Horus, Osiris and other adventures in paleorobotics

If the East Collosus does not depict a human face, what could it be, then?

The most indicative hint this could be a bird is the bulge of material stuck to our left side of the headdress. It is quite clearly visible.




This looks like a bit of skin has peeled off, and stayed stuck on the headdress before mineralization took place. It is even precisely located where one should expect to find trace of such en event.

I have highlighted below what looks like a beak. To make sure you have spotted it.



This feature is present on all pictures of the object I've seen so far. This bulky shape is very clearly defined. Its precise location and scale is uncanny. This makes it hard to dismiss.


Sources:
indianvalleyscuba.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/p9131641.jpg
thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/memnon-941576.jpg

An experiment with false color...

Purpose of the experiment: increase visual contrast of source images, find traces of hard materials that could give structural hints of what we are looking at.

Goals: get as precise an idea of the shape of any hard objects located inside, but at, or very near the surface of stone.

Tools: - image editor. I'll use Gimp, an open source image editor, version 2.10.

Effects: 'Level' (Niveaux), uniquely modulating threshold and gamma.

The premises behind expected results Premises:
- Breakage, tear, or erosion of a structured object made of composite materials occurs at the weakest points. We thus should find 'bumps' of some of the hardest elements more or less intact at or near the surface of breaks and tears.
- During the mineralization process (fossilization) of a composite object, atoms and molecules of non-mineral material are being slowly expelled, creating a moving 'cloud' of matter around objects being mineralized. This is a very slow process. Nevertheless, this cloud of matter can create discolourations on the surface of stone, around, and in the general shape of objects at or near the surface.

(todo: I believe these basic premises are widely in use now, to say the least. This would eventually need the proper and presumably usual citations).

I call this technique 'the poor man's false color'. False coloring is not a new technique, and it is used quite often in archeology, and other sciences, to highlight features that are not immediately noticeable to the naked eye.

There have to be some specialized software to do this, if anyone could point me to an open source one, that would be great.

For now, I am lmited to what I have, so I'll use these simple tools: exposition (aka 'levels') and gammma. I've used Gimp for this, but this should be easily repeatable. Any decent image software should do.


We'll use this image for our first test. The area of interest is what looks like a beak, we'd like to see if there are any hints of articulations around the features highlighted with blue markings. We're trying to see how if there is an articulation around here, and for any hints of what it could be like. .

I've used these settings to increase contrast and focus around the region of interest. This is from Gimp, but these same settings can be used in any other capable software.


Keep in mind that the increased contrast will give us a sense of increased depth, that's how our eyes work. Still, this can potentially show us hints of the shape of any hard materials are at, or very near the surface of the stone. In other words, things are actually flatter than what they look with distorted lighting. I'm not equipped to flatten the appearance, nor is this absolutely necessary for exploration.



That's a very interesting result. I've highlighted again the zone I've tried to bring contrast and focus to:


This simple experiment can be repeated on any decent photograph of the colossi. It is very repeatable.

Source:
- indianvalleyscuba.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/p9131641.jpg

Let's have a close look at the top of the head, and see if we can find more details..

We'll concentrate on this area:


This area is where the eyes should have been, so there should be some moving parts (or not, if this was really a statue). In the image below, I've contoured in red, some of the most striking details... They all have quite a mechanic look to them. I've also applied a "sharpen" filter, so you can see better what I mean.

The top part of the image is the original, so you can compare. I've highlited in blue, some interesting features. Those are located where the top of the eyeballs would have been. These would be in a good place to keep the eyeballs in place, or, maybe to animate the eyebrows, since falcons do have brows, and these would need to be somewhat animated to give the personage some life.


Here it is again, with the sharpen filter applied to the entre area.


This exercise is very easy to replicate with a good quality source image. The one used here was picked pretty much at random. I am always on the lookout for good quality images of the Colossi, these are had to find on the Internet. If you have good quality pictures that you'd like to share, that would help greatly.

[source] indianvalleyscuba.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/p9131641.jpg

I was being trolled somewhere else. I think my answer will help you understand where this is going...

I am past the initial discovery phase, and would not dare to be present this if there wasn't a mountain of evidence to back my claims. We will explore every square inch of these two. Legs, feet and torso are most interesting, since these two giants could stand and walk. There are also more of them on site at Memnon.

There is, in fact enough evidence to show this is a major discovery, that calls for more study by people much better trained than me.

Here's a small teaser of other objects I found, and are part of the pile of evidence I am only starting to present. Sorry for the slowness, but I do have a day job, and can only do one thing at a time.

This one could be either Sobek or Knuhm. Notice the stripes on the abdomen. All these very disctinctly different 'statues' at Memnon are officially of the same Amenhotep III. IMHO, that is completely insane, and insulting to our intelligence. Yours and mine included.


There are also these 'utility' minor personae...


that we can also find in Tanis, albeit in much worse shape, among other interesting and related remains.


Detail. Notice the lower jaw is ripped out and hanging quite unnaturally on the neck. This thing was never a statue, just like the others found in Memnon. I will get to them after we've looked in detail at the two main characters.


That said, it is very possible that these robots (or avatars, who knows?) are much older than what we think of the Egypt of antiquity. But there is also evidence that some other well-known artefacts, like the Sphinx, might also be much older than what we're officially told.

While I am at it. This thread is more or less organized by chapters. Look for posts that do not start by 'Re:' in the table below.

[sources]
lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/conservation_work_at_the_temple_of_amenhotep_iii_at_thebes_by_the_colossi_of_memnon_and_amenhotep_iii_temple_conservation_project?nav_id=6722