the Mount and encompassing all of Jerusalem is damaged. Part of its crown is severed, like a yarmulke riding the side of the head by the ears instead of the occiput. The two cords linking the dome to the master dome at Avebury are damaged; one of them is not "hooked up" at all. The damages mean that Jerusalem through its dome is not receiving the beneficial cosmic energies of both Sirius and Canopus through Avebury as they are meant to; this allows other inimical energies to exert the predominant influence. The dome can be repaired, but it requires human assistance in conjunction with the angelic realm, and such repair could only be undertaken if the spiritual worlds judged it appropriate or karmically possible. (For information about another damaged dome, see Clingman's Dome, Tennessee.)

LUCIFER BINDING SITE: Coincident with the decommissioning of the Jerusalem Temple was the binding of Lucifer, Lord of Light, under the Foundation Stone. The Foundation of Venus, the Jerusalem new, old, and archetypal, is his light realm.

Elsewhere in Christendom, the tendency was to bury Lucifer under the granite weight of a massive Gothic cathedral, such as at Lincoln in England. For Jerusalem as the city to be healed, Lucifer, its foundation, will have to be unbound, and for the New Jerusalem to manifest on the planet, the Lord of Light will have to be restored to his pre-Fall position as God's chief archangel. This is not meant to be a definitive listing of the geomantic features of Jerusalem, for it has many others. Notable among these is one of the Earth's twelve Crowns of the Ancient of Days at Golgotha, the Hill of Skulls, and an eighteen-mile wide Landscape Zodiac on the periphery of the Old City.

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jerusalem

  

Batman: Do you have it?

 

Robin: Most people tend to say hello first.

 

Nightwing: You should know by now, he doesn’t consider himself people.

 

Batman: Jason, do you have it?

 

Without saying a word, Jason reaches into the pocket on the inside of his jacket and pulls out a small vial containing a fluorescent light green liquid. To the untrained eye, it would appear to be Lazarus, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Now the tables have turned. Now we have another way to counteract Lazarus, and if Ra’s will do what I suspect he will, we’ll need it.

 

Barbra: Is that what I think it is?

 

Scarlett: Yup, all the way the mansion of one Mr. Jay Greene.

 

Nightwing: Greene? The first Red Hood?

 

Robin: Technically, it wasn’t exclusively him.

 

Batgirl: True, but it doesn’t exactly flow as well to say that the first Red Hood was actually the Red Hood family.

 

Red Hood: None of that matters right now. We have more pressing matters. Here, Bruce.

 

Jason steps forward and hands the vial of Lucifer to me. Almost immediately, Alfred walks up to me and I pass the vial to him.

 

Batman: Get this down to Lucius, have him start analysing and weaponising it.

 

Alfred: Of course, Master Br….

 

Alfred almost refers to me by name rather than by Batman, understandable given our present company, but given how we did not recruit every person present, it’s better to be cautious with our identities for the moment. If Jason’s entrusted her with his identity, and I’m confident she can be trusted with mine as well.

 

Batman: Thanks.

 

Scarlett: ROY! Where’s Roy!?

 

Nightwing: Roy?

 

Red Hood: Roy Harper, he used to work with the Green Arrow under the alias Speedy.

 

Scarlett: Though now he prefers to call himself Arsenal.

 

Robin: I thought he left Oliver to set himself up as the ‘Red Arrow’ in another city?

 

Batman: Clearly he was unsuccessful.

 

Batgirl: Or something happened that prevented him from doing so. Hang on.

 

Barbra pulls out a small device from her belt and begins pressing several buttons on it.

 

Nightwing: Did you ask if you could hack into Gotham’s security cameras?

 

Batgirl: It’s alright, I know the police commissioner.

 

Robin: You don’t say?

 

I doubt Tim could have been more sarcastic in that moment than he truly was, not to mention it was sloppy. Anyone with half a braincell could extrapolate from that some connection between Batgirl and Jim Gordon.

 

But before Barbra has a chance to patch into the city’s security cameras, a grappling hook attaches itself to the railing of the balcony. Instinctively, Dick, Tim and I both assume an attack and each ready our weapons. I grab my batarangs, Dick his escrima sticks and Tim his staff. As we prepare to attack the intruder, we’re stopped by Jason and his friend.

 

Scarlett: Wait! Stop!

 

Red Hood: It’s not an enemy, it’s Roy.

 

Batman: Stand down.

 

All three of us holster out weapons as the figure’s head comes into view. Without either of them exchanging a word, Jason helps him onto the balcony as the grappling hook he used to make it up here retracts back into his right arm. Cybernetic evidently, a more primitive version of Victor’s but that’s besides the point. From what I can make out it’s only for his right arm implying that whatever stopped Mr. Harper from establishing himself as the Red Arrow had something to do with the loss of his arm.

 

I’ll need to make sure I inform Oliver of Roy’s status. He’s been worried for the young man ever since he went solo.

 

Arsenal: I take it I lost, then?

 

Scarlett: Fairly significantly, I’d say.

 

Arsenal: How badly?

 

Red Hood: Five minutes? Maybe more.

 

Nightwing: I’ve got it at a good seven minutes.

 

Arsenal: Well come on! I’m the one at a disadvantage here! You two had home field advantage!

 

Scarlett: Sounds like someone’s a sore loser to me.

 

As the trio interact with one another, I take a moment to evaluate both of Jason’s acquaintances. The female appears to be of a similar age to Jason from what I can tell. Nothing remarkably notable about her aside from what I spot on her right hand. A ring. Not just any ring either. An engagement ring. Given how the finish on the ring is hasn’t oxidised by a large degree, it’s safe to assume that it’s a recent addition. So likely she’s engaged to either Jason or Roy, exactly which one is difficult to discern but I assume it’s Jason.

 

How she stands near him is a big giveaway, not to mention her interactions with Roy. It’s welcoming but not loving. Granted the difference is but a small fraction, but having studied the various forms of human interaction, I know it when I see it. But it’s from confirming to myself that it’s Jason who she’s engaged to that I know they can be trusted. If Jason trusts her enough to propose to her, then so can I.

 

Roy is a bit more difficult to trust given what I’ve heard of his volatility at times from Oliver, but I’m confident in saying that if Oliver trusted him, then so can I.

 

Batman: Is that everyone?

 

Robin: I hope so, otherwise we’re going to need a bigger table.

 

Red Hood: That’s all from my side.

 

Batgirl: And my side.

 

Nightwing: Don’t you mean our side?

 

Batgirl: Shut up.

 

Nightwing: Make me.

 

Batgirl: Maybe I will.

 

Robin: Seriously? You two are going to flirt in the middle of all this?

 

Nightwing: This is actually quite subtle compared to our days as Batgirl and Robin.

 

Batgirl: You were unbearable back then.

 

Nightwing: Tell me about it, you couldn’t bare to be without me.

 

Arsenal: What have I walked into?

 

Scarlett: A family reunion. Unfortunately.

 

Arsenal: Now I know why I’m happily single.

 

Scarlett: Oh? What about that time with Cheshire?

 

Arsenal: That doesn’t count!

 

Red Hood: Oh yes it does.

 

As Dick and Barbra leads Jason and his comrades into my office, I notice Tim staring out towards the city. It takes me a moment before I realise what it is that’s bothering him.

 

Batman: Did your dad get out alright?

 

Robin: He moved out of the city not too long after what happened with Damian at City Hall. But yeah, he’s safe.

 

Batman: Good. The last thing I want is to put anyone else in danger because of what I did.

 

Tim doesn’t respond, still clearly in deep thought. He wasn’t worrying about his father. Which means that what he is really worrying about is…

 

Batman: Stephanie’s still in surgery, but Selina’s promised to update us the moment she’s out.

 

Robin: Wait what? You sent Selina to look after her?

 

Batman: Not my ideal choice, but with how things are unfolding, I couldn’t risk having you or Jim out of play for so long.

 

Robin: So you trusted a well known thief to guard her? How? How does that make any sense to you?

 

Batman: It does. Not as much as I want it to, but it does. Selina’s past is troubling, but the loyalty she shows to those who earn her respect is invaluable. She’ll make sure Stephanie’s alright, Tim. I promise.

 

Tim’s inner conflict is clear, and frankly understandable. Having someone you care for in hospital is always a painful experience, especially when you can’t be there to comfort them. But seeing Jason and Dick with their respective partners certainly doesn’t help either.

 

Nor does Talia coming out to speak to both of us.

 

Talia: Beloved. Time is against us.

 

Batman: I’ll be right there.

 

I turn to look at Tim’s face before he turns to look back at me.

 

Batman: Ready?

 

Robin: Always.

 

We both turn away from the view of the city and walk into my office. With the war room protocol activated, my office has been transformed into a planning room with the intention of using the tower as a central hub for operations throughout the city. Lucius and Alfred are downstairs in the tower’s bunker where they’ll act as a support crew for us when Ra’s arrives. Lucius will continue to provide gadgets to help us in the field, whilst Alfred will act as command ops, feeding us information and directions in order to improve our efficiency.

 

The numbers are not in our favour, so to compensate for that, we have to be far more efficient. Hopefully with someone watching over our actions, we can be.

 

As both Tim and I enter command ops, everyone’s removed their masks and Tim quickly follows suit. A wise decision. What better way to prove to everyone that you trust them and they can trust you then by sharing with them your greatest secret?

 

I hesitate to remove my own mask for the moment as everyone takes a place around the table.

 

Batman: I take it you’ve all met Talia.

 

Dick: Why is the Demon’s daughter here?

 

Batman: Because she’s an asset, and she helped me when she could have just let her father’s assailants take me.

 

Barbra: How do we know she’s not really a spy?

 

Jason: Because she was the one who convinced her father to bring me back from the dead.

 

Batman: And she supplied you with the Lazarus that brought you out of your coma.

 

Jason pass for a moment, shocked to discover that Talia had saved his life for a second time.

 

Scarlett: Thank you. You don’t know how much that means to me.

 

Talia: You’re welcome. Though I can’t say I did out of kindness rather than necessity.

 

Jason: Either way. Thank you.

 

Batman: Alright. Down to business. We all know why we’re here. Ra’s Al-Ghul, my former mentor, is coming to Gotham and he’s coming with one objective. To burn it to the ground. We cannot let that stand. I’ve already taken the precaution of creating a fake online video of Ra’s threatening the city to force an evacuation, so hopefully we shouldn’t have to worry about collateral damage.

 

Roy: Doesn’t this sound more like a job for the Justice League? You know, the ones with actual super powers?

 

Batman: It’s taken over a decade for Ra’s to show himself to the world, if we involve the Justice League, he’ll head to ground again and it’ll be almost impossible to flush him out. The Justice League will be the contingency plan in the event of our failure. But until that happens, this fight is ours, not theirs.

 

Dick: So how do you plan on combating their use of Lazarus?

 

Scarlett: Lazarus?

 

Tim: A mysterious chemical with the ability to restore the human body back to its prime. Ra’s has been sat on a supply of it for centuries. It’s what’s kept him alive for so long.

 

Jason: Not to mention that Lazarus gives anyone who is exposed to it a limited healing factor depending on their exposure.

 

Scarlett: And that’s what brought you back from the dead?

 

Jason: It’s also the reason I managed to walk away from shooting myself in the head without any brain damage.

 

Barbra: Wait, what? You shot yourself in the head?

 

Tim: He wasn’t really himself when he did it….

 

Jason: So I like to keep telling myself.

 

Tim: Well I certainly hope it wasn’t. The last thing I want is worrying that you’re going to fire another rocket at me.

 

Roy: And Ollie said I had issues….

 

Batman: Quiet. To combat the healing factor in Damian’s bloodstream, I had one of Wonder Woman’s allies forge me a blade capable of temporarily halting the healing process in the human body.

 

Dick: Damian?

 

Tim: That’s another in itself.

 

Barbra: We’re all ears.

 

Talia:…..He’s our son.

 

There’s a long pause as every tries to figure out what Talia means.

 

Dick: When you say ‘our’ you mean…

 

Batman: He’s my son.

 

Jason: What!?

Dick: When the hell did this happen?!

 

Talia: Fourteen years ago.

 

Scarlett: What? How does that make sense?

 

Jason: Was he this Crimson Knight you spoke about?

 

Batman: He was.

 

Roy: So the great Batman and Robin struggled to take down a fourteen year old boy?

 

Tim: He wasn’t technically fourteen.

 

Dick: Well what do you mean by that?

 

Barbra: And how does Lazarus factor into all of this?

 

Jason: Will Ra’s be coming for him as well?

 

Batman: Enough!

 

Thankfully, they all quickly shut up as my voice echoes through out the room.

 

Batman: Damian is the biological son of both Talia and myself. He was trained by Ra’s specifically for the purpose of succeeding him when Ra’s finally passed away. To accomplish this, he needed to pass the necessary trials to become a member of the League of Assassins. Specifically the final trial.

 

Talia: Murder of a family member.

 

Batman: Given how all other members of Damian’s family are fellow members of the League, he was left with only one choice.

 

Dick: You.

 

Batman: So to enhance him, Ra’s exposed Damian to the Lazarus pit at a young age, and given how the pit restores the your body to its physical prime, I can only assume that it accelerated Damian’s physical age to that of a twenty-eight year old.

 

Roy: Hang on, he’s a fourteen year old trapped in a twenty-eight year old’s body?

 

Scarlett: Shut up Roy, this isn’t the time to interrupt.

 

Roy: I know but, jesus. That’s got to have messed with him.

 

Batman: I like to tell myself that’s the reason for his behaviour, but I can’t be sure. None of us can be. But there’s one thing I do know. Ra’s will come for him, and then he’ll set his sights on Gotham. We have to be ready.

 

Scarlett: How?

 

Batman: By the only means we have. Each other. For us to have any chance of making it through this alive, we have to work together. Trust each. Protect each other. I can’t tell any of you to do this. All I can do is ask for your help, because at the end of the day. You’re the only people I trust with my life.

 

I turn to look at both Scarlett and Roy, the only two people present around this table to now the truth.

 

Batman: And to show my trust in all of you….

 

As I say those words, I reach up with arms and begin to remove my cowl.

 

Batman: I ask for your help, not as Batman.

 

I remove my cowl and place it on the table. Both Roy and Scarlett look at me with shock, both clearly recognising my face.

 

Bruce: But as Bruce Wayne.

Oruro is a mining town south of La Paz. It is really a god forsaken place, which is why I processed the shot a bit dark. In the 1600's the silver mine that funded the Spanish empire for a couple of centuries was discovered here. The history of mining is so gruesome that I elected not to visit the museum. When the sliver ran out supposedly hard times hit the town, although I wonder whether the locals were better off without the silver. In the late 19th century the biggest tin mine in the world was discovered here, and it was also exhausted. The city does not have much to show for all that richness. Now, President Evo Morales is from the same province, but from a smaller town. One can only extrapolate to appreciate the accomplishment of reaching the persidency after being born there. Finally, this is where I used the ATM at the bank only to discover a month later that my ATM had been used to purchase all kinds of stuff. Fortunately, my bank covered it. Nicer large.

 

But, this was the start of most wonderful expedition to the Bolivian Altiplano where I saw the most beautiful an unique landscapes I have ever seen. The ATM incident notwithstanding, the people of Bolivia are really really nice and friendly.

 

ISO 100, 47mm, f6.3, 1/500. Tonemapped single RAW using Photomatix and processed using Nik Filters: Tonal Contrast, Pro Contrast, Low Key, Darken Center.

That's right guys, this contest is back. There will once again be hot prizes provided by the funky cool LEGO corporation. The rules are being tweaked slightly, to make the categories more similar to LEGO set sizes. In addition, the categories have changed, they're the other

 

Mark Stafford is back with his gang of fellow designers to judge this thing!

 

The RULES:

 

1. We are using weight to determine set size. If you don't have a postal scale, go to the post office and use theirs.

2. The categories (micro scale is permitted):

$7,99 - between 140 and 165grams - including 1 to 4 minifigures. (army builders with 4 figures your top weight should stop at 150g!)

$14,99 - 220 to 260g - including 1 to 3 minifigures

$29,99 - 350 to 385g - including 2 to 4 minifigures

$59.99 - 800 to 900g - including 3 to 5 minifigures

$89,99 - 1100 to 1250g - including 5 to 9 minifigures

3. Custom stickers ARE allowed!

4. Custom parts ARE allowed! Real designers can get new molds, but they cost em. We will be setting up a "what will this cost me" thread, where you can ask how much of your "budget" the custom element will take.

5. All entries must be posted in the entry thread on CSF! That's here.

6. The deadline is OCTOBER FIRST.

7. Your entry must be sci-fi. It doesn't have to be a space ship, but I'd better be able to tell that it's science fiction.

8. No official themes. Mark requested that we try to keep nostalgia out of the factors we're judging on.

 

Some notes from Mark:

"Note that these are rough figures, and do not correlate precisely to LEGO products in the stores. They are extrapolations based on the last few (and next) years sets and they do not take into account building instructions or packaging costs of large elements - this is supposed to be fun!

 

Dan will be judging in whatever way he sees fit, and half the result is his, however as before when judging this contest I will be considering the following criteria:

 

1. Stability - how likely is this model to last a reasonable amount of time in the hands of a 7 or 8 year old that may not have played with LEGO bricks before.

2. Buildability - is it possible for a 7 year old to build this model from pictures on a flat surface. Are there any 'illegal' LEGO building techniques?

3. Playability - what other added aspects are there to the model to encourage kids to create a further play scenario then the obvious one.

4. Swooshability - pure coolness, this is also a MOC competition and it should look as funky and excellent as you can make it, sometimes 'cool' can overule the other criteria!

 

Those who are paying close attention will notice I am no longer judging on 'realism' this is because I believe weighing the models rather then counting the number of elements will take care of this for me, but I will still mark down anyone who thinks they have found a loophole - this is putting your money where your mouth is: if you think you can do better then a LEGO Designer then prove it, however if instead you want to mess about bending the rules I'm going to hammer you with my 'taking the mickey' score modifier!

 

Also please note, I'm doing this in my spare time, it is a fan competition, it's not a way for you to break into TLG and it's definately not a job interview, I don't have hiring power and even if I did I think you all suck. (Prove me wrong - enter the competition! :P )

 

I also reserve the right to consult my LEGO colleagues on final judging and to help with any tie-breaks.

Good luck.

Mark."

Jarry sets the scene. He tells us that the play is set in Poland, during UBU's ravaging of that country. This, of course, is extrapolatable to any locale. For instance, it could as easily read "The scene… is set in Greenland, which is to say, Nowhere." It gives the tyrant permission to plunder, that simple "but there's no one of importance there".

 

This is the story of the tyrannical UBU Roi.

 

Any similarities to anyone else, living or dead, are totally coincidental, or totally fortuitous (dependent on where you are standing, or who you are standing on).

MERGERS

No.48

New effort published in eBook format on the usual platform (link below). The fantasy of fusion arises within a wide range of phenomena linked to a subjective dimension of overcoming the boundaries of the Ego, by extension or by incorporation, such as to generate an area of ​​indifferentiation between the Self and the other by itself, between the internal world and external reality. With this scheme, the proposed work represents a personal modality technically linked to the "Photographic Collage" which allows us to highlight how different experiences and elements, mixed together, mean different results compared to the origin. The images extrapolated and distracted from the original context give shape and life to different meanings. The complex aesthetic game is pleasant to the user's gaze and tries to wink at superficial emotions where sensitivities are recognized in such compositions.

Good vision.

online.fliphtml5.com/flyvk/gdxg/

A well-balanced fleet destroyer, based on data gathered earlier in the decade by the Saethrymm in regards to their large torpedo boats and a destroyer-sized extrapolation that never went beyond the planning stage much like how the real Momis/Wakatakes/Minekazes/Kamikazes/Mutsukis were based on WWI German destroyer experience. Very similar to the Kaidou, which used the same data.

 

In actuality I built this first, then the Kaidou, using methods I developed on this ship.

…about ¼ of the mural flow, scribed in real-time…

 

In preparation for the MLab Management 2.0 conference, Gary Hamel paraphrased a brainstorming interview we did in advance about how large organizations could become more innovative, adaptive and engaging [to clarify, what follows was my input to the brain spa]:

 

Flaws

 

Large group sizes working on any project and/or involved in most important decisions, and all sustaining the same business model (vs. competing to develop alternative concepts).

 

Work organization patterns that systematically eliminate options more than a standard deviation away from the mean.

 

Promotion and reward mechanisms that favor convergence to the mean and “playing well with others” over bold moves.

 

Fixes

 

Many (competing) small teams of 3-5, then reorient decision making to support selection of “winning” project ideas.

 

Four tenets jump to mind if we consider the Wisdom of Crowds as an emergent phenomenon, operating at a higher level of abstraction:

 

1) team (thinking style) diversity is more important than individual ability

 

2) disagreement is more important than consensus

 

3) and the voting policies and selection mechanisms that you put in place are more important than the coherence or even the comprehensibility about what you do.

 

4) The role of upper management is to tune the parameters of communication

 

Hire and build organizations to sustain group (hive) learning over individual learning, by consciously assembling teams of MIN 3 and MAX 7 with very diverse approaches. Number of teams you assign depends on the range of probability that you’ll get a very different, compelling answer out of one of them.

 

Structure the organization for more failure and greater selection of non-normative choices through difference-seeking voting policies and more observation of - and experimentation with - “perturbations” (vs. predictive extrapolation).

 

Other

 

DFJ uses voting methods that allow a vocal minority to overrule a wishy-washy majority, if the goal is to advance a very different concept. (“Passion-weighted vote”; “Silver bullets”).

 

You might improve a corporation’s ability to allocate resources across a more diverse portfolio of ideas if you can put those decisions in the hands of executives not vested in day-to-day execution of the initiatives (as the venture model - or Richard Branson - does).

 

Firms need to cross the threshold of accepting that they’ll be wrong more than 50% of the time when pursuing disruptive innovation, and therefore need to swing for the fences more often to make up for more losers.

 

Cobb's Wren is only found on the Falkland Islands and was named after Arthur Cobb who was a farmer and naturalist who wrote books on the wildlife of the Falkland Islands. Cobb collected the first specimens of his eponymous wren in 1909. Introduced rats have extirpated it from the larger islands in the Falklands but it still occurs on many of the smaller islands that have remained rat-free. In the late 1990s surveys estimated there were 4500 to 8000 breeding pairs but such wide confidence limits suggests quite a bit of extrapolation was involved. I have seen them only on Carcass Island, and only two or three birds on each of my two visits. So my experience is that they are not as common as the numbers suggest.

I knew I wanted Cassie's maternity photos to be different, but I was stuck. I had zero clue what I wanted them to look like.

 

I knew what I didn't want them to look like; neither of us were interested in the classic black and whites on a bed with white sheets and soft focus. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to leave us a whole lot to work with.

 

For the longest time I had nothing. I couldn't wrap my head around what I wanted to do.

 

My breakthrough moment came, strangely enough, while watching Nine. I swear, never has a movie left me so creatively inspired. My massive musical-inspired brainwave was this:

 

Maternity photos are simply portraiture with a pregnant subject.

 

Once I got that embarrassingly obvious concept in my head, I started to extrapolate. How would I shoot Cassie if she wasn't pregnant? And could we make a simply allusion to her being pregnant, without that being the sole focus of the shot?

 

I feel like I got it.

 

Definitely best viewed large and decluttred.

Picture by Massimo Vitali

Drum scan by CastorScan

11x14" Kodak Portra 400 NC-3 color negative

Scanner: Dainippon Screen 8060 Mark II drum scanner

scanner operator and PS postproduction: Marco Campanini

 

www.massimovitali.com

www.castorscan.com

  

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CastorScan's philosophy is completely oriented to provide the highest scan and postproduction

quality on the globe.

 

We work with artists, photographers, agencies, laboratories etc. who demand a state-of-the-art quality at reasonable prices.

 

Our workflow is fully manual and extremely meticulous in any stage.

 

We developed exclusive workflows and profilation systems to obtain unparallel results from our scanners not achievable through semi-automatic and usual workflows.

  

-----

 

CastorScan uses the best scanners in circulation, Dainippon Screen SG-8060P Mark II, the best and most advanced scanner ever made, Kodak-Creo IQSmart 3, a high-end flatbed scanner, and Imacon 848.

 

The image quality offered by our Dainippon Screen 8060 scanner is much higher than that achievable with the best flatbed scanners or filmscanners dedicated and superior to that of scanners so-called "virtual drum" (Imacon – Hasselblad,) and, of course, vastly superior to that amateur or prosumer obtained with scanners such as Epson V750 etc .

 

Dainippon Screen SG-8060P Mark II exceeds in quality any other scanner, including Aztek Premier and ICG 380 (in the results, not just in the technical specifications).

 

8060's main features: 12000 dpi, Hi-Q Xenon lamp, 25 apertures, 2 micron

 

Aztek Premier's main features: 8000 dpi, halogen lamp, 18 apertures, 3 micron

 

ICG 380's main features: 12000 dpi, halogen lamp, 9 apertures, 4 micron

  

Some of the features that make the quality of our drum scanners better than any other existing scan system include:

 

The scans performed on a drum scanner are famous for their detail, depth and realism.

Scans are much cleaner and show fewer imperfections than scans obtained from CCD scanners, and thus save many hours of cleaning and spotting in postproduction.

Image acquisition by the drum scanner is optically similar to using a microscopic lens that scans the image point by point with extreme precision and without deformation or distortion of any kind, while other scanners use enlarger lenses (such as the Rodenstock-Linos Magnagon 75mm f8 used in the Hasselblad-Imacon scanners) and have transmission systems with rubber bands: this involves mild but effective micro-strain and micro-geometric image distortions and quality is not uniform between the center and edges.

Drum scanners are exempt from problems of flatness of the originals, since the same are mounted on a perfectly balanced transparent acrylic drum; on the contrary, the dedicated film scanners that scan slides or negatives in their plastic frames are subject to quite significant inaccuracies, as well as the Imacon-Hasselblad scanners, which have their own rubber and plastic holders: they do not guarantee the perfect flatness of the original and therefore a uniform definition between center and edge, especially with medium and large size originals, which instead are guaranteed by drum scanners.

Again, drum scanners allow scanning at high resolution over the entire surface of the cylinder, while for example the Hasselblad Imacon scans are limited to 3200 dpi in 120 format and 2000 dpi in 4x5" format (the resolution of nearly every CCD scanner in the market drops as the size of the original scanned is increased).

Drum scanners allow complete scanning of the whole negative, including the black-orange mask, perforations etc, while using many other scanners a certain percentage of the image is lost because it is covered by frames or holders.

Drum scanners use photomultiplier tubes to record the light signal, which are much more sensitive than CCDs and can record many more nuances and variations in contrast with a lower digital noise.

If you look at a monitor at 100% the detail in shadows and darker areas of a scan made with a CCD scanner, you will notice that the details are not recorded in a clear and clean way, and the colors are more opaque and less differentiated. Additionally the overall tones are much less rich and differentiated.

  

We would like to say a few words about an unscrupulous and deceitful use of technical specifications reported by many manufacturers of consumer and prosumer scanners; very often we read of scanners that promise cheap or relatively cheap “drum scanner” resolutions, 16 bits of color depth, extremely high DMAX: we would like to say that these “nominal” resolutions do not correspond to an actual optical resolution, so that even in low-resolution scanning you can see an enormous gap between drum scanners and these scanners in terms of detail, as well as in terms of DMAX, color range, realism, “quality” of grain. So very often when using these consumer-prosumer scanners at high resolutions, it is normal to get a disproportionate increase of file size in MB but not an increase of detail and quality.

To give a concrete example: a drum scan of a 24x36mm color negative film at 3500 dpi is much more defined than a scan made with mostly CCD scanner at 8000 dpi and a drum scan at 2500 dpi is dramatically clearer than a scan at 2500 dpi provided by a CCD scanner. So be aware and careful with incorrect advertisement.

 

Scans can be performed either dry or liquid-mounted. The wet mounting further improves cleanliness (helps to hide dirt, scratches and blemishes) and plasticity of the image without compromising the original, and in addition by mounting with liquid the film grain is greatly reduced and it looks much softer and more pleasant than the usual "harsh" grain resulting from dry scans.

 

We use Kami SMF 2001 liquid to mount the transparencies and Kami RC 2001 for cleaning the same. Kami SMF 2001 evaporates without leaving traces, unlike the traditional oil scans, ensuring maximum protection for your film. Out of ignorance some people prefer to avoid liquid scanning because they fear that their films will be dirty or damaged: this argument may be plausible only in reference to scans made using mineral oils, which have nothing to do with the specific professional products we use.

We strongly reiterate that your original is in no way compromised by our scanning liquid and will return as you have shipped it, if not cleaner.

 

With respect to scanning from slides:

Our scanners are carefully calibrated with the finest IT8 calibration targets in circulation and with special customized targets in order to ensure that each scan faithfully reproduces the original color richness even in the most subtle nuances, opening and maintaining detail in shadows and highlights. These color profiles allow our scanners to realize their full potential, so we guarantee our customers that even from a chromatic point of view our scans are noticeably better than similar scans made by mostly other scan services in the market.

In addition, we remind you that our 8060 drum scanner is able to read the deepest shadows of slides without digital noise and with much more detail than CCD scanners; also, the color range and color realism are far better.

 

With respect to scanning from color and bw negatives: we want to emphasize the superiority of our drum scans not only in scanning slides, but also in color and bw negative scanning (because of the orange mask and of very low contrast is extremely difficult for any ccd scanner to read the very slight tonal and contrast nuances in the color negative, while a perfectly profiled 8060 drum scanner – also through the analog gain/white calibration - can give back much more realistic images and true colors, sharper and more three-dimensional).

 

In spite of what many claim, a meticulous color profiling is essential not only for scanning slides, but also, and even more, for color negatives. Without it the scan of a color negative will produce chromatic errors rather significant, thus affecting the tonal balance and then the naturalness-pleasantness of the images.

  

More unique than rare, we do not use standardized profiles provided by the software to invert each specific negative film, because they do not take into account parameters and variables such as the type of development, the level of exposure, the type of light etc.,; at the same time we also avoid systems of "artificial intelligence" or other functions provided by semi-automatic scanning softwares, but instead we carry out the inversion in a full manual workflow for each individual picture.

 

In addition, scanning with Imacon-Hasselblad scanners we do not use their proprietary software - Flexcolor – to make color management and color inversion because we strongly believe that our alternative workflow provides much better results, and we are able to prove it with absolute clarity.

 

At each stage of the process we take care of meticulously adjusting the scanning parameters to the characteristics of the originals, to extrapolate the whole range of information possible from any image without "burning" or reductions in the tonal range, and strictly according to our customer's need and taste.

 

By default, we do not apply unsharp mask (USM) in our scans, except on request.

 

To scan reflective originals we follow the same guidelines and guarantee the same quality standard.

 

We guarantee the utmost thoroughness and expertise in the work of scanning and handling of the originals and we provide scans up to 12,000 dpi of resolution, at 16-bit, in RGB, GRAYSCALE, LAB or CMYK color mode; unless otherwise indicated, files are saved with Adobe RGB 1998 or ProPhoto RGB color profile.

 

WWW.CASTORSCAN.COM

JasBrick's WWZ Psycho illustration, comic style. I think I goofed the minigun. I couldn't make out some of the detail in Jason's photo, so I found an image of a prototype Brickarms Minigun and extrapolated from there, but it turns out it isn't the same one used. Oh well.

  

that's why i love early sunny mornings...

 

: )

The Room Of Broken Mirrors - The Universal Coexistence by Daniel Arrhakis (2024)

 

The Room of Broken Mirrors - The Importance of Universal Coexistence - Inter reflections and repercussions in the fabric of space-time.

 

Space is a component of material existence and time, the sequence of transformations of matter. Thus, space and time become inseparable conceptions with forms and magnitudes derived from the forms and magnitudes of matter and its transformations, movements and energy.

 

Thus, there is no absolute reality because each of these realities is an infinitesimal reality, where space intersects with a given infinitesimal time and which is different for each observer depending on their position in space.

It's as if we had a room full of broken mirrors in which each piece shows a piece of a global reality but with differences between them due to the angles of reflection.

 

Just as there are several perceptions in the same reality, the one that is visible to our eyes and the one that is visible to the others... that we do not perceive.

 

At the intersection of various realities we only see forms as distorted by mirrors that reflect both space and time... our actions and those of others always have consequences in the present, but also in various futures... to the extent that our acts or simple presence at a given interception point can have repercussions on the destinies of its actors, however illusory or insignificant they may seem to be.

 

Thus, we all have importance in this universe and without realizing it we can influence and be influenced by multiple realities and these propagate infinitesimally in the space-time fabric with a complex and interactive three-dimensional network of actions and reflections.

 

So a simple grain of sand does not make a beach but all the grains of sand that exist on it become essential to make a beach.

 

The same goes for each of us as spiritual beings. Our simple existence has repercussions and reflections on others and future events, even if we don't think so.

 

Let's give a small example, you wore an orange sweater that morning, someone saw it and also wanted to buy it because they liked the color. Without realizing it, the fact that they had seen it made someone else also buy an orange sweater.

 

But it could have just been a chance encounter, without wanting someone fell in front of you and you help her, preventing that person from getting hurt.

In that small moment you protected someone from getting hurt and ultimately had beneficial consequences for her, her work and her own family.

 

In the Ion Mystical World / Humanistic Mystic Movement, each of us is important in our society and in a extrapolation way, in our Universe to which we belong and this also extends to our spiritual being, so our existence is unique, sacred and irreplaceable!

  

_____________________________________________________

  

A Sala dos Espelhos Quebrados - A Importância da Coexistência Universal - Inter-Reflexões e repercussões no tecido espaço-tempo.

 

O espaço é uma componente da existência material e do tempo, a sequência de transformações da matéria. Assim, o espaço e o tempo tornam-se conceções indissociáveis ​​com formas e grandezas derivadas das formas e grandezas da matéria e das suas transformações, movimentos e energia.

 

Assim, não existe realidade absoluta porque cada uma destas realidades é uma realidade infinitesimal, onde o espaço se cruza com um determinado tempo infinitesimal e que é diferente para cada observador dependendo da sua posição no espaço.

É como se tivéssemos uma sala cheia de espelhos partidos em que cada peça mostra um pedaço de uma realidade global mas com diferenças entre eles devido aos ângulos de reflexão.

 

Assim como existem várias perceções numa mesma realidade, aquela que é visível aos nossos olhos e aquela que é visível aos outros... que não percebemos.

 

Na intersecção de várias realidades só vemos formas distorcidas por espelhos que refletem tanto o espaço como o tempo... as nossas ações e as dos outros têm sempre consequências no presente, mas também em vários futuros... na medida em que os nossos atos ou a simples presença num determinado ponto de interceção pode ter repercussões nos destinos dos seus atores, por mais ilusórios ou insignificantes que possam parecer.

 

Assim, todos nós temos importância neste universo e sem nos apercebermos podemos influenciar e ser influenciados por múltiplas realidades e estas propagam-se infinitesimalmente na tessitura espácio-temporal com uma rede tridimensional complexa e interativa de ações e reflexões.

 

Assim um simples grão de areia não faz uma praia mas todos os grãos de areia que nele existem tornam-se essenciais para fazer uma praia.

 

O mesmo se passa com cada um de nós enquanto seres espirituais. A nossa simples existência tem repercussões e reflexos nos outros e nos acontecimentos futuros, mesmo que assim não pensemos.

 

Vamos dar um pequeno exemplo, você usou uma camisola laranja nessa manhã, alguém a viu e também quis comprar porque gostou da cor. Sem se aperceber, o facto de terem visto a sua camisola, fez com que outra pessoa comprasse também uma camisola laranja.

 

Mas poderia ter sido apenas um encontro casual, imaginemos que sem querer, alguém caísse à sua frente e você a ajudasse, evitando que essa pessoa se magoasse.

Nesse pequeno momento protegeu alguém de se magoar e, em última análise, teve consequências benéficas para ela, para o trabalho dela, e para a sua própria família.

 

No Mundo Místico de Ion / Movimento Místico Humanista, cada um de nós é importante na nossa sociedade e de forma extrapolada, no nosso Universo ao qual pertencemos e isso também se estende ao nosso ser espiritual, portanto a nossa existência é única, sagrada e insubstituível!

 

This is the time of year when those nifty little devils, the sugar ants, busy themselves excavating sand from beneath the flagstones, obviously to create trip-and-injury hazards for their sworn enemies - the humans - to have to repair or replace.

 

Fact. If the typical common ant wa extrapolated to the size of a human, it would have the strength to lift a telegraph pole.

-I know that because I read it on the back of a box of matches :-)

They all look the same, dress the same way, use the same facial expressions and body language but each will tell you he's "doing his own thing" Interactions, mirroring consists of the parent imitating the infant's expressions while vocalizing the emotion implied by the expression. This imitation helps the infant to associate the emotion with their expression, as well as feel validated in their own emotions as the parent shows approval through imitation. Studies have demonstrated that mirroring is an important part of child and infant development. According to Kohut's theories of self-psychology, individuals need a sense of validation and belonging in order to establish their concepts of self. When parents mirror their infants, the action may help the child develop a greater sense of self-awareness and self-control, as they can see their emotions within their parent's faces. Additionally, infants may learn and experience new emotions, facial expressions, and gestures by mirroring expressions that their parents utilize. The process of mirroring may help infants establish connections of expressions to emotions and thus promote social communication later in life. Infants also learn to feel secure and valid in their own emotions through mirroring, as the parent's imitation of their emotions may help the child recognize their own thoughts and feelings more readily.When we meet others for the first time, we need to assess quickly whether they are positive or negative towards us, just as most other animals do for survival reasons. We do this by scanning the other person's body to see if they will move or gesture the same way we do in what is known as 'mirroring'. We mirror each other's body language as a way of bonding, being accepted and creating rapport, but we are usually oblivious to the fact that we are doing it. In ancient times, mirroring was also a social device which helped our ancestors fit in successfully with larger groups; it is also a left-over from a primitive method of learning which involved imitation.Additionally, individuals are likely to mirror the person of higher status or power within the situation. Mirroring individuals of higher power may create an illusion of higher status, or create rapport with the individual in power, thus allowing the person to gain favor with the individual in power. This mechanism may be helpful for individuals in situations where they are in a position of bargaining with an individual who possesses more power, as the rapport that mirroring creates may help to persuade the higher status individual to help the person of lower status. These situations include job interviews, other work situations such as requesting promotions, parent-child interactions, and asking professors for favors. Each of these situations involve one party who is in a more powerless position for bargaining, and another party who has the ability to fulfill the person of lower status's needs, but may not necessarily wish to. Thus, mirroring can be a useful tool for individuals of lower status in order to persuade the other party to relinquish goods or privileges for the lower status party.Mirroring generally takes place subconsciously as individuals react with the situation. Mirroring is common in conversation, as the listeners will typically smile or frown along with the speaker, as well as imitate body posture or attitude about the topic. Individuals may be more willing to empathize with and accept people whom they believe hold similar interests and beliefs, and thus mirroring the person with whom one is speaking may establish connections between the individuals involved.

One of the most noticeable forms of mirroring is yawning - one person starts and it sets everyone off. Dr. Robert Provine found that yawning is so contagious you don't even need to see another person yawn - the sight of a wide-open mouth is enough to do it. It was once thought that the purpose of yawning was to oxygenate the body but we now know that it's a form of mirroring that serves to create rapport with others and to avoid aggression - just as it also does for this pictured boat and yawning building.

 

Wearing the same outfit as another woman is a mirroring no-no. But if two men show up at a party wearing the same outfit, they could become lifelong friends.

 

Non-verbally, mirroring says 'Look at me; I'm the same as you. I feel the same way and share the same attitudes.' This is why people at a rock concert will all jump to their feet and applaud simultaneously or give a 'Mexican Wave' together. The synchronicity of the crowd promotes a secure feeling in the participants. Similarly, people in an angry mob will mirror aggressive attitudes and this explains why many usually calm people can lose their cool in this situation.

 

The urge to mirror is also the basis on which a queue works. In a queue, people willingly co-operate with people they have never met and will never see again, obeying an unwritten set of behavioral rules while waiting for a bus, at an art gallery, in a bank or side by side in war. Professor Joseph Heinrich from the University of Michigan found that the urges to mirror others are hardwired into the brain because co-operation leads to more food, better health and economic growth for communities. It also offers an explanation as to why societies that are highly disciplined in mirroring, such as the British, Germans and ancient Romans successfully dominated the world for many years. Mirroring the other person's body language and appearance shows a united front and doesn't let either get one-up on the other

Mirroring makes others feel 'at ease'. It's such a powerful rapport-building tool that slow-motion video research reveals that it even extends to simultaneous blinking, nostril-flaring, eyebrow-raising and even pupil dilation, which is remarkable as these micro-gestures cannot be consciously imitated.

 

Creating the Right Vibes

 

Studies into synchronous body language behavior show that people who feel similar emotions, or are on the same wavelength and are likely to be experiencing a rapport, will also begin to match each other's body language and expressions. Being 'in sync' to bond with another person begins early in the womb when our body functions and heartbeat match the rhythm of our mother, so mirroring is a state to which we are naturally inclined.

 

When a couple are in the early stages of courtship it's common to see them behave with synchronous movements, almost as if they are dancing. For example, when a woman takes a mouthful of food the man wipes the corner of his mouth; or he begins a sentence and she finishes it for him. When she gets PMT, he develops a strong desire for chocolate; and when she feels bloated, he farts.

 

When a person says 'the vibes are right' or that they 'feel right' around another person, they are unknowingly referring to mirroring and synchronous behavior. For example, at a restaurant, one person can be reluctant to eat or drink alone for fear of being out of sync with the others. When it comes to ordering the meal, each may check with the others before ordering. 'What are you having?' they ask as they try to mirror their meals. This is one of the reasons why playing background music during a date is so effective - the music gets a couple to beat and tap in time together. Mirroring on a Cellular Level

 

American heart surgeon, Dr Memhet Oz, reported some remarkable findings from heart recipients. He found that, as with most other body organs, the heart appears to retain cellular memories, and this allows some patients to experience some of the emotions experienced by the heart donor. Even more remarkably, he found some recipients also assume the same gestures and posture of the donor even though they have never seen the donor. His conclusion was that it appears that the heart cells instruct the recipient's brains to take on the donor's body language. Conversely, people suffering from disorders such as autism have no ability to mirror or match the behavior of others, which makes it difficult for two-way communication with others. The same goes for drunk people whose gestures are out of sync with their words, making it impossible for any mirroring to occur.

 

Because of the phenomenon of cause and effect, if you intentionally assume certain body language positions you will begin to experience the emotions associated with those gestures. For example, if you feel confident, you may unconsciously assume the Steeple gesture to reflect your confidence, but if you intentionally Steeple you will not only begin to feel more confident, others will perceive that you're confident. This, then, becomes a powerful way to create a rapport with others by intentionally matching their body language and posture.

 

Mirroring Differences Between Men and Women

 

Geoffrey Beattie, at the University of Manchester, found that a woman is instinctively four times more likely to mirror another woman than a man is to mirror another man. He also found that women mirror men's body language too, but men are reluctant to mirror a woman's gestures or posture - unless he is in courtship mode.

 

When a woman says she can 'see' that someone doesn't agree with the group opinion she is actually 'seeing' the disagreement. She's picked up that someone's body language is out of sync with group opinion and they are showing their disagreement by not mirroring the group's body language. How women can 'see' disagreement, anger, lying or feeling hurt has always been a source of amazement to most men. It's because most men's brains are simply not well equipped to read the fine detail of others' body language and don't consciously notice mirroring discrepancies.

 

Men and women's brains are programmed differently to express emotions through facial expressions and body language. Typically, a woman can use an average of six main facial expressions in a ten-second listening period to reflect and then feed back the speaker's emotions. Her face will mirror the emotions being expressed by the speaker. To someone watching, it can look as if the events being discussed are happening to both women.

 

A woman reads the meaning of what is being said through the speaker's voice tone and his emotional condition through his body language. This is exactly what a man needs to do to capture a woman's attention and to keep her interested and listening. Most men are daunted by the prospect of using facial feedback while listening, but it pays big dividends for the man who becomes good at it.

 

Some men say 'She'll think I'm effeminate!', but research with these techniques shows that when a man mirrors a woman's facial expressions as she talks she will describe him as caring, intelligent, interesting and attractive.

 

Men, on the other hand, can make fewer than a third of the facial expressions a woman can make. Men usually hold expressionless faces, especially in public, because of the evolutionary need to withhold emotion to stave off possible attack from strangers and to appear to be in control of their emotions. This is why most men look as if they are statues when they listen.

 

The emotionless mask that men wear while listening allows them to feel in control of the situation, but does not mean men don't experience emotions. Brain scans reveal that men can feel emotion as strongly as women, but avoid showing it publicly.

 

What to Do About It if You're Female

 

The key to mirroring a man's behavior is in understanding that he doesn't use his face to signal his attitudes - he uses his body. Most women find it difficult to mirror an expressionless man but with males this is not required. If you're a woman, it means that you need to reduce your facial expressions so that you don't come across as overwhelming or intimidating. Most importantly, don't mirror what you think he might be feeling. That can be disastrous if you've got it wrong and you may be described as 'dizzy' or 'scatterbrained'. Women in business who listen with a more serious face are described by men as more intelligent, astute and sensible.

 

When Men and Women Start to Look Alike

 

When two people live together for a long time and have a good working relationship, they often begin to look alike. This is because they are constantly mirroring each other's facial expressions, which, over time, builds muscle definition in the same areas of the face. Even couples who don't look facially similar can appear similar in a photograph because they use the same smile.

 

n 2000, psychologist Dr John Gottman of the University of Washington, Seattle, and his colleagues, discovered that marriages are more likely to fail when one partner not only does not mirror the other's expressions of happiness, but instead shows expressions of contempt. Instead, this opposite behavior affects the smiling partner, even when they are not consciously aware of what is happening.

 

Do We Resemble Our Pets?

 

You can also see mirroring occur in the pets some people choose. Without realizing it, we unconsciously tend to favor pets that physically resemble us, or that appear to reflect our attitudes. To demonstrate the point, here are a couple of examples: too far and presume that our model of body language and social interpretation applies to a dog's body language.

Be careful however not to extrapolate the metaphor too far and presume that our model of body language and social interpretation applies to a dog's body language.

 

Monkey See, Monkey Do

 

The next time you attend a social function or go to a place where people meet and interact, notice the number of people who have taken the identical gestures and posture of the person with whom they're talking. Mirroring is the way one person tells another that he is in agreement with his ideas and attitudes. One is non-verbally saying to the other, 'As you can see, I think the same as you.' The person with the highest status often makes the first moves and the others copy, usually in pecking order.

 

In the image above it is apparent by virtue of the facial expressions and other body language that there is a good rapport between the US President's wife Michelle Obama, of informally superior status, and a university president. If Michelle changes her body posture, one might expect there is a reasonably good chance the gentleman will unconsciously emulate her posture, indirectly demonstrating they are of the same mind. Mirroring happens among friends or between people of the same status and it is common to see married couples walk, stand, sit and move in identical ways. Albert Scheflen found that people who are strangers studiously avoid holding mirror positions.

 

Matching Voices

 

Intonation, voice inflection, speed of speaking and even accents also synchronize during the mirroring process to further establish mutual attitudes and build rapport. This is known as 'pacing' and it can almost seem as if the two people are singing in tune. You will often see a speaker beating time with his hands while the listener matches the rhythm with head nods. As a relationship grows over time, the mirroring of the main body language positions becomes less as each person begins to anticipate the other's attitudes, and vocal pacing with the other person becomes a main medium for maintaining rapport.

 

Never speak at a faster rate than the other person. Studies reveal that others describe feeling 'pressured' when someone speaks more quickly than they do. A person's speed of speech shows the rate at which their brain can consciously analyze information. Speak at the same rate or slightly slower than the other person and mirror their inflection and intonation. Pacing is critical when attempting to make appointments by telephone because voice is your only communication medium.

 

Intentionally Creating Rapport

 

The significance of mirroring is one of the most important body language lessons you can learn because it's a clear way in which others tell us that they agree with us or like us. It is also a way for us to tell others that we like them, by simply mirroring their body language.

 

If a boss wants to develop a rapport and create a relaxed atmosphere with a nervous employee, he could copy the employee's posture to achieve this end. Similarly, an up-and-coming employee may be seen copying his boss's gestures in an attempt to show agreement when the boss is giving his opinion. Using this knowledge, it is possible to influence others by mirroring their positive gestures and posture. This has the effect of putting the other person in a receptive and relaxed frame of mind, because he can 'see' that you understand his point of view. Before you mirror someone's body language, however, you must take into consideration your relationship with that person. Let's say, for example, a corporate employee has asked for a pay rise and is called into his manager's office. The employee enters the office, the manager asks him to sit down and assumes the Catapult with a Figure-Four showing the employee a superior, dominant attitude. But what would happen if the subordinate then instinctively copied the manager's dominant body language while discussing the potential salary increase? A boss might perceive a subordinate's mirroring behavior as being pushy or impertinent

Even if the employee's manner of speaking and phrasing was typical of a subordinate, the manager could feel affronted by the employee's body language, placing the employee's pay increase request in doubt and perhaps posing a threat to his future promotability. Mirroring is also effective for intimidating or disarming people who deem themselves 'superior' and try to take control of situations. Accountants, lawyers and managers are notorious for using superiority body language clusters around people they consider inferior. By mirroring, you can disconcert them and force a change of position. But never do it to the boss. Through mirrored multi-tasking, these business associates are taking their minds off what can seem an awkward encroachment on their personal zones.

Who Mirrors Whom?

 

Research shows that when the leader of a group assumes certain gestures and positions, subordinates will copy, usually in pecking order. Leaders also tend to be the first of a group to walk through a doorway and they like to sit on the end of a sofa, table or bench seat rather than in the center. When a group of executives walks into a room, the person with the highest status usually goes first. When executives are seated in the boardroom, the boss usually sits at the head of the table, often furthest from the door. If the boss sits in the Catapult, his subordinates are likely to copy in order of their importance within the group You can see this in a meeting where people 'take sides' with others by mirroring their body language. This lets you see who will vote with you and who will vote against you.

 

Mirroring is a good strategy to use if you are part of a presentation team. Decide, in advance, that when the team spokesperson makes a gesture or takes a posture when speaking, the entire team will mirror. This not only gives your team the powerful appearance of being cohesive, it can frighten the hell out of competitors who suspect something is up, even though they can't quite figure out what it is. When presenting ideas, products and services to couples, watching who mirrors whom reveals where the ultimate power or final decision-making ability lies. If the woman makes the initial movements, however small, such as crossing her feet, lacing her fingers or using a Critical Evaluation cluster and the man copies, there is little point in asking him for a decision - he doesn't have the authority to make it. When we rub both of our eyes simultaneously, it is as if we are telling our psyches, "I wish I never saw that", or "I can't believe he did that". We are trying to wipe it from our minds. People will also display this body language tell when recalling a past event in the "mind's eye".

Group Mirroring

 

It happens on fall season Sundays in American football stadiums around the country. Suddenly, 50,000 individuals became a single unit, almost a single mind, focused intently on what was happening on the field - that particular touchdown grab or dive into the end zone. Somehow, virtually simultaneously, each of those 50,000 people tuned into what the other 49,999 were looking at.

 

Becoming part of a crowd can be exhilarating or terrifying: The same mechanisms that make people fans can just as easily make them fanatics. And throughout human history we have constructed institutions that provide that dangerous, enthralling thrill. The Coliseum-like stadiums that host American football games or soccer games throughout the world are, after all, just modern knockoffs of the massive theater that housed Roman crowds cheering their favorite gladiators 2,000 years ago.

 

In fact, recent studies suggest that our sensitivity to crowds is built into our perceptual system and operates in a remarkably swift and automatic way. In a 2012 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, A.C. Gallup, then at Princeton University, and colleagues looked at the crowds that gather in shopping centers and train stations.

 

In one study, a few ringers simply joined the crowd and stared up at a spot in the sky for 60 seconds. Then the researchers recorded and analyzed the movements of the people around them. The scientists found that within seconds hundreds of people coordinated their attention in a highly systematic way. People consistently stopped to look toward exactly the same spot as the ringers.

 

The number of ringers ranged from one to 15. People turn out to be very sensitive to how many other people are looking at something, as well as to where they look. Individuals were much more likely to follow the gaze of several people than just a few, so there was a cascade of looking as more people joined in.

 

In a study in Psychological Science, Timothy Sweeny at the University of Denver and David Whitney at the University of California, Berkeley, looked at the mechanisms that let us follow a crowd in this way. They showed people a set of four faces, each looking in a slightly different direction. Then the researchers asked people to indicate where the whole group was looking (the observers had to swivel the eyes on a face on a computer screen to match the direction of the group).

Because we combine head and eye direction in calculating a gaze, the participants couldn't tell where each face was looking by tracking either the eyes or the head alone; they had to combine the two. The subjects saw the faces for less than a quarter of a second. That's much too short a time to look at each face individually, one by one.

 

It sounds impossibly hard. If you try the experiment, you can barely be sure of what you saw at all. But in fact, people were amazingly accurate. Somehow, in that split-second, they put all the faces together and worked out the average direction where the whole group was looking.

 

In other studies, Dr. Whitney has shown that people can swiftly calculate how happy or sad a crowd is in much the same way.

 

Other social animals have dedicated brain mechanisms for coordinating their action - that's what's behind the graceful rhythms of a flock of birds or a school of fish.

 

Summary

 

Mirroring someone's body language makes them feel accepted and creates a bond and is a phenomenon that occurs naturally between friends and people of equal status. Conversely, we make a point of not mirroring those we don't like or strangers, such as those riding with us in a lift or standing in the queue at the cinema.

 

Mirroring the other person's body language and speech patterns is one of the most powerful ways to build rapport quickly. In a new meeting with someone, mirror his seating position, posture, body angle, gestures, expressions and tone of voice. Before long, they'll start to feel that there's something about you they like - they'll describe you as 'easy to be with'. This is because they see themselves reflected in you. A word of warning, however: don't do it too early in a new encounter as many people have become aware of mirroring strategies. When someone takes a position you have one of three choices - ignore it, do something else or mirror it. Mirroring pays big dividends. But never mirror a person's negative signals.

westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/...

Mutations = genetic, copying mistakes.

 

The progressive, evolution story

is one huge MISTAKE

which, ironically,

depends on MISTAKES

as its mechanism ...

Mistake

- upon mistake

- upon mistake

- upon mistake

So that the entire, human genome

is created from billions of mistakes.

 

If, after reading this, you still believe in the progressive evolution story - you will believe anything.

  

EVOLUTION .....

What is the truth about Darwinian, progressive (microbes to human) evolution?

Although we are told it is an irrefutable, scientific fact .....

the real fact is, as we will show later, there is no credible mechanism for such progressive evolution.

 

So what was the evolutionary idea that Darwin popularised?

 

Put simply ...

Darwin believed that there was unlimited variability in the gene pool of all living things, which would enable the transformation of the first, self-replicating, living cell, through many years of natural selection, into every living thing, including humans.

 

However, the changes possible were well known by selective breeders to be strictly limited.

 

This is because the changes seen in selective breeding are due to the shuffling, deletion and emphasis of genetic information already existing in the gene pool (micro-evolution). There is no viable mechanism for creating new, beneficial, genetic information required to create entirely new body parts ... anatomical structures, biological systems, organs etc. (macro-evolution).

 

Darwin rashly ignored the limits which were well known to breeders (even though he selectively bred pigeons himself, and should have known better). He simply extrapolated the strictly limited, minor changes observed in selective breeding to major, unlimited, progressive changes able to create new structures, organs etc. through natural selection, over an alleged multi-million year timescale.

 

Of course, the length of time involved made no difference, the existing, genetic information could not increase of its own accord, no matter how long the timescale. Natural selection can only select from what is available, i.e. what is already in the gene pool.

 

That was a gigantic flaw in Darwinism, and opponents of Darwin's ideas tried to argue that changes were limited, as selective breeding had demonstrated.

But because Darwinism had acquired a status more akin to an ideology than purely, objective science, belief in the Darwinian idea outweighed the verdict of observational and experimental science, and classical Darwinism became firmly established as scientific orthodoxy for nearly a century.

 

Opponents continued to argue all this time, that Darwinism was unscientific nonsense, but they were ostracised and dismissed as cranks, weirdoes or religious fanatics.

 

Finally however, it was discovered that the opponents of Darwin were perfectly correct - and that constructive, genetic changes (progressive, macro-evolution) require new, additional, genetic information.

 

This looked like the ignominious end of Darwinism, as there was no credible, natural mechanism able to create new, constructive, genetic information. And Darwinism should have been heading for the dustbin of history.

 

Darwin's idea that a single, celled microbe could transform itself into a human and every other living thing, through natural selection over millions of years, had always been totally bonkers. That it is, or ever could have been, regarded as a great 'scientific' theory, beggars belief.

 

However, rather than ditch the whole idea, the vested interests in Darwinism had become so great, with numerous, lifelong careers and an ideological agenda which had become dependant on the Darwinian belief system, a desperate attempt was made to rescue it from its justified demise.

A mechanism had to be invented to explain the origin of new, constructive information.

 

That invented mechanism was 'mutations'. Mutations are ... literally, genetic, copying MISTAKES.

 

The general public had already been convinced that classical Darwinism was a scientific fact, and that anyone who questioned it was a crank, so all that had to be done, as far as the public was concerned, was to give the impression that the theory had simply been refined and updated in the light of modern science.

 

The fact that classical Darwinism had been wrong all along, and was fatally flawed from the outset was kept quiet. This meant that the opponents of Darwinism, who had been right all along, and were the real champions of science, continued to be vilified as cranks and scorned by the mass media and establishment. Ideology and vested interests took precedence over common sense and proper science.

 

The new developments were simply portrayed as the evolution and development of the theory. The impression was given that there was nothing wrong with the idea of progressive (macro) evolution, it had simply 'evolved' and 'improved' in the light of greater knowledge.

 

A sort of progressive evolution of the idea of evolution.

 

This new, 'improved' Darwinism became known as Neo-Darwinism.

 

So what is Neo-Darwinism? And did it really solve the fatal flaws of the Darwinian idea?

 

Neo Darwinism is progressive, macro evolution - as Darwin had proposed, but based on the incredible idea that random mutations (accidental, genetic, copying mistakes) selected and preserved by natural selection, can provide the constructive, genetic information capable of creating entirely new features, anatomical structures, organs, and biological systems. In other words, it is macro-evolution based on a belief in the total progression from microbes to man through billions of random, genetic, copying MISTAKES, accumulated over millions of years.

 

However, there is no evidence for it whatsoever, and it should be classified as unscientific nonsense which defies logic, the laws of probability, the law of cause and effect and Information Theory.

 

Mutations are not good, they are something to be feared, not celebrated as an agent of improvement or progression.

The vast majority of mutations are harmful, they cause illness, cancer and deformities, which is not at all surprising. It is precisely what we would expect from mistakes.

If you throw a spanner into the works of a machine, you would be daft to expect it to improve the operation of the machine. However, evolutionists ignore such common sense and propose that something (which, similarly, would be expected to cause damage) caused billions of constructive improvements in complexity, design and function, ultimately transforming microbes into men, and every other, living thing.

 

The proof of the pudding is in the eating ....

Ironically, evolutionists fear mutations just as much as everyone else. You can bet your bottom dollar that you won't get evolutionists volunteering to subject themselves or their families to mutagenic agents in order to 'improve' humanity. You certainly won't get evolutionists deliberately going to live near chemical or nuclear plants - in order to give their idea of progressive evolution by mutations a helping hand. No way!

 

Evolutionists know perfectly well that mutations are very risky and are most likely to be harmful, certainly not something anyone should desire.

Yet, perversely, they still present them as the (magical) agent responsible for creating the constructive, genetic information which, they claim, progressively transformed the first living cells into every living thing that has ever lived, including humans. They present and teach that extraordinary belief as though it is an irrefutable fact.

If we don't believe the progressive evolution fantasy, or dare to question it, we are branded as unscientific, ignorant, uneducated, backward thinking cranks or fanatics.

Incredible!

I suppose, one way to try to stifle opposition to a crazy idea, is to insult or ridicule those who oppose it. The story of the 'Emperor's New Clothes' comes to mind.

 

It is understandable that people are sometimes confused, because they know that 'micro'-evolution is an observable fact, which everyone accepts. Evolutionists cynically exploit that confusion by citing obvious examples of micro-evolution such as: the Peppered Moth, Darwin's finches, so-called superbugs etc., as evidence of macro-evolution.

 

Of course such examples are not evidence of macro-evolution at all. The public is simply being hoodwinked and lied to, and it is a disgrace to science. There are no observable examples or evidence of macro-evolution and no examples of a mutation, or a series of mutations capable of creating new, anatomical structures, organs etc. and that really is a fact.

It is no wonder that W R Thompson stated in the preface to the 1959 centenary edition of Darwin's Origin of the Species, that ... the success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity.

 

Micro-evolution is simply the small changes which take place, through natural selection or selective breeding, but only within the strict limits of the built-in variability of the existing gene pool (existing, genetic information). Any constructive changes outside the extent of the existing gene pool requires a credible mechanism for the creation of new, beneficial, genetic information, that is essential for macro evolution.

 

Micro evolution does not involve or require the creation of any new, genetic information. So micro evolution and macro evolution are entirely different. There is no connection between them at all, whatever evolutionists may claim.

 

Once people fully understand that the differences they see in various dogs breeds, for example, are merely an example of limited micro-evolution (selection of existing genetic information) and nothing to do with progressive macro-evolution, they begin to realise that they have been fed an incredible story.

A dog will always remain a dog, it can never be selectively bred into some other creature, the extent of variation is constrained by the limitations of the existing, genetic information in the gene pool of the dog genus, and evolutionists know that.

 

To clarify further ...

Neo-Darwinian, macro evolution is the ludicrous idea that everything in the genome of humans and every living thing past and present (apart from the original genetic information in the very first living cell) is the result of an accumulation of billions of random, genetic copying mistakes..... mutations accruing upon previous mutations .... on and on - and on.

 

In other words ...

Neo-Darwinism proposes that the complete genome (every scrap of genetic information in the DNA) of every living thing, or that has ever lived, was created by an incredibly, long series of random mistakes added to previous, random mistakes.

 

If we look at the whole picture ...

we soon realise that what is actually being proposed by evolutionists is that, apart from the original information in the first living cell (and evolutionists have yet to explain how that original information magically arose?) - every additional scrap of genetic information for all - the biological features, anatomical structures, systems and processes that exist, or have ever existed in living things, such as:

skin, bones, bone joints, shells, flowers, leaves, wings, scales, muscles, fur, hair, teeth, claws, toe and finger nails, horns, beaks, nervous systems, blood, blood vessels, brains, lungs, hearts, digestive systems, vascular systems, liver, kidneys, pancreas, bowels, immune systems, senses, eyes, ears, complementary sex organs, sexual reproduction, sperm, eggs, pollen, the process of metamorphosis, marsupial pouches, marsupial embryo migration, mammary glands, hormone production, melanin etc. .... have been created from scratch, by an incredibly long series of small, accumulated and randomly, occurring mistakes ... i.e. a random mistake accruing upon a previous, random mistake - upon a previous, random mistake - upon a previous, random mistake - over and over again, billions of times.

 

This notion is so incredible, we must emphasise once again what it actually means -

It means that all the body parts, systems and biological processes of all living things are the result of literally billions of random, genetic MISTAKES, accumulated over many (alleged) millions of years. This amazing thing occurred from one, original, living cell, which, it is claimed (without any evidence), spontaneously arose, entirely of its own volition, from sterile matter, in some imagined, primordial, soup scenario (contrary to the well established and unfalsified Law of Biogenesis).

Consider this ...

If, for example, there is no genetic information (constructional instructions) for bones (or any other body part) in the alleged, original, living cell, how could copying mistakes of the limited information in such a single cell produce such entirely, new constructive information? That's right, it simply couldn't, it is sheer fantasy.

 

Incredibly, what we are asked to believe is that something like a vascular system, or reproductive organs, developed in small, random, incremental steps, with every step being the result of a copying mistake, and with each step being able to provide a significant survival or reproductive advantage in order to be preserved and become dominant in the gene pool. Utterly incredible!

 

If you believe that ... you will believe anything.

 

Even worse, evolutionists have yet to cite a single example of a positive, beneficial, mutation which adds constructive information to the genome of any creature. Yet they expect us to believe that we have been converted from an original, single living cell into humans by an accumulation of billions of beneficial mutations.

 

Conclusion:

 

Progressive, microbes-to-man evolution is impossible - there is no credible mechanism to produce all the new, genetic information which is essential for that to take place.

 

The progressive, evolution story is an obvious fairy tale presented as scientific fact.

 

However, nothing has changed - those who dare to question the new 'improved', neo-Darwinian version of progressive evolution are still portrayed as idiots, retards, cranks, weirdoes, anti-scientific ignoramuses or religious fanatics.

Want to join the club?

 

What about the fossil record?

 

The formation of fossils...

Books explaining how fossils are formed frequently give the impression that it takes many years of build up of layers of sediment to bury organic remains, which then become fossilised.

 

Therefore many people don't realise that this impression is erroneous, because it is a fact that all good, intact fossils require rapid burial in sufficient sediment to prevent decay or predatory destruction.

 

So, it is evident that rock containing good, undamaged fossils was laid down rapidly, sometimes in catastrophic conditions.

The very existence of intact fossils is a testament to rapid burial and sedimentation.

 

You don't get fossils from slow burial. Organic remains don't just sit around on the sea bed, or elsewhere, waiting for sediment to cover them a millimetre at a time, over a long period.

Unless they are buried rapidly, they would soon be damaged or destroyed by predation and/or decay.

The fact that so many sedimentary rocks contain fossils, indicates that the sediment that created them was normally laid down within a short time.

 

Another important factor is that many large fossils (tree trunks, large fish, dinosaurs etc.) intersect several or many strata (sometimes called layers) which clearly indicates that multiple strata were formed simultaneously in a single event by grading/segregation of sedimentary particles into distinct layers, and not stratum by stratum over long periods of time or different geological eras, which is the evolutionist's, uniformitarian interpretation of the geological column.

 

In view of the fact that many large fossils required a substantial amount of sediment to bury them, and the fact that they intersect multiple strata (polystrate fossils), how can any sensible person claim that strata or, for that matter, any fossil bearing rock, could have taken millions of years to form?

What do laboratory experiments and field studies of recent, sedimentation events show? sedimentology.fr/

 

You don't even need to be a qualified sedimentologist or geologist to come to that conclusion, it is common sense.

 

Rapid formation of strata - some recent, field evidence:

www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

 

What about the idea that radiometric dating confirms vast ages for the fossil record:

Carbon dating cannot be used for the claimed, long timescale assigned to fossils by evolutionists as the maximum age it can be used for is less than 50.000 years. Sedimentary rocks also cannot be dated radiometrically. Evolutionists have to rely on the odd occasion where there is an igneous rock intrusion into a sedimentary deposit to which they apply radiometric dating. However, the dates obtained this way are not reliable, for the reason outlined below:

"As regards radiometric dating, I refer to Prof. Aubouin, who says in his Précis de Géologie: "Each radioactive element disintegrates in a characteristic and constant manner, which depends neither on the physical state (no variation with pressure or temperature or any other external constraint) nor on the chemical state (identical for an oxide or a phosphate)."

Rocks form when magma crystallizes. Crystallisation depends on pressure and temperature, from which radioactivity is independent. So, there is no relationship between radioactivity and crystallisation.

Consequently, radioactivity doesn't date the formation of rocks. Moreover, daughter elements contained in rocks result mainly from radioactivity in magma where gravity separates the heavier parent element, from the lighter daughter element. Thus radiometric dating has no chronological signification." Dr. Guy Berthault www.sciencevsevolution.org/Berthault.htm

 

All creatures and plants alive today, which are found as fossils, are the same in their fossil form as the living examples, in spite of the fact that the fossils are claimed to be millions of years old. So all living things today could be called 'living fossils' inasmuch as there is no evidence of any evolutionary changes in the alleged multi-million year timescale. The fossil record shows either extinct species or unchanged species, that is all.

When no evidence is cited as evidence:

www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/15157133658

 

The Cambrian Explosion.

Trilobites and other many creatures appeared suddenly in some of the earliest rocks of the fossil record, with no intermediate ancestors. This sudden appearance of a great variety of advanced, fully developed creatures is called the Cambrian Explosion. Trilobites are especially interesting because they have complex eyes, which would need a lot of progressive evolution to develop such advanced features However, there is no evidence of any evolution leading up to the Cambrian Explosion, and that is a serious dilemma for evolutionists.

 

Trilobites are now thought to be extinct, although it is possible that similar creatures could still exist in unexplored parts of deep oceans.

 

See fossil of a crab unchanged after many millions of years:

www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/12702046604/in/set-72...

 

Fossil museum: www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157641367196613/

 

What about all the claimed scientific evidence that evolutionists have found for evolution?

The evolutionist 'scientific' method has resulted in a serious decline in scientific integrity, and has given us such scientific abominations as:

 

Piltdown Man (a fake),

 

Nebraska Man (a pig),

 

South West Colorado Man (a horse),

 

Orce man (a donkey),

 

Embryonic Recapitulation (a fraud),

 

Archaeoraptor (a fake),

 

Java Man (a giant gibbon),

 

Peking Man (a monkey),

 

Montana Man (an extinct dog-like creature)

 

Nutcracker Man (an extinct type of ape - Australopithecus)

 

The Horse Series (unrelated species cobbled together),

 

Peppered Moth (faked photographs)

 

The Orgueil meteorite (faked evidence)

 

Ida - the newly discovered (2009), hominid, 'missing link' (an extinct lemur),

Etc. etc.

 

Anyone can call anything 'science' ... it doesn't make it so.

All these examples were trumpeted by evolutionists as scientific evidence for evolution.

Do we want to trust evolutionists claims about scientific evidence, when they have such an appalling record?

 

Just how good are peer reviews of scientific papers?

www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

 

Want to publish a science paper?

www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7036/full/nature03653...

 

www.nature.com/news/publishers-withdraw-more-than-120-gib...

 

Piltdown Man was even used in the famous, Scopes Trial as positive evidence for evolution.

Piltdown Man reigned for over 40 years, as a supreme example of evidence of human evolution, before it was exposed as a crudely, fashioned fake.

Is that 'science'?

 

The ludicrous Hopeful Monster Theory and so-called Punctuated Equilibrium (evolution in big jumps followed by long periods of stasis) were invented by evolutionists as a desperate attempt to explain away the lack of fossil evidence for evolution. They are proposed methods of evolution which, it is claimed, need no fossil evidence. They are actually an admission that the required fossil evidence does not exist.

 

The Piltdown Man fake... it survived as alleged proof of evolution for over 40 years in evolution textbooks and was taught in schools and universities, it survived peer reviews etc. and was claimed as irrefutable, scientific evidence for evolution at the famous Scopes Trial..

 

A pig, a horse and a donkey saga...

The pig ...

Nebraska Man, this was a single tooth of a peccary (a type of pig). It was trumpeted as scientific evidence for the evolution of humans, and highly imaginative, artist's impressions of an complete, ape-like man appeared in newspapers magazines etc. All based on a single tooth. Such 'scientific' evidence is enough to make any genuine, scientist weep.

 

The horse ....

South West Colorado Man, was based on another single tooth ... of a horse this time! ... also proclaimed as 'scientific' evidence for human evolution.

 

The donkey ...

The Orce Man saga - a tiny fragment of skullcap was presented to the media as a human ancestor, accompanied by the familiar hype and hullaballoo. Embarrassingly, a symposium planned to discuss this supposed, ape-man had to be cancelled at short notice when it was 'discovered' that it was most likely from a donkey!

But, even if it was human, such a tiny fragment of skull is certainly not any evidence of human evolution, as had been claimed.

 

Embryonic Recapitulation - The 19th century, evolutionist zealot Ernst Haeckel (who inspired Hitler's, Darwinian, master race policies) published fraudulent drawings of embryos, and his theory was enthusiastically accepted by evolutionists as proof of progressive evolution. Even after he was exposed as a fraudster, evolutionists still continued to use his fraudulent evidence in books and publications on evolution, including school textbooks, until very recently.

 

Archaeoraptor - A so-called, feathered dinosaur from the Chinese, fossil faking industry. It managed to fool credulous evolutionists, because it was exactly what they were looking for. The evidence fitted the wishful thinking.

 

Java Man - Dubois, the man who discovered Java Man and declared it a human ancestor ..... eventually admitted that it was actually a giant gibbon. However, that spoilt the evolution story which had been built up around it. So, evolutionists were reluctant to get rid of it and still maintained it was a human ancestor. It later turned out that Dubois had also 'forgotten' to mention he had found the bones of modern humans at the same site.

 

Peking Man, made up from monkey skulls which were found in an ancient, limestone burning, industrial site, where there were crushed monkey skulls and modern human bones. Drawings were made of Peking Man, but the original skull conveniently disappeared. So, that allowed evolutionists to continue to use it as evidence without fear of it ever being debunked.

 

The Horse Series - fossils of unrelated species cobbled together, They were from different continents and were in no way a proper series of intermediates, They had different numbers of ribs etc. and the very first in the line, is similar to a creature alive today - the Hyrax.

 

Peppered Moth - moths were glued to trees in order to fake photographs for the peppered moth evidence. They don't normally rest on trees in daytime. In any case, the selection of a trait which is part of the variability of the existing, gene pool, is NOT progressive evolution. It is just an example of normal, natural selection within limits, which no-one disputes.

 

The Orgueil meteorite, organic material, and even plant seeds, were embedded and glued into the Orgueil meteorite and disguised with coal dust to make them look like part of the original meteorite, in a fraudulent attempt to fool the world into believing in the discredited idea of spontaneous generation of life (abiogenesis), which is essential for progressive evolution to get started. The reasoning being that, if it could be shown that there was life in space, spontaneous generation must have happened there. And hence, abiogenesis could be declared by evolutionists as a scientific fact.

 

'Missing link' Ida - Hyped up by evolutionists (including the renowned, wildlife documentary, presenter Sir David Attenborough) in 2009 as a newly discovered, “missing link” of human evolution. This allegedly, 47-million-year-old fossil was discovered in Germany. However, it is now obvious that Ida is not evidence of primate (or human) evolution at all, it is simply an extinct type of lemur.

 

Is macro evolution even science? The honest answer to that question has to be an emphatic - NO!

 

The accepted definition of science is: that which can be demonstrated and observed and repeated. Progressive evolution cannot be proved, or tested; it is claimed to have happened in the past, and, as such, it is not subject to the scientific method. It is merely a belief, based primarily on preconceptions.

 

Of course, there is nothing wrong with having beliefs, especially if there is a wealth of evidence to support them, but they should not be presented as scientific fact. As we have shown, in the case of progressive evolution, there is a wealth of evidence against it. Nevertheless, we are told by evolutionist zealots that microbes-to-man evolution is a fact and likewise the spontaneous generation of life from sterile matter (so-called abiogenesis). They are deliberately misleading the public on both counts. Progressive evolution is not only not a fact, it is not even proper science.

 

You don't need a degree in rocket science to understand that Darwinism has damaged and undermined science.

However, what does the world's, most famous, rocket scientist (the father of modern rocket science) have to say?

 

Wernher von Braun (1912 – 1977) PhD Aerospace Engineering

 

"In recent years, there has been a disturbing trend toward scientific dogmatism in some areas of science. Pronouncements by notable scientists and scientific organizations about "only one scientifically acceptable explanation" for events which are clearly outside the domain of science -- like all origins are -- can only destroy the curiosity of those who must carry on the future work of science. Humility, a seemingly natural product of studying nature, appears to have largely disappeared -- at least its visibility is clouded from the public's viewpoint.

 

Extrapolation backward in time until there are no physical artifacts of certainty that can be examined, requires sophisticated guessing which scientists prefer to refer to as "inference." Since hypotheses, a product of scientific inference, are virtually the stuff that comprises the cutting edge of scientific progress, inference must constantly be nurtured. However, the enthusiasm that encourages inference must be matched in degree with caution that clearly differentiates inference from what the public so readily accepts as "scientific fact." Failure to keep these two factors in balance can lead either to a sterile or a seduced science. 'Science but not Scientists' (2006) p.xi"

 

And the eminent scientist, William Robin Thompson (1887 - 1972) Entomologist and Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, Ottawa, Canada, who was asked to write the introduction of the centenary edition of Darwin's 'Origin', wrote:

 

"The concept of organic Evolution is very highly prized by biologists, for many of whom it is an object of genuinely religious devotion, because they regard it as a supreme integrative principle. This is probably the reason why the severe methodological criticism employed in other departments of biology has not yet been brought to bear against evolutionary speculation." 'Science and Common Sense' (1937) p.229

 

“As we know, there is a great divergence of opinion among biologists … because the evidence is unsatisfactory and does not permit any certain conclusion. It is therefore right and proper to draw the attention of the non-scientific public to the disagreements about evolution. But some recent remarks of evolutionists show that they think this unreasonable ......

This situation, where scientific men rally to the defence of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigor, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and unwise in science.”

 

Prof. W. R. Thompson, F.R.S., introduction to the 1956 edition of Darwin's 'Origin of the Species'

 

"When I was asked to write an introduction replacing the one prepared a quarter of a century ago by the distinguished Darwinian, Sir Anthony Keith [one of the "discoverers" of Piltdown Man], I felt extremely hesitant to accept the invitation . . I am not satisfied that Darwin proved his point or that his influence in scientific and public thinking has been beneficial. If arguments fail to resist analysis, consent should be withheld and a wholesale conversion due to unsound argument must be regarded as deplorable. He fell back on speculative arguments."

 

"He merely showed, on the basis of certain facts and assumptions, how this might have happened, and as he had convinced himself he was able to convince others."

 

"But the facts and interpretations on which Darwin relied have now ceased to convince."

 

"This general tendency to eliminate, by means of unverifiable speculations, the limits of the categories Nature presents to us is the inheritance of biology from The Origin of Species. To establish the continuity required by the theory, historical arguments are invoked, even though historical evidence is lacking. Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypothesis based on hypothesis, where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion."—*W.R. Thompson, "Introduction," to Everyman’s Library issue of Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (1958 edition).

 

"The evolution theory can by no means be regarded as an innocuous natural philosophy, but rather is a serious obstruction to biological research. It obstructs—as has been repeatedly shown—the attainment of consistent results, even from uniform experimental material. For everything must ultimately be forced to fit this theory. An exact biology cannot, therefore, be built up."—*H. Neilsson, Synthetische Artbildng, 1954, p. 11

 

www.trueorigin.org/

 

Berkeley University law professor, Philip Johnson, makes the following points: “(1) Evolution is grounded not on scientific fact, but on a philosophical belief called naturalism; (2) the belief that a large body of empirical evidence supports evolution is an illusion; (3) evolution is itself a religion; and, (4) if evolution were a scientific hypothesis based on rigorous study of the evidence, it would have been abandoned long ago.”

 

DNA.

The discovery of DNA should have been the death knell for evolution. It is only because evolutionists tend to manipulate and interpret evidence to suit their own preconceptions that makes them believe DNA is evidence FOR evolution.

 

It is clear that there is no natural mechanism which can produce constructional, biological information, such as that encoded in DNA.

Information Theory (and common sense) tells us that the unguided interaction of matter and energy cannot produce constructive information.

 

Do evolutionists even know where the very first, genetic information in the alleged Primordial Soup came from?

Of course they don't, but with the usual bravado, they bluff it out, and regardless, they rashly present the spontaneous generation of life as a scientific fact.

However, a fact, it certainly isn't .... and good science it certainly isn't.

 

Even though evolutionists have no idea whatsoever about how the first, genetic information originated, they still claim that the spontaneous generation of life (abiogenesis) is an established scientific fact, but this is completely disingenuous. Apart from the fact that abiogenesis violates the Law of Biogenesis, the Law of Cause and Effect and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it also violates Information Theory.

 

Evolutionists have an enormous problem with explaining how the DNA code itself originated. However that is not even the major problem. The impression is given to the public by evolutionists that they only have to find an explanation for the origin of DNA by natural processes - and the problem of the origin of genetic information will have been solved.

That is a confusion in the minds of many people that evolutionists cynically exploit,

Explaining how DNA was formed by chemical processes, explains only how the information storage medium was formed, it tells us nothing about the origin of the information it carries.

 

To clarify this it helps to compare DNA to other information, storage mediums.

For example, if we compare DNA to the written word, we understand that the alphabet is a tangible medium for storing, recording and expressing information, it is not information in itself. The information is recorded in the sequence of letters, forming meaningful words.

You could say that the alphabet is the 'hardware' created from paper and ink, and the sequential arrangement of the letters is the software. The software is a mental construct, not a physical one.

The same applies to DNA. DNA is not information of itself, just like the alphabet it is the medium for storing and expressing information. It is an amazingly efficient storage medium. However, it is the sequence or arrangement of the amino acids which is the actual information, not the DNA code.

So, if evolutionists are ever able to explain how DNA was formed by chemical processes, it would explain only how the information storage medium was formed. It will tell us nothing about the origin of the information it carries.

Thus, when atheists and evolutionists tell us it is only a matter of time before 'science' will be able to fill the 'gaps' in our knowledge and explain the origin of genetic information, they are not being honest. Explaining the origin of the 'hardware' by natural processes is an entirely different matter to explaining the origin of the software.

Next time you hear evolutionists skating over the problem of the origin of genetic information with their usual bluff and bluster, and parroting their usual nonsense about science being able to fill such gaps in knowledge in the future, don't be fooled. They cannot explain the origin of genetic information, and never will be able to. The software cannot be created by chemical processes or the interaction of energy and matter, it is not possible. If you don't believe that. then by all means put it to the test, by challenging any evolutionist to explain how genetic information (not DNA) can originate by natural means? I can guarantee they won't be able to do so.

 

It is true to say - the evolution cupboard is bare when it come to real, tangible evidence.

 

For example:

1. The origin of life is still a mystery, evolutionists have failed to demonstrate that the Law of Biogenesis (which rules out the spontaneous generation of life), and has never been falsified, is not universally valid.

 

2. They have no explanation of where the first, genetic information came from. Information Theory rules out an orign of such, constructive information by natural processes.

 

3. They assume (without any evidence) that matter is somehow intrinsically predisposed to produce life whenever the environmental conditions for life permit.

 

4. They deny that there is any purpose in the universe, yet completely contradict that premise by assuming the above intrinsic predisposition of matter to produce life, as though matter is somehow endowed with a 'blueprint' for the creation of life.

 

5. They have no credible mechanism for the increase of genetic information required for progressive evolution and increasing complexity.

 

6. They have failed to produce any credible, intermediate, fossil examples, in spite of searching for over 150 years. There should be millions of examples, yet there is not a single one which is a watertight example.

 

7. They regularly publish so-called evidence which, when properly examined, is discovered to be nothing of the sort: Example ... Orce Man (the skullcap of a donkey!).

 

8. They use dubious dating techniques, such as circular reasoning in the dating of fossils and rocks.

 

9. They discard any evidence - radiocarbon dating, sedimentation experiments, fossils etc. that doesn't fit the preconceptions.

 

10. They frequently make the claim that there has to be life on other planets, simply on the assumption (without evidence) that life spontaneously generated and evolved on Earth which they take it for granted is a proven fact.

 

11. They cannot produce a single, credible example of a genuinely, beneficial mutation, yet billions would be required for microbes to human evolution.

 

There is much more, but that should suffice to debunk the incessant hype and propaganda that microbes-to-human evolution is an established, irrefutable fact.

It should be enough to put an end to the greatest fraud that has been foisted on the public in scientific history.

 

Evolutionism is not science.

Science is the method through which theories are tested and re-tested. However, today evolution is guarded against such scrutiny and taught uncritically in our public schools. This pervasive defense of naturalism has led students to view Darwinism as the only accepted explanation for the diversity of life on Earth. This presentation will encourage critical thinking of scientific interpretations, and examine the bedrock evidence for the theory of evolution. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE6hm2kpYiY&list=TLGGI4E1iBi7...

 

We are constantly told by evolutionists that the majority of scientists accept progressive evolution (as though that gives it credence) ... but most scientists, don't actually study evolution in any depth, because it is outside their field of expertise. They simply trust what they are taught in school, and mistakenly trust the integrity of evolutionists to present evidence objectively.

That is another great MISTAKE!

 

Evolutionism: The Religion That Offers Nothing.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=znXF0S6D_Ts&list=TLqiH-mJoVPB...

The Postcard

 

A postally unused carte postale that was published by L.L. The card has a divided back.

 

The Great Sphinx of Giza

 

The Great Sphinx of Giza is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a human, and the body of a lion.

 

Facing directly from west to east, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile. The face of the Sphinx appears to represent the pharaoh Khafre.

 

The original shape of the Sphinx was cut from the bedrock, and has since been restored with layers of limestone blocks.

 

It measures 73 m (240 ft) long from paw to tail, 20 m (66 ft) high from the base to the top of the head, and 19 m (62 ft) wide at its rear haunches.

 

Its nose was broken off for unknown reasons between the 3rd. and 10th. centuries AD.

 

The Sphinx is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt, and one of the most recognisable statues in the world.

 

The archaeological evidence suggests that it was created by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of Khafre (c. 2558 - 2532 BC).

 

The Great Sphinx's Name

 

The commonly used name "Sphinx" was given to the monument in classical antiquity, about 2,000 years after the commonly accepted date of its construction by reference to a Greek mythological beast with the head of a woman, a falcon, a cat, or a sheep and the body of a lion with the wings of an eagle. (Although, like most Egyptian sphinxes, the Great Sphinx has a man's head and no wings).

 

The English word sphinx comes from the ancient Greek Σφίγξ from the verb σφίγγω (meaning to squeeze in English), after the Greek sphinx who strangled anyone who failed to answer her riddle.

 

History of the Great Sphinx

 

The Sphinx is a monolith carved from the bedrock of the plateau, which also served as the quarry for the pyramids and other monuments in the area.

 

Egyptian geologist Farouk El-Baz has suggested that the head of the Sphinx may have been carved first, out of a natural yardang, i.e. a ridge of bedrock that had been sculpted by the wind. These can sometimes achieve shapes which resemble animals.

 

El-Baz suggests that the "moat" or "ditch" around the Sphinx may have been quarried out later to allow for the creation of the full body of the sculpture.

 

The archaeological evidence suggests that the Great Sphinx was created around 2500 BC for the pharaoh Khafre, the builder of the Second Pyramid at Giza. The stones cut from around the Sphinx's body were used to construct a temple in front of it.

 

However, neither the enclosure nor the temple were ever completed, and the relative scarcity of Old Kingdom cultural material suggests that a Sphinx cult was not established at the time.

 

Selim Hassan, writing in 1949 on recent excavations of the Sphinx enclosure, made note of this circumstance:

 

"Taking all things into consideration, it seems that

we must give the credit of erecting this, the world's

most wonderful statue, to Khafre, but always with

this reservation: that there is not one single

contemporary inscription which connects the Sphinx

with Khafre, so sound as it may appear, we must treat

the evidence as circumstantial, until such time as a

lucky turn of the spade of the excavator will reveal to

the world a definite reference to the erection of the

Sphinx."

 

In order to construct the temple, the northern perimeter-wall of the Khafre Valley Temple had to be deconstructed, hence it follows that the Khafre funerary complex preceded the creation of the Sphinx and its temple.

 

Furthermore, the angle and location of the south wall of the enclosure suggests the causeway connecting Khafre's Pyramid and Valley Temple already existed before the Sphinx was planned. The lower base level of the Sphinx temple also indicates that it doesn't pre-date the Valley Temple.

 

The Great Sphinx in the New Kingdom

 

Some time around the First Intermediate Period, the Giza Necropolis was abandoned, and drifting sand eventually buried the Sphinx up to its shoulders.

 

The first documented attempt at an excavation dates to c. 1400 BC, when the young Thutmose IV gathered a team and, after much effort, managed to dig out the front paws. Between them he erected a shrine that housed the Dream Stele, an inscribed granite slab (possibly a re-purposed door lintel from one of Khafre's temples).

 

When the stele was discovered, its lines of text were already damaged and incomplete. An excerpt reads:

 

"... the royal son, Thothmos, being arrived, while

walking at midday and seating himself under the

shadow of this mighty god, was overcome by

slumber and slept at the very moment when Ra is

at the summit of heaven.

He found that the Majesty of this august god spoke

to him with his own mouth, as a father speaks to his

son, saying:

'Look upon me, contemplate me, O my son Thothmos;

I am thy father, Harmakhis-Khopri-Ra-Tum; I bestow

upon thee the sovereignty over my domain, the

supremacy over the living ... Behold my actual condition

that thou mayest protect all my perfect limbs. The sand

of the desert whereon I am laid has covered me. Save

me, causing all that is in my heart to be executed.'"

 

The Dream Stele associates the Sphinx with Khafre, however this part of the text is not entirely intact:

 

"... which we bring for him: oxen ... and all the young

vegetables; and we shall give praise to Wenofer ...

Khaf ... the statue made for Atum-Hor-em-Akhet."

 

Egyptologist Thomas Young, finding the Khaf hieroglyphs in a damaged cartouche used to surround a royal name, inserted the glyph ra to complete Khafre's name. However when the Stele was re-excavated in 1925, the lines of text referring to Khaf flaked off and were destroyed.

 

In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx became more specifically associated with the sun god Hor-em-akhet. Pharaoh Amenhotep II built a temple to the northeast of the Sphinx nearly 1000 years after its construction, and dedicated it to the cult of Hor-em-akhet.

 

The Great Sphinx in the Graeco-Roman Period

 

By Graeco-Roman times, Giza had become a tourist destination - the monuments were regarded as antiquities. Some Roman Emperors visited the Sphinx out of curiosity, and for political reasons.

 

The Sphinx was cleared of sand again in the first century AD in honour of Emperor Nero and the Governor of Egypt, Tiberius Claudius Balbilus.

 

A monumental stairway more than 12 metres (39 ft) wide was erected, leading to a pavement in front of the paws of the Sphinx. At the top of the stairs, a podium was positioned that allowed view into the Sphinx sanctuary.

 

Further back, another podium neighboured several more steps. The stairway was dismantled during the 1931–32 excavations by Émile Baraize.

 

Pliny the Elder described the face of the Sphinx being coloured red and gave measurements for the statue:

 

"In front of these pyramids is the Sphinx, a still more

wondrous object of art, but one upon which silence

has been observed, as it is looked upon as a divinity

by the people of the neighbourhood.

It is their belief that King Harmaïs was buried in it, and

they will have it that it was brought there from a distance.

The truth is, however, that it was hewn from the solid

rock; and, from a feeling of veneration, the face of the

monster is coloured red.

The circumference of the head, measured round the

forehead, is one hundred and two feet, the length of the

feet being one hundred and forty-three, and the height,

from the belly to the summit of the asp on the head,

sixty-two."

 

A stela dated to 166 AD commemorates the restoration of the retaining walls surrounding the Sphinx.

 

The last Emperor connected with the monument was Septimius Severus, around 200 AD. With the downfall of Roman power, the Sphinx was once more engulfed by the sands.

 

The Great Sphinx in the Middle Ages

 

Some ancient non-Egyptians saw the Sphinx as a likeness of the god Horon. The cult of the Sphinx continued into medieval times. The Sabians of Harran saw it as the burial place of Hermes Trismegistus.

 

Arab authors described the Sphinx as a talisman which guarded the area from the desert. Al-Maqrizi describes it as "The Talisman of the Nile" on which the locals believed the flood cycle depended.

 

Muhammad al-Idrisi stated that those wishing to obtain bureaucratic positions in the Egyptian government should give an incense offering to the monument.

 

Over the centuries, writers and scholars have recorded their impressions and reactions upon seeing the Sphinx. The vast majority were concerned with a general description, often including a mixture of science, romance and mystique. A typical description of the Sphinx by tourists and leisure travelers throughout the 19th. and 20th. century was made by John Lawson Stoddard:

 

"It is the antiquity of the Sphinx which thrills us as

we look upon it, for in itself it has no charms. The

desert's waves have risen to its breast, as if to

wrap the monster in a winding-sheet of gold. The

face and head have been mutilated by Moslem

fanatics. The mouth, the beauty of whose lips was

once admired, is now expressionless. Yet grand in

its loneliness, - veiled in the mystery of unnamed

ages, - the relic of Egyptian antiquity stands solemn

and silent in the presence of the awful desert -

symbol of eternity. Here it disputes with Time the

empire of the past; forever gazing on and on into

a future which will still be distant when we, like all

who have preceded us and looked upon its face,

have lived our little lives and disappeared."

 

From the 16th. century, European observers described the Sphinx having the face, neck and breast of a woman.

 

Most early Western images were book illustrations in print form, elaborated by a professional engraver from either previous images available, or some original drawing or sketch supplied by an author, and usually now lost.

 

Seven years after visiting Giza, André Thévet (Cosmographie de Levant, 1556) described the Sphinx as:

 

"The head of a colossus, caused to be

made by Isis, daughter of Inachus, then

so beloved of Jupiter".

 

He, or his artist and engraver, pictured it as a curly-haired monster with a grassy dog collar.

 

Athanasius Kircher (who never visited Egypt) depicted the Sphinx as a Roman statue (Turris Babel, 1679).

 

Johannes Helferich's (1579) Sphinx is a pinched-face, round-breasted woman with a straight-haired wig.

 

George Sandys stated in 1615 that the Sphinx was a harlot; Balthasar de Monconys interpreted the headdress as a kind of hairnet, while François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz's Sphinx had a rounded hairdo with bulky collar.

 

Richard Pococke's Sphinx was an adoption of Cornelis de Bruijn's drawing of 1698, featuring only minor changes, but is closer to the actual appearance of the Sphinx than anything previously drawn.

 

The print versions of Norden's drawings for his Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie (1755) clearly show that the nose was missing.

 

Later Excavations

 

In 1817, the first modern archaeological dig, supervised by the Italian Giovanni Battista Caviglia, uncovered the Sphinx's chest completely.

 

In 1887, the chest, paws, the altar, and the plateau were all made visible. Flights of steps were unearthed, and finally accurate measurements were taken of the great figures.

 

The height from the lowest of the steps was found to be one hundred feet, and the space between the paws was found to be thirty-five feet long and ten feet wide. Here there was formerly an altar; and a stele of Thûtmosis IV was discovered, recording a dream in which he was ordered to clear away the sand that even then was gathering round the site of the Sphinx.

 

One of the people working on clearing the sands from around the Great Sphinx was Eugène Grébaut, a French Director of the Antiquities Service.

 

Opinions of Early Egyptologists

 

Early Egyptologists and excavators were divided regarding the age of the Sphinx and its associated temples.

 

In 1857, Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, unearthed the much later Inventory Stela (estimated to be from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, c. 664 - 525 BC), which tells how Khufu came upon the Sphinx, already buried in sand.

 

Although certain tracts on the Stela are likely accurate, this passage is contradicted by archaeological evidence, thus considered to be Late Period historical revisionism, a purposeful fake, created by the local priests as an attempt to imbue the contemporary Isis temple with an ancient history it never had.

 

Such acts became common when religious institutions such as temples, shrines and priests' domains were fighting for political attention and for financial and economic donations.

 

Flinders Petrie wrote in 1883 regarding the state of opinion of the age of the Khafre Valley Temple, and by extension the Sphinx:

 

"The date of the Granite Temple has been so

positively asserted to be earlier than the fourth

dynasty, that it may seem rash to dispute the

point.

Recent discoveries, however, strongly show that

it was really not built before the reign of Khafre,

in the fourth dynasty."

 

Gaston Maspero, the French Egyptologist and second director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, conducted a survey of the Sphinx in 1886. He concluded that because the Dream Stela showed the cartouche of Khafre in line 13, it was he who was responsible for the excavation, and therefore the Sphinx must predate Khafre and his predecessors - possibly Fourth Dynasty, c. 2575 - 2467 BC. Maspero believed the Sphinx to be "the most ancient monument in Egypt".

 

Ludwig Borchardt attributed the Sphinx to the Middle Kingdom, arguing that the particular features seen on the Sphinx are unique to the 12th. dynasty, and that the Sphinx resembles Amenemhat III.

 

E. A. Wallis Budge agreed that the Sphinx predated Khafre's reign, writing in The Gods of the Egyptians (1904):

 

"This marvellous object was in existence in the

days of Khafre, or Khephren, and it is probable

that it is a very great deal older than his reign,

and that it dates from the end of the archaic

period [c. 2686 BC]."

 

Modern Dissenting Hypotheses

 

Rainer Stadelmann, former director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, examined the distinct iconography of the nemes (headdress) and the now-detached beard of the Sphinx, and concluded that the style is more indicative of the pharaoh Khufu (2589–2566 BC).

 

He was known to the Greeks as Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza and Khafre's father. Rainer supports this by suggesting Khafre's Causeway was built to conform to a pre-existing structure, which, he concludes, given its location, could only have been the Sphinx.

 

In 2004, Vassil Dobrev of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo announced that he had uncovered new evidence that the Great Sphinx may have been the work of the little-known pharaoh Djedefre (2528–2520 BC).

 

Djedefre was Khafra's half brother, and a son of Khufu. Dobrev suggests Djedefre built the Sphinx in the image of his father Khufu, identifying him with the sun god Ra in order to restore respect for their dynasty.

 

Dobrev also says that the causeway connecting Khafre's pyramid to the temples was built around the Sphinx, suggesting that it was already in existence at the time.

 

Egyptologist Nigel Strudwick responded to Dobrev by saying that:

 

"It is not implausible. But I would need more explanation,

such as why he thinks the pyramid at Abu Roash is a sun temple, something I'm sceptical about.

I have never heard anyone suggest that the name in the graffiti at Zawiyet el-Aryan mentions Djedefre.

I remain more convinced by the traditional argument of it being Khafre or the more recent theory of it being Khufu."

 

Recent Restorations of the Great Sphinx

 

In 1931, engineers of the Egyptian government repaired the head of the Sphinx. Part of its headdress had fallen off in 1926 due to erosion, which had also cut deeply into its neck. This questionable repair was by the addition of a concrete collar between the headdress and the neck, creating an altered profile.

 

Many renovations to the stone base and raw rock body were done in the 1980's, and then redone in the 1990's.

 

Natural and Deliberate Damage to the Great Sphinx

 

The limestone of the area consists of layers which offer differing resistance to erosion (mostly caused by wind and windblown sand), leading to the uneven degradation apparent in the Sphinx's body.

 

The lowest part of the body, including the legs, is solid rock. The body of the animal up to its neck is fashioned from softer layers that have suffered considerable disintegration. The layer from which the head was sculpted is much harder.

 

A number of "dead-end" shafts are known to exist within and below the body of the Great Sphinx, most likely dug by treasure hunters and tomb robbers.

 

The Great Sphinx's Missing Nose

 

Examination of the Sphinx's face shows that long rods or chisels were hammered into the nose area, one down from the bridge and another beneath the nostril, then used to pry the nose off towards the south, resulting in the one-metre wide nose still being lost to date.

 

Drawings of the Sphinx by Frederic Louis Norden in 1737 show the nose missing. Many folk tales exist regarding the destruction of its nose, aiming to provide an answer as to where it went or what happened to it.

 

One tale erroneously attributes it to cannonballs fired by the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. Other tales ascribe it to being the work of Mamluks. Since the 10th. century, some Arab authors have claimed it to be a result of iconoclastic attacks.

 

The Arab historian al-Maqrīzī, writing in the 15th. century, attributes the loss of the nose to Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi Muslim who in 1378 found the local peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest; he therefore defaced the Sphinx in an act of iconoclasm.

 

According to al-Maqrīzī, many people living in the area believed that the increased sand covering the Giza Plateau was retribution for al-Dahr's act of defacement.

 

Al-Minufi stated that the Alexandrian Crusade in 1365 was divine punishment for a Sufi sheikh breaking off the nose.

 

The Great Sphinx's Beard

 

In addition to the lost nose, a ceremonial pharaonic beard is thought to have been attached, although this may have been added in later periods after the original construction.

 

Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev has suggested that had the beard been an original part of the Sphinx, it would have damaged the chin of the statue upon falling. However the lack of visible damage supports his theory that the beard was a later addition.

 

The British Museum has limestone fragments which are thought to be from the Sphinx's beard.

 

Residues of red pigment are visible on areas of the Sphinx's face, and traces of yellow and blue pigment have also been found elsewhere on the Sphinx, leading Mark Lehner to suggest that:

 

"The monument was once decked

out in gaudy comic book colours".

 

However, as with the case of many ancient monuments, the pigments and colours have virtually disappeared, resulting in the yellow/beige appearance that the Sphinx has today.

 

Holes and Tunnels in the Great Sphinx

 

-- The Hole in the Sphinx's Head

 

Johann Helffrich visited the Sphinx during his travels in 1565 - 1566. He reports that a priest went into the head of the Sphinx, and when he spoke it was as if the Sphinx itself was speaking.

 

Many New Kingdom stelae depict the Sphinx wearing a crown. If it in fact existed, the hole could have been the anchoring point for it.

 

Émile Baraize closed the hole with a metal hatch in 1926.

 

-- Perring's Hole

 

Howard Vyse directed Perring in 1837 to drill a tunnel into the back of the Sphinx, just behind the head. The boring rods became stuck at a depth of 27 feet (8.2 m).

 

Attempts to blast the rods free caused further damage. The hole was cleared in 1978, and among the rubble was a fragment of the Sphinx's nemes headdress.

 

-- The Major Fissure

 

A major natural fissure in the bedrock cuts through the waist of the Sphinx. This was first excavated by Auguste Mariette in 1853.

 

The fissure measures up to 2 metres (6.6 ft) in width. In 1926 Baraize sealed the sides and roofed it with iron bars, limestone and cement. He then installed an iron trap door at the top. The sides of the fissure might have been artificially squared; however, the bottom is irregular bedrock, about 1 metre (3.3 ft) above the outside floor. A very narrow crack continues deeper.

 

-- The Rump Passage

 

When the Sphinx was cleared of sand in 1926 under direction of Baraize, it revealed an opening to a tunnel at floor-level on the north side of the rump. It was subsequently closed by masonry and nearly forgotten.

 

More than fifty years later, the existence of the passage was recalled by three elderly men who had worked during the sand clearing as basket carriers. This led to the rediscovery and excavation of the rump passage in 1980.

 

The passage consists of an upper and a lower section, which are angled roughly 90 degrees to each other. The upper part ascends to a height of 4 metres (13 ft) above the ground-floor at a northwest direction. It runs between masonry veneer and the core body of the Sphinx, and ends in a niche 1 metre (3.3 ft) wide and 1.8 metres (5.9 ft) high.

 

The ceiling of the niche consists of modern cement, which likely spilled down from the filling of the gap between masonry and core bedrock, some 3 metres (9.8 ft) above.

 

The lower part descends steeply into the bedrock towards the northeast, for a distance of approximately 4 metres (13 ft) and a depth of 5 metres (16 ft). It terminates in a pit at groundwater level.

 

At the entrance it is 1.3 metres (4.3 ft) wide, narrowing to about 1.07 metres (3.5 ft) towards the end. Among the sand and stone fragments, a piece of tin foil and the base of a modern ceramic water jar was found.

 

The clogged bottom of the pit contained modern fill. Among it, more tin foil, modern cement and a pair of shoes.

 

It is possible that the entire passage was cut top down, beginning high up on the rump, and that the current access point at floor-level was made at a later date.

 

Vyse noted in his diary in 1837 that he was "boring" near the tail, which indicates him as the creator of the passage, as no other tunnel has been identified at this location. Another interpretation is that the shaft is of ancient origin, perhaps an exploratory tunnel or an unfinished tomb shaft.

 

-- The Niche in the Northern Flank

 

There is a niche in the Sphinx's core body. It was closed during the 1925-6 restorations.

 

-- The Space Behind the Dream Stele

 

The space behind the Dream Stele, between the paws of the Sphinx, was covered by an iron beam and cement roof and then fitted with an iron trap door.

 

-- The Keyhole Shaft

 

At the ledge of the Sphinx enclosure there is a square shaft opposite the northern hind paw. It was cleared during excavation in 1978 and measures 1.42 by 1.06 metres (4.7 by 3.5 ft) and about 2 metres (6.6 ft) deep.

 

Lehner interpreted the shaft to be an unfinished tomb, and named it the "Keyhole Shaft", because a cutting in the ledge above the shaft is shaped like the lower part of a keyhole, upside down.

 

The Great Pyramid of Giza

 

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid, and the tomb of the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu. Built in the 26th. century BC during a period of around 27 years, it is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact.

 

Initially standing at 146.6 metres (481 feet), the Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for more than 3,800 years. Over time, most of the smooth white limestone casing was removed, which lowered the pyramid's height to the present 138.5 metres (454.4 ft).

 

What is seen today is the underlying core structure. The base was measured to be 230.3 metres (755.6 ft) square, giving a volume of roughly 2.6 million cubic metres (92 million cubic feet).

 

The Great Pyramid was built by quarrying an estimated 2.3 million large blocks weighing 6 million tonnes in total. The majority of stones are not uniform in size or shape, and are only roughly dressed.

 

The outside layers were bound together by mortar. Primarily local limestone from the Giza Plateau was used. Other blocks were imported by boat down the Nile: white limestone from Tura for the casing, and granite blocks from Aswan, weighing up to 80 tonnes, for the King's Chamber.

 

There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The lowest was cut into the bedrock, but it remained unfinished. The Queen's Chamber and the King's Chamber, that contains a granite sarcophagus, are higher up, within the pyramid structure.

 

Khufu's vizier, Hemiunu, is believed to be the architect of the Great Pyramid. Many varying scientific and alternative hypotheses attempt to explain the exact construction techniques.

 

Attribution to Khufu

 

Historically the Great Pyramid has been attributed to Khufu based on the words of authors of classical antiquity, first and foremost Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus.

 

However, during the middle ages a number of other people were credited with the construction of the pyramid, for example Joseph, Nimrod or King Saurid.

 

In 1837 four additional Relieving Chambers were found above the King's Chamber after tunneling to them. The chambers, previously inaccessible, were covered in hieroglyphs of red paint.

 

The workers who were building the pyramid had marked the blocks with the names of their gangs, which included the pharaoh's name (e.g.: “The gang, The white crown of Khnum-Khufu is powerful”).

 

The names of Khufu were spelled out on the walls over a dozen times. Another of these graffiti was found by Goyon on an exterior block of the 4th layer of the pyramid.

 

Throughout the 20th. century the cemeteries next to the pyramid were excavated. Family members and high officials of Khufu were buried there. Most notably the wives, children and grandchildren of Khufu, along with the funerary cache of Hetepheres I, mother of Khufu.

 

As Hassan puts it:

 

"From the early dynastic times, it was always the

custom for the relatives, friends and courtiers to

be buried in the vicinity of the king they had served

during life. This was quite in accordance with the

Egyptian idea of the Hereafter."

 

The cemeteries were actively expanded until the 6th. dynasty, but used less frequently afterwards. The earliest pharaonic name of seal impressions is that of Khufu, the latest of Pepi II.

 

Worker graffiti was written on some of the stones of the tombs as well; for instance, "Mddw" (Horus name of Khufu) on the mastaba of Chufunacht, probably a grandson of Khufu.

 

In 1954 two boat pits, one containing the Khufu ship, were discovered buried at the south foot of the pyramid. The cartouche of Djedefre was found on many of the blocks that covered the boat pits. As the successor and eldest son he would have presumably been responsible for the burial of Khufu.

 

The second boat pit was examined in 1987; excavation work started in 2010. Graffiti on the stones included 4 instances of the name "Khufu", 11 instances of "Djedefre", a year (in reign, season, month and day), measurements of the stone, various signs and marks, and a reference line used in construction, all done in red or black ink.

 

During excavations in 2013 the Diary of Merer in the form of rolls of papyrus was found at Wadi al-Jarf. It documents the transportation of white limestone blocks from Tura to the Great Pyramid, which is mentioned by its original name Akhet Khufu dozens of times.

 

The diary records that the stones were accepted at She Akhet-Khufu ("The pool of the pyramid Horizon of Khufu") and Ro-She Khufu (“The entrance to the pool of Khufu”) which were under supervision of Ankhhaf, half brother and vizier of Khufu, as well as owner of the largest mastaba of the Giza East Field.

 

The Age of the Great Pyramid

 

The age of the Great Pyramid has been determined by two principal approaches:

 

-- Indirectly, through its attribution to Khufu and his chronological age, based on archaeological and textual evidence.

 

-- Directly, via radiocarbon dating of organic material found in the pyramid and included in its mortar. Mortar was used generously in the Great Pyramid's construction. In the mixing process, ashes from fires were added to the mortar, organic material that could be extracted and radiocarbon dated.

 

A total of 46 samples of the mortar were taken in 1984 and 1995, making sure they were clearly inherent to the original structure and could not have been incorporated at a later date.

 

The results were calibrated to 2871–2604 BC. A reanalysis of the data gave a completion date for the pyramid between 2620 and 2484 BC.

 

In 1872 Waynman Dixon opened the lower pair of air-shafts that were previously closed at both ends by chiseling holes into the walls of the Queen's Chamber.

 

One of the objects found within was a cedar plank, which came into possession of James Grant, a friend of Dixon. After inheritance it was donated to the Museum of Aberdeen in 1946. However it had broken into pieces, and was filed incorrectly.

 

Lost in the vast museum collection, it was only rediscovered in 2020, when it was radiocarbon dated to 3341–3094 BC. Being over 500 years older than Khufu's chronological age, Abeer Eladany suggests that the wood originated from the center of a long-lived tree, or had been recycled for many years prior to being deposited in the pyramid.

 

Construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza

 

-- Preparation of the Site

 

A hillock forms the base on which the pyramid stands. It was cut back into steps, and only a strip around the perimeter was leveled. Using modern equipment, this has been measured to be horizontal and flat to within 21 millimetres (0.8 in).

 

The bedrock reaches a height of almost 6 metres (20 ft) above the pyramid base at the location of the Grotto.

 

Along the sides of the base platform a series of holes are cut in the bedrock. Lehner hypothesizes that they held wooden posts used for alignment.

 

Edwards, among others, has suggested that water was used in order to level the base, although it is unclear how workable such a system would be.

 

-- Materials

 

The Great Pyramid consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks. Approximately 5.5 million tonnes of limestone, 8,000 tonnes of granite, and 500,000 tonnes of mortar were used in the construction.

 

Most of the blocks were quarried at Giza just south of the pyramid, an area now known as the Central Field.

 

The white limestone used for the casing originated from Tura 10 km (6.2 mi) south of Giza), and was transported by boat down the Nile.

 

The granite stones in the pyramid were transported from Aswan, more than 900 km (560 mi) away. The largest, weighing up to 80 tonnes, forms the roofs of the King's Chamber.

 

Ancient Egyptians cut stone into rough blocks by hammering grooves into natural stone faces, inserting wooden wedges, then soaking these with water. As the water was absorbed, the wedges expanded, breaking off workable chunks. Once the blocks were cut, they were carried by boat either up or down the Nile River to the pyramid.

 

-- The Workforce

 

The Greeks believed that slave labour was used, but modern discoveries made at nearby workers' camps associated with construction at Giza suggest that it was built instead by thousands of conscript laborers.

 

Worker graffiti found at Giza suggest haulers were divided into groups of 40 men, consisting of four sub-units that each had an "Overseer of Ten".

 

As to the question of how over two million blocks could have been cut within Khufu's lifetime, stonemason Franck Burgos conducted an archaeological experiment based on an abandoned quarry of Khufu discovered in 2017.

 

Within it, an almost completed block and the tools used for cutting it had been uncovered: hardened arsenic copper chisels, wooden mallets, ropes and stone tools. In the experiment, replicas of these were used to cut a block weighing about 2.5 tonnes (the average block size used for the Great Pyramid).

 

It took 4 workers 4 days (with each working 6 hours a day) to excavate it. The initially slow progress sped up six times when the stone was wetted with water.

 

Based on the data, Burgos extrapolates that about 3,500 quarry-men could have produced the 250 blocks per day needed to complete the Great Pyramid within 27 years.

 

A construction management study conducted in 1999, in association with Mark Lehner and other Egyptologists, has estimated that the total project required an average workforce of about 13,200 individuals, with a peak workforce of roughly 40,000.

 

Surveys and Design of the Great Pyramid

 

The first precise measurements of the pyramid were made by Egyptologist Flinders Petrie in 1880–1882, published as The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh.

 

Many of the casing-stones and inner chamber blocks of the Great Pyramid fit together with high precision, with joints, on average, only 0.5 millimetres (0.020 in) wide. On the contrary, core blocks were only roughly shaped, with rubble inserted between larger gaps. Mortar was used to bind the outer layers together and to fill gaps and joints.

 

The block height and weight tends to get progressively smaller towards the top. Petrie measured the lowest layer to be 148 centimetres (4.86 ft) high, whereas the layers towards the summit barely exceed 50 centimetres (1.6 ft).

 

The accuracy of the pyramid's perimeter is such that the four sides of the base have an average error of only 58 millimetres (2.3 inches) in length, and the finished base was squared to a mean corner error of only 12 seconds of arc.

 

Ancient Egyptians used seked - how much length for one cubit of rise - to describe slopes. For the Great Pyramid a seked of 5+ palms was chosen, a ratio of 14 up to 11 in.

 

Some Egyptologists suggest this slope was chosen because the ratio of perimeter to height (1760/280 cubits) equals 2π to an accuracy of better than 0.05 percent (corresponding to the well-known approximation of π as 22/7).

 

Verner wrote:

 

"We can conclude that although the ancient

Egyptians could not precisely define the value

of π, in practice they used it.

"These relations of areas and of circular ratio

are so systematic that we should grant that

they were in the builder's design".

 

Alignment to the Cardinal Directions

 

The sides of the Great Pyramid's base are closely aligned to the four geographic (not magnetic) cardinal directions, deviating on average 3 minutes and 38 seconds of arc. Several methods have been proposed for how the ancient Egyptians achieved this level of accuracy:

 

-- The Solar Gnomon Method: the shadow of a vertical rod is tracked throughout a day. The shadow line is intersected by a circle drawn around the base of the rod. Connecting the intersecting points produces an east-west line.

 

An experiment using this method resulted in lines being, on average, 2 minutes, 9 seconds off due east–west. Employing a pinhole produced much more accurate results (19 arc seconds off), whereas using an angled block as a shadow definer was less accurate (3′ 47″ off).

 

-- The Pole Star Method: the polar star is tracked using a movable sight and fixed plumb line. Halfway between the maximum eastern and western elongations is true north.

 

Thuban, the polar star during the Old Kingdom, was about two degrees removed from the celestial pole at the time.

 

-- The Simultaneous Transit Method: the stars Mizar and Kochab appear on a vertical line on the horizon, close to true north around 2500 BC. They slowly and simultaneously shift east over time, which is used to explain the relative misalignment of the pyramids.

 

Construction Theories

 

Many alternative, often contradictory, theories have been proposed regarding the pyramid's construction. One mystery of the pyramid's construction is its planning. John Romer suggests that they used the same method that had been used for earlier and later constructions, i.e. laying out parts of the plan on the ground at a 1-to-1 scale.

 

He writes that:

 

"Such a working diagram would also serve to

generate the architecture of the pyramid with

precision unmatched by any other means".

 

The basalt blocks of the pyramid temple show clear evidence of having been cut with some kind of saw with an estimated cutting blade of 15 feet (4.6 m) in length. Romer suggests that this "super saw" may have had copper teeth and weighed up to 140 kilograms (310 lb).

 

He theorizes that such a saw could have been attached to a wooden trestle support, and possibly used in conjunction with vegetable oil, cutting sand, emery or pounded quartz to cut the blocks, which would have required the labour of at least a dozen men to operate it.

 

The Exterior Casing

  

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At completion, the Great Pyramid was cased entirely in white limestone. There is a casing stone from the Great Pyramid in the British Museum.

 

Precisely worked blocks were placed in horizontal layers and carefully fitted together with mortar, their outward faces cut at a slope and smoothed to a high degree. Together they created four uniform surfaces, angled at 51°50'40.

 

Unfinished casing blocks of the pyramids of Menkaure and Henutsen at Giza suggest that the front faces were smoothed only after the stones were laid, with chiseled seams marking correct positioning, and where the superfluous rock would have to be trimmed off.

 

An irregular pattern is noticeable when looking at the pyramid's layers in sequence, where layer height declines steadily only to rise sharply again.

 

"Backing stones" supported the casing which were (unlike the core blocks) precisely dressed, and bound to the casing with mortar. These stones give the structure its visible appearance, following the dismantling of the pyramid in the middle ages.

 

In 1303 AD, a massive earthquake loosened many of the outer casing stones, which were said to have been carted away by Bahri Sultan An-Nasir Nasir-ad-Din al-Hasan in 1356 for use in nearby Cairo.

 

Many more casing stones were removed from the site by Muhammad Ali Pasha in the early 19th. century to build the upper portion of his Alabaster Mosque in Cairo.

 

Later explorers reported massive piles of rubble at the base of the pyramid left over from the continuing collapse of the casing stones, which were subsequently cleared away during continuing excavations of the site.

 

Today a few of the casing stones from the lowest course can be seen in situ on each side, with the best preserved on the north below the entrances, excavated by Vyse in 1837.

 

The mortar was chemically analyzed and contains organic inclusions (mostly charcoal), samples of which were radiocarbon dated to 2871–2604 BC. It has been theorized that the mortar enabled the masons to set the stones exactly by providing a level bed.

 

The Missing Pyramidion

 

The pyramid was once topped by a capstone known as a pyramidion. The material it was made from is subject to much speculation; limestone, granite or basalt are commonly proposed, while in popular culture it is often said to be solid gold or gilded.

 

All known 4th. dynasty pyramidia (of the Red Pyramid, the Satellite Pyramid of Khufu and the Queen's Pyramid of Menkaure are of white limestone, and were not gilded.

 

Only from the 5th. dynasty onward is there evidence of gilded capstones.

 

The Great Pyramid's pyramidion was already lost in antiquity, as Pliny the Elder and later authors report of a platform on its summit. Nowadays the pyramid is about 8 metres (26 ft) shorter than it was when intact, with about 1,000 tonnes of material missing from the top.

 

In 1874 a mast was installed on the top of the pyramid by the Scottish astronomer Sir David Gill who, whilst returning from work involving observing a rare Venus transit, was invited to survey Egypt. He began by surveying the Great Pyramid.

 

His measurements of the pyramid were accurate to within 1mm, and the survey mast is still in place to this day.

 

Interior of the Great Pyramid

 

The internal structure consists of three main chambers (the King's-, Queen's- and Subterranean Chamber), the Grand Gallery and various corridors and shafts.

 

There are two entrances into the pyramid; the original and a forced passage, which meet at a junction. From there, one passage descends into the Subterranean Chamber, while the other ascends to the Grand Gallery. From the beginning of the gallery three paths can be taken:

 

(a) A vertical shaft that leads down, past a grotto, to meet the descending passage.

 

(b) A horizontal corridor leading to the Queen's Chamber.

 

(c) A path up the gallery itself to the King's Chamber that contains the sarcophagus.

 

Both the King's and Queen's Chamber have a pair of small "air-shafts". Above the King's Chamber are a series of five Relieving Chambers.

 

-- The Original Entrance

 

The original entrance is located on the north side, 15 royal cubits (7.9 m; 25.8 ft) east of the center-line of the pyramid. Before the removal of the casing in the middle ages, the pyramid was entered through a hole in the 19th. layer of masonry, approximately 17 metres (56 ft) above the pyramid's base level.

 

The height of that layer – 96 centimetres (3.15 ft) – corresponds to the size of the entrance tunnel which is commonly called the Descending Passage. According to Strabo (64–24 BC) a movable stone could be raised to enter this sloping corridor, however it is not known if it was a later addition or original.

 

A row of double chevrons diverts weight away from the entrance. Several of these chevron blocks are now missing, as the slanted faces they used to rest on indicate.

 

Numerous, mostly modern, graffiti is cut into the stones around the entrance. Most notable is a large, square text of hieroglyphs carved in honor of Frederick William IV, by Karl Richard Lepsius's Prussian expedition to Egypt in 1842.

 

-- The North Face Corridor

 

In 2016 the ScanPyramids team detected a cavity behind the entrance chevrons using muography, which was confirmed in 2019 to be a corridor at least 5 metres (16 ft) long, running horizontal or sloping upwards. Whether or not it connects to the Big Void above the Grand Gallery remains to be seen.

 

-- The Robbers' Tunnel

 

Today tourists enter the Great Pyramid via the Robbers' Tunnel, which was long ago cut straight through the masonry of the pyramid. The entrance was forced into the 6th. and 7th. layer of the casing, about 7 metres (23 ft) above the base.

 

After running more-or-less straight and horizontal for 27 metres (89 ft) it turns sharply left to encounter the blocking stones in the Ascending Passage. It is possible to enter the Descending Passage from this point, but access is usually forbidden.

 

The origin of this Robbers' Tunnel is the subject of much discussion. According to tradition, the tunnel was excavated around 820 AD by Caliph al-Ma'mun's workmen with a battering ram.

 

The digging dislodged the stone in the ceiling of the Descending Passage which hid the entrance to the Ascending Passage, and the noise of that stone falling then sliding down the Descending Passage alerted them to the need to turn left.

 

Unable to remove these stones, the workmen tunneled up beside them through the softer limestone of the Pyramid until they reached the Ascending Passage.

 

Due to a number of historical and archaeological discrepancies, many scholars contend that this story is apocryphal. They argue that it is much more likely that the tunnel had been carved shortly after the pyramid was initially sealed.

 

This tunnel, the scholars argue, was then resealed (likely during the Ramesside Restoration), and it was this plug that al-Ma'mun's ninth-century expedition cleared away. This theory is furthered by the report of patriarch Dionysius I Telmaharoyo, who claimed that before al-Ma'mun's expedition, there already existed a breach in the pyramid's north face that extended into the structure 33 metres (108 ft) before hitting a dead end.

 

This suggests that some sort of robber's tunnel predated al-Ma'mun, and that the caliph simply enlarged it and cleared it of debris.

 

-- The Descending Passage

 

From the original entrance, a passage descends through the masonry of the pyramid and then into the bedrock beneath it, ultimately leading to the Subterranean Chamber.

 

It has a slanted height of 4 Egyptian feet (1.20 m; 3.9 ft) and a width of 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft). Its angle of 26°26'46" corresponds to a ratio of 1 to 2 (rise over run).

 

After 28 metres (92 ft), the lower end of the Ascending Passage is reached; a square hole in the ceiling, which is blocked by granite stones and might have originally been concealed.

 

To circumvent these hard stones, a short tunnel was excavated that meets the end of the Robbers' Tunnel. This was expanded over time and fitted with stairs.

 

The passage continues to descend for another 72 metres (236 ft), now through bedrock instead of the pyramid superstructure.

 

Lazy guides used to block off this part with rubble in order to avoid having to lead people down and back up the long shaft, until around 1902 when Covington installed a padlocked iron grill-door to stop this practice.

 

Near the end of this section, on the west wall, is the connection to the vertical shaft that leads up to the Grand Gallery.

 

A horizontal shaft connects the end of the Descending Passage to the Subterranean Chamber, It has a length of 8.84 m (29.0 ft), width of 85 cm (2.79 ft) and height of 91–95 cm (2.99–3.12 ft).

 

-- The Subterranean Chamber

 

The Subterranean Chamber, or "Pit", is the lowest of the three main chambers, and the only one dug into the bedrock beneath the pyramid.

 

Located about 27 m (89 ft) below base level, it measures roughly 16 cubits (8.4 m; 27.5 ft) north-south by 27 cubits (14.1 m; 46.4 ft) east-west, with an approximate height of 4 m (13 ft).

 

The western half of the room, apart from the ceiling, is unfinished, with trenches left behind by the quarry-men running east to west. The only access, through the Descending Passage, lies on the eastern end of the north wall.

 

Although seemingly known in antiquity, according to Herodotus and later authors, its existence had been forgotten in the middle ages until rediscovery in 1817, when Giovanni Caviglia cleared the rubble blocking the Descending Passage.

 

Opposite the entrance, a blind corridor runs straight south for 11 m (36 ft) and continues at a slight angle for another 5.4 m (18 ft), measuring about 0.75 m (2.5 ft) squared. A Greek or Roman character was found on its ceiling, suggesting that the chamber had indeed been accessible during Classical antiquity.

 

In the middle of the eastern half, there is a large hole called Pit Shaft or Perring's Shaft. The upmost part may have ancient origins, about 2 m (6.6 ft) squared in width, and 1.5 m (4.9 ft) in depth. Caviglia and Salt enlarged it to the depth of about 3 m (9.8 ft).

 

In 1837 Vyse directed the shaft to be sunk to a depth of 50 ft (15 m), in hopes of discovering the chamber encompassed by water that Herodotus alludes to. However no chamber was discovered after Perring and his workers had spent one and a half years penetrating the bedrock to the then water level of the Nile, some 12 m (39 ft) further down.

 

The rubble produced during this operation was deposited throughout the chamber. Petrie, visiting in 1880, found the shaft to be partially filled with rainwater that had rushed down the Descending Passage. In 1909, when the Edgar brothers' surveying activities were encumbered by the material, they moved the sand and smaller stones back into the shaft. The deep, modern shaft is sometimes mistaken to be part of the original design.

 

-- The Ascending Passage

 

The Ascending Passage connects the Descending Passage to the Grand Gallery. It is 75 cubits (39.3 m; 128.9 ft) long, and of the same width and height as the shaft it originates from, although its angle is slightly lower at 26°6'.

 

The lower end of the shaft is plugged by three granite stones, which were slid down from the Grand Gallery to seal the tunnel. The uppermost stone is heavily damaged.

 

The end of the Robbers' Tunnel concludes slightly below the stones, so a short tunnel was dug around them to gain access to the Descending Passage.

 

-- The Well Shaft and Grotto

 

The Well Shaft (also known as the Service Shaft or Vertical Shaft) links the lower end of the Grand Gallery to the bottom of the Descending Passage, about 50 metres (160 ft) further down.

 

It takes a winding and indirect course. The upper half goes through the nucleus masonry of the pyramid. It runs vertical at first for 8 metres (26 ft), then slightly angled southwards for about the same distance, until it hits bedrock approximately 5.7 metres (19 ft) above the pyramid's base level.

 

Another vertical section descends further, which is partially lined with masonry that has been broken through to a cavity known as the Grotto. The lower half of the Well Shaft goes through the bedrock at an angle of about 45° for 26.5 metres (87 ft) before a steeper section, 9.5 metres (31 ft) long, leads to its lowest point. The final section of 2.6 metres (8.5 ft) connects it to the Descending Passage, running almost horizontal. The builders evidently had trouble aligning the lower exit.

 

The purpose of the shaft is commonly explained as a ventilation shaft for the Subterranean Chamber, and as an escape shaft for the workers who slid the blocking stones of the Ascending Passage into place.

 

The Grotto is a natural limestone cave that was likely filled with sand and gravel before construction, before being hollowed out by looters. A granite block rests in it that probably originated from the portcullis that once sealed the King's Chamber.

 

-- The Queen's Chamber

 

The Horizontal Passage links the Grand Gallery to the Queen's Chamber. Five pairs of holes at the start suggest the tunnel was once concealed with slabs that laid flush with the gallery floor. The passage is 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft) wide and 1.17 m (3.8 ft) high for most of its length, but near the chamber there is a step in the floor, after which the passage increases to 1.68 m (5.5 ft) high.

 

The Queen's Chamber is exactly halfway between the north and south faces of the pyramid. It measures 10 cubits (5.2 m; 17.2 ft) north-south, 11 cubits (5.8 m; 18.9 ft) east-west,[146] and has a pointed roof that apexes at 12 cubits (6.3 m; 20.6 ft) tall.

 

At the eastern end of the chamber there is a niche 9 cubits (4.7 m; 15.5 ft) high. The original depth of the niche was 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft), but it has since been deepened by treasure hunters.

 

Shafts were discovered in the north and south walls of the Queen's Chamber in 1872 by British engineer Waynman Dixon, who believed shafts similar to those in the King's Chamber must also exist. The shafts were not connected to the outer faces of the pyramid, and their purpose is unknown.

 

In one shaft Dixon discovered a ball of diorite, a bronze hook of unknown purpose and a piece of cedar wood. The first two objects are currently in the British Museum. The latter was lost until recently when it was found at the University of Aberdeen.

 

The northern shaft's angle of ascent fluctuates, and at one point turns 45 degrees to avoid the Great Gallery. The southern shaft is perpendicular to the pyramid's slope.

 

The shafts in the Queen's Chamber were explored in 1993 by the German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink using a crawler robot he designed, called Upuaut 2.

 

After a climb of 65 m (213 ft), he discovered that one of the shafts was blocked by a limestone "door" with two eroded copper "handles".

 

The National Geographic Society created a similar robot which, in September 2002, drilled a small hole in the southern door, only to find another stone slab behind it. The northern passage, which was difficult to navigate because of its twists and turns, was also found to be blocked by a slab.

 

Research continued in 2011 with the Djedi Project which used a fibre-optic "micro snake camera" that could see around corners. With this, they were able to penetrate the first door of the southern shaft through the hole drilled in 2002, and view all the sides of the small chamber behind it.

 

They discovered hieroglyphics written in red paint. Egyptian mathematics researcher Luca Miatello stated that the markings read "121" – the length of the shaft in cubits.

 

The Djedi team were also able to scrutinize the inside of the two copper "handles" embedded in the door, which they now believe to be for decorative purposes. They additionally found the reverse side of the "door" to be finished and polished, which suggests that it was not put there just to block the shaft from debris, but rather for a more specific reason.

 

-- The Grand Gallery

 

The Grand Gallery continues the slope of the Ascending Passage towards the King's Chamber, extending from the 23rd. to the 48th. course, a rise of 21 metres (69 ft). It has been praised as a truly spectacular example of stonemasonry.

 

It is 8.6 metres (28 ft) high and 46.68 metres (153.1 ft) long. The base is 4 cubits (2.1 m; 6.9 ft) wide, but after two courses - at a height of 2.29 metres (7.5 ft) - the blocks of stone in the walls are corbelled inwards by 6–10 centimetres (2.4–3.9 in) on each side.

 

There are seven of these steps, so, at the top, the Grand Gallery is only 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft) wide. It is roofed by slabs of stone laid at a slightly steeper angle than the floor so that each stone fits into a slot cut into the top of the gallery, like the teeth of a ratchet.

 

The purpose was to have each block supported by the wall of the Gallery, rather than resting on the block beneath it, in order to prevent cumulative pressure.

 

At the upper end of the Gallery, on the eastern wall, there is a hole near the roof that opens into a short tunnel by which access can be gained to the lowest of the Relieving Chambers.

 

At the top of the gallery, there is a step onto a small horizontal platform where a tunnel leads through the Antechamber, once blocked by portcullis stones, into the King's Chamber.

 

-- The Big Void

 

In 2017, scientists from the ScanPyramids project discovered a large cavity above the Grand Gallery using muon radiography, which they called the "ScanPyramids Big Void". Its length is at least 30 metres (98 ft) and its cross-section is similar to that of the Grand Gallery.

 

The purpose of the cavity is unknown, and it is not accessible. Zahi Hawass speculates that it may have been a gap used in the construction of the Grand Gallery, but the research team state that the void is completely different to previously identified construction spaces.

 

-- The Antechamber

 

The last line of defense against intrusion was a small chamber specially designed to house portcullis blocking stones, called the Antechamber. It is cased almost entirely in granite, and is situated between the upper end of the Grand Gallery and the King's Chamber.

 

Three slots for portcullis stones line the east and west wall of the chamber. Each of them is topped with a semi-circular groove for a log, around which ropes could be spanned.

 

The granite portcullis stones were approximately 1 cubit (52.4 cm; 20.6 in) thick and were lowered into position by the aforementioned ropes which were tied through a series of four holes at the top of the blocks. A corresponding set of four vertical grooves are on the south wall of the chamber, recesses that make space for the ropes.

 

The Antechamber has a design flaw: the space above them can be accessed, thus all but the last block can be circumvented. This was exploited by looters who punched a hole through the ceiling of the tunnel behind, gaining access to the King's Chamber.

 

Later on, all three portcullis stones were broken and removed. Fragments of these blocks can be found in various locations in the pyramid.

 

-- The King's Chamber

 

The King's Chamber is the uppermost of the three main chambers of the pyramid. It is faced entirely with granite, and measures 20 cubits (10.5 m; 34.4 ft) east-west by 10 cubits (5.2 m; 17.2 ft) north-south.

 

Its flat ceiling is about 11 cubits and 5 digits (5.8 m;19.0 ft) above the floor, formed by nine slabs of stone weighing in total about 400 tons. All the roof beams show cracks due to the chamber having settled 2.5–5 cm (0.98–1.97 in).

 

The walls consist of five courses of blocks that are uninscribed, as was the norm for burial chambers of the 4th dynasty. The stones are precisely fitted together. The facing surfaces are dressed to varying degrees, with some displaying remains of bosses not entirely cut away.

 

The back sides of the blocks were only roughly hewn to shape, as was usual with Egyptian hard-stone facade blocks, presumably to save work.

 

-- The Sarcophagus

 

The only object in the King's Chamber is a sarcophagus made out of a single, hollowed-out granite block. When it was rediscovered in the early middle ages, it was found broken open and any contents had already been removed.

 

It is of the form common for early Egyptian sarcophagi; rectangular in shape with grooves to slide the now missing lid into place with three small holes for pegs to fixate it. The coffer was not perfectly smoothed, displaying various tool marks matching those of copper saws and tubular hand-drills.

 

The internal dimensions are roughly 198 cm (6.50 ft) by 68 cm (2.23 feet), the external 228 cm (7.48 ft) by 98 cm (3.22 ft), with a height of 105 cm (3.44 ft). The walls have a thickness of about 15 cm (0.49 ft). The sarcophagus is too large to fit around the corner between the Ascending and Descending Passages, which indicates that it must have been placed in the chamber before the roof was put in place.

 

-- Air Shafts

 

In the north and south walls of the King's Chamber are two narrow shafts, commonly known as "air shafts". They face each other, and are located approximately 0.91 m (3.0 ft) above the floor, with a width of 18 and 21 cm (7.1 and 8.3 in) and a height of 14 cm (5.5 in).

 

Both start out horizontally for the length of the granite blocks they go through before changing to an upwards direction. The southern shaft ascends at an angle of 45° with a slight curve westwards. One ceiling stone was found to be distinctly unfinished which Gantenbrink called a "Monday morning block".

 

The northern shaft changes angle several times, shifting the path to the west, perhaps to avoid the Big Void. The builders had trouble calculating the right angles, resulting in parts of the shaft being narrower. Nowadays they both lead to the exterior. If they originally penetrated the outer casing is unknown.

 

The purpose of these shafts is not clear: They were long believed by Egyptologists to be shafts for ventilation, but this idea has now been widely abandoned in favour of the shafts serving a ritualistic purpose associated with the ascension of the king's spirit to the heavens. Ironically, both shafts were fitted with ventilators in 1992 to reduce the humidity in the pyramid.

 

The idea that the shafts point towards stars has been largely dismissed as the northern shaft follows a dog-leg course through the masonry and the southern shaft has a bend of approximately 20 centimetres (7.9 in), indicating no intention to have them point to any celestial objects.

 

-- The Relieving Chambers

 

Above the roof of the King's Chamber are five compartments, named (from lowest upwards) "Davison's Chamber", "Wellington's Chamber", "Nelson's Chamber", "Lady Arbuthnot's Chamber", and "Campbell's Chamber".

 

They were presumably intended to safeguard the King's Chamber from the possibility of the roof collapsing under the weight of stone above, hence they are referred to as "Relieving Chambers".

 

The granite blocks that divide the chambers have flat bottom sides but roughly shaped top sides, giving all five chambers an irregular floor, but a flat ceiling, with the exception of the uppermost chamber which has a pointed limestone roof.

 

Nathaniel Davison is credited with the discovery of the lowest of these chambers in 1763, although a French merchant named Maynard informed him of its existence. It can be reached through an ancient passage that originates from the top of the south wall of the Grand Gallery.

 

The upper four chambers were discovered in 1837 by Howard Vyse after discovering a crack in the ceiling of the first chamber. This allowed the insertion of a long reed, which, with the employment of gunpowder and boring rods, forced a tunnel upwards through the masonry. As no access shafts existed for the upper four chambers they were completely inaccessible until this point.

 

Numerous graffiti of red ochre paint were found to cover the limestone walls of all four newly discovered chambers. Apart from leveling lines and indication marks for masons, multiple hieroglyphic inscriptions spell out the names of work-gangs.

 

Those names, which were also found in other Egyptian pyramids like that of Menkaure and Sahure, usually included the name of the pharaoh they were working for. The blocks must have received the inscriptions before the chambers became inaccessible during construction.

 

Their orientation, often side-ways or upside down, and their sometimes being partially covered by blocks, indicates that the stones were inscribed before being laid.

I uploaded a previous shot of Syahir, although he was visibly nude in it and, although it wasn't explicit, I didn't want to risk the wrath of the Flickr staff, and so I rated it as "moderate" rather than "safe." Irritated by the consequent inability to submit the photograph to any of my groups, I wanted to upload another so that I could express my thoughts on nude photography to everyone.

 

I must have been 16 when I strolled with feigned nonchalance (ruined by my inability not to turn very red when embarrassed) into the local bookshop to purchase a copy of Taschen's The Male Nude. Nudes, as far as I know and see, tend to fall into one of two catergories: smut, porn, glamour - whatever you call it- or "art", which tends to consist of studio shots of starkly lit parts of the body (and tend to be a bit boring, in my opinion): studies rather than portraits, interested in form rather than personality, light and shape rather than humanity. I would hope that most of my nudes capture personality and humanity without being pornographic, because they were taken, as all my personal work is, as a documentary of my life rather than as some conceit which I wanted to photograph.

 

My work in nudes tends to attract more-than-the-average number of comments, or notably less. Regardless, a huge number of views is always assured. I wonder whether the number of comments and favourites has to do with the perceived sexual attractiveness of the subject: of course there's a bias to be interested in photographs where the subject is sexually attractive, but I also wonder whether straight men (as my nude subjects have so far exclusively been men) are reluctant to comment or favourite because doing so might be seen as an expression of sexual attraction towards the subject rather than an interest in the photography. Or, indeed, whether anyone regardless of gender and preference is reluctant to comment because they don't want to be seen to be interested in "that kind of thing." To my mind, that's a denial of what it is to be a human being, but the former problem is something I understand in the context of my own work, when for whatever reason I have to consider what my best work is and have to separate the attractiveness of the subject from the other merits of the work.

 

I've always been confused by the idea that a naked body is something taboo: to paraphrase a line (I can't remember it exactly) from 30 Rock (the best sitcom I've ever seen): "Don't you know the worst thing you can show on TV is the human body?" It's so funny because it's true, but it also makes me angry. Yes, Janet Jackson has breasts! A $550,000 fine because people saw this to be true!?! Your mother has breasts! You probably wrapped your mouth around them! Even from a young age, when I was allowed to watch extreme violence and swearing on screen, scenes depicting nudity and sex - even the loving, tender kind - were completely off limits.

 

On that note, Gore Vidal was prescient when, in an essay on pornography written decades ago, he suggested that the length of time between first masturbating (and consequently, fantasising) and real sexual experience with another person would directly correlate with the harm to that person's sexual psychology (perhaps he didn't really suggest that, perhaps that's what I took from it.) In any case, I think it's especially true in this day and age, where porn is so readily available. In 99% of the straight porn I've seen, the woman is used and abused: treated like a piece of meat, and this aspect of it is celebrated in its advertising. In a world where TV and film form our ideas of how we should act (see Eco's and Baudrillard's ideas on Hyperreality), porn is generally damaging to a teenager's idea of what sex is and should be, and better that they are naturally and healthily exposed to more loving depictions of sex. I'm aware that in saying this I come as close as I do come to being conservative, saying how things "should" be in what are essentially personal matters, and perhaps I extrapolate too much from personal experience, but I'm too tired to go into all the complexities (this probably already is my longest ever Flickr caption), and I'll welcome discussion in the comments below.

 

"I was afraid because I was naked." (Genesis 3:10) Adam and Eve were happy being naked, and then they ate from the Tree of Knowledge: what did they learn about nakedness? That it was bad? So why was it alright before?

 

I suppose there is a conclusion to my thoughts, but it seems so obvious to me that it's hardly worth saying: there's nothing wrong with naked bodies!

 

(Regarding the $550,000 fine of CBS by the Federal Communications Commission, please see Eric Idle's wonderful song to the FCC: www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4ajZ-5kTXk_

 

Paris, 2010.

Based on the possible year (1971?), appearance of the vehicles & other associated artist’s concepts, I believe this to be a modular space base/station, as part of NASA’s ambitious Integrated Program Plan (IPP) of that time. In support of the above, note the stacked modular components of the possible “Astronomy(?) Module” in the background. Even if not astronomy, it's definitely modular...so I at least got that right.

 

No signature is visible; however, through ignorant & tenuous extrapolation from – once again – other associated concepts, possibly by the hand of Renato Moncini.

 

www.astronautix.com/s/spacebase.html

Credit: Astronautix website

"Mehring an der Mosel is a local community in the Trier-Saarburg district in Rhineland-Palatinate. It belongs to the municipality of Schweich on the Roman Wine Route.

 

Many old settlements on the Moselle are of Roman origin. In addition to the numerous excavation finds from this period, evidence of these roots includes the names of the individual villages and towns. There were often combinations of a Roman male name and the ending iacum, which was common for Gallo-Roman settlements. This suffix was used to name latifundia in Roman Gaul after their first owner. In Mehring's case it was probably a Roman named Marinus. So the original name of the Gallo-Roman settlement may have been Mariniacum. This can be translated as Court of Marinus. The place name “Marningum” appeared for the first time in the 8th century. During the Middle Ages, different spellings appeared. The Prüm Urbar alone has five, including the form “Mehring” for the first time in 1295. However, this spelling only gradually became established from the 16th century onwards. There were deviations from this morphophonemic orthography that is valid today until the 19th century , such as “Mehringk” (1569) or “Mähring” (1805).

 

The “Liber Aureus” of the Benedictine Abbey of Prüm states that Mehring was one of the eleven places in the Rhineland and the Ardennes that King Pippin gave to the monastery as a gift on August 13, 762. By the 9th century at the latest it was the “most important wine town in the Eifel monastery of Prüm”; About a fifth of the wine from the extensive property available to the monastery was produced there. Around 900, the village consisted of two settlement centers of approximately the same size; the wine-growing area was extrapolated to 30 to 33 hectares. The rich surpluses were exchanged for grain, meat and dung. Franz Irsigler assumed a settlement continuity here that goes back to late antiquity.

 

In 1563 Mehring had 99 fireplaces and in 1684 it had 66. In 1787 the town had 671 inhabitants.

 

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Prussian mayor's office of Mehring emerged from the French Mairie Mehring.

 

In the village fire of 1840, 156 of 222 buildings were destroyed. In the course of the reconstruction, the Neu-Mehring colony was created on the right bank of the Moselle.

 

Mehring became a station on the Trier - Bullay Moselle Railway, which opened in 1903/1905 and operated until 1968. In 1903 the Moselle bridge was built and the ferry service was discontinued.

 

In the course of the Moselle canalization from 1963, 73 residential buildings were demolished and by 1967 a new local area was built on the filled dam site.

 

Mosel (German: [ˈmoːzl̩]) is one of 13 German wine regions (Weinbaugebiete) for quality wines (Qualitätswein, formerly QbA and Prädikatswein), and takes its name from the Mosel River (French: Moselle; Luxembourgish: Musel). Before 1 August 2007 the region was called Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, but changed to a name that was considered more consumer-friendly. The wine region is Germany's third largest in terms of production but some consider it the leading region in terms of international prestige.

 

The region covers the valleys of the rivers Mosel, Saar, and Ruwer from near the mouth of the Mosel at Koblenz and upstream to the vicinity of Trier in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The area is known for the steep slopes of the region's vineyards overlooking the river. At 65° degrees incline, the steepest recorded vineyard in the world is the Calmont vineyard located on the Mosel and belonging to the village of Bremm, and therefore referred to as Bremmer Calmont. The Mosel is mainly famous for its wines made from the Riesling grape, but Elbling and Müller-Thurgau also contribute to the production, among others.

 

In the past two decades red wine production, especially from the Spätburgunder (Pinot noir), has increased in the Mosel and throughout the German vignoble and has become of increasing interest to the international wine community. Because of the northerly location of the Mosel, the Riesling wines are often light, tending to lower alcohol, crisp and high in acidity, and often exhibit "flowery" rather than or in addition to "fruity" aromas. Its most common vineyard soil is derived in the main from various kinds of slate deposits, which tend to give the wines a transparent, mineralic aspect, that often exhibit great depth of flavor. In the current era of climate change much work has been done to improve and gain acceptance for completely dry ("Trocken") Rieslings in this region, so that most of the more famous makers have found acceptance for such wines, particularly in Europe." - info from Wikipedia.

 

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

 

Now on Instagram.

 

Become a patron to my photography on Patreon or donate.

Kelowna, near the centre of this map was relatively smoke free at the moment I stopped the animation. The chances of keeping this luck from turning are steadily dwindling....

 

I think the world needs to do a little more extrapolating of many of the trends happening now — both negative and positive — and to try to determine what each and every one of us can do to influence the latter rather than the former! Too preachy? Perhaps, but that's how I feel....

All kinds of activity in lunar orbit.

 

A visual feast, possibly rendered by either Ludwik Źiemba, William Collopy or Anthony Saporito, or some combination thereof.

By extrapolation of other works, possibly on behalf of Lockheed Missiles & Space Company.

Have you been led up the garden path of lies?

 

EVOLUTION .....

What is the truth about Darwinian, progressive (microbes to human) evolution?

Although we are told it is an irrefutable, scientific fact .....

the real fact is, as we will show later, there is no credible mechanism for such progressive evolution.

 

So what was the evolutionary idea that Darwin popularised?

Put simply ...

Darwin believed that there was unlimited variability in the gene pool of all living things, which would enable the transformation of the first, self-replicating, living cell, through many years of natural selection, into every living thing, including humans.

However, the changes possible were well known by selective breeders to be strictly limited.

 

This is because the changes seen in selective breeding are due to the shuffling, deletion and emphasis of genetic information already existing in the gene pool (micro-evolution). There is no viable mechanism for creating new, beneficial, genetic information required to create entirely new body parts ... anatomical structures, biological systems, organs etc. (macro-evolution).

 

Darwin rashly ignored the limits which were well known to breeders (even though he selectively bred pigeons himself, and should have known better). He simply extrapolated the strictly limited, minor changes observed in selective breeding to major, unlimited, progressive changes able to create new structures, organs etc. through natural selection, over an alleged, multi-million year timescale.

 

Of course, the length of time involved made no difference, the existing, genetic information could not increase of its own accord, no matter how long the timescale. Selection, natural or otherwise, doesn’t create any new, genetic information. It merely ‘selects’ from that which already exists.

 

That was a gigantic flaw in Darwinism, and opponents of Darwin's ideas tried to argue that changes were limited, as selective breeding had demonstrated. But because Darwinism had acquired a status more akin to an ideology than purely, objective science, belief in the Darwinian idea outweighed the verdict of observational and experimental science, and classical Darwinism became firmly established as scientific orthodoxy for nearly a century.

 

Opponents continued to argue all this time, that Darwinism was unscientific nonsense, but they were ostracised and dismissed as cranks, weirdoes or religious fanatics.

 

Finally however, it was discovered that the opponents of Darwin were perfectly correct - and that constructive, genetic changes (progressive, macro-evolution) require new, genetic information.

 

This looked like the ignominious end of Darwinism, as there was no credible, natural mechanism able to create new, constructive, genetic information. And Darwinism should have been heading for the dustbin of history,

 

However, rather than ditch the whole idea, because the vested interests in Darwinism had become so great, with numerous, lifelong careers and a naturalistic ideology entirely dependant on the Darwinian belief system, a desperate attempt was made to rescue it from its justified demise.

 

A mechanism had to be invented to explain the origin of new, constructive information.

 

That invented mechanism was 'mutations'. Mutations are ... literally, genetic, copying MISTAKES.

 

The general public had already been convinced that classical Darwinism was a scientific fact, and that anyone who questioned it was a crank. So, all that had to be done, as far as the public was concerned, was to give the impression that the theory had simply been refined and updated in the light of modern science.

 

The fact that classical Darwinism had been wrong all along, and was fatally flawed from the outset was kept quiet. This meant that the opponents of Darwinism, who had been right all along, and were the real champions of science, continued to be vilified as cranks and scorned by the mass media and establishment.

 

The new developments were simply portrayed as the evolution and development of the theory. The impression was given that there was nothing wrong with the idea of progressive (macro) evolution, it had simply 'evolved' and 'improved' in the light of greater knowledge.

 

A sort of progressive evolution of the idea of evolution.

 

This new, 'improved' Darwinism became known as Neo-Darwinism.

 

So what is Neo-Darwinism? And did it really solve the fatal flaws of the Darwinian idea?

 

Neo Darwinism is progressive, macro evolution - as Darwin had proposed, but based on the ludicrous idea that random mutations (accidental, genetic, copying mistakes) favoured by natural selection, can provide the constructive, genetic information capable of creating entirely new features, anatomical structures, organs, and biological systems. In other words, it is macro-evolution based on a belief in the total progress from microbes to human through billions of random, genetic, copying MISTAKES, over millions of years.

 

However, there is no evidence for it whatsoever. It should be recognised as unscientific nonsense which defies logic, the laws of probability and Information Theory.

 

Sometimes people are confused, because they know that 'micro'-evolution is an observable fact, which everyone accepts. It is a disgrace that evolutionists cynically exploit that confusion by citing obvious examples of micro-evolution, such as: the Peppered Moth, Darwin's finches, so-called superbugs etc., as evidence of macro-evolution.

 

Of course, such examples are not evidence of macro-evolution at all. The public is being hoodwinked and lied to, and it is a disgrace to science. There are no observable examples or evidence of macro-evolution and no examples of a mutation, or a series of mutations capable of creating new anatomical structures, organs etc. and that is a fact. It is no wonder that W R Thompson stated in the preface to the 1959 centenary edition of Darwin's Origin of the Species, that ... the success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity.

 

Micro-evolution is simply the small changes which take place, through natural selection or selective breeding, but only within the strict limits of the existing variability of the gene pool. Any constructive changes outside the extent of the existing, gene pool requires a credible mechanism for the creation of new, beneficial, genetic information. That is essential for macro evolution.

 

Micro evolution does not involve or require the creation of any new, genetic information. So micro evolution and macro evolution are entirely different things. There is no connection between them at all, whatever evolutionists may claim. Micro evolution is an observable fact. Macro evolution is an invented mechanism based on unsubstantiated assumptions.

 

Once people fully understand that the differences they see in various dogs breeds, for example, are merely an example of limited micro-evolution (selection of existing genetic information) and nothing to do with progressive macro-evolution, they begin to realise that they have been fed an incredible story.

A dog will always remain a dog, it can never be selectively bred into some other creature, the extent of variation is constrained by the limitations of the existing, genetic information in the gene pool of the dog genus, and evolutionists know that.

 

To explain further.... Neo-Darwinian, macro evolution is the ridiculous idea that everything in the genome of humans and every living thing past and present (apart from the original genetic information in the very first living cell) is the result of the accumulation of billions of genetic, copying mistakes..... an incredibly long, incremental line of mutations. Mutations built upon previous mutations ... on, and on and on.

 

In other words, Neo-Darwinism proposes that the complete genome (every scrap of genetic information in the DNA) of every living thing that has ever lived was created by a long accumulation of mistakes ... mistakes added to previous mistakes. Mistakes of mistakes, of mistakes, billions of times over.

 

If we look at the whole picture we soon realise that what is actually being proposed by evolutionists is that, apart from the original information in the first living cell (and evolutionists have yet to explain how that original information magically arose?) - every additional scrap of genetic information for all - the biological features, anatomical structures, systems and processes that exist, or have ever existed in living things, such as:

skin, bones, bone joints, shells, flowers, leaves, wings, scales, muscles, fur, hair, teeth, claws, toe and finger nails, horns, beaks, nervous systems, blood, blood vessels, brains, lungs, hearts, digestive systems, vascular systems, liver, kidneys, pancreas, bowels, immune systems, senses, eyes, ears, sex organs, sexual reproduction, sperm, eggs, pollen, the process of metamorphosis, marsupial pouches, marsupial embryo migration, mammary glands, hormone production, melanin etc. .... have been created from scratch, by an incredibly long series of small, accumulated mistakes.

That is ... every body part, system and process of all living things are the result of literally billions of genetic MISTAKES accumulated over many millions of years. Which means the complete genome of every living thing is one, MASSIVE MISTAKE. Wow! And they call that science?

 

What we are being asked to believe is that something like a vascular system, or reproductive organs, developed in small, random, incremental steps, with every step being the result of a copying mistake, and with each step being able to provide a significant survival or reproductive advantage in order to be preserved and become dominant in the gene pool. Incredible!

 

If you believe that ... you will believe anything.

 

Even worse, evolutionists have yet to cite a single example of a positive, beneficial, mutation which adds constructive information to the genome of any creature. Yet they expect us to believe that we have been converted from an original, single living cell into humans by an accumulation of billions of beneficial mutations (mistakes).

 

Conclusion:

Progressive, microbes-to-man evolution is impossible - there is no credible mechanism to produce all the new, genetic information which is essential for that to take place.

 

The evolution story is an obvious, fairy tale, cynically presented as scientific fact.

 

However, nothing has changed - those who dare to question Neo-Darwinism are still portrayed as idiots, retards, cranks, weirdoes, anti-scientific ignoramuses or religious fanatics.

 

Want to join the club?

 

What about the fossil record?

 

The formation of fossils.

Books explaining how fossils are formed frequently give the impression that it takes many years of build up of layers of sediment to bury organic remains, which then become fossilised.

 

Therefore many people don't realise that this impression is erroneous, because it is a fact that all good, intact fossils require rapid burial in sufficient sediment to prevent decay or predatory destruction.

 

So it is evident that rock containing good, undamaged fossils was laid down rapidly, sometimes in catastrophic conditions.

 

The very existence of intact fossils is a testament to rapid burial and sedimentation.

 

You don't get fossils from slow burial. Organic remains don't just sit around on the sea bed, or elsewhere, waiting for sediment to cover them a millimetre at a time, over a long period.

 

Unless they are buried rapidly, they would soon be damaged or destroyed by predation and/or decay.

 

The fact that so many sedimentary rocks contain fossils, indicates that the sediment that created them was normally laid down within a short time.

 

Another important factor is that many large fossils (tree trunks, large fish, dinosaurs etc.) intersect several or many strata (sometimes called layers) which clearly indicates that multiple strata were formed simultaneously in a single event by grading/segregation of sedimentary particles into distinct layers, and not stratum by stratum over long periods of time or different geological eras, which is the evolutionist's, uniformitarian interpretation of the geological column.

 

In view of the fact that many large fossils required a substantial amount of sediment to bury them, and the fact that they intersect multiple strata (polystrate fossils), how can any sensible person claim that strata or, for that matter, any fossil bearing rock, could have taken millions of years to form?

What do laboratory experiments and field studies of recent, sedimentation events show? sedimentology.fr/

 

You don't even need to be a qualified sedimentologist or geologist to come to that conclusion, it is common sense.

 

Rapid formation of strata - some recent, field evidence:

www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157635944904973/

 

All creatures and plants alive today, which are found as fossils, are the same in their fossil form as the living examples, in spite of the fact that the fossils are claimed to be millions of years old. So all living things today could be called 'living fossils' inasmuch as there is no evidence of any evolutionary changes in the alleged multi-million year timescale. The fossil record shows either extinct species or unchanged species, that is all.

When no evidence is cited as evidence:

www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/15157133658

 

The Cambrian Explosion.

Trilobites and other many creatures appeared suddenly in some of the earliest rocks of the fossil record, with no intermediate ancestors. This sudden appearance of a great variety of advanced, fully developed creatures is called the Cambrian Explosion. Trilobites are especially interesting because they have complex eyes, which would need a lot of progressive evolution to develop such advanced features However, there is no evidence of any evolution leading up to the Cambrian Explosion, and that is a serious dilemma for evolutionists.

 

Trilobites are now thought to be extinct, although it is possible that similar creatures could still exist in unexplored parts of deep oceans.

 

See fossil of a crab unchanged after many millions of years:

www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/12702046604/in/set-72...

 

Fossil museum: www.flickr.com/photos/101536517@N06/sets/72157641367196613/

 

What about all the claimed scientific evidence that evolutionists have found for evolution?

The evolutionist 'scientific' method has resulted in a serious decline in scientific integrity, and has given us such scientific abominations as:

 

Piltdown Man (a fake),

 

Nebraska Man (a pig),

 

South West Colorado Man (a horse),

 

Orce man (a donkey),

 

Embryonic Recapitulation (a fraud),

 

Archaeoraptor (a fake),

 

Java Man (a giant gibbon),

 

Peking Man (a monkey),

 

Montana Man (an extinct dog-like creature)

 

Nutcracker Man (an extinct type of ape - Australopithecus)

 

The Horse Series (unrelated species cobbled together),

 

Peppered Moth (faked photographs)

 

The Orgueil meteorite (faked evidence)

 

Etc. etc.

 

Anyone can call anything 'science' ... it doesn't make it so.

 

All these examples were trumpeted by evolutionists as scientific evidence for evolution.

 

Do we want to trust evolutionists claims about scientific evidence, when they have such an appalling record?

 

Just how good are peer reviews of scientific papers?

www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

 

Want to publish a science paper?

www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7036/full/nature03653...

 

www.nature.com/news/publishers-withdraw-more-than-120-gib...

 

Piltdown Man and Nebraska Man were even used in the famous, Scopes Trial as positive evidence for evolution.

 

Piltdown Man reigned for over 40 years, as a supreme example of human evolution, before it was exposed as a crudely, fashioned fake.

 

Is that 'science'?

 

The ludicrous Hopeful Monster Theory and so-called Punctuated Equilibrium (evolution in big jumps) were invented by evolutionists as a desperate attempt to explain away the lack of fossil evidence for evolution. They are proposed methods of evolution which, it is claimed, need no fossil evidence. They are actually an admission that the required fossil evidence does not exist.

 

Piltdown Man... it survived as alleged proof of evolution for over 40 years in evolution textbooks and was taught in schools and universities, it survived peer reviews etc. and was used as supposed irrefutable evidence for evolution at the famous Scopes Trial..

_____________________________________________

A pig, a horse and a donkey!

 

The pig ....

Nebraska Man, this was a single tooth of a peccary. it was trumpeted as scientific evidence for the evolution of humans. Highly imaginative artists impressions of an ape-like man appeared in newspapers magazines etc.

Having been 'discovered' 3 years prior to the Scopes Trial, it was resurrected, and given renewed publicity, shortly before the trial - presumably, in order to influence the trial and convince the public of the scientific evidence for evolution.. Such 'scientific' evidence is enough to make any genuine, respectable scientist weep.

 

The horse ....

South West Colorado Man, another tooth .... of a horse this time... also presented as scientific evidence for human evolution.

 

The donkey ....

Orce man, loudly proclaimed by evolutionists to be scientific evidence of an early hominid, based on the discovery of a tiny fragment of skullcap. This is now believed to have most likely come from a donkey, but even if it was human. such a tiny fragment is certainly not any evidence of human evolution, as it was claimed. A symposium which had been planned to discuss this alleged human 'missing link' had to be embarrassingly cancelled when it was identified as being very similar to a donkey skull.

_________________________________________

 

Embryonic Recapitulation, the evolutionist zealot Ernst Haeckel (who was a hero of Hitler) published fraudulent drawings of embryos and his theory was readily accepted by evolutionists as proof of evolution. Even after he was exposed as a fraudster, evolutionists still continued to use his fraudulent evidence in books and publications on evolution, including school textbooks, until very recently.

 

Archaeoraptor, A so-called feathered dinosaur from the Chinese fossil faking industry. It managed to fool credulous evolutionists, because it was exactly what they were looking for. The evidence fitted the wishful thinking.

 

Java Man, Dubois, the man who discovered Java Man and declared it a human ancestor ..... admitted much later that it was actually a giant gibbon, however, that spoilt the evolution story which had been built up around it, so evolutionists were reluctant to get rid of it, and still maintained it was a human ancestor. Dubois had also 'forgotten' to mention that he found the bones of modern humans at the same site.

 

Peking Man, made up from monkey skulls which were found in an ancient limestone burning industrial site where there were crushed monkey skulls and modern human bones. Drawings were made of Peking Man, but the original skull conveniently disappeared. So that allowed evolutionists to continue to use it as evidence without fear of it ever being debunked.

 

The Horse Series, unrelated species cobbled together, They were from different continents and were in no way a proper series of intermediates, They had different numbers of ribs etc. and the very first in the line, is similar to a creature alive today - the Hyrax.

 

Peppered Moth, moths were glued to trees to fake photographs for the peppered moth evidence. They don't normally rest on trees in daytime. In any case, the selection of a trait which is part of the variability of the existing gene pool, is not progressive evolution. It is just normal, natural selection within limits, which no-one disputes.

 

The Orgueil meteorite, organic material and even plant seeds were embedded and glued into the Orgueil meteorite and disguised with coal dust to make them look like part of the original meteorite, in a fraudulent attempt to fool the world into believing in the discredited idea of spontaneous generation of life, which is essential for progressive evolution to get started. The reasoning being that, if it could be shown that there was life in space, spontaneous generation must have happened there and could therefore be declared by evolutionists as being a scientific fact.

 

Is macro evolution even science? The answer to that has to be an emphatic - NO!

 

The usual definition of science is: that which can be demonstrated and observed and repeated. Evolution cannot be proved, or tested; it is claimed to have happened in the past, and, as such, it is not subject to the scientific method. It is merely a belief.

 

Of course, there is nothing wrong with having beliefs, especially if there is a wealth of evidence to support them, but they should not be presented as scientific fact. As we have shown, in the case of progressive evolution, there is a wealth of evidence against it. Nevertheless, we are told by evolutionist zealots that microbes to man evolution is a fact and likewise the spontaneous generation of life from sterile matter. They are deliberately misleading the public on both counts. Evolution is not only not a fact, it is not even proper science.

 

You don't need a degree in rocket science to understand that Darwinism has damaged and undermined science.

However, what does the world's, most famous, rocket scientist (the father of modern rocket science) have to say?

 

Wernher von Braun (1912 – 1977) PhD Aerospace Engineering

 

"In recent years, there has been a disturbing trend toward scientific dogmatism in some areas of science. Pronouncements by notable scientists and scientific organizations about "only one scientifically acceptable explanation" for events which are clearly outside the domain of science -- like all origins are -- can only destroy the curiosity of those who must carry on the future work of science. Humility, a seemingly natural product of studying nature, appears to have largely disappeared -- at least its visibility is clouded from the public's viewpoint.

 

Extrapolation backward in time until there are no physical artifacts of certainty that can be examined, requires sophisticated guessing which scientists prefer to refer to as "inference." Since hypotheses, a product of scientific inference, are virtually the stuff that comprises the cutting edge of scientific progress, inference must constantly be nurtured. However, the enthusiasm that encourages inference must be matched in degree with caution that clearly differentiates inference from what the public so readily accepts as "scientific fact." Failure to keep these two factors in balance can lead either to a sterile or a seduced science. 'Science but not Scientists' (2006) p.xi"

 

And the eminent scientist, William Robin Thompson (1887 - 1972) Entomologist and Director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, Ottawa, Canada, who was asked to write the introduction of the centenary edition of Darwin's 'Origin', wrote:

 

"The concept of organic Evolution is very highly prized by biologists, for many of whom it is an object of genuinely religious devotion, because they regard it as a supreme integrative principle. This is probably the reason why the severe methodological criticism employed in other departments of biology has not yet been brought to bear against evolutionary speculation." 'Science and Common Sense' (1937) p.229

 

“As we know, there is a great divergence of opinion among biologists … because the evidence is unsatisfactory and does not permit any certain conclusion. It is therefore right and proper to draw the attention of the non-scientific public to the disagreements about evolution. But some recent remarks of evolutionists show that they think this unreasonable ......

This situation, where scientific men rally to the defence of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigor, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and unwise in science.”

 

Prof. W. R. Thompson, F.R.S., introduction to the 1956 edition of Darwin's 'Origin of the Species'

 

"When I was asked to write an introduction replacing the one prepared a quarter of a century ago by the distinguished Darwinian, Sir Anthony Keith [one of the "discoverers" of Piltdown Man], I felt extremely hesitant to accept the invitation . . I am not satisfied that Darwin proved his point or that his influence in scientific and public thinking has been beneficial. If arguments fail to resist analysis, consent should be withheld and a wholesale conversion due to unsound argument must be regarded as deplorable. He fell back on speculative arguments."

 

"He merely showed, on the basis of certain facts and assumptions, how this might have happened, and as he had convinced himself he was able to convince others."

 

"But the facts and interpretations on which Darwin relied have now ceased to convince."

 

"This general tendency to eliminate, by means of unverifiable speculations, the limits of the categories Nature presents to us is the inheritance of biology from The Origin of Species. To establish the continuity required by the theory, historical arguments are invoked, even though historical evidence is lacking. Thus are engendered those fragile towers of hypothesis based on hypothesis, where fact and fiction intermingle in an inextricable confusion."—*W.R. Thompson, "Introduction," to Everyman’s Library issue of Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (1958 edition).

 

"The evolution theory can by no means be regarded as an innocuous natural philosophy, but rather is a serious obstruction to biological research. It obstructs—as has been repeatedly shown—the attainment of consistent results, even from uniform experimental material. For everything must ultimately be forced to fit this theory. An exact biology cannot, therefore, be built up."—*H. Neilsson, Synthetische Artbildng, 1954, p. 11

 

www.trueorigin.org/

 

Berkeley University law professor, Philip Johnson, makes the following points: “(1) Evolution is grounded not on scientific fact, but on a philosophical belief called naturalism; (2) the belief that a large body of empirical evidence supports evolution is an illusion; (3) evolution is itself a religion; and, (4) if evolution were a scientific hypothesis based on rigorous study of the evidence, it would have been abandoned long ago.”

 

Dr James Tour - 'The Origin of Life' - Abiogenesis decisively refuted.

youtu.be/B1E4QMn2mxk

  

To end with a more jocular quote, it has been said that:

"If Classical Darwinism is evolution by creeps and punctuated equilibrium is evolution by jerks, then neo Darwinism is evolution by freaks".

 

The real theory of everything

www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/34295660211

(I think) within, or as an evolution of NASA’s grand/grandiose “Integrated Program Plan”, incorporating the modularized multi-purpose “Space Tug” concept, a Lunar Surface Base is depicted in this possible 1971 artist’s concept.

The habitable shirtsleeve-environment module is in the foreground, with a/the cargo lander variant in the background. Further to the left is a cargo module, emplaced/partially buried along/within the ridge of the small lunar graben/rille(?). Behind the cargo module is a lunar drill. The lunar rover is of course, self-evident.

 

Artist unknown. Albert Lane maybe? Renato Moncini? Likely never to be determined? Yeah, that sounds about right.

 

A variant, and if the hand-annotated identification/year extrapolation is correct, a/the possible precursor of this depiction is featured as Figure 29 within the following document:

 

ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19700026519

 

Many wonderful artist’s concepts within the above can be found all over the place, with very little rhyme or reason actually. But hey, at least they’re out there.

 

The “Integrated Program Plan”. If you can’t trust David S. F. Portree, who can you trust WRT this stuff:

 

spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2016/01/thinking-big-traf...

Credit: David S. F. Portree/”No Shortage of Dreams” blogspot

This is just a little set of photos (24, I think) not exactly a real "project" and very little thought went into the compiling, sequencing, whatever, editing of the images. Just a quickie while avoiding anything of substance. Please do not try to extrapolate any deeper meaning or higher concept. There is very little here. With that said, enjoy the show.

Humanity and architecture are not invariable, both are no longer part of a place, both mutate over time, their bodies and their souls are transformed according to need and function, their shape and size dimensions. skins reflect images and inspire ideas. Both are actors engaged in the perverse game of iconicism and symbolism. Both are dependent on the "star system", "reality TV", instant news, global communication.

It is for this reason that architecture and communication are in my eyes the main pillars of the globalized world. Both "format" the human environment, material and virtual, they allow him to be Present "here and now": a deterritorialized "here" and a timeless "now". Architecture becomes sign, icon, symbol, "a phenomenological consideration of our architectural relationship suggests to us that normally we enjoy architecture as a fact of communication even without excluding functionality" functionality which would in a way become a " second function ”from the point of view of communication according to the precepts of Eco (Eco, 1972).

 

The identity issue is far-reaching, amplified by the search for the “sensational” both among decision-makers caught up in the globalized trend and in search of recognition, and among promoters seeking to dazzle customers bewitched by the proliferation of forms that “ take your breath away ”. The architectures therefore become more and more "stimulating objects" which stand out and mark the place by their too powerful presence.

 

This tendency which makes architecture "the stimulating object" and not "a preparatory stimulus which replaces the stimulating object" 16 increases tenfold the impact of its "presence" which becomes almost hegemonic in its communicative approaches to a certain culture (or civilization to use the terms linked to the September 11, 2001 clash). This brings us back to the days of absolutism, or of the conquerors of past centuries, who replaced the culture of the place with their own. At this level, the possible damage incurred in new towns without an urban past is not enormous, but in memorial towns such as Beirut the impact is severe, both historically and from a socio-cultural point of view.

 

In the tumultuous framework of contemporary architecture where the race for "signatures" is becoming an important, if not essential, paradigm of presence on the map of a world that is excessively globalizing, there are many examples. From Asian metropolises suffering from suffocating overcrowding to emerging desert cities whose supply outrageously exceeds demand, examples of image and message architecture abound. What is the impact of place and history on these global cities? Some of these cities have been involved in the race since the creation of the phenomenon, and the impact of ancient history and the original place is no longer real: a new urban layer has formed erasing the previous ones or the original ones. relegating to the level of the “historic basement”. While other cities (emerging from the desert) are in a non-place, an immense void without history or architectural identity of their own, which brings us back to a simple observation: an abundance of parachuted architectural objects which “fill” a space. more or less vast, like a large display of masterpieces. It’s like a permanent universal exhibition.

 

By questioning Architecture through different examples and periods up to our contemporary world, we obtain many answers to existential questions that seem enigmatic to us. The phenomenon of communication or expression through architecture is not independent of the antagonism that led to the clash of civilizations. Through its Presence, architecture configures the world of man, responding to his material needs, but also to his aspirations, dreams and ideals. She carries her Ideas within her, reflects her "vision" or her images and communicates her Messages. It contributes to enchantment by building a new world. But she can also destroy it by assaulting her senses and polluting her minds with the ideas she reflects.

The architectural work also marks the place through its presence, it stigmatizes it and becomes a symbol or image, landmark, milestone in an international journey that takes on the aspect of a challenge, seeing a new war of power through emblematic buildings. This architecture which we call “Landmark” becomes an essential paradigm of presence and mutation. Its essential mission is to be beyond the instrument, an ever more innovative precept of communication. Architecture, through this new dimension, becomes an inescapable factor of stability and continuation of the world. A conveyor of the future not just a mirror of the past. But what future is it all about? What is the Image of this new world

that we that we create? This constructed world takes into account the "genius of the place ”of its identity, its history or are we transforming. . .”Our physical environment in a kind of constipated void devoid of meaning”

 

Architecture thereby becomes a major and main instrument of presence and communication of these cities to plural societies. The identification with these cities and the values ​​they carry become universal. They are the cities par excellence of a globalized world where each inhabitant identifies with them regardless of their origins and identity. The architect is not required to respect a history or a "genius of the place" he must only make an object that fits in with contemporaneity juggling with materials and technology to meet new challenges: those of communicating and to communicate through an Architecture that makes people talk about it. In this game of "universal cities" there is no longer any place for indigenous cultures or identities which must necessarily come to terms with the idea of ​​having to transform into citizens of the world, deny their own identity for the benefit of a globality. conqueror, to blend into the image of a universalized world, to ensure their presence in their own city which is no longer theirs since they no longer identify with it. The architect himself imposes his signature by marking a place often taking into account only the criteria of overall architecture. By this fact he imposes (in conjunction with the client, the promoter, and socio-political bodies) his ideas, his image and his communication, but his architecture juxtaposed to that of his colleague does not have the same presence as only object if she was alone. Ideas, Images and communication thereby create a polyphony which can become quite confusing. As at the time of the creation of the Manhattan district, each one will go further and higher, downgrading his neighbor even before his work-challenge is completed.

 

The antithesis would obviously be the city that develops on the basis of the criteria of identity and values ​​specific to the place. Contemporary architecture is in line with the idea of ​​continuation and images that integrate without creating a break between the past, the present and the future. The new therefore adapts to the old while remaining faithful to the precepts of contemporary architecture in terms of both function and form and new technologies. The architecture that takes root in the place marks it with its presence, but taking care not to distort it. The "brand" is not meant to be a wound but a signature, a variation on the theme, an inscription in today's world. With this in mind, the architect tries to find a way to get the place out of its rigid anchorage to the world of today. Its architecture communicates through its ability to be a link, a window on the contemporary world. A kind of mistrust, against architecture, modern imbued with the old, or the opposite. But this gymnastics is only done within the “intramural” framework of towns with a strong historical character. We cannot generalize it and extrapolate it to “character” cities that are trying to become emerging landmarks in the contemporary world. In other words, these cities cannot become global because they are too steeped in local culture. A citizen of the globalized world cannot identify with it, it is the place of change of scenery to ways of excellencies.

On another experimental foray, but with 35mm Arista and use of Rodinal followed by Xtol. Not alot of experience using this film with different developers so had to do some extrapolation. Unfortunately, freezing rain, overcast skies, and temps below 20 degrees F made it more challenging. I did appreciate more sharpness with this combo, but can't really tell about dynamic range given the blah weather. Thanks for the continued inspiration from my fellow flickeranians. Be safe out there.

CROP_ Domingo Milella, Kodak Portra 160 NC 8x10".

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Image acquisition by the drum scanner is optically similar to using a microscopic lens that scans the image point by point with extreme precision and without deformation or distortion of any kind, while other scanners use enlarger lenses (such as the Rodenstock-Linos Magnagon 75mm f8 used in the Hasselblad-Imacon scanners) and have transmission systems with rubber bands: this involves mild but effective micro-strain and micro-geometric image distortions and quality is not uniform between the center and edges.

Drum scanners are exempt from problems of flatness of the originals, since the same are mounted on a perfectly balanced transparent acrylic drum; on the contrary, the dedicated film scanners that scan slides or negatives in their plastic frames are subject to quite significant inaccuracies, as well as the Imacon-Hasselblad scanners, which have their own rubber and plastic holders: they do not guarantee the perfect flatness of the original and therefore a uniform definition between center and edge, especially with medium and large size originals, which instead are guaranteed by drum scanners.

Again, drum scanners allow scanning at high resolution over the entire surface of the cylinder, while for example the Hasselblad Imacon scans are limited to 3200 dpi in 120 format and 2000 dpi in 4x5" format (the resolution of nearly every CCD scanner in the market drops as the size of the original scanned is increased).

Drum scanners allow complete scanning of the whole negative, including the black-orange mask, perforations etc, while using many other scanners a certain percentage of the image is lost because it is covered by frames or holders.

Drum scanners use photomultiplier tubes to record the light signal, which are much more sensitive than CCDs and can record many more nuances and variations in contrast with a lower digital noise.

If you look at a monitor at 100% the detail in shadows and darker areas of a scan made with a CCD scanner, you will notice that the details are not recorded in a clear and clean way, and the colors are more opaque and less differentiated. Additionally the overall tones are much less rich and differentiated.

  

We would like to say a few words about an unscrupulous and deceitful use of technical specifications reported by many manufacturers of consumer and prosumer scanners; very often we read of scanners that promise cheap or relatively cheap “drum scanner” resolutions, 16 bits of color depth, extremely high DMAX: we would like to say that these “nominal” resolutions do not correspond to an actual optical resolution, so that even in low-resolution scanning you can see an enormous gap between drum scanners and these scanners in terms of detail, as well as in terms of DMAX, color range, realism, “quality” of grain. So very often when using these consumer-prosumer scanners at high resolutions, it is normal to get a disproportionate increase of file size in MB but not an increase of detail and quality.

To give a concrete example: a drum scan of a 24x36mm color negative film at 3500 dpi is much more defined than a scan made with mostly CCD scanner at 8000 dpi and a drum scan at 2500 dpi is dramatically clearer than a scan at 2500 dpi provided by a CCD scanner. So be aware and careful with incorrect advertisement.

  

Scans can be performed either dry or liquid-mounted. The wet mounting further improves cleanliness (helps to hide dirt, scratches and blemishes) and plasticity of the image without compromising the original, and in addition by mounting with liquid the film grain is greatly reduced and it looks much softer and more pleasant than the usual "harsh" grain resulting from dry scans.

  

We use Kami SMF 2001 liquid to mount the transparencies and Kami RC 2001 for cleaning the same. Kami SMF 2001 evaporates without leaving traces, unlike the traditional oil scans, ensuring maximum protection for your film. Out of ignorance some people prefer to avoid liquid scanning because they fear that their films will be dirty or damaged: this argument may be plausible only in reference to scans made using mineral oils, which have nothing to do with the specific professional products we use.

We strongly reiterate that your original is in no way compromised by our scanning liquid and will return as you have shipped it, if not cleaner.

  

With respect to scanning from slides:

Our scanners are carefully calibrated with the finest IT8 calibration targets in circulation and with special customized targets in order to ensure that each scan faithfully reproduces the original color richness even in the most subtle nuances, opening and maintaining detail in shadows and highlights. These color profiles allow our scanners to realize their full potential, so we guarantee our customers that even from a chromatic point of view our scans are noticeably better than similar scans made by mostly other scan services in the market.

In addition, we remind you that our 8060 drum scanner is able to read the deepest shadows of slides without digital noise and with much more detail than CCD scanners; also, the color range and color realism are far better.

  

With respect to scanning from color and bw negatives: we want to emphasize the superiority of our drum scans not only in scanning slides, but also in color and bw negative scanning (because of the orange mask and of very low contrast is extremely difficult for any ccd scanner to read the very slight tonal and contrast nuances in the color negative, while a perfectly profiled 8060 drum scanner – also through the analog gain/white calibration - can give back much more realistic images and true colors, sharper and more three-dimensional).

  

In spite of what many claim, a meticulous color profiling is essential not only for scanning slides, but also, and even more, for color negatives. Without it the scan of a color negative will produce chromatic errors rather significant, thus affecting the tonal balance and then the naturalness-pleasantness of the images.

  

More unique than rare, we do not use standardized profiles provided by the software to invert each specific negative film, because they do not take into account parameters and variables such as the type of development, the level of exposure, the type of light etc.,; at the same time we also avoid systems of "artificial intelligence" or other functions provided by semi-automatic scanning softwares, but instead we carry out the inversion in a full manual workflow for each individual picture.

  

In addition, scanning with Imacon-Hasselblad scanners we do not use their proprietary software - Flexcolor – to make color management and color inversion because we strongly believe that our alternative workflow provides much better results, and we are able to prove it with absolute clarity.

  

At each stage of the process we take care of meticulously adjusting the scanning parameters to the characteristics of the originals, to extrapolate the whole range of information possible from any image without "burning" or reductions in the tonal range, and strictly according to our customer's need and taste.

  

By default, we do not apply unsharp mask (USM) in our scans, except on request.

  

To scan reflective originals we follow the same guidelines and guarantee the same quality standard.

  

We guarantee the utmost thoroughness and expertise in the work of scanning and handling of the originals and we provide scans up to 12,000 dpi of resolution, at 16-bit, in RGB, GRAYSCALE, LAB or CMYK color mode; unless otherwise indicated, files are saved with Adobe RGB 1998 or ProPhoto RGB color profile.

  

WWW.CASTORSCAN.COM

Agfaphoto APX400 @ 1066 ISO (D76 dev), F3 (recalibrated +1EV), 50mm/f1.4 (shot at f/16) gradient filter.

 

Pushing APX400 to 1066 wasn't trivial, I extrapolated the development time from available data and gave it a shot using D76. Think I got it right:)

 

Near Ujazd, a small Polish town that suffered 70% destruction in WW2, there stood a picturesque old manor I loved photographing. Recently, it was razed to the ground. So while passing the grounds on a freezing (-15C) morning, the view previously blocked by the house was open, and here's what I saw!

Paper print scan (foma c-something).

an extrapolation of the shrouded inkspot by good friend and innovative sculptor Jol Dupuy .. another large piece made up of a number of layers of glass and, photographed from above , with smoke pumped in from below

You can view his original works on Flickr www.flickr.com/photos/jdsculpture/

 

On another experimental foray, but with 35mm Arista and use of Rodinal followed by Xtol. Not alot of experience using this film with different developers so had to do some extrapolation. Unfortunately, freezing rain, overcast skies, and temps below 20 degrees F made it more challenging. I did appreciate more sharpness with this combo, but can't really tell about dynamic range given the blah weather. Thanks for the continued inspiration from my fellow flickeranians. Be safe out there.

This grand panorama of the Southern Patagonia Icefield (center) was imaged by an Expedition 38 crew member on the International Space Station on one of the rare clear days in the southern Andes Mountains. With an area of 13,000 square kilometers, the icefield is the largest temperate ice sheet in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

Storms that swirl into the region from the southern Pacific Ocean (top) bring rain and snow (equivalent to a total of 2-11 meters of rainfall per year) resulting in the buildup of the ice sheet shown here (center). During the ice ages the glaciers were far larger. Geologists now know that ice tongues extended far onto the plains in the foreground, completely filling the great Patagonian lakes on repeated occasions.

 

Similarly, ice tongues extended into the dense network of fjords (arms of the sea) on the Pacific side of the icefield. Ice tongues today appear tiny compared to the view that an "ice age" astronaut would have seen. A study of the surface topography of sixty-three glaciers, based on Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data, compared data from 2000 to data from studies going back about 30 years (1968-1975). Many glacier tongues showed significant annual "retreat" of their ice fronts, a familiar signal of climate change. The study also revealed that the almost invisible loss by glacier thinning is far more significant in explaining ice loss.

 

The researchers concluded that volume loss by frontal collapse is 4-10 times smaller than that caused by thinning. Scaled over the entire icefield, including frontal loss (so-called calving when ice masses collapse into the lakes), it was calculated that 13.5 cubic kilometers of ice was lost each year over the study period. This number becomes more meaningful compared with the rate measured in the last five years of the study (1995-2000), when the rate increased almost threefold, averaging 38.7 cubic kilometers per year.

 

Extrapolating results from the low altitude glacier tongues implies that the high plateau ice on the spine of the Andes is thinning as well. In the decade since this study the often-imaged Upsala Glacier has retreated a further three kilometers, as shown recently in images taken by crew members aboard the space station. Glacier Pio X, named for Pope Pius X, is the only large glacier that is growing in length.

 

About Crew Earth Observations:

 

In Crew Earth Observations (CEO), crewmembers on the International Space Station (ISS) photograph the Earth from their unique point of view located 200 miles above the surface. Photographs record how the planet is changing over time, from human-caused changes like urban growth and reservoir construction, to natural dynamic events such as hurricanes, floods and volcanic eruptions. A major emphasis of CEO is to monitor disaster response events in support of the International Disaster Charter (IDC). CEO imagery provides researchers on Earth with key data to understand the planet from the perspective of the ISS. Crewmembers have been photographing Earth from space since the early Mercury missions beginning in 1961. The continuous images taken from the ISS ensure this record remains unbroken.

 

Image credit: NASA

 

Original image:

www.nasa.gov/content/southern-patagonia-icefield/

 

More about space station research:

www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

 

View more photos like this in the "NASA Earth Images" Flickr photoset:

www.flickr.com/photos/28634332@N05

 

________________________________

These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...

The Postcard

 

A postally unused carte postale that was published by the Cairo Postcard Trust. The card has a divided back.

 

The Great Sphinx of Giza

 

The Great Sphinx of Giza is a limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a human, and the body of a lion.

 

Facing directly from west to east, it stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile. The face of the Sphinx appears to represent the pharaoh Khafre.

 

The original shape of the Sphinx was cut from the bedrock, and has since been restored with layers of limestone blocks.

 

It measures 73 m (240 ft) long from paw to tail, 20 m (66 ft) high from the base to the top of the head, and 19 m (62 ft) wide at its rear haunches.

 

Its nose was broken off for unknown reasons between the 3rd. and 10th. centuries AD.

 

The Sphinx is the oldest known monumental sculpture in Egypt, and one of the most recognisable statues in the world.

 

The archaeological evidence suggests that it was created by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of Khafre (c. 2558 - 2532 BC).

 

The Great Sphinx's Name

 

The commonly used name "Sphinx" was given to the monument in classical antiquity, about 2,000 years after the commonly accepted date of its construction by reference to a Greek mythological beast with the head of a woman, a falcon, a cat, or a sheep and the body of a lion with the wings of an eagle. (Although, like most Egyptian sphinxes, the Great Sphinx has a man's head and no wings).

 

The English word sphinx comes from the ancient Greek Σφίγξ from the verb σφίγγω (meaning to squeeze in English), after the Greek sphinx who strangled anyone who failed to answer her riddle.

 

History of the Great Sphinx

 

The Sphinx is a monolith carved from the bedrock of the plateau, which also served as the quarry for the pyramids and other monuments in the area.

 

Egyptian geologist Farouk El-Baz has suggested that the head of the Sphinx may have been carved first, out of a natural yardang, i.e. a ridge of bedrock that had been sculpted by the wind. These can sometimes achieve shapes which resemble animals.

 

El-Baz suggests that the "moat" or "ditch" around the Sphinx may have been quarried out later to allow for the creation of the full body of the sculpture.

 

The archaeological evidence suggests that the Great Sphinx was created around 2500 BC for the pharaoh Khafre, the builder of the Second Pyramid at Giza. The stones cut from around the Sphinx's body were used to construct a temple in front of it.

 

However, neither the enclosure nor the temple were ever completed, and the relative scarcity of Old Kingdom cultural material suggests that a Sphinx cult was not established at the time.

 

Selim Hassan, writing in 1949 on recent excavations of the Sphinx enclosure, made note of this circumstance:

 

"Taking all things into consideration, it seems that

we must give the credit of erecting this, the world's

most wonderful statue, to Khafre, but always with

this reservation: that there is not one single

contemporary inscription which connects the Sphinx

with Khafre, so sound as it may appear, we must treat

the evidence as circumstantial, until such time as a

lucky turn of the spade of the excavator will reveal to

the world a definite reference to the erection of the

Sphinx."

 

In order to construct the temple, the northern perimeter-wall of the Khafre Valley Temple had to be deconstructed, hence it follows that the Khafre funerary complex preceded the creation of the Sphinx and its temple.

 

Furthermore, the angle and location of the south wall of the enclosure suggests the causeway connecting Khafre's Pyramid and Valley Temple already existed before the Sphinx was planned. The lower base level of the Sphinx temple also indicates that it doesn't pre-date the Valley Temple.

 

The Great Sphinx in the New Kingdom

 

Some time around the First Intermediate Period, the Giza Necropolis was abandoned, and drifting sand eventually buried the Sphinx up to its shoulders.

 

The first documented attempt at an excavation dates to c. 1400 BC, when the young Thutmose IV gathered a team and, after much effort, managed to dig out the front paws. Between them he erected a shrine that housed the Dream Stele, an inscribed granite slab (possibly a re-purposed door lintel from one of Khafre's temples).

 

When the stele was discovered, its lines of text were already damaged and incomplete. An excerpt reads:

 

"... the royal son, Thothmos, being arrived, while

walking at midday and seating himself under the

shadow of this mighty god, was overcome by

slumber and slept at the very moment when Ra is

at the summit of heaven.

He found that the Majesty of this august god spoke

to him with his own mouth, as a father speaks to his

son, saying:

'Look upon me, contemplate me, O my son Thothmos;

I am thy father, Harmakhis-Khopri-Ra-Tum; I bestow

upon thee the sovereignty over my domain, the

supremacy over the living ... Behold my actual condition

that thou mayest protect all my perfect limbs. The sand

of the desert whereon I am laid has covered me. Save

me, causing all that is in my heart to be executed.'"

 

The Dream Stele associates the Sphinx with Khafre, however this part of the text is not entirely intact:

 

"... which we bring for him: oxen ... and all the young

vegetables; and we shall give praise to Wenofer ...

Khaf ... the statue made for Atum-Hor-em-Akhet."

 

Egyptologist Thomas Young, finding the Khaf hieroglyphs in a damaged cartouche used to surround a royal name, inserted the glyph ra to complete Khafre's name. However when the Stele was re-excavated in 1925, the lines of text referring to Khaf flaked off and were destroyed.

 

In the New Kingdom, the Sphinx became more specifically associated with the sun god Hor-em-akhet. Pharaoh Amenhotep II built a temple to the northeast of the Sphinx nearly 1000 years after its construction, and dedicated it to the cult of Hor-em-akhet.

 

The Great Sphinx in the Graeco-Roman Period

 

By Graeco-Roman times, Giza had become a tourist destination - the monuments were regarded as antiquities. Some Roman Emperors visited the Sphinx out of curiosity, and for political reasons.

 

The Sphinx was cleared of sand again in the first century AD in honour of Emperor Nero and the Governor of Egypt, Tiberius Claudius Balbilus.

 

A monumental stairway more than 12 metres (39 ft) wide was erected, leading to a pavement in front of the paws of the Sphinx. At the top of the stairs, a podium was positioned that allowed view into the Sphinx sanctuary.

 

Further back, another podium neighboured several more steps. The stairway was dismantled during the 1931–32 excavations by Émile Baraize.

 

Pliny the Elder described the face of the Sphinx being coloured red and gave measurements for the statue:

 

"In front of these pyramids is the Sphinx, a still more

wondrous object of art, but one upon which silence

has been observed, as it is looked upon as a divinity

by the people of the neighbourhood.

It is their belief that King Harmaïs was buried in it, and

they will have it that it was brought there from a distance.

The truth is, however, that it was hewn from the solid

rock; and, from a feeling of veneration, the face of the

monster is coloured red.

The circumference of the head, measured round the

forehead, is one hundred and two feet, the length of the

feet being one hundred and forty-three, and the height,

from the belly to the summit of the asp on the head,

sixty-two."

 

A stela dated to 166 AD commemorates the restoration of the retaining walls surrounding the Sphinx.

 

The last Emperor connected with the monument was Septimius Severus, around 200 AD. With the downfall of Roman power, the Sphinx was once more engulfed by the sands.

 

The Great Sphinx in the Middle Ages

 

Some ancient non-Egyptians saw the Sphinx as a likeness of the god Horon. The cult of the Sphinx continued into medieval times. The Sabians of Harran saw it as the burial place of Hermes Trismegistus.

 

Arab authors described the Sphinx as a talisman which guarded the area from the desert. Al-Maqrizi describes it as "The Talisman of the Nile" on which the locals believed the flood cycle depended.

 

Muhammad al-Idrisi stated that those wishing to obtain bureaucratic positions in the Egyptian government should give an incense offering to the monument.

 

Over the centuries, writers and scholars have recorded their impressions and reactions upon seeing the Sphinx. The vast majority were concerned with a general description, often including a mixture of science, romance and mystique. A typical description of the Sphinx by tourists and leisure travelers throughout the 19th. and 20th. century was made by John Lawson Stoddard:

 

"It is the antiquity of the Sphinx which thrills us as

we look upon it, for in itself it has no charms. The

desert's waves have risen to its breast, as if to

wrap the monster in a winding-sheet of gold. The

face and head have been mutilated by Moslem

fanatics. The mouth, the beauty of whose lips was

once admired, is now expressionless. Yet grand in

its loneliness, - veiled in the mystery of unnamed

ages, - the relic of Egyptian antiquity stands solemn

and silent in the presence of the awful desert -

symbol of eternity. Here it disputes with Time the

empire of the past; forever gazing on and on into

a future which will still be distant when we, like all

who have preceded us and looked upon its face,

have lived our little lives and disappeared."

 

From the 16th. century, European observers described the Sphinx having the face, neck and breast of a woman.

 

Most early Western images were book illustrations in print form, elaborated by a professional engraver from either previous images available, or some original drawing or sketch supplied by an author, and usually now lost.

 

Seven years after visiting Giza, André Thévet (Cosmographie de Levant, 1556) described the Sphinx as:

 

"The head of a colossus, caused to be

made by Isis, daughter of Inachus, then

so beloved of Jupiter".

 

He, or his artist and engraver, pictured it as a curly-haired monster with a grassy dog collar.

 

Athanasius Kircher (who never visited Egypt) depicted the Sphinx as a Roman statue (Turris Babel, 1679).

 

Johannes Helferich's (1579) Sphinx is a pinched-face, round-breasted woman with a straight-haired wig.

 

George Sandys stated in 1615 that the Sphinx was a harlot; Balthasar de Monconys interpreted the headdress as a kind of hairnet, while François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz's Sphinx had a rounded hairdo with bulky collar.

 

Richard Pococke's Sphinx was an adoption of Cornelis de Bruijn's drawing of 1698, featuring only minor changes, but is closer to the actual appearance of the Sphinx than anything previously drawn.

 

The print versions of Norden's drawings for his Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie (1755) clearly show that the nose was missing.

 

Later Excavations

 

In 1817, the first modern archaeological dig, supervised by the Italian Giovanni Battista Caviglia, uncovered the Sphinx's chest completely.

 

In 1887, the chest, paws, the altar, and the plateau were all made visible. Flights of steps were unearthed, and finally accurate measurements were taken of the great figures.

 

The height from the lowest of the steps was found to be one hundred feet, and the space between the paws was found to be thirty-five feet long and ten feet wide. Here there was formerly an altar; and a stele of Thûtmosis IV was discovered, recording a dream in which he was ordered to clear away the sand that even then was gathering round the site of the Sphinx.

 

One of the people working on clearing the sands from around the Great Sphinx was Eugène Grébaut, a French Director of the Antiquities Service.

 

Opinions of Early Egyptologists

 

Early Egyptologists and excavators were divided regarding the age of the Sphinx and its associated temples.

 

In 1857, Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, unearthed the much later Inventory Stela (estimated to be from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, c. 664 - 525 BC), which tells how Khufu came upon the Sphinx, already buried in sand.

 

Although certain tracts on the Stela are likely accurate, this passage is contradicted by archaeological evidence, thus considered to be Late Period historical revisionism, a purposeful fake, created by the local priests as an attempt to imbue the contemporary Isis temple with an ancient history it never had.

 

Such acts became common when religious institutions such as temples, shrines and priests' domains were fighting for political attention and for financial and economic donations.

 

Flinders Petrie wrote in 1883 regarding the state of opinion of the age of the Khafre Valley Temple, and by extension the Sphinx:

 

"The date of the Granite Temple has been so

positively asserted to be earlier than the fourth

dynasty, that it may seem rash to dispute the

point.

Recent discoveries, however, strongly show that

it was really not built before the reign of Khafre,

in the fourth dynasty."

 

Gaston Maspero, the French Egyptologist and second director of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, conducted a survey of the Sphinx in 1886. He concluded that because the Dream Stela showed the cartouche of Khafre in line 13, it was he who was responsible for the excavation, and therefore the Sphinx must predate Khafre and his predecessors - possibly Fourth Dynasty, c. 2575 - 2467 BC. Maspero believed the Sphinx to be "the most ancient monument in Egypt".

 

Ludwig Borchardt attributed the Sphinx to the Middle Kingdom, arguing that the particular features seen on the Sphinx are unique to the 12th. dynasty, and that the Sphinx resembles Amenemhat III.

 

E. A. Wallis Budge agreed that the Sphinx predated Khafre's reign, writing in The Gods of the Egyptians (1904):

 

"This marvellous object was in existence in the

days of Khafre, or Khephren, and it is probable

that it is a very great deal older than his reign,

and that it dates from the end of the archaic

period [c. 2686 BC]."

 

Modern Dissenting Hypotheses

 

Rainer Stadelmann, former director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, examined the distinct iconography of the nemes (headdress) and the now-detached beard of the Sphinx, and concluded that the style is more indicative of the pharaoh Khufu (2589–2566 BC).

 

He was known to the Greeks as Cheops, builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza and Khafre's father. Rainer supports this by suggesting Khafre's Causeway was built to conform to a pre-existing structure, which, he concludes, given its location, could only have been the Sphinx.

 

In 2004, Vassil Dobrev of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo announced that he had uncovered new evidence that the Great Sphinx may have been the work of the little-known pharaoh Djedefre (2528–2520 BC).

 

Djedefre was Khafra's half brother, and a son of Khufu. Dobrev suggests Djedefre built the Sphinx in the image of his father Khufu, identifying him with the sun god Ra in order to restore respect for their dynasty.

 

Dobrev also says that the causeway connecting Khafre's pyramid to the temples was built around the Sphinx, suggesting that it was already in existence at the time.

 

Egyptologist Nigel Strudwick responded to Dobrev by saying that:

 

"It is not implausible. But I would need more explanation,

such as why he thinks the pyramid at Abu Roash is a sun temple, something I'm sceptical about.

I have never heard anyone suggest that the name in the graffiti at Zawiyet el-Aryan mentions Djedefre.

I remain more convinced by the traditional argument of it being Khafre or the more recent theory of it being Khufu."

 

Recent Restorations of the Great Sphinx

 

In 1931, engineers of the Egyptian government repaired the head of the Sphinx. Part of its headdress had fallen off in 1926 due to erosion, which had also cut deeply into its neck. This questionable repair was by the addition of a concrete collar between the headdress and the neck, creating an altered profile.

 

Many renovations to the stone base and raw rock body were done in the 1980's, and then redone in the 1990's.

 

Natural and Deliberate Damage to the Great Sphinx

 

The limestone of the area consists of layers which offer differing resistance to erosion (mostly caused by wind and windblown sand), leading to the uneven degradation apparent in the Sphinx's body.

 

The lowest part of the body, including the legs, is solid rock. The body of the animal up to its neck is fashioned from softer layers that have suffered considerable disintegration. The layer from which the head was sculpted is much harder.

 

A number of "dead-end" shafts are known to exist within and below the body of the Great Sphinx, most likely dug by treasure hunters and tomb robbers.

 

The Great Sphinx's Missing Nose

 

Examination of the Sphinx's face shows that long rods or chisels were hammered into the nose area, one down from the bridge and another beneath the nostril, then used to pry the nose off towards the south, resulting in the one-metre wide nose still being lost to date.

 

Drawings of the Sphinx by Frederic Louis Norden in 1737 show the nose missing. Many folk tales exist regarding the destruction of its nose, aiming to provide an answer as to where it went or what happened to it.

 

One tale erroneously attributes it to cannonballs fired by the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. Other tales ascribe it to being the work of Mamluks. Since the 10th. century, some Arab authors have claimed it to be a result of iconoclastic attacks.

 

The Arab historian al-Maqrīzī, writing in the 15th. century, attributes the loss of the nose to Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi Muslim who in 1378 found the local peasants making offerings to the Sphinx in the hope of increasing their harvest; he therefore defaced the Sphinx in an act of iconoclasm.

 

According to al-Maqrīzī, many people living in the area believed that the increased sand covering the Giza Plateau was retribution for al-Dahr's act of defacement.

 

Al-Minufi stated that the Alexandrian Crusade in 1365 was divine punishment for a Sufi sheikh breaking off the nose.

 

The Great Sphinx's Beard

 

In addition to the lost nose, a ceremonial pharaonic beard is thought to have been attached, although this may have been added in later periods after the original construction.

 

Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev has suggested that had the beard been an original part of the Sphinx, it would have damaged the chin of the statue upon falling. However the lack of visible damage supports his theory that the beard was a later addition.

 

The British Museum has limestone fragments which are thought to be from the Sphinx's beard.

 

Residues of red pigment are visible on areas of the Sphinx's face, and traces of yellow and blue pigment have also been found elsewhere on the Sphinx, leading Mark Lehner to suggest that:

 

"The monument was once decked

out in gaudy comic book colours".

 

However, as with the case of many ancient monuments, the pigments and colours have virtually disappeared, resulting in the yellow/beige appearance that the Sphinx has today.

 

Holes and Tunnels in the Great Sphinx

 

-- The Hole in the Sphinx's Head

 

Johann Helffrich visited the Sphinx during his travels in 1565 - 1566. He reports that a priest went into the head of the Sphinx, and when he spoke it was as if the Sphinx itself was speaking.

 

Many New Kingdom stelae depict the Sphinx wearing a crown. If it in fact existed, the hole could have been the anchoring point for it.

 

Émile Baraize closed the hole with a metal hatch in 1926.

 

-- Perring's Hole

 

Howard Vyse directed Perring in 1837 to drill a tunnel into the back of the Sphinx, just behind the head. The boring rods became stuck at a depth of 27 feet (8.2 m).

 

Attempts to blast the rods free caused further damage. The hole was cleared in 1978, and among the rubble was a fragment of the Sphinx's nemes headdress.

 

-- The Major Fissure

 

A major natural fissure in the bedrock cuts through the waist of the Sphinx. This was first excavated by Auguste Mariette in 1853.

 

The fissure measures up to 2 metres (6.6 ft) in width. In 1926 Baraize sealed the sides and roofed it with iron bars, limestone and cement. He then installed an iron trap door at the top. The sides of the fissure might have been artificially squared; however, the bottom is irregular bedrock, about 1 metre (3.3 ft) above the outside floor. A very narrow crack continues deeper.

 

-- The Rump Passage

 

When the Sphinx was cleared of sand in 1926 under direction of Baraize, it revealed an opening to a tunnel at floor-level on the north side of the rump. It was subsequently closed by masonry and nearly forgotten.

 

More than fifty years later, the existence of the passage was recalled by three elderly men who had worked during the sand clearing as basket carriers. This led to the rediscovery and excavation of the rump passage in 1980.

 

The passage consists of an upper and a lower section, which are angled roughly 90 degrees to each other. The upper part ascends to a height of 4 metres (13 ft) above the ground-floor at a northwest direction. It runs between masonry veneer and the core body of the Sphinx, and ends in a niche 1 metre (3.3 ft) wide and 1.8 metres (5.9 ft) high.

 

The ceiling of the niche consists of modern cement, which likely spilled down from the filling of the gap between masonry and core bedrock, some 3 metres (9.8 ft) above.

 

The lower part descends steeply into the bedrock towards the northeast, for a distance of approximately 4 metres (13 ft) and a depth of 5 metres (16 ft). It terminates in a pit at groundwater level.

 

At the entrance it is 1.3 metres (4.3 ft) wide, narrowing to about 1.07 metres (3.5 ft) towards the end. Among the sand and stone fragments, a piece of tin foil and the base of a modern ceramic water jar was found.

 

The clogged bottom of the pit contained modern fill. Among it, more tin foil, modern cement and a pair of shoes.

 

It is possible that the entire passage was cut top down, beginning high up on the rump, and that the current access point at floor-level was made at a later date.

 

Vyse noted in his diary in 1837 that he was "boring" near the tail, which indicates him as the creator of the passage, as no other tunnel has been identified at this location. Another interpretation is that the shaft is of ancient origin, perhaps an exploratory tunnel or an unfinished tomb shaft.

 

-- The Niche in the Northern Flank

 

There is a niche in the Sphinx's core body. It was closed during the 1925-6 restorations.

 

-- The Space Behind the Dream Stele

 

The space behind the Dream Stele, between the paws of the Sphinx, was covered by an iron beam and cement roof and then fitted with an iron trap door.

 

-- The Keyhole Shaft

 

At the ledge of the Sphinx enclosure there is a square shaft opposite the northern hind paw. It was cleared during excavation in 1978 and measures 1.42 by 1.06 metres (4.7 by 3.5 ft) and about 2 metres (6.6 ft) deep.

 

Lehner interpreted the shaft to be an unfinished tomb, and named it the "Keyhole Shaft", because a cutting in the ledge above the shaft is shaped like the lower part of a keyhole, upside down.

 

The Great Pyramid of Giza

 

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid, and the tomb of the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu. Built in the 26th. century BC during a period of around 27 years, it is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact.

 

Initially standing at 146.6 metres (481 feet), the Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for more than 3,800 years. Over time, most of the smooth white limestone casing was removed, which lowered the pyramid's height to the present 138.5 metres (454.4 ft).

 

What is seen today is the underlying core structure. The base was measured to be 230.3 metres (755.6 ft) square, giving a volume of roughly 2.6 million cubic metres (92 million cubic feet).

 

The Great Pyramid was built by quarrying an estimated 2.3 million large blocks weighing 6 million tonnes in total. The majority of stones are not uniform in size or shape, and are only roughly dressed.

 

The outside layers were bound together by mortar. Primarily local limestone from the Giza Plateau was used. Other blocks were imported by boat down the Nile: white limestone from Tura for the casing, and granite blocks from Aswan, weighing up to 80 tonnes, for the King's Chamber.

 

There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The lowest was cut into the bedrock, but it remained unfinished. The Queen's Chamber and the King's Chamber, that contains a granite sarcophagus, are higher up, within the pyramid structure.

 

Khufu's vizier, Hemiunu, is believed to be the architect of the Great Pyramid. Many varying scientific and alternative hypotheses attempt to explain the exact construction techniques.

 

Attribution to Khufu

 

Historically the Great Pyramid has been attributed to Khufu based on the words of authors of classical antiquity, first and foremost Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus.

 

However, during the middle ages a number of other people were credited with the construction of the pyramid, for example Joseph, Nimrod or King Saurid.

 

In 1837 four additional Relieving Chambers were found above the King's Chamber after tunneling to them. The chambers, previously inaccessible, were covered in hieroglyphs of red paint.

 

The workers who were building the pyramid had marked the blocks with the names of their gangs, which included the pharaoh's name (e.g.: “The gang, The white crown of Khnum-Khufu is powerful”).

 

The names of Khufu were spelled out on the walls over a dozen times. Another of these graffiti was found by Goyon on an exterior block of the 4th layer of the pyramid.

 

Throughout the 20th. century the cemeteries next to the pyramid were excavated. Family members and high officials of Khufu were buried there. Most notably the wives, children and grandchildren of Khufu, along with the funerary cache of Hetepheres I, mother of Khufu.

 

As Hassan puts it:

 

"From the early dynastic times, it was always the

custom for the relatives, friends and courtiers to

be buried in the vicinity of the king they had served

during life. This was quite in accordance with the

Egyptian idea of the Hereafter."

 

The cemeteries were actively expanded until the 6th. dynasty, but used less frequently afterwards. The earliest pharaonic name of seal impressions is that of Khufu, the latest of Pepi II.

 

Worker graffiti was written on some of the stones of the tombs as well; for instance, "Mddw" (Horus name of Khufu) on the mastaba of Chufunacht, probably a grandson of Khufu.

 

In 1954 two boat pits, one containing the Khufu ship, were discovered buried at the south foot of the pyramid. The cartouche of Djedefre was found on many of the blocks that covered the boat pits. As the successor and eldest son he would have presumably been responsible for the burial of Khufu.

 

The second boat pit was examined in 1987; excavation work started in 2010. Graffiti on the stones included 4 instances of the name "Khufu", 11 instances of "Djedefre", a year (in reign, season, month and day), measurements of the stone, various signs and marks, and a reference line used in construction, all done in red or black ink.

 

During excavations in 2013 the Diary of Merer in the form of rolls of papyrus was found at Wadi al-Jarf. It documents the transportation of white limestone blocks from Tura to the Great Pyramid, which is mentioned by its original name Akhet Khufu dozens of times.

 

The diary records that the stones were accepted at She Akhet-Khufu ("The pool of the pyramid Horizon of Khufu") and Ro-She Khufu (“The entrance to the pool of Khufu”) which were under supervision of Ankhhaf, half brother and vizier of Khufu, as well as owner of the largest mastaba of the Giza East Field.

 

The Age of the Great Pyramid

 

The age of the Great Pyramid has been determined by two principal approaches:

 

-- Indirectly, through its attribution to Khufu and his chronological age, based on archaeological and textual evidence.

 

-- Directly, via radiocarbon dating of organic material found in the pyramid and included in its mortar. Mortar was used generously in the Great Pyramid's construction. In the mixing process, ashes from fires were added to the mortar, organic material that could be extracted and radiocarbon dated.

 

A total of 46 samples of the mortar were taken in 1984 and 1995, making sure they were clearly inherent to the original structure and could not have been incorporated at a later date.

 

The results were calibrated to 2871–2604 BC. A reanalysis of the data gave a completion date for the pyramid between 2620 and 2484 BC.

 

In 1872 Waynman Dixon opened the lower pair of air-shafts that were previously closed at both ends by chiseling holes into the walls of the Queen's Chamber.

 

One of the objects found within was a cedar plank, which came into possession of James Grant, a friend of Dixon. After inheritance it was donated to the Museum of Aberdeen in 1946. However it had broken into pieces, and was filed incorrectly.

 

Lost in the vast museum collection, it was only rediscovered in 2020, when it was radiocarbon dated to 3341–3094 BC. Being over 500 years older than Khufu's chronological age, Abeer Eladany suggests that the wood originated from the center of a long-lived tree, or had been recycled for many years prior to being deposited in the pyramid.

 

Construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza

 

-- Preparation of the Site

 

A hillock forms the base on which the pyramid stands. It was cut back into steps, and only a strip around the perimeter was leveled. Using modern equipment, this has been measured to be horizontal and flat to within 21 millimetres (0.8 in).

 

The bedrock reaches a height of almost 6 metres (20 ft) above the pyramid base at the location of the Grotto.

 

Along the sides of the base platform a series of holes are cut in the bedrock. Lehner hypothesizes that they held wooden posts used for alignment.

 

Edwards, among others, has suggested that water was used in order to level the base, although it is unclear how workable such a system would be.

 

-- Materials

 

The Great Pyramid consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks. Approximately 5.5 million tonnes of limestone, 8,000 tonnes of granite, and 500,000 tonnes of mortar were used in the construction.

 

Most of the blocks were quarried at Giza just south of the pyramid, an area now known as the Central Field.

 

The white limestone used for the casing originated from Tura 10 km (6.2 mi) south of Giza), and was transported by boat down the Nile.

 

The granite stones in the pyramid were transported from Aswan, more than 900 km (560 mi) away. The largest, weighing up to 80 tonnes, forms the roofs of the King's Chamber.

 

Ancient Egyptians cut stone into rough blocks by hammering grooves into natural stone faces, inserting wooden wedges, then soaking these with water. As the water was absorbed, the wedges expanded, breaking off workable chunks. Once the blocks were cut, they were carried by boat either up or down the Nile River to the pyramid.

 

-- The Workforce

 

The Greeks believed that slave labour was used, but modern discoveries made at nearby workers' camps associated with construction at Giza suggest that it was built instead by thousands of conscript laborers.

 

Worker graffiti found at Giza suggest haulers were divided into groups of 40 men, consisting of four sub-units that each had an "Overseer of Ten".

 

As to the question of how over two million blocks could have been cut within Khufu's lifetime, stonemason Franck Burgos conducted an archaeological experiment based on an abandoned quarry of Khufu discovered in 2017.

 

Within it, an almost completed block and the tools used for cutting it had been uncovered: hardened arsenic copper chisels, wooden mallets, ropes and stone tools. In the experiment, replicas of these were used to cut a block weighing about 2.5 tonnes (the average block size used for the Great Pyramid).

 

It took 4 workers 4 days (with each working 6 hours a day) to excavate it. The initially slow progress sped up six times when the stone was wetted with water.

 

Based on the data, Burgos extrapolates that about 3,500 quarry-men could have produced the 250 blocks per day needed to complete the Great Pyramid within 27 years.

 

A construction management study conducted in 1999, in association with Mark Lehner and other Egyptologists, has estimated that the total project required an average workforce of about 13,200 individuals, with a peak workforce of roughly 40,000.

 

Surveys and Design of the Great Pyramid

 

The first precise measurements of the pyramid were made by Egyptologist Flinders Petrie in 1880–1882, published as The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh.

 

Many of the casing-stones and inner chamber blocks of the Great Pyramid fit together with high precision, with joints, on average, only 0.5 millimetres (0.020 in) wide. On the contrary, core blocks were only roughly shaped, with rubble inserted between larger gaps. Mortar was used to bind the outer layers together and to fill gaps and joints.

 

The block height and weight tends to get progressively smaller towards the top. Petrie measured the lowest layer to be 148 centimetres (4.86 ft) high, whereas the layers towards the summit barely exceed 50 centimetres (1.6 ft).

 

The accuracy of the pyramid's perimeter is such that the four sides of the base have an average error of only 58 millimetres (2.3 inches) in length, and the finished base was squared to a mean corner error of only 12 seconds of arc.

 

Ancient Egyptians used seked - how much length for one cubit of rise - to describe slopes. For the Great Pyramid a seked of 5+ palms was chosen, a ratio of 14 up to 11 in.

 

Some Egyptologists suggest this slope was chosen because the ratio of perimeter to height (1760/280 cubits) equals 2π to an accuracy of better than 0.05 percent (corresponding to the well-known approximation of π as 22/7).

 

Verner wrote:

 

"We can conclude that although the ancient

Egyptians could not precisely define the value

of π, in practice they used it.

"These relations of areas and of circular ratio

are so systematic that we should grant that

they were in the builder's design".

 

Alignment to the Cardinal Directions

 

The sides of the Great Pyramid's base are closely aligned to the four geographic (not magnetic) cardinal directions, deviating on average 3 minutes and 38 seconds of arc. Several methods have been proposed for how the ancient Egyptians achieved this level of accuracy:

 

-- The Solar Gnomon Method: the shadow of a vertical rod is tracked throughout a day. The shadow line is intersected by a circle drawn around the base of the rod. Connecting the intersecting points produces an east-west line.

 

An experiment using this method resulted in lines being, on average, 2 minutes, 9 seconds off due east–west. Employing a pinhole produced much more accurate results (19 arc seconds off), whereas using an angled block as a shadow definer was less accurate (3′ 47″ off).

 

-- The Pole Star Method: the polar star is tracked using a movable sight and fixed plumb line. Halfway between the maximum eastern and western elongations is true north.

 

Thuban, the polar star during the Old Kingdom, was about two degrees removed from the celestial pole at the time.

 

-- The Simultaneous Transit Method: the stars Mizar and Kochab appear on a vertical line on the horizon, close to true north around 2500 BC. They slowly and simultaneously shift east over time, which is used to explain the relative misalignment of the pyramids.

 

Construction Theories

 

Many alternative, often contradictory, theories have been proposed regarding the pyramid's construction. One mystery of the pyramid's construction is its planning. John Romer suggests that they used the same method that had been used for earlier and later constructions, i.e. laying out parts of the plan on the ground at a 1-to-1 scale.

 

He writes that:

 

"Such a working diagram would also serve to

generate the architecture of the pyramid with

precision unmatched by any other means".

 

The basalt blocks of the pyramid temple show clear evidence of having been cut with some kind of saw with an estimated cutting blade of 15 feet (4.6 m) in length. Romer suggests that this "super saw" may have had copper teeth and weighed up to 140 kilograms (310 lb).

 

He theorizes that such a saw could have been attached to a wooden trestle support, and possibly used in conjunction with vegetable oil, cutting sand, emery or pounded quartz to cut the blocks, which would have required the labour of at least a dozen men to operate it.

 

The Exterior Casing

  

[105]

At completion, the Great Pyramid was cased entirely in white limestone. There is a casing stone from the Great Pyramid in the British Museum.

 

Precisely worked blocks were placed in horizontal layers and carefully fitted together with mortar, their outward faces cut at a slope and smoothed to a high degree. Together they created four uniform surfaces, angled at 51°50'40.

 

Unfinished casing blocks of the pyramids of Menkaure and Henutsen at Giza suggest that the front faces were smoothed only after the stones were laid, with chiseled seams marking correct positioning, and where the superfluous rock would have to be trimmed off.

 

An irregular pattern is noticeable when looking at the pyramid's layers in sequence, where layer height declines steadily only to rise sharply again.

 

"Backing stones" supported the casing which were (unlike the core blocks) precisely dressed, and bound to the casing with mortar. These stones give the structure its visible appearance, following the dismantling of the pyramid in the middle ages.

 

In 1303 AD, a massive earthquake loosened many of the outer casing stones, which were said to have been carted away by Bahri Sultan An-Nasir Nasir-ad-Din al-Hasan in 1356 for use in nearby Cairo.

 

Many more casing stones were removed from the site by Muhammad Ali Pasha in the early 19th. century to build the upper portion of his Alabaster Mosque in Cairo.

 

Later explorers reported massive piles of rubble at the base of the pyramid left over from the continuing collapse of the casing stones, which were subsequently cleared away during continuing excavations of the site.

 

Today a few of the casing stones from the lowest course can be seen in situ on each side, with the best preserved on the north below the entrances, excavated by Vyse in 1837.

 

The mortar was chemically analyzed and contains organic inclusions (mostly charcoal), samples of which were radiocarbon dated to 2871–2604 BC. It has been theorized that the mortar enabled the masons to set the stones exactly by providing a level bed.

 

The Missing Pyramidion

 

The pyramid was once topped by a capstone known as a pyramidion. The material it was made from is subject to much speculation; limestone, granite or basalt are commonly proposed, while in popular culture it is often said to be solid gold or gilded.

 

All known 4th. dynasty pyramidia (of the Red Pyramid, the Satellite Pyramid of Khufu and the Queen's Pyramid of Menkaure are of white limestone, and were not gilded.

 

Only from the 5th. dynasty onward is there evidence of gilded capstones.

 

The Great Pyramid's pyramidion was already lost in antiquity, as Pliny the Elder and later authors report of a platform on its summit. Nowadays the pyramid is about 8 metres (26 ft) shorter than it was when intact, with about 1,000 tonnes of material missing from the top.

 

In 1874 a mast was installed on the top of the pyramid by the Scottish astronomer Sir David Gill who, whilst returning from work involving observing a rare Venus transit, was invited to survey Egypt. He began by surveying the Great Pyramid.

 

His measurements of the pyramid were accurate to within 1mm, and the survey mast is still in place to this day.

 

Interior of the Great Pyramid

 

The internal structure consists of three main chambers (the King's-, Queen's- and Subterranean Chamber), the Grand Gallery and various corridors and shafts.

 

There are two entrances into the pyramid; the original and a forced passage, which meet at a junction. From there, one passage descends into the Subterranean Chamber, while the other ascends to the Grand Gallery. From the beginning of the gallery three paths can be taken:

 

(a) A vertical shaft that leads down, past a grotto, to meet the descending passage.

 

(b) A horizontal corridor leading to the Queen's Chamber.

 

(c) A path up the gallery itself to the King's Chamber that contains the sarcophagus.

 

Both the King's and Queen's Chamber have a pair of small "air-shafts". Above the King's Chamber are a series of five Relieving Chambers.

 

--The Original Entrance

 

The original entrance is located on the north side, 15 royal cubits (7.9 m; 25.8 ft) east of the center-line of the pyramid. Before the removal of the casing in the middle ages, the pyramid was entered through a hole in the 19th. layer of masonry, approximately 17 metres (56 ft) above the pyramid's base level.

 

The height of that layer – 96 centimetres (3.15 ft) – corresponds to the size of the entrance tunnel which is commonly called the Descending Passage. According to Strabo (64–24 BC) a movable stone could be raised to enter this sloping corridor, however it is not known if it was a later addition or original.

 

A row of double chevrons diverts weight away from the entrance. Several of these chevron blocks are now missing, as the slanted faces they used to rest on indicate.

 

Numerous, mostly modern, graffiti is cut into the stones around the entrance. Most notable is a large, square text of hieroglyphs carved in honor of Frederick William IV, by Karl Richard Lepsius's Prussian expedition to Egypt in 1842.

 

-- The North Face Corridor

 

In 2016 the ScanPyramids team detected a cavity behind the entrance chevrons using muography, which was confirmed in 2019 to be a corridor at least 5 metres (16 ft) long, running horizontal or sloping upwards. Whether or not it connects to the Big Void above the Grand Gallery remains to be seen.

 

-- The Robbers' Tunnel

 

Today tourists enter the Great Pyramid via the Robbers' Tunnel, which was long ago cut straight through the masonry of the pyramid. The entrance was forced into the 6th. and 7th. layer of the casing, about 7 metres (23 ft) above the base.

 

After running more-or-less straight and horizontal for 27 metres (89 ft) it turns sharply left to encounter the blocking stones in the Ascending Passage. It is possible to enter the Descending Passage from this point, but access is usually forbidden.

 

The origin of this Robbers' Tunnel is the subject of much discussion. According to tradition, the tunnel was excavated around 820 AD by Caliph al-Ma'mun's workmen with a battering ram.

 

The digging dislodged the stone in the ceiling of the Descending Passage which hid the entrance to the Ascending Passage, and the noise of that stone falling then sliding down the Descending Passage alerted them to the need to turn left.

 

Unable to remove these stones, the workmen tunneled up beside them through the softer limestone of the Pyramid until they reached the Ascending Passage.

 

Due to a number of historical and archaeological discrepancies, many scholars contend that this story is apocryphal. They argue that it is much more likely that the tunnel had been carved shortly after the pyramid was initially sealed.

 

This tunnel, the scholars argue, was then resealed (likely during the Ramesside Restoration), and it was this plug that al-Ma'mun's ninth-century expedition cleared away. This theory is furthered by the report of patriarch Dionysius I Telmaharoyo, who claimed that before al-Ma'mun's expedition, there already existed a breach in the pyramid's north face that extended into the structure 33 metres (108 ft) before hitting a dead end.

 

This suggests that some sort of robber's tunnel predated al-Ma'mun, and that the caliph simply enlarged it and cleared it of debris.

 

-- The Descending Passage

 

From the original entrance, a passage descends through the masonry of the pyramid and then into the bedrock beneath it, ultimately leading to the Subterranean Chamber.

 

It has a slanted height of 4 Egyptian feet (1.20 m; 3.9 ft) and a width of 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft). Its angle of 26°26'46" corresponds to a ratio of 1 to 2 (rise over run).

 

After 28 metres (92 ft), the lower end of the Ascending Passage is reached; a square hole in the ceiling, which is blocked by granite stones and might have originally been concealed.

 

To circumvent these hard stones, a short tunnel was excavated that meets the end of the Robbers' Tunnel. This was expanded over time and fitted with stairs.

 

The passage continues to descend for another 72 metres (236 ft), now through bedrock instead of the pyramid superstructure.

 

Lazy guides used to block off this part with rubble in order to avoid having to lead people down and back up the long shaft, until around 1902 when Covington installed a padlocked iron grill-door to stop this practice.

 

Near the end of this section, on the west wall, is the connection to the vertical shaft that leads up to the Grand Gallery.

 

A horizontal shaft connects the end of the Descending Passage to the Subterranean Chamber, It has a length of 8.84 m (29.0 ft), width of 85 cm (2.79 ft) and height of 91–95 cm (2.99–3.12 ft).

 

-- The Subterranean Chamber

 

The Subterranean Chamber, or "Pit", is the lowest of the three main chambers, and the only one dug into the bedrock beneath the pyramid.

 

Located about 27 m (89 ft) below base level, it measures roughly 16 cubits (8.4 m; 27.5 ft) north-south by 27 cubits (14.1 m; 46.4 ft) east-west, with an approximate height of 4 m (13 ft).

 

The western half of the room, apart from the ceiling, is unfinished, with trenches left behind by the quarry-men running east to west. The only access, through the Descending Passage, lies on the eastern end of the north wall.

 

Although seemingly known in antiquity, according to Herodotus and later authors, its existence had been forgotten in the middle ages until rediscovery in 1817, when Giovanni Caviglia cleared the rubble blocking the Descending Passage.

 

Opposite the entrance, a blind corridor runs straight south for 11 m (36 ft) and continues at a slight angle for another 5.4 m (18 ft), measuring about 0.75 m (2.5 ft) squared. A Greek or Roman character was found on its ceiling, suggesting that the chamber had indeed been accessible during Classical antiquity.

 

In the middle of the eastern half, there is a large hole called Pit Shaft or Perring's Shaft. The upmost part may have ancient origins, about 2 m (6.6 ft) squared in width, and 1.5 m (4.9 ft) in depth. Caviglia and Salt enlarged it to the depth of about 3 m (9.8 ft).

 

In 1837 Vyse directed the shaft to be sunk to a depth of 50 ft (15 m), in hopes of discovering the chamber encompassed by water that Herodotus alludes to. However no chamber was discovered after Perring and his workers had spent one and a half years penetrating the bedrock to the then water level of the Nile, some 12 m (39 ft) further down.

 

The rubble produced during this operation was deposited throughout the chamber. Petrie, visiting in 1880, found the shaft to be partially filled with rainwater that had rushed down the Descending Passage. In 1909, when the Edgar brothers' surveying activities were encumbered by the material, they moved the sand and smaller stones back into the shaft. The deep, modern shaft is sometimes mistaken to be part of the original design.

 

-- The Ascending Passage

 

The Ascending Passage connects the Descending Passage to the Grand Gallery. It is 75 cubits (39.3 m; 128.9 ft) long, and of the same width and height as the shaft it originates from, although its angle is slightly lower at 26°6'.

 

The lower end of the shaft is plugged by three granite stones, which were slid down from the Grand Gallery to seal the tunnel. The uppermost stone is heavily damaged.

 

The end of the Robbers' Tunnel concludes slightly below the stones, so a short tunnel was dug around them to gain access to the Descending Passage.

 

-- The Well Shaft and Grotto

 

The Well Shaft (also known as the Service Shaft or Vertical Shaft) links the lower end of the Grand Gallery to the bottom of the Descending Passage, about 50 metres (160 ft) further down.

 

It takes a winding and indirect course. The upper half goes through the nucleus masonry of the pyramid. It runs vertical at first for 8 metres (26 ft), then slightly angled southwards for about the same distance, until it hits bedrock approximately 5.7 metres (19 ft) above the pyramid's base level.

 

Another vertical section descends further, which is partially lined with masonry that has been broken through to a cavity known as the Grotto. The lower half of the Well Shaft goes through the bedrock at an angle of about 45° for 26.5 metres (87 ft) before a steeper section, 9.5 metres (31 ft) long, leads to its lowest point. The final section of 2.6 metres (8.5 ft) connects it to the Descending Passage, running almost horizontal. The builders evidently had trouble aligning the lower exit.

 

The purpose of the shaft is commonly explained as a ventilation shaft for the Subterranean Chamber, and as an escape shaft for the workers who slid the blocking stones of the Ascending Passage into place.

 

The Grotto is a natural limestone cave that was likely filled with sand and gravel before construction, before being hollowed out by looters. A granite block rests in it that probably originated from the portcullis that once sealed the King's Chamber.

 

-- The Queen's Chamber

 

The Horizontal Passage links the Grand Gallery to the Queen's Chamber. Five pairs of holes at the start suggest the tunnel was once concealed with slabs that laid flush with the gallery floor. The passage is 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft) wide and 1.17 m (3.8 ft) high for most of its length, but near the chamber there is a step in the floor, after which the passage increases to 1.68 m (5.5 ft) high.

 

The Queen's Chamber is exactly halfway between the north and south faces of the pyramid. It measures 10 cubits (5.2 m; 17.2 ft) north-south, 11 cubits (5.8 m; 18.9 ft) east-west,[146] and has a pointed roof that apexes at 12 cubits (6.3 m; 20.6 ft) tall.

 

At the eastern end of the chamber there is a niche 9 cubits (4.7 m; 15.5 ft) high. The original depth of the niche was 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft), but it has since been deepened by treasure hunters.

 

Shafts were discovered in the north and south walls of the Queen's Chamber in 1872 by British engineer Waynman Dixon, who believed shafts similar to those in the King's Chamber must also exist. The shafts were not connected to the outer faces of the pyramid, and their purpose is unknown.

 

In one shaft Dixon discovered a ball of diorite, a bronze hook of unknown purpose and a piece of cedar wood. The first two objects are currently in the British Museum. The latter was lost until recently when it was found at the University of Aberdeen.

 

The northern shaft's angle of ascent fluctuates, and at one point turns 45 degrees to avoid the Great Gallery. The southern shaft is perpendicular to the pyramid's slope.

 

The shafts in the Queen's Chamber were explored in 1993 by the German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink using a crawler robot he designed, called Upuaut 2.

 

After a climb of 65 m (213 ft), he discovered that one of the shafts was blocked by a limestone "door" with two eroded copper "handles".

 

The National Geographic Society created a similar robot which, in September 2002, drilled a small hole in the southern door, only to find another stone slab behind it. The northern passage, which was difficult to navigate because of its twists and turns, was also found to be blocked by a slab.

 

Research continued in 2011 with the Djedi Project which used a fibre-optic "micro snake camera" that could see around corners. With this, they were able to penetrate the first door of the southern shaft through the hole drilled in 2002, and view all the sides of the small chamber behind it.

 

They discovered hieroglyphics written in red paint. Egyptian mathematics researcher Luca Miatello stated that the markings read "121" – the length of the shaft in cubits.

 

The Djedi team were also able to scrutinize the inside of the two copper "handles" embedded in the door, which they now believe to be for decorative purposes. They additionally found the reverse side of the "door" to be finished and polished, which suggests that it was not put there just to block the shaft from debris, but rather for a more specific reason.

 

-- The Grand Gallery

 

The Grand Gallery continues the slope of the Ascending Passage towards the King's Chamber, extending from the 23rd. to the 48th. course, a rise of 21 metres (69 ft). It has been praised as a truly spectacular example of stonemasonry.

 

It is 8.6 metres (28 ft) high and 46.68 metres (153.1 ft) long. The base is 4 cubits (2.1 m; 6.9 ft) wide, but after two courses - at a height of 2.29 metres (7.5 ft) - the blocks of stone in the walls are corbelled inwards by 6–10 centimetres (2.4–3.9 in) on each side.

 

There are seven of these steps, so, at the top, the Grand Gallery is only 2 cubits (1.0 m; 3.4 ft) wide. It is roofed by slabs of stone laid at a slightly steeper angle than the floor so that each stone fits into a slot cut into the top of the gallery, like the teeth of a ratchet.

 

The purpose was to have each block supported by the wall of the Gallery, rather than resting on the block beneath it, in order to prevent cumulative pressure.

 

At the upper end of the Gallery, on the eastern wall, there is a hole near the roof that opens into a short tunnel by which access can be gained to the lowest of the Relieving Chambers.

 

At the top of the gallery, there is a step onto a small horizontal platform where a tunnel leads through the Antechamber, once blocked by portcullis stones, into the King's Chamber.

 

The Big Void

 

In 2017, scientists from the ScanPyramids project discovered a large cavity above the Grand Gallery using muon radiography, which they called the "ScanPyramids Big Void". Its length is at least 30 metres (98 ft) and its cross-section is similar to that of the Grand Gallery.

 

The purpose of the cavity is unknown, and it is not accessible. Zahi Hawass speculates that it may have been a gap used in the construction of the Grand Gallery, but the research team state that the void is completely different to previously identified construction spaces.

 

The Antechamber

 

The last line of defense against intrusion was a small chamber specially designed to house portcullis blocking stones, called the Antechamber. It is cased almost entirely in granite, and is situated between the upper end of the Grand Gallery and the King's Chamber.

 

Three slots for portcullis stones line the east and west wall of the chamber. Each of them is topped with a semi-circular groove for a log, around which ropes could be spanned.

 

The granite portcullis stones were approximately 1 cubit (52.4 cm; 20.6 in) thick and were lowered into position by the aforementioned ropes which were tied through a series of four holes at the top of the blocks. A corresponding set of four vertical grooves are on the south wall of the chamber, recesses that make space for the ropes.

 

The Antechamber has a design flaw: the space above them can be accessed, thus all but the last block can be circumvented. This was exploited by looters who punched a hole through the ceiling of the tunnel behind, gaining access to the King's Chamber.

 

Later on, all three portcullis stones were broken and removed. Fragments of these blocks can be found in various locations in the pyramid.

 

The King's Chamber

 

The King's Chamber is the uppermost of the three main chambers of the pyramid. It is faced entirely with granite, and measures 20 cubits (10.5 m; 34.4 ft) east-west by 10 cubits (5.2 m; 17.2 ft) north-south.

 

Its flat ceiling is about 11 cubits and 5 digits (5.8 m;19.0 ft) above the floor, formed by nine slabs of stone weighing in total about 400 tons. All the roof beams show cracks due to the chamber having settled 2.5–5 cm (0.98–1.97 in).

 

The walls consist of five courses of blocks that are uninscribed, as was the norm for burial chambers of the 4th dynasty. The stones are precisely fitted together. The facing surfaces are dressed to varying degrees, with some displaying remains of bosses not entirely cut away.

 

The back sides of the blocks were only roughly hewn to shape, as was usual with Egyptian hard-stone facade blocks, presumably to save work.

 

The Sarcophagus

 

The only object in the King's Chamber is a sarcophagus made out of a single, hollowed-out granite block. When it was rediscovered in the early middle ages, it was found broken open and any contents had already been removed.

 

It is of the form common for early Egyptian sarcophagi; rectangular in shape with grooves to slide the now missing lid into place with three small holes for pegs to fixate it. The coffer was not perfectly smoothed, displaying various tool marks matching those of copper saws and tubular hand-drills.

 

The internal dimensions are roughly 198 cm (6.50 ft) by 68 cm (2.23 feet), the external 228 cm (7.48 ft) by 98 cm (3.22 ft), with a height of 105 cm (3.44 ft). The walls have a thickness of about 15 cm (0.49 ft). The sarcophagus is too large to fit around the corner between the Ascending and Descending Passages, which indicates that it must have been placed in the chamber before the roof was put in place.

 

Air Shafts

 

In the north and south walls of the King's Chamber are two narrow shafts, commonly known as "air shafts". They face each other, and are located approximately 0.91 m (3.0 ft) above the floor, with a width of 18 and 21 cm (7.1 and 8.3 in) and a height of 14 cm (5.5 in).

 

Both start out horizontally for the length of the granite blocks they go through before changing to an upwards direction. The southern shaft ascends at an angle of 45° with a slight curve westwards. One ceiling stone was found to be distinctly unfinished which Gantenbrink called a "Monday morning block".

 

The northern shaft changes angle several times, shifting the path to the west, perhaps to avoid the Big Void. The builders had trouble calculating the right angles, resulting in parts of the shaft being narrower. Nowadays they both lead to the exterior. If they originally penetrated the outer casing is unknown.

 

The purpose of these shafts is not clear: They were long believed by Egyptologists to be shafts for ventilation, but this idea has now been widely abandoned in favour of the shafts serving a ritualistic purpose associated with the ascension of the king's spirit to the heavens. Ironically, both shafts were fitted with ventilators in 1992 to reduce the humidity in the pyramid.

 

The idea that the shafts point towards stars has been largely dismissed as the northern shaft follows a dog-leg course through the masonry and the southern shaft has a bend of approximately 20 centimetres (7.9 in), indicating no intention to have them point to any celestial objects.

 

The Relieving Chambers

 

Above the roof of the King's Chamber are five compartments, named (from lowest upwards) "Davison's Chamber", "Wellington's Chamber", "Nelson's Chamber", "Lady Arbuthnot's Chamber", and "Campbell's Chamber".

 

They were presumably intended to safeguard the King's Chamber from the possibility of the roof collapsing under the weight of stone above, hence they are referred to as "Relieving Chambers".

 

The granite blocks that divide the chambers have flat bottom sides but roughly shaped top sides, giving all five chambers an irregular floor, but a flat ceiling, with the exception of the uppermost chamber which has a pointed limestone roof.

 

Nathaniel Davison is credited with the discovery of the lowest of these chambers in 1763, although a French merchant named Maynard informed him of its existence. It can be reached through an ancient passage that originates from the top of the south wall of the Grand Gallery.

 

The upper four chambers were discovered in 1837 by Howard Vyse after discovering a crack in the ceiling of the first chamber. This allowed the insertion of a long reed, which, with the employment of gunpowder and boring rods, forced a tunnel upwards through the masonry. As no access shafts existed for the upper four chambers they were completely inaccessible until this point.

 

Numerous graffiti of red ochre paint were found to cover the limestone walls of all four newly discovered chambers. Apart from leveling lines and indication marks for masons, multiple hieroglyphic inscriptions spell out the names of work-gangs.

 

Those names, which were also found in other Egyptian pyramids like that of Menkaure and Sahure, usually included the name of the pharaoh they were working for. The blocks must have received the inscriptions before the chambers became inaccessible during construction.

 

Their orientation, often side-ways or upside down, and their sometimes being partially covered by blocks, indicates that the stones were inscribed before being laid.

A rarely seen ca. 1969/70 Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation (GAEC) artist’s concept of a rotating space station concept. This, the following linked designs & my other linked Flickr photos of GAEC designs below - based on the photo identification number - look to have been part of the same family/series of contractor concepts, proposals, etc., solicited/entertained by NASA ca. 1969:

 

www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2...

 

www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2...

Both above credit: the excellent Aerospace Projects Review website

 

In confirmation…IMHO…of such; in January - February 1969, NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine oversaw the creation of a Space Station Task Force, a Space Station Steering Group, and an independent Space Station Review Group. These bodies prepared a Phase B Space Station Study Statement of Work (SOW), which NASA released to industry on 19 April 1969. So, I'm pretty sure these works are some of the responses/submittals to that SOW.

 

"The SOW solicited proposals to study a 12-man Space Station, the design of which would eventually serve as a building block for a 100-man Earth-orbital Space Base. The 12-man Station was to reach orbit on a Saturn V rocket in 1975 and to remain in operation for 10 years...

Grumman, North American Rockwell (NAR), and McDonnell Douglas Aerospace Company (MDAC) submitted proposals in response to the SOW."

 

The above is a combination of paraphrasing & cut/paste from David S. F. Portree's superlative (as always) article at his wonderful "No Shortage of Dreams" blog. The entire wonderfully informative content at:

 

spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2015/03/outpost-in-leo-mc...

 

Further, particularly regarding the space station depiction itself, thanks to a posting on this image hosting ‘service’ by James Vaughan (also linked to below) of a GAEC ad, it’s source, along with the other linked ‘iconic’ concept was identified. Additionally, the ad contained some descriptive information and a wonderful, although slightly confusing diagram. The text from which follows:

 

“What form will the nation’s first earth orbiting space station take?

 

Experienced Grumman design and development engineers continue to investigate all types of space station concepts—from Zero G nonrotating to rotating types. All this design effort results from the basic study of the many uses that space stations might have. As an example, earth orbiting space stations might conceivably be a twin-bladed configuration as shown above [the more ‘iconic’ image], or a multiple canister type, shown below [this posted image]. Whatever the final design may be, the mechanical and human problems involved are enormous, demanding unique capabilities for integrating the most complex components. At Grumman, this capacity for integration is in the hands of an experienced hard core of engineers who, with free exchange of ideas in design and development, provide total systems in space technology.”

 

As if all of the above weren’t enough, confirmation that this work is by none other than Craig Kavafes, and by extrapolation/comparison, the other ‘iconic’ design. Oddly/interestingly though, is his use of a lower-case block letter signature, something I’d associate with an earlier work. Regardless, a multifaceted “WIN”!

 

But now…get this, the ad (along with a bunch of other cool ones) was featured in the September 1963 issue of “AIR FORCE/SPACE DIGEST” magazine, page 109. At:

 

books.google.com/books?id=zz0PAAAAIAAJ&printsec=front...

Credit: Google Books website

 

That certainly explains Mr. Kavafes’ signature style. Does that mean GAEC just pulled these off the shelf, dusted them off & submitted them (maybe again?) In 1969?

snailbooty a.k.a. (Awesome) CW Wells is one of my two favourite artists www.flickr.com/photos/snailbooty along with the photographer known as minions and myrmidons www.flickr.com/photos/21891888@N00/

coincidentally both female, both American, and both at the top of their superb games, to the shame of galleries everywhere.

The Conversion.

 

Ruin: so, tell me about the day you got the 'news'. Did you go there alone? I went with Adrian, but we got the news separately.

 

Rack: I will, but zero energy today and this will require some gusto. I was alone, half expecting it. I’ve never fully described it to myself or anyone else. Going to think on it. If it goes in our book, it will have to be largely fictionalized as I remember very little. Not surprisingly. Send me yours and I’ll send you mine. xo

 

Ruin: Mine is similar, remember very little, though I did write around it, both to you and to one or two others. I was working in the Civil Service at the time. I had just finished my Doctorate. I will re-build it around those messages, will find it out, write about not remembering it, even. I can't even remember if I was sitting opposite a male or female doctor. I do remember the shock though, and coming out to discover that Adrian was in with another doctor. I had gone in first, so I had to wait for him. My head was racing, but then, when is it not?

 

Amanda Knox writes quite well, relative to that link you sent me, about her ‘Red Letter Day’.

 

There’s a similar feeling in it, that prison sentence, the air being drawn out of the room.

 

Yes, I will write it, we can also find it in our exchange, and yes, it can include fiction, of course. But then what is fiction? Perhaps it’s the story we tell ourselves convincing ourselves that it’s true, those self-justifications we invent to make moving forward possible, that greasing of those wheels.

 

I also have the writing about when we first got our t-cell count back, and mine being higher than his, and there being some guilt. It's near the end of those emails I sent you, but I will contrive to pull it all together.

 

Rack: God yes, the T-cell counts. Mine were not terrible. Peter tested after me and his were terrible. That’s how he found out. I feel like I might have to resort to science fiction, a genre I’m not fond of. Not that I know anything about it. Anyway, will stop writing about writing about it and will write it.

 

Ruin:

Sent : Sun Apr 22, 2001, 9:17 am.

Cries and Whimpers. (On discovering new HIV status Sent : Sun Apr 22, 2001, 9:17 am.

 

“I feel like I have dropped out of the world. You know the feeling, that in it but not of it, sort of thing. This acknowledgement of a new but inevitable state of being waxes and wanes, sometimes seeming unbearable and sometimes seeming very ordinary. That we both want or need to deal with it in totally different ways causes problems intermittently as we knock off each other (relative to Adrian). Meanwhile the world seems even more inaccessible than ever, the art world in particular. As usual I cringe at youth and beauty, but now in a more bitter and twisted way. When I see what is acceptable and celebrated in the Art world it becomes immediately clear why I would not be. Who needs the ravings of an aberrational cock and cum obsessed dysfunctional unit? The world is about going forth and multiplying, about buying and selling. It’s all about possessions and looking good. Having got to the ripe old age of 47, I haven't even managed to develop the acquisitional gene and imagine that will be a lack until the final shuffling off of this tired old coil.”

 

That's the day I found out, after a little search, but I will make it into a story. But no, on re-reading, I see it isn’t the day I found out, it’s 12 days later. I have no idea what happened in those intervening days.

 

I sort of discovered that in the act of writing, you start to remember even, to recapture memories. It's an interesting process.

 

Rack: Yes, I hope that happens. I am thinking I might make the perspective that of the doctor’s, to some degree, not entirely. I do remember him. Better than I remember myself that day. Telling.

 

Ruin: I remember reactions over that time, telling people, and getting that "well you were bloody looking for it" reaction.

 

I think before that day I thought that I might have been immune.

 

There was a rumour that some people were, and I had been such a slattern to that point, and always stayed negative, so I sort of allowed myself delude myself.

 

But I think that I might have wanted it too.

 

Rack: I mostly knew. I had fevers, swollen lymph nodes and one night a pain in the left side of my neck like a piece of rebar had been jammed up from my clavicle.

 

Yes, regarding wanting it, me too. It was connected to my loss of Conor. Complicated. It was a way for me to have an identity.

 

Ruin: But it was so much not your demographic, that must have been bewildering somewhat.

 

I think I was a semi-conscious bug-chaser, but also blindingly honest. As soon as I converted I told everyone.

 

Rack: Oh, it did. It was my calling card. The 25-year-old Irish woman with AIDS (no distinctions were made back then really).

 

Ruin: It was how I sorted out that wheat from the chaff, frighten the fuckers away.

 

Rack: It was a fantastic litmus test. That’s certain.

 

Ruin: I told you before, that demographically in London, the Irish and those from the Caribbean have the greatest percentage of HIV positive amongst their cohorts. They both have a disproportionate number for the size of their populations. It's the old ‘Cuckoo’, ‘Wild Goose’ thing. There was a survey done, and it was reported. I wish I had kept it.

 

Rack: Not surprising. The disenfranchised. Same could be said of Covid deaths.

 

Ruin: Lost, wandering, souls, untethered.

 

Rack: Yup. Less to lose.

 

Ruin: It's interesting now here to be in that demographic again relative to Covid, the disposables, the old.

 

Rack: But there was also the sense that it could get anyone. Liberace. Rock Hudson. Magic Johnson.

 

Ruin: Straight from one to the other, straight from seeing our parents out to preparing to see ourselves out. But that is universally the way of the world too.

 

Rack: I’d like to see myself in first.

 

Ruin: Yes, absolutely, but the untethered are more vulnerable, more likely to head for it, almost daringly.

 

Rack: I’m beginning to understand the reason for my writerly reticence. It ain’t pretty.

 

Ruin: Great, meaning ‘yes’ to the seeing of yourself in, but also describe it, it works at perhaps even bringing that about, of disenfranchising it.

 

Rack: I will. Not now though. I need to clarify it to myself. It’s terrifying.

 

Ruin: That self-loathing, it's great, and liberating, when you at last begin to call it out.

 

I am listening to Sapolsky again today about childhood abuse and PTSD. Take your time.

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcBgsmJFHDY&t=3s

 

Baboons in the wild, that's us, his subject, extrapolated to us.

 

Rack: Waving our purple arses. xoxooxoxox

 

Ruin: Kiss it, bitch!!!! XXX

 

It's bedtime here. I have been thinking about this, I will write it tomorrow, or start, it will include this, grow out of this. This will be the immediate aspect. The rest will happen, from notes made around the time and retrieved memories. It might take the rest of the week to pull it out, but I will.

 

When I think of it, it must have been a female doctor. At the same time, it might not have even been a doctor, perhaps a social worker, or a nurse, or one of the gay men manning the ‘Tavistock Clinic’. It was all nicely normalised for us sexual renegades, so that we could talk about anything, just as if we too were actually ‘normal’. My memory of the clinic in Dublin was not like that. There, we were well and truly outsiders, beyond that pale, next to the shackled prisoners from the local jail (I kid you not). This was indicative of the shame we might have dragged with us unknowingly, that friendly self-targeting fire. There is an aspect of that there in Nuala O’ Faolain’s autobiography, around abortion and birth control, and lesbianism. In fact, it’s more or less there in the writings of all our compatriots from Joyce wandering off to forge the conscience of his race, to the Magdalene Laundry atrocities in Claire Keegan. It is our wandering lot. I guess it’s that I seethe against in everything I make or do. That stranglehold of religion, for generations, casting sex as shameful. But there’s no real blame there either, or if there is, it is directable somewhere else. It perhaps could be laid squarely at the feet of the colonisation, and devastatingly cruel treatment, of our forebears, driving them into the maws of religion, that all-devouring solace.

 

I am not surprised we went crazy, you and me. I guess it’s also why I hold onto the discussion around Joyce relative to syphilis. There is much Irish objection to the theory amongst literature scholars, that ‘not our Saint James’ sort of thing, not now that we have taken him back into our collective, all enveloping, chaste bosoms. But we know he is one of us, shameless, you just have to read his letters, and look at the treatments he was receiving (That mercury and Neo-Salvarsan). We are shameless, and this is good. This needs both embracing and celebrating, wantonly, lusciously, and hilariously.

 

So back to the ‘Tavistock Clinic’, nestled there just off the Tottenham Court Road, succour for sinners, offered now by our nation’s tormentors. Going there to confess repeated improprieties, which inevitably did, at last, trip one up, was always a bit of a laugh, until it wasn’t.

 

The thing I think I remember most is hard to describe. It wasn’t a sharp intake of breath, not exactly that. It was more like a rush of cold air into the lungs, like it feels just before a panic attack. But this was years before those panic attacks, but I still remember that ‘cold air’ second. It was like, suddenly from nowhere, air from a deep freeze had entered your lungs. Just the once, it wasn’t ongoing, but it took quite a few more breaths to warm it back up. The heart felt it, and responded, speeding up. Again, Sapolsky describes this wonderfully, that flight or fight response to danger, that speeding up when there was nowhere to run to. He links it to abuse and neglect in childhood. Like a baboon sitting directly opposite a man-eating tiger. The thing is that we are so used to running away from our own personal ‘bête noire’, mine being my mother selling me for sex to her brother when I was a child. That she did this ‘innocently’ is no succour, no release at all. Running had to happen. Running until you dropped, and you, apparently, had just dropped in front of this ferocious caregiver. Luckily the tiger opposite you was just there to make a follow up appointment to have your bloodwork done, to see the extent of the damage already coalesced. I didn’t realise at the time that there would be still a lot of time to conjure a seemingly infinite amount of even more damage. I was always very good at generating self-damage, a past master, even. But then this was inherited, something passed on from abused parents to their litter (or their farrow, as Mr. Joyce termed it). I still love this stuff we carry forward, until we work out that reproduction is probably not a good idea at all; so we stop.

 

We were very clever in that regard, or at least our DNA was.

 

Rack, I think that this is how it is done, or a lot of it anyway. This immediacy of these SMS messages between us, this explaining it to each other. You pointed out that this was your favourite part of the 50 pages I sent you, that 'nowness'. Yes, I agree with you there, it is the 'bones', like an extended diary really, a day by day thing, grabbing what ever understanding happens as you wake up. That's when it’s best for me anyway. It also means you don't actually have to sit down and write, in that traditional way of putting hours aside for the 'muse'. Anyway, you both muse and amuse me, enough to make me respond.

 

I am searching in the stuff I have here from around that time. There is not a lot, I think I sort of temporarily shut down. There are some breadcrumbs scattered. The next part seems to be about results, t-cell counts and the like. I can certainly fill in the gaps somewhat. I remember distinctly telling a few people, and their inappropriate reactions, which made me angry. Some fed me some 'choices' shit, as in "you made bad choices" sort of way. I knew that I had been true. I also knew already that there was no such thing as ‘freedom of choice’, no such chimera as ‘free Will’. Those ghosts were the terrors of childhood, they were over, as dead as ‘God’.

 

I thought their reactions were shaming, and I was having none of that.

 

Anyway there is solace. I love the tenderness between us as we work this out.

 

Ruin: Anyway, dear Rack, here's a start. Good morning!

 

I was surprised to hear that you knew before Peter, and then he went and got tested. I always presumed that it was the other way around. I remember those people in New York, those gay men that didn't want to know. I had myself tested more or less every three months, more so after I had resumed barebacking. That happened quite late for me, it was really after I had left New York, that point where I had become so tired of all that self-preservation of someone I loathed, myself. You see, I had come from a long line of barebackers. My parents were, it was mandated by their religion (as you know condoms were not available), and my grandfather and grandmother, with their 17 children, were definitely barebackers too, and so on through countless generations. What can I say? It was ingrained in my DNA.

 

In fact, almost every heterosexual I ever met was a barebacker. They were forever falling pregnant, or going on the pill, or looking to get an abortion, or whatever. It was from that bastion of privilege that most of the shaming was coming from, as it would happen, and this always managed to irritate the bejaysus out of me. This might have been at the root of the art I was beginning to make, that adoption of those indicators of their divinity, that gold and silver they chose to honour their beatified, that idealised self they had inherited. Fuck them all Rack, I would give that to us.

 

Rack: Great stuff Billy. I love the idea of barebacking, for whatever reason being hereditary. Brilliant. And yes, the immediacy and the “I’m not really writing” are the genius of the back and forth.

 

It seems I need this. Or an assignment like this. Working on mine. I’ve got to the office, but no further.

 

ONWARD

 

08:20, 15/03/2023

  

Ruin: Yes, I do and don’t see it as writing. It’s really just a correspondence between friends, and we both write as we write. That, of course, comes with a sense of immediacy, that not writing really towards an end, the picking apart (that knot) being the ongoing driver. This is what we have been doing for years, though I did start by saying that I wanted to keep a record of us dealing with what was happening, and that I had this ‘Laclos’ fantasy. Yes, it has developed, but it is also still the same. I never set out to be a writer, you know that; I am, and was, an image maker, it was and is how I explain the world to myself. I still don’t want to be what is called a writer, that career involving whatever it involves. It’s still writing until I feel this is sorted out, whether that be completed in those fabled 4 years I say I hope for, or whether it goes on until Max Van Sydow arrives with his scythe. The writing is primarily the unravelling of what I have wrought, that Gordian knot thingy, my very own one, in tandem, and parallel with your picking apart of your very own variant of the same. I sense similarities there in both our fumblings. Though it isn’t all fumbling, sometimes we seem to have breakthroughs, seem even to be getting somewhere. This might be delusional on my part. I often look back as things I make, places where I thought I was being ‘true’, some of those ‘eureka’ moments and wonder what I thought I was up to.

 

Maybe my trying to fashion it into a type of ‘book’ is too much pressure, maybe it is even dishonest, though I see there is ‘worth’ there. I think we can communicate something valuable about the human condition, or at least our own ‘perverted’ version of the same (which is equal to all other versions) especially relative to sex, shame, and abuse. The struggle with whatever, in the moment it was happening, is what the messages back and forth between each other manifests. It wasn’t some narrative contrivance we manufactured to create something called a story or plot. It was the ‘there and then’ of the continuous ‘now’. We are lucky to have that record, and I don’t really care if it is ‘literature’ or even ‘good writing’. I have no problem with correcting it where necessary, grammar or spelling-wise, but that’s only to make it clearer for myself initially. After myself, I want to make it clearer for you. I have no idea what follows after that, or if anything needs to.

 

I am saying this to take the pressure off of you, the head of steam you seem to build up, fit to burst. I see it can cause a type of panic for you. I am talking about your fear of writing. Don’t write then, just respond if you want to. That’s enough. It builds of its own volition.

 

Strangely, I could hardly read the O’Faolain book. I got to about 150 pages in and had to stop. I kept waiting for it to start, and kept getting irritated when it didn’t, and had to stop. Anyway, I am not going to attack it, the writing I mean, I am hardly an expert, but it didn’t win me over at all. I don’t know why, maybe it was that generational thing, that Dublin one just before me, before I found myself on Kildare Street, with your mother, and had somewhat of a sampling of what Dublin had to offer (for the first time), before deciding that I had to escape from that too. Then there was that usual doo-doo. That “you had books growing up, you were lucky”, all that crazy comparative abuse stuff, that “mine was worse than yours” stuff. Then she went to Oxford. I would have killed all Jude the obscure’s children to have been aware then that Oxford even existed as a possibility. It’s all very much about what you were born into, and the sort of privilege that is taken for granted, even if her father was a complete negligent asshole.

 

So, there you have it, another good book ruined through seething jealousy.

 

Well, at least I now know it, and knowledge being power, and all that palaver, let’s see where that takes us. Anyway, jealousy often comes up around memoirs I read, primarily that Monty Pythonesque “You were lucky, you had books”. I must have always really wanted them, those ‘unobtainables’. This suggests that I might have wanted to write. I remember loving writing in school, and always getting top marks for the same. I think it had something to do with not being able to speak, that damned stutter, so that the writing was the only way I could manage to say what I was thinking. The progenitors worked according to the rule that “children should be seen and not heard”, a relentlessly repeated maxim. So, most of the time was spent making cheap jigsaws. I got one every Christmas, each one more complicated than the last in the hopes of keeping the stammering child quiet. But there was drawing too. I preferred that.

 

Then I pulled Rack, sorry Kim, through that scratchy hedge hole, your doggy alter-ego, and the world changed. That all sounds a bit like what happened in the Moondance Diner, on that day we first met and simultaneously told me that you had just found out you were HIV-positive.

 

Ruin: Next step for me is first bloodwork, as you know my veins and arteries are sewers so that should make for fun reading. Can you remember your first? Each seems like a tentative step at the beginnings of a journey. First sex after conversion, first time stoned, pissed, first bloodwork, first confession of new status, first time you snapped at someone who complained about something trivial when you were carrying life and death, and mostly the latter, on your shoulders, first film you managed to sit through. There have been no first tears yet. You know all of this......wanna be my Beatrice?

 

Edge-dwelling, one of our favourite subjects.

 

It does seem strange not to have your madness here at the moment. It probably wouldn't help but it might. I may need to visit NYC at some stage for a fix and a change of perspective and just to prove that I can and that all is not over. This is a stupid infuriating stage, and it can be over as soon as it wants. Sorry if I remind you of a past self. Going to the Irish Club in Eaton Square for lunch for some posh comfort food. The sort of food which was eaten on the Hill of Howth but never made it to Clondalkin. With Wine (for some reason my spellcheck wants to change this to Whine).

 

Rack: You know what is really odd. I get bad news and my whole being reacts as if it's good news. This is a strange thing. I get all fired up, determined, focused, confident, strong and ballsy. It's the perversion of our predicament. Of course, the bloodwork sucked the big hairy moosedick. This I think I knew without having to charge my health insurance company 2,000 dollars. I'll deal with it, as I always do. I'll go back in. I'll play more drug-chess, I'll grow to love compromise as much as a miracle and I'll be around for a little longer.

 

This is not easy.

 

I think I am going back on the interferon. This is hard for me, but it's a gamble. Maybe I can keep my liver in working order for another two years and by then the drugs in the pipeline now will be available to me. It's always been thus, and I have to say that I have

had great fortune in being on the right side of time.

 

Ruin, Ruin, Ruin. You know I'd say a prayer if I could. There must be real comfort in that stuff. However, we persist...

 

I'm happy to have you as my dear friend.

 

Ruin: I should have written earlier to you to let you know of the results of our bloodwork. I was somewhat shocked and dismayed to discover that mine are actually much better than him indoors. Mine are 800 with a low viral load of 9,000. His are around 500 with a viral load of 60,000. I know these are all just figures and can change over a short period; I remember that film ‘Silverlake Life’. This comparison thing is odious and the main overpowering feeling I had was one of guilt at being overly endowed in the T-cell department, as opposed to the trouser department which is my usual problem! We are both being treated at the moment for an amoebic infection in the gut and hopefully this will up his numbers (and mine to superhuman levels), as he has been quite sick and squitty.

 

They are probably a leftover from my time in New York as I had bad stomach bug problems there (Giardia etc.) from my propensity for eating nether regions. When I went to have them checked here, I was told I had nervous stomach and sent home by my GP, and it is only now that I have the lurgy that the National Health bothers to check and finds the little buggers. At last, we will get comprehensive healthcare, but it had to get to this point (where they check out every little problem). Can you imagine how the rest of the clean population (henceforth to be known as the cleanies) gets treated? Cancer patients getting sent home with ‘Imodium’. It happens.

 

We are now, of course, utterly disposable. All the rules of survival of the fittest would support this. How do we turn this around? This has been your struggle for years. I don't mean it in a bad way but is it somewhat of a support to have me there with you in the same boat? It is a support for me that you are such an old hand and inspiration in your ability to move on with this. I am telling my friends but the present climate dictates that they absorb the news, express concern and then disappear (my NY friends excluded), almost like an ‘Oh well, too bad, now get over it’ sort of shrug. So that is what I am doing. I am not averse to milking it, but the udder of human kindness seems to have deserted the pap. Anyway, I am more likely to laugh than cry and my inclination is to shout 'fuck you and your sympathy.' At the same time, I don't want to hide it. I don't want to become some HIV activist, but I do want to talk about being mortal. I still want TOO MUCH, but now I want it immediately. NOTE TO SELF: Self, you must get some credit cards or at least a credit rating.

 

So, I am sure you will be glad to see that my unhealthy Ego is still very much intact and beginning to re-emerge from the wettest winter on record. I am torn as to how to approach bodies for art funding. Should I do the “I am profoundly mortal and in touch with the moment of extinction” spiel, hoping they will think, “oops better fund him because he won't be around for much longer” or avoid all that in case they think, “oops another AIDS artist who has nothing to say to us cleanies?” It's all in the work anyway......but which is the best way to exploit the situation, given that Brit Art is dominated by Laddism and that even the girls are beer drinking heterosexual womanisers (who can spit great distances).

 

Brit art has had no response to this Fin De Siecle malaise, there is no Gober, or Gonzales Torres or Wojnarowicz, or even a Goldin......I don't think they should get away with this. Similarly, Brits don't know how to respond when you tell them of your lurgyness, as they know no one else with this condition, or at least act as if they don’t. I miss my mates in New York, who have absorbed the whole shebang and know how to respond. Let's hear it for the ‘Healing Circle’ and ‘Act-Up’ meetings.

 

They were good, if slightly hysterical, times. I hate normalisation, it really does you in.

 

I am not what might be considered 'normal', I worship at the back passage and no amount of interior design flair will change that. I love being an aberration.

 

I still have the bitter and twisted fantasy I would like to write as a story. Set in the future it would involve a new virus that would kill you within a month. The idea would be that anyone who was already HIV positive would be immune to the virus. So, reverse everything. Those who were Poz would no longer be Pariahs. Cleanies would be begging for positive loads, it would be on sale on the net. The most efficient way to contact it would be anal sex (as if) so that every straight jock in Christendom would be begging for it and we would be very busy and multi-squillionaires in no time. So I am a sicko....but you always knew that.

 

Anyway now you have the latest earth-shattering facts and fantasies of my so-called life. Civil servitude continues and the days drag on. I have some feelers out for vague connections to generate art and space and support. We now have a power shower and the new cooker and washing machine and tumble dryer are paid for and awaiting delivery. We will never go short of a clean diaper when the time comes. Debts mount for same.

 

Attached please find pic for cover of aforementioned book,

Infected kisses,

 

Billzebum

 

Rack: Will reply. I don’t see the cover attachment. Xo

  

Ruin: Nope, that's an old email, that last part. It was just as far as I got this morning.

 

This is exactly what I am talking about, this immediacy, this interweaving. It is an exchange between two people, in that moment of that exchange, that perpetual now. Perpetual, another catholic word, that idea of perpetual succour, and that giving and receiving of same to each other.

 

I sent you more, as email, which I think is a better place to communicate. Except there is also that added immediacy of this organ (WhatsApp) here....that complete 'in the moment'. Let's not lose this either.

 

"I suspect you saw that 'cleanies' reference I put up. I know it seems offensive. It came from a time when I would go out to bars, or wherever, and someone would try to pick me up. We would chat away, the usual inanities, until the person flirting with me would ask was I clean. I would play along and say I washed regularly, or whatever, but they would insist. So, I would get them to ask me if I was positive or not. I was asked was I clean so many times. They would get angry too, when I said I was positive, as in why I had wasted their time. I was told a few times that I shouldn't be in a bar, because I was spoiling it for 'clean' people."

 

I am looking at stigma and shame, though the email I sent you is not about that. It's a continuation on the last one.

 

Rack: I had this boyfriend who said to me after I tested positive (as I was soliciting him for sex), “I didn’t think you could have sex now.” As if my vagina had grown a metal hymen. I think of him sometimes, now 35 years later, and wonder if he wonders what happened to me.

 

Ruin: I remember a friend in NYC used to cover his glass with his hand when he was drinking with me, just in case. I wasn't even positive then, but I was a wooftah. That was enough.

 

That was the same guy I went to work with in Palm Beach around 9/11. That story is, of course, here too.

 

It appears I have forsworn even trying to be a sympathetic character. It's just as well that I am fictional, or rather that we are.

Circa 1962-64 Lockheed Missiles & Space Company artist’s concept of a Saturn-Apollo nuclear “lunar logistics” vehicle, depicting simultaneous jettison of the interstage, S-II stage ignition & payload fairing separation. Striking - what I’m pretty sure to be - artistic license.

 

8.5" x 11".

 

Although unsigned, extrapolating from what I assume to be other works from this series, possibly by Anthony Saporito & J. Kramer? William Collopy? Or the man himself, Ludwik Źiemba?

“SPACE STATION--Concept of 12-man space station is illustrated in cutaway by North American Rockwell’s Space Division, Downey, Calif. Space Division heads one of two teams selected by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for parallel 11-month, $2.9 million definition studies to design and develop a space station which could fly by 1975. Drawing shows crew quarters-command and control area in upper part of station, laboratory - experiment area, and physical conditioning area. Circular openings at top and bottom of station are multiple docking ports for logistics shuttle. Vehicle at lower left is experiment module placed in similar orbit to support station.”

 

Obvious (when viewed firsthand) handling marks, in the form of surface breaks visible under appropriate lighting/oblique angle, do not detract from this striking image, which still retains its high gloss.

 

An often reproduced work, for several reasons. Obviously, for the scene depicted (AS IS) to be plausible, the vehicle would have to be under constant acceleration. That apparent goof, along with the bare-buttocks guy showering, hopefully in addition to it being well-done, is likely why it’s been widely propagated.

 

...I think I've figured it out.

 

This is just one in a sequence (as is usually the case actually) of illustrations depicting a possible/proposed concept, proposal, whatever. In this case the construction of this particular space station configuration. Note the unaddressed component orbiting in the background...with the narrower diameter extension and what appears to be another similar object, at an angle, just behind it.

With that, I invite you to take a look at my other linked photo below.

 

Due to the image’s wider field of view, the initials “D B” are present. With the brilliant assistance of G, some extrapolation & edumuhcated guesses, a huge and totally unexpected WIN. Donald W. Bester.

Picture by Massimo Vitali

Drum scan by CastorScan

Kodak Portra 8x10" color negative

  

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CastorScan's philosophy is completely oriented to provide the highest scan and postproduction

quality on the globe.

 

We work with artists, photographers, agencies, laboratories etc. who demand a state-of-the-art quality at reasonable prices.

 

Our workflow is fully manual and extremely meticulous in any stage.

 

We developed exclusive workflows and profilation systems to obtain unparallel results from our scanners not achievable through semi-automatic and usual workflows.

  

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CastorScan uses the best scanners in circulation, Dainippon Screen SG-8060P Mark II, the best and most advanced scanner ever made, Kodak-Creo IQSmart 3, a high-end flatbed scanner, and Imacon 848.

 

The image quality offered by our Dainippon Screen 8060 scanner is much higher than that achievable with the best flatbed scanners or filmscanners dedicated and superior to that of scanners so-called "virtual drum" (Imacon – Hasselblad,) and, of course, vastly superior to that amateur or prosumer obtained with scanners such as Epson V750 etc .

 

Dainippon Screen SG-8060P Mark II exceeds in quality any other scanner, including Aztek Premier and ICG 380 (in the results, not just in the technical specifications).

 

8060's main features: 12000 dpi, Hi-Q Xenon lamp, 25 apertures, 2 micron

 

Aztek Premier's main features: 8000 dpi, halogen lamp, 18 apertures, 3 micron

 

ICG 380's main features: 12000 dpi, halogen lamp, 9 apertures, 4 micron

  

Some of the features that make the quality of our drum scanners better than any other existing scan system include:

 

The scans performed on a drum scanner are famous for their detail, depth and realism.

Scans are much cleaner and show fewer imperfections than scans obtained from CCD scanners, and thus save many hours of cleaning and spotting in postproduction.

Image acquisition by the drum scanner is optically similar to using a microscopic lens that scans the image point by point with extreme precision and without deformation or distortion of any kind, while other scanners use enlarger lenses (such as the Rodenstock-Linos Magnagon 75mm f8 used in the Hasselblad-Imacon scanners) and have transmission systems with rubber bands: this involves mild but effective micro-strain and micro-geometric image distortions and quality is not uniform between the center and edges.

Drum scanners are exempt from problems of flatness of the originals, since the same are mounted on a perfectly balanced transparent acrylic drum; on the contrary, the dedicated film scanners that scan slides or negatives in their plastic frames are subject to quite significant inaccuracies, as well as the Imacon-Hasselblad scanners, which have their own rubber and plastic holders: they do not guarantee the perfect flatness of the original and therefore a uniform definition between center and edge, especially with medium and large size originals, which instead are guaranteed by drum scanners.

Again, drum scanners allow scanning at high resolution over the entire surface of the cylinder, while for example the Hasselblad Imacon scans are limited to 3200 dpi in 120 format and 2000 dpi in 4x5" format (the resolution of nearly every CCD scanner in the market drops as the size of the original scanned is increased).

Drum scanners allow complete scanning of the whole negative, including the black-orange mask, perforations etc, while using many other scanners a certain percentage of the image is lost because it is covered by frames or holders.

Drum scanners use photomultiplier tubes to record the light signal, which are much more sensitive than CCDs and can record many more nuances and variations in contrast with a lower digital noise.

If you look at a monitor at 100% the detail in shadows and darker areas of a scan made with a CCD scanner, you will notice that the details are not recorded in a clear and clean way, and the colors are more opaque and less differentiated. Additionally the overall tones are much less rich and differentiated.

  

We would like to say a few words about an unscrupulous and deceitful use of technical specifications reported by many manufacturers of consumer and prosumer scanners; very often we read of scanners that promise cheap or relatively cheap “drum scanner” resolutions, 16 bits of color depth, extremely high DMAX: we would like to say that these “nominal” resolutions do not correspond to an actual optical resolution, so that even in low-resolution scanning you can see an enormous gap between drum scanners and these scanners in terms of detail, as well as in terms of DMAX, color range, realism, “quality” of grain. So very often when using these consumer-prosumer scanners at high resolutions, it is normal to get a disproportionate increase of file size in MB but not an increase of detail and quality.

To give a concrete example: a drum scan of a 24x36mm color negative film at 3500 dpi is much more defined than a scan made with mostly CCD scanner at 8000 dpi and a drum scan at 2500 dpi is dramatically clearer than a scan at 2500 dpi provided by a CCD scanner. So be aware and careful with incorrect advertisement.

 

Scans can be performed either dry or liquid-mounted. The wet mounting further improves cleanliness (helps to hide dirt, scratches and blemishes) and plasticity of the image without compromising the original, and in addition by mounting with liquid the film grain is greatly reduced and it looks much softer and more pleasant than the usual "harsh" grain resulting from dry scans.

 

We use Kami SMF 2001 liquid to mount the transparencies and Kami RC 2001 for cleaning the same. Kami SMF 2001 evaporates without leaving traces, unlike the traditional oil scans, ensuring maximum protection for your film. Out of ignorance some people prefer to avoid liquid scanning because they fear that their films will be dirty or damaged: this argument may be plausible only in reference to scans made using mineral oils, which have nothing to do with the specific professional products we use.

We strongly reiterate that your original is in no way compromised by our scanning liquid and will return as you have shipped it, if not cleaner.

 

With respect to scanning from slides:

Our scanners are carefully calibrated with the finest IT8 calibration targets in circulation and with special customized targets in order to ensure that each scan faithfully reproduces the original color richness even in the most subtle nuances, opening and maintaining detail in shadows and highlights. These color profiles allow our scanners to realize their full potential, so we guarantee our customers that even from a chromatic point of view our scans are noticeably better than similar scans made by mostly other scan services in the market.

In addition, we remind you that our 8060 drum scanner is able to read the deepest shadows of slides without digital noise and with much more detail than CCD scanners; also, the color range and color realism are far better.

 

With respect to scanning from color and bw negatives: we want to emphasize the superiority of our drum scans not only in scanning slides, but also in color and bw negative scanning (because of the orange mask and of very low contrast is extremely difficult for any ccd scanner to read the very slight tonal and contrast nuances in the color negative, while a perfectly profiled 8060 drum scanner – also through the analog gain/white calibration - can give back much more realistic images and true colors, sharper and more three-dimensional).

 

In spite of what many claim, a meticulous color profiling is essential not only for scanning slides, but also, and even more, for color negatives. Without it the scan of a color negative will produce chromatic errors rather significant, thus affecting the tonal balance and then the naturalness-pleasantness of the images.

  

More unique than rare, we do not use standardized profiles provided by the software to invert each specific negative film, because they do not take into account parameters and variables such as the type of development, the level of exposure, the type of light etc.,; at the same time we also avoid systems of "artificial intelligence" or other functions provided by semi-automatic scanning softwares, but instead we carry out the inversion in a full manual workflow for each individual picture.

 

In addition, scanning with Imacon-Hasselblad scanners we do not use their proprietary software - Flexcolor – to make color management and color inversion because we strongly believe that our alternative workflow provides much better results, and we are able to prove it with absolute clarity.

 

At each stage of the process we take care of meticulously adjusting the scanning parameters to the characteristics of the originals, to extrapolate the whole range of information possible from any image without "burning" or reductions in the tonal range, and strictly according to our customer's need and taste.

 

By default, we do not apply unsharp mask (USM) in our scans, except on request.

 

To scan reflective originals we follow the same guidelines and guarantee the same quality standard.

 

We guarantee the utmost thoroughness and expertise in the work of scanning and handling of the originals and we provide scans up to 12,000 dpi of resolution, at 16-bit, in RGB, GRAYSCALE, LAB or CMYK color mode; unless otherwise indicated, files are saved with Adobe RGB 1998 or ProPhoto RGB color profile.

 

WWW.CASTORSCAN.COM

The very first sizable Classic Space set I had as a kid was 6928 Uranium Search Vehicle, which I loved. I decided to build an updated version.

 

I made a few intentional changes to the design, but they're all extrapolated from the original. Specifically, the two sections are joined with an articulated tunnel rather than a hinge, and there are modest living quarters (including two beds) inside.

 

Be sure to check out the full set of photos!