49 replies to this topic

[me-wonders]

cladking, on 16 December 2012 - 06:09 PM, said:

I've seen it.  It sucks.

It's just the  common assumptions which seem to have no bearing on the reality of Giza.

Thank you for helping me shut down for the day.  I really need to get on to other things.  Rude and disrespectful are big help.  Enough of them can help a person stay out of forums altogether.   I see you are from the US where such rudeness is assumed.  Good job.  This really helps humanity.

[cladking]

me-wonders, on 16 December 2012 - 06:32 PM, said:

Thank you for helping me shut down for the day.  I really need to get on to other things.  Rude and disrespectful are big help.  Enough of them can help a person stay out of forums altogether.   I see you are from the US where such rudeness is assumed.  Good job.  This really helps humanity.

To whom was I rude?

Nova?  They used to do an excellent job with everything but now they target audiences with a
4th grade educational level which is about typical for this country.  Is it really rude to point out
that they don't do a very good job any longer and that they did an especially poor job with this
one?  If memory serves the narrator even has a speech impediment.

PBS?  They do the best they can to attract funding which means they try to appeal to a mass
audience.

Egyptology?  I'd wager they each said something worse about people who don't agree with them
in the episode.

You?  I don't know how.  I'm just trying to warn people that if they expect any sort of in depth treat-
ment or any ideas that haven't been bandied about by a failed theory that there's little point to
watching.

It was certainly not my intention to be rude to anyone and I do apologize if you took my comments
as a personal attack.  They were not meant this way.

[cladking]

Will the eternal sands of Egypt finally give up the secrets of this human-headed lion? Up next on NOVA: Riddles of the Sphinx.
Giant paws, longer than a city bus stretch out before it. A whipping tail, wraps around its back. And its enormous body, about the weight of fifty 747 jumbo jets, is on haunches, poised to pounce.

This is a very misleading statement;  jumbo jets are exceedingly light.  

But this lion has a human head as big as a house, for this is the Great Sphinx.
At nearly 240 feet long—almost the length of a football field—and almost 70 feet tall—the height of the White House—the Sphinx is the largest statue in all of Egypt, a land renowned for its oversized monuments.

Likely untrue.  

It is here at Giza, home of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids, where building big really booms. Around 2500 B.C., more than 4,000 years ago, the Giza Plateau is a desolate landscape. A visionary Pharaoh named Khufu constructs the Great Pyramid. He's followed by his son, and then his son's son, who build two more pyramids.

That Giza was barren in 2500 BC is almost certainly untrue.  Certainly 4512 years ago is more
than 4,000 years ago  but this is likely irrelevant as well since the pyramids are likely older and the
Sphinx older still.

Khufu never built a pyramid.  People in Egypt did.

Designed as giant tombs to insure the kings' safe passage to the afterlife, the pyramids and their surrounding temples transform an area of the Giza Plateau into a vast city of the dead. Pharaoh Khufu's pyramid is the most famous gravestone on Earth.

These are an assumption phrased and rephrased.  No matter how many times you say the
Great Pyramid was a tomb it still has no control over why it was built.  Repeating an assumpt-
ion over and over does not make it more true.  

It is intentionally misleading.

MARK LEHNER: Khufu's architect probably stood here and looked out over the panorama behind me and maybe foresaw three generations of building here, because of the excellent conditions for carving giant statues and for building pyramids and tombs.

I can't imagine where he gets this idea.  There are so many things wrong with it I wouldn't
know where to begin.  The idea that the buiulder would direct operations from nearly a mile
away is simply absurd.  

...ZAHI HAWASS: Many people who try to look at the Sphinx, they look at it by itself. But you have to look at all the architecture, archaeology, art, inscriptions. You have to look at all of this to explain the function of the Sphinx.

He's suggesting a "cultural context" which does not exist.  Almost nothing survives from the era.  

NARRATOR: Another team of stone-carvers will build scaled-down replicas of the Sphinx and its missing nose, to shed light on how the ancients carved this wonder of the world.

Later in the program you'll see that they all use modern tools.

RICK BROWN (Handshouse Studio): It's near mind-boggling; in all Egypt, most of the stone was carved with just pounding for thousands and thousands of hours.

This is merely assumption.  We don't know how most anything was actually done so it
might have been little green men from Alpha Centauri.  

The show doesn't really improve after this and simply continues in the same way.  

I don't like the show and I believe most people who are seeking something other than the
same fair to which we've been treated for 150 years also won't like it.  

[Swede]

cladking, on 16 December 2012 - 07:20 PM, said:

Will the eternal sands of Egypt finally give up the secrets of this human-headed lion? Up next on NOVA: Riddles of the Sphinx.
Giant paws, longer than a city bus stretch out before it. A whipping tail, wraps around its back. And its enormous body, about the weight of fifty 747 jumbo jets, is on haunches, poised to pounce.

This is a very misleading statement;  jumbo jets are exceedingly light.  

But this lion has a human head as big as a house, for this is the Great Sphinx.
At nearly 240 feet long—almost the length of a football field—and almost 70 feet tall—the height of the White House—the Sphinx is the largest statue in all of Egypt, a land renowned for its oversized monuments.

Likely untrue.  

It is here at Giza, home of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids, where building big really booms. Around 2500 B.C., more than 4,000 years ago, the Giza Plateau is a desolate landscape. A visionary Pharaoh named Khufu constructs the Great Pyramid. He's followed by his son, and then his son's son, who build two more pyramids.

That Giza was barren in 2500 BC is almost certainly untrue.  Certainly 4512 years ago is more
than 4,000 years ago  but this is likely irrelevant as well since the pyramids are likely older and the
Sphinx older still.

Khufu never built a pyramid.  People in Egypt did.

Designed as giant tombs to insure the kings' safe passage to the afterlife, the pyramids and their surrounding temples transform an area of the Giza Plateau into a vast city of the dead. Pharaoh Khufu's pyramid is the most famous gravestone on Earth.

These are an assumption phrased and rephrased.  No matter how many times you say the
Great Pyramid was a tomb it still has no control over why it was built.  Repeating an assumpt-
ion over and over does not make it more true.  

It is intentionally misleading.

MARK LEHNER: Khufu's architect probably stood here and looked out over the panorama behind me and maybe foresaw three generations of building here, because of the excellent conditions for carving giant statues and for building pyramids and tombs.

I can't imagine where he gets this idea.  There are so many things wrong with it I wouldn't
know where to begin.  The idea that the buiulder would direct operations from nearly a mile
away is simply absurd.  

...ZAHI HAWASS: Many people who try to look at the Sphinx, they look at it by itself. But you have to look at all the architecture, archaeology, art, inscriptions. You have to look at all of this to explain the function of the Sphinx.

He's suggesting a "cultural context" which does not exist.  Almost nothing survives from the era.  

NARRATOR: Another team of stone-carvers will build scaled-down replicas of the Sphinx and its missing nose, to shed light on how the ancients carved this wonder of the world.

Later in the program you'll see that they all use modern tools.

RICK BROWN (Handshouse Studio): It's near mind-boggling; in all Egypt, most of the stone was carved with just pounding for thousands and thousands of hours.

This is merely assumption.  We don't know how most anything was actually done so it
might have been little green men from Alpha Centauri.  

The show doesn't really improve after this and simply continues in the same way.  

I don't like the show and I believe most people who are seeking something other than the
same fair to which we've been treated for 150 years also won't like it.  

Re: Bolded #1 -

Boeing 747-400: Typical operating empty weight, lb (kg)  - 398,780 (180,885) - http://www.simviation.com/rinfo747.htm

398,780 x 50 = 19,939,000 lbs.

Re: Bolded #2 -

Length of Sphinx - 260'

Height of sphinx - ~ 66'

Width of Sphinx - ~ 20'

http://www.all-about...hinx-facts.html

http://www.ancient-e...eat-sphinx.html

Lehner 1997(127)

The overall height of the White House (to the top of the roof) is 70 feet on the south and 60 feet 4 inches on the north; the façade (grade of lawn to parapet) is 60 feet on the south (lawn at 54 feet above sea level) and 50 feet 4 inches on the north.

http://www.whitehous...y_facts-01.html

Re: Bolded #'s 3 & 4 - Reading comprehension?

Re: Bolded #5 - That is not what Lehner remarked. Please re-read quote.

Re: Bolded #7 - Error. For example:

http://www.eeescienc...tedOverview.pdf

Re: Cultural context - Given your oft demonstrated lack of understanding of the archaeological/anthropological utilization of this term, your "critique" in this regard is notably vacuous.

.

[cladking]

Swede, on 16 December 2012 - 09:19 PM, said:

Re: Bolded #1 -

Boeing 747-400: Typical operating empty weight, lb (kg)  - 398,780 (180,885) - http://www.simviation.com/rinfo747.htm

398,780 x 50 = 19,939,000 lbs.

Re: Bolded #2 -

Length of Sphinx - 260'

Height of sphinx - ~ 66'

Width of Sphinx - ~ 20'

http://www.all-about...hinx-facts.html

http://www.ancient-e...eat-sphinx.html

Lehner 1997(127)

The overall height of the White House (to the top of the roof) is 70 feet on the south and 60 feet 4 inches on the north; the façade (grade of lawn to parapet) is 60 feet on the south (lawn at 54 feet above sea level) and 50 feet 4 inches on the north.

http://www.whitehous...y_facts-01.html

Re: Bolded #'s 3 & 4 - Reading comprehension?

Re: Bolded #5 - That is not what Lehner remarked. Please re-read quote.

Re: Bolded #7 - Error. For example:

http://www.eeescienc...tedOverview.pdf

Re: Cultural context - Given your oft demonstrated lack of understanding of the archaeological/anthropological utilization of this term, your "critique" in this regard is notably vacuous.

.

By your calcultion that makes the weight of the Sphinx 9,970 ton.

That's about the weight of the stones lifted every couple weeks to build G1.  Of course on average
these stones for the pyramid were lifted 140' where the Sphinx wasn't lifted so much as 1".  It's truly
remarkable how Lehner et al can wax poetic about the size of the Sphinx and hide, obscure, and de-
mean the size of the great pyramids.  One stone at the top of the  pyramid required more work than
the Sphinx but they compare the size of the Sphinx to something that's light as a feather rather than
imagining a massiff inside of it.

Lehner has said on several occassions that he believed building operations were conducted from a
promentory to the south.

There is no "cultural context" except what has been projected from later times.  If there were such a
thing then you could produce evidence that the pyramid was a tomb instead of denying evidence that
the king's body was burned.

Rather than dealing with facts they spin the evidence.  It's far more relevant how heavy the stones
were on the pyramid relative a jumbo jet because, like a jumbo jet, they were worthless till they got
off the ground.  The pyramid weighs as much as 32,600 jumbo jets.  It weighs three times as much
as all the food and supplies that comprised the Berlin airlift.  It required more work than Apollo XI did
to get to the moon and back.

[Swede]

cladking, on 16 December 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

By your calcultion that makes the weight of the Sphinx 9,970 ton.

That's about the weight of the stones lifted every couple weeks to build G1.  Of course on average
these stones for the pyramid were lifted 140' where the Sphinx wasn't lifted so much as 1".  It's truly
remarkable how Lehner et al can wax poetic about the size of the Sphinx and hide, obscure, and de-
mean the size of the great pyramids.  One stone at the top of the  pyramid required more work than
the Sphinx but they compare the size of the Sphinx to something that's light as a feather rather than
imagining a massiff inside of it.

Lehner has said on several occassions that he believed building operations were conducted from a
promentory to the south.

There is no "cultural context" except what has been projected from later times.  If there were such a
thing then you could produce evidence that the pyramid was a tomb instead of denying evidence that
the king's body was burned.

Rather than dealing with facts they spin the evidence.  It's far more relevant how heavy the stones
were on the pyramid relative a jumbo jet because, like a jumbo jet, they were worthless till they got
off the ground.  The pyramid weighs as much as 32,600 jumbo jets.  It weighs three times as much
as all the food and supplies that comprised the Berlin airlift.  It required more work than Apollo XI did
to get to the moon and back.

As is common, you would appear to be missing the primary points, i.e., your fallacious and/or mischaracterized "proclamations".

747-400 series aircraft are not "exceedingly light". Nor does your quote specify unladen vs. laden mass. Please consult reference. Have run rough calculations regarding Sphinx volume/density of limestone utilized. Unladen mass is likely closer to the figure utilized.

You questioned the dimensional aspects. Your position is demonstrably false.

Please provide a citation that documents that Lehner was referring to a location "a mile away".

The cultural context of the period in question, be it technological, biological, textual, cultural, environmental, etc. is surprisingly well understood. That you choose to not avail yourself of the available data is a matter that you will need to contend with yourself. Your reticence in this regard is, after all, of no great surprise. By your own admission, you are a slothful researcher.

In short, you have (above) presented innacurate "assesments" of the source material, demonstrated questionable close-reading/evaluation skills, and chosen to consistently ignore the sheer volumes of credible data that have been presented to you over these many years. And you attempt to distract the readers from these salient points.

In your own "immortal" words:

Yes, you're right that I can't do it legitmately but I can do it illegitimately to learn the truth and then adjust it to fit the evidence.  

cladking: “How did the Egyptians Build the Pyramids” p. 74, #1097, 3-10-11 UM.

Well done.

Edit: Comma.

Edited by Swede, 17 December 2012 - 12:58 AM.

[cladking]

OK, ya' made me look.  A 747-8 weighs about 64 tons and is 250 feet in lenght.  I can't find
the weight capacity of the largest pugh ladles used in industry but there are rail cars on the
roads that can easily carry the weight of two 747's.

To put it another way, a modest-size cloud, one kilometer in diameter and 100 meters thick,
has a mass equivalent to one 747.  Simply put it's a lie to compare the Sphinx to the weight of
a 747 just as it's a lie to compare the effort to build pyramids by their height or even their vol-
ume.  It is intentionally misleading because planes are exceedingly light so they can fly.  The
space shuttle is even lighter by a wide margin.  A loaded tractor trailer on the highway usually
weighs more than a 747 .  Egyptology does this over and over probably because on some lev-
el they must know that their theories are all wrong.  They present a mountain of interpretation
of almost no evidence at all as fact.

I'm certainly a poor researcher but my abilities are irrelevant to the facts and to my findings. That
I've worked mostly alone is my only excuse for taking so long to finally have the last piece of the
puzzle; the one that will begin swaying people.  There's a great deal to learn about these people
and when the real scholars start working with a realistic theory many pieces will begin falling into
place very very quickly.  It's also irrelevant that I use intuition and processes that are not usually
brought to play to get me this far.  The bottom line is never what methodology is used or the cred-
entials of the seeker but rather the truth of what is discovered.  My methodology would prove virt-
ually impossible for most people to copy.  This hardly proves it's taken me to falsehoods.

[cladking]

Swede, on 17 December 2012 - 12:57 AM, said:

Please provide a citation that documents that Lehner was referring to a location "a mile away".

I actually have a great deal of respect for Mark Lehner.  He's wrong about a great number
of things but he's a good archaeologist.  A few of his beliefs I simply find stunningly wrong.
There's nothing at all wrong about being wrong (I'm at expert), or even laughably wrong, but
it still wrong.

Lehner (at least up to 2010) believes in ramps (spiral on west side)  and that work was direc-
ted from a great distance.  I'm sure he has more reasons for these opinions than only what
I've seen so it's entirely possible that these are actually tenable theories from the current ev-
idence and its interpretation. But the fact is he is very wrong on both counts.

If memory serves he mentions his theory of remote direction in this link;

(Drat, looks like I blew it away.  It's Lehner's best work on the net regarding the layout of the
pyramids starting from even before they were built.  He has to have revised this particular
theory because he himself discovered there was no harbor just last year.  I believe Kmt_sesh
first posted it. It's a PDF file about 30 pages long)

[cormac mac airt]

cladking, on 17 December 2012 - 02:13 AM, said:

OK, ya' made me look.  A 747-8 weighs about 64 tons and is 250 feet in lenght.  I can't find
the weight capacity of the largest pugh ladles used in industry but there are rail cars on the
roads that can easily carry the weight of two 747's.

To put it another way, a modest-size cloud, one kilometer in diameter and 100 meters thick,
has a mass equivalent to one 747.  Simply put it's a lie to compare the Sphinx to the weight of
a 747 just as it's a lie to compare the effort to build pyramids by their height or even their vol-
ume.  It is intentionally misleading because planes are exceedingly light so they can fly.  The
space shuttle is even lighter by a wide margin.  A loaded tractor trailer on the highway usually
weighs more than a 747 .  Egyptology does this over and over probably because on some lev-
el they must know that their theories are all wrong.  They present a mountain of interpretation
of almost no evidence at all as fact.

I'm certainly a poor researcher but my abilities are irrelevant to the facts and to my findings. That
I've worked mostly alone is my only excuse for taking so long to finally have the last piece of the
puzzle; the one that will begin swaying people.  There's a great deal to learn about these people
and when the real scholars start working with a realistic theory many pieces will begin falling into
place very very quickly.  It's also irrelevant that I use intuition and processes that are not usually
brought to play to get me this far.  The bottom line is never what methodology is used or the cred-
entials of the seeker but rather the truth of what is discovered.  My methodology would prove virt-
ually impossible for most people to copy.  This hardly proves it's taken me to falsehoods.

You're understating its size by a ridiculous margin. 64 tons is 128,000 lbs. (US). This doesn't come remotely close to a 747-8 which has a maximum takeoff weight of 987,000 lbs. That's 493.5 tons.

http://www.boeing.co...47-8_facts.html

Even it's Zero Fuel Weight exceeds 325 tons.

cormac

[cladking]

cormac mac airt, on 17 December 2012 - 04:05 AM, said:

You're understating its size by a ridiculous margin. 64 tons is 128,000 lbs. (US). This doesn't come remotely close to a 747-8 which has a maximum takeoff weight of 987,000 lbs. That's 493.5 tons.

http://www.boeing.co...47-8_facts.html

Even it's Zero Fuel Weight exceeds 325 tons.

From your own link;

"The 747-8F's empty weight is 80 tonnes (88 tons) lighter than the A380F..."

This is the freighter version.  I presume without evidence to the contrary that the passenger
liner is lighter.  These are also lighter if they are stripped to essentials to fly the largest possible
amount of weight.  The 747 that carries the space shuttle quit even using jato bottles and the
plane is simply retrofitted to support the weight in an unusual position.

[cormac mac airt]

cladking, on 17 December 2012 - 04:24 AM, said:

From your own link;

"The 747-8F's empty weight is 80 tonnes (88 tons) lighter than the A380F..."

This is the freighter version.  I presume without evidence to the contrary that the passenger
liner is lighter.  These are also lighter if they are stripped to essentials to fly the largest possible
amount of weight.  The 747 that carries the space shuttle quit even using jato bottles and the
plane is simply retrofitted to support the weight in an unusual position.

Skipped that part didn't you? That's not 80 tonnes maximum weight. The A380 family is in the 560 tonnes range.

http://www.airbus.co...specifications/

cormac

Edited by cormac mac airt, 17 December 2012 - 04:32 AM.

[cormac mac airt]

cormac mac airt, on 17 December 2012 - 04:26 AM, said:

Skipped that part didn't you? That's not 80 tonnes maximum weight. The A380 family is in the 560 tonnes range.

http://www.airbus.co...specifications/

So you're not even in the ballpark with the 747-8.

Quote

The space shuttle is even lighter by a wide margin.

The Endeavor, OV-105, was 172,000 lbs with main engines installed. That's 86 tons, which also exceeds your 64 ton claim.

http://www-pao.ksc.n.../endeavour.html

Quote

A loaded tractor trailer on the highway usually weighs more than a 747.

Not possible. Even a 747-100 at "Operating Empty Weight" weighs 162,000 lbs which is 81 tons. No states allow a tractor trailer weight that high.

http://www.airlines-...ng-747-100.html

http://www.ops.fhwa....l_rpt/index.htm

cormac

[Quaentum]

cladking, on 16 December 2012 - 02:57 PM, said:

This is all quite apparent except to modern man in his comfort and hubris. It's so much easier
to just chalk everything up to superstition than to get out there and do the research to learn the
truth.  If we ever do find the truth we'll find is was science (terrestrial or alien) that accomplished
these stupendous feats.  Superstition can not build, it can only destroy.

The research that has been done shows markedly terrestrial as opposed to extraterrestrial methods used in the construction of the GP.

[questionmark]

Quaentum, on 17 December 2012 - 03:57 PM, said:

The research that has been done shows markedly terrestrial as opposed to extraterrestrial methods used in the construction of the GP.

Not true, not true... the Nibblers forgot their ACME builditall Mk4 on Niburu and had to panhandle for a few thousand workers with bronze chisels and wood mallets fromthe local chieftains!

[Swede]

cladking, on 17 December 2012 - 02:13 AM, said:

I'm certainly a poor researcher but my abilities are irrelevant to the facts and to my findings.

This may possibly be the most profoundly oxymoronic statement in the history of the English language.

.