Sudanese Pyramids... (1 Viewer)

mikemiller1955

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There are more pyramids in Sudan than all of Egypt...

usually associated with Egypt...northern Sudan actually has more...

The kingdom of Cush (or Kush) flourished south of Egypt along the Nile from the Eighth Century B.C. to the Fourth Century A.D. Here the rulers of Cush built some 228 pyramids, three times as many as the Pharaohs managed to pile up. We rarely hear or see anything of these strange, steeply pointed structures. They are usually less than 100 feet high and not as impressive and mysterious as those farther north beyond the Aswan Dam.

The Sudanese pyramids are smaller, steeper, and more recent than those to the north in Egypt.

The Cushite kingdom's passion for pyramids was probably acquired in the Eighth Century B.C., when it actually ruled Egypt for a few years until the Assyrians pushed its armies back south in 671 B.C. With them, the Cushites took the pyramid idea, Egyptian art forms, and hieroglyphics. They liked pyramids so well that the Cushite rulers kept on building them until the kingdom's demise in 350 A.D. -- some 2,000 years after the Egyptians had abandoned this form of architecture altogether.

There is nothing in the Cush pyramids that can be called anomalous. It's just so surprising to learn there are so many of them and that they are so neglected in the TV documentaries.

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf130/sf130p01.htm

a different website...

The number of pyramids in ancient Nubia (aka Kush & today Sudan) were a total of 223, (Kerma, Napata, Nuri, Naga, and Meroe), double the pyramids of its neighbor Egypt. The underground graves of the Nubian pyramids were richly decorated. All pyramids were not monuments of kings is evinced by their great number. Other grandees of the empire, especially priests of high rank, or such as had obtained the sacerdotal dignity, might have found in them their final resting place.

http://wysinger.homestead.com/nubian105.html

I would like to try and build a pyramid out of foam...

some of these look no taller than 30 or 40 feet...
 

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Around 1000 BC, following the collapse of the New Kingdom in Egypt, the Nubian kingdom of Kush re-emerged as a great power in the Middle Nile. Between 712-657 BC, Sudanese kings conquered and ruled Egypt, as the XXVth Dynasty. By about 300 BC the center of the kingdom had shifted south to the Meroe region in central Sudan, where the pyramids and tombs were built to house the bodies of their kings and queens.

All the tombs at Meroë have been plundered, most infamously by Italian explorer Giuseppe Ferlini (1800-1870) who smashed the tops off 40 pyramids in a quest for treasure in the 1820s. Ferlini found only one cache of gold. His finds were later sold, and remain at the museums in Munich and Berlin. His aim was not to study the pyramids.

Some of these were very small...

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Thanks for the education, Mike. :) I had no idea there were pyramids in the Sudan. Its stands to reason that, like the Romans with the Greeks, the Kushites adopted many Egyptian cultural aspects after conquering Egypt. Great photos!
 
Hi Guys,

Very informative posts. I recently (in the last 6 months or so) saw a show on one of the history channels that discussed these pyramids and some of the work that is on going with regard to them. It was a very interesting show.

Thanks for the posts.

Dave
 
Your going to build one aren't you Michael and I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't already started to.;););)
 
Your going to build one aren't you Michael and I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't already started to.;););)

Joe...I have started one...but I'm not crazy about it...I'm about ready to throw in to the curb...

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This is what I like about them...

*****The physical proportions of Nubian pyramids differ markedly from the Egyptian edifices: they are built of stepped courses of horizontally positioned stone blocks.*****

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubian_pyramids

the steps are easy to create...as opposed to the Egyptian pyramids with no steps...

*****and range from approximately six to thirty metres in height, but rise from fairly small foundation footprints that rarely exceed eight metres in width, resulting in tall, narrow structures inclined at approximately seventy degrees.*****


six to thirty meters in height is from 20 to 90 feet in height...

so they can be basically any size...really small is okay...

*****By comparison, Egyptian pyramids of similar height generally had foundation footprints that were at least five times larger and were inclined at angles of between forty and fifty degrees.*****

I think the scale on mine is okay...but they just look so weird as to what we are used to seeing as Egyptian pyramids...
 

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Papa...I don't have anything figured out for the entrance and hallway...I still have a lot of bricks left over from my castle project...and Nick (aka Scarlet Pimp) has 7 Hirst Arts mold and said he will make me and mail me anything I ask for...I just need to figure out what to do and if I want to proceed with it...I need to make something like these entrances and hallways...

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Joe...I have started one...but I'm not crazy about it...I'm about ready to throw in to the curb...

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Mike,
I don't see why you are going to throw in the towel with this....It looks great to me. A bit of paint, some weathering and placed in a bed of sand it'll look perfect.

Pete

PS how did you make the bricks/blocks?
 
Pete...

I have a large box of leftover bricks from the Hirst Arts Castle I made for my Crusader/Saracen series...so bricks were not a problem...

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but there were so many problems with the white brick one that I didn't like...

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first off...the incline was wrong...not near steep enough...

secondly...the step area to each new level was too wide...not that they were supposed to be flush like the Egyptians...the steps were a characteristic of the Sudanese pyramids...it's just that mine were too wide...each proceeding level should have been closer to the edge than the way I did mine...

thirdly...the height was horribly off...should be 30 to 100 feet tall for Sudanese pyramids...not several hundred like the Egyptians...mine was like a pyramid for a pet dog...hahaha...

fourth...I couldn't figure a way to finish off the front...the entrance..with the Hirst Art bricks...

I actually made one with 3/4" foam...I threw it away too...the bricks in 3/4" were way too big and it was almost 2 feet tall...which was actually okay as some of the Sudanese pyramids were 100 foot tall...

this one I made...is with 1/2" foam...the brick size scale is good...the incline is good...the height in scale is about 40 feet which is okay...the step area is pretty darn close...and I think I can fabricate the architectural work on mine with foam and wood to match the model pretty close...

I know it looks like a big brown turd right now...but it just has a base coat on it...a couple of "dry brushes" with light then lighter browns and I think the bricks will "pop"...

Modwalls gave me a good tip on texturing the foam to look like stones that really worked well...


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sooooooo...that's where I'm at now...I have had a cold for 5 days and just didn't feel like working on it...

I even skipped golf this week...hahaha....so you know I felt bad...

these Sudanese pyramids...they look nothing like the Egyptian pyramids that most people are used to seeing...

I'm going to get re-started on it this week and finish the entrance...it looks tricky...

it will end up being..."My Version"...hahaha...but it will be okay...
 
It looks great to me....You must be feeling rough....missing golf!

Hope you feel better soon.

Keep up the good work!!!
 
The Egyptian and Sudanese pyramids were totally different...


mine is Sudanese...

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these are Egyptian...

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The Sudanese pyramids were small tombs...steeply inclined...totally different...
 

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