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In my last video I presented the most recent information and expert opinions concerning the Chroma Dump, which for those that don't know is a present shaped ancient trashy located south of the Pyramids of Giza. First excavated in the 1970s by Col Chroma and then again by the Ancient Egypt Research Associates or AERA in 2018.
From their recent excavations, the AERA believed that this dump was created in the 4th dynasty, and although this is a tentative interpretation based on limited new excavations, there is an elephant in the room that needs addressing. Yes, this dump could well have been created in the 4th dynasty, as they state, and as an amateur historical researcher, I can't really critique their excavations, analysis and conclusions.
But the age of the creation of the dump is just one part of it. The other is the age of the actual material inside it. Chroma's excavations in the 1970s were extensive, and he firmly believed the dump contained material that dated from the 1st to 4th dynasties, maybe even earlier. With pottery shards reminiscent of the pre-dynastic, as well as a number of early claselylings that looked to have predated the Giza Pyramid Builders, they were pre-4th dynasties and hence pre-coufu.
The implications of this discovery were huge, because in the 1970s it was fresh evidence for Giza having early dynastic origins that people were on the plateau before the pyramids. In his 1972 publication Chroma wrote, quote, after the results of the first excavation, I would therefore like to suggest the following interpretation of the discovery as the most probable. There was an extensive settlement on the site of today's Pyramid District of Giza. The life of the settlement probably extended from the 1st dynastie to the 3rd dynastie. At the beginning of the 4th dynastie, the rock plateau on which the settlement was located was declared a burial precinct in the settlement was demolished. This is a history of Giza that isn't mentioned today by the experts.
I don't hear many or any Egyptologists talking about the possible existence of an extensive early dynastic settlement on the plateau, predating the pyramids. Even though at Giza there is plenty of evidence for both the pre-dynastic Maddyculture as discussed in a previous video as well as the fact there are early dynastic tombs just south of the main pyramid field. In all honesty, finding an old dump with early dynastic and pre-dynastic finds would not even be all that surprising because we do know that people were there. We have the material evidence.
Chroma believed he'd found more evidence and his opinion on the material he found does need to be taken seriously because he wasn't an amateur, he was an experienced professor of pre and early history. So I was surprised to read the following paragraph in the spring 2018 edition of Erragram, an AERA publication. It says, and I quote, For decades scholars have thought the material excavated by Chroma dated to quite a long stretch of time, perhaps even hundreds of years. But based on our work at Hyde El Gharab, which is the city of pyramid builders located to the east of the dump, we suspect this not to be the case. We hope to prove conclusively that the Chroma material actually dates to a much smaller window of time, perhaps just a few decades covering the reins of Kufu and Kafehré. End quote.
Chroma相信他找到了更多的证据,他对他所找到的材料的看法需要被认真对待,因为他不是业余爱好者,而是一位有经验的史前和早期历史的教授。因此,我很惊讶在2018年春季版的AERA出版物Erragram中读到以下段落。它说:「几十年来,学者们一直认为Chroma挖掘出的材料可以追溯到相当长的时间段,甚至可能长达数百年。但根据我们在位于垃圾场东部的金字塔建造者城市Hyde El Gharab的工作,我们怀疑情况并非如此。我们希望能够最终证明,Chroma的材料实际上只能追溯到一个更小的时间段,可能仅仅覆盖了库夫和卡费赫雷的统治时期。」引用结束。
So, it seems that even before the new excavations began, the AERA were skeptical. They seem to believe that Chroma was wrong in the dating of the finds. Why? I don't know. But I had made the logical assumption that Chroma's evidence for an early dynastic settlement was reexamined and reassessed and was deemed inconclusive and debatable.
In their no excavations, the AERA only dug two trenches as opposed to Chroma's 10, and although the archaeologists said they found no evidence of early dynastic material, in the main they were covering old ground, parts that had already been excavated by Chroma, and although they did extend the research area, they only looked at a very small part of the dump. They found only Kafehré clay ceilings, they found evidence of a royal palace, and they didn't find anything that they believed predated the fourth dynasty. Fair enough.
But in the next edition of AERA Gram, dated 4, 2018, the Chroma dump is referred to as a fourth dynasty demolition and trash deposit. The archaeologist believed the earliest dump material was consistent with the demolished fourth dynasty royal rest house or small palace. But looking back over the recent publications, what I do find strange is that Chroma's evidence for early dynastic material was not mentioned. There is no mention as to whether or not it had been reexamined, and Chroma's interpretation of these early dynastic finds were not debated or debunked.
As stated, I had assumed in good faith that Chroma's finds and analysis must have been reexamined, and that they must have deemed as interpretation wrong or debatable. Examining previous work is surely the first thing anyone would do before re-excavating and re-evaluating a site. But there is nothing published to say that this work was done.
So in hindsight, to exclusively call the Chroma dump a fourth dynasty demolition and trash deposit is mere opinion, not fact. Yes, the trash heap could have been created in the fourth dynasty that could well be when the clearance and physical dumping took place, but just because no early dynastic discoveries were made in 2018, it doesn't mean that all the material inside the dump is fourth dynasty, not unless the AERA have fully reviewed the finds from the 1970s and successfully debunked Chroma's claims.
You can't just sweep them under the rug, especially when we have annoying YouTubers bringing them to everyone's attention. Making bold statements and conclusions based on a new selective and limited dataset without thoroughly reviewing all the documented finds from the 1970s is, well, unscientific and biased.
If this is a fourth dynasty dump made exclusively a fourth dynasty material, then great, but we need to know what was wrong with Chroma's analysis. So far, no counter-arguments have been published. Questions do need answering, and so all I can do is keep asking. Of course I'm under no illusion, I'm just an amateur historical researcher.
I'm not qualified to question the latest findings by the AERA, but I think it's fair to me to ask why the older claims have been dismissed, why they have not been addressed. Maybe Chroma was wrong, perhaps his work was reexamined and reinterpreted, but where is this important analysis? Because the other option is that Chroma was correct, and it's not being mentioned because the idea of an early Dynastic settlement at Giza goes against the current narrative.
After making my last video, I have since learned that the claims made by Chroma do have substantial merit, and it's once again thanks to Friend of the Channel Keith Hamilton that I've learned a lot more in the past few days. As he pointed me to more obscure publications I couldn't even find before.
He told me about a publication by Karl Butzer, written in 1982, where the author reviewed Chroma's work on the dump, and although he is critical towards Chroma for not properly recording and analysing the strata, he doesn't query the artifacts themselves. Butzer says, and I quote, My impression is that several settlements may well have been incorporated in the dump, including Drift Sand removed from the Pyramid platform.
Butzer does say that the excavation stand as an example of what can be lost by inadequate procedures, so there is disapproval of the way Chroma worked, but interestingly he does say, quote, The 1580 Inventorid finds indicate settlement during the first four dynasties and suggest specialise workmen's quarters related to the building activities of Kefran, aka Kefran.
This is backed up by the website of the University of Vienna who have a page dedicated to what they call the Chroma collection, and they say, and I quote, that the material is mixed, and ranges from the first to fourth dynasties. Chroma suspects that it is rubble from settlements that were not only levelled for the construction of the Pyramids but also transported away. End quote.
So, we have Karl Chroma, an experienced archaeologist and prehistorian who excavated the dump extensively, and we also have Karl Butzer, an experienced geographer, ecologist and archaeologist, and they both agree the dump finds indicate there was a settlement at Geesa, and it existed between the first and fourth dynasties, an idea credibly enough to be published on the website of the University of Vienna.
But the AERA did not mention the 1580 Inventorid finds when they reassessed Chroma's dump and rebranded it fourth dynastie. Again, maybe the AERA did examine the finds, and maybe they did debunk by Chroma and Butzer. Who knows? But Keith Hamilton next pointed me to the work of Merer Torsier-Vigillo, a scholar who specialises in ancient clay ceilings, and she examined 239 ceilings found in Chroma's 1970s excavations.
In her summary, she found seven with a name kufu and a further four assigned to the same period. She then found 55 assigned to Kaephré, 16 to an unknown king, 53 in side signs, and a large group of 104 ceilings, each having figurative ceil impressions. Based on the form and figure of the ceilings, she was an agreement with Chroma and Butzer, saying, and I quote, all the materials testify the long, even if not continuous life at the settlement.
It goes back to the proto-dynastic period, through the Thinite dynasties and the Shosa Age, all the way to the fourth dynastie. The last evidence belongs to the Keffrin kingdom, during which the site was in full working order.
She continues, since the site was present in the proto-dynastic period, we deduced that it was not built to follow the first great pyramid construction. Probably this pre-existing site was used on purpose.
Regillo is an expert in ancient clay ceilings, and writing in the year 2003, she fully agreed with Chroma and Butzer, that the finds from the dump were evidence for intense activity at Giza in early dynastic times, that Giza was home to a thriving town, and that it was not originally a necropolis.
Before the pyramids it was a place for the living, not the dead, and Regillo believed there was a long occupation at Giza, from the late pre-dynastic all the way to the time of Kafre. She believed that Giza could have been a hub in the trade network from Upper Egypt to the Near East, at the centre of the Nikada-Cordre expansion into the delta in proto-dynastic times.
So really all I want to say in this video is yes, the dump could well have been created in the 4th dynasty. Yes it may well contain the remains of a small royal palace used by Kufu and Kafre, as discussed in my last video, and yes this palace could have been located close to Mn Correys Valley Temple, but this is just part of the story.
Chroma and Regillo and also likely Butzer all agree there is dateable pre-4th dynasty, probably dynastic and proto-dynastic archaeology in the Chroma dump, and this would indicate there was ever part of Giza was cleared, it had a much older history than Kinkufu, which would make sense.
Giza would have always been a prime location. Until somebody can explain to me why Chroma and Regillo are wrong, and until I see some radio-carbon dates from the organic material in the dump, I have no option but to trust the experts that as well as a 4th dynasty royal palace, the Chroma dump also contains solid evidence for people living at Giza for many centuries before the first stone of the Great Pyramid was laid.
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