902 replies to this topic

[kampz]

cladking, on 21 December 2012 - 08:55 PM, said:

You're overlooking the most important fact of all.

The very first pyramid was a great pyramid.  The very first pyramid was nearly 200' tall!!! This
simply is not consistent with the idea of using ramps or muscle power as people believe today.
If they were going to use muscle power than why didn't they warm up with an 80' pyramid just
to see if they could do it.  An 80' pyramid would require less than 10% of the work of a huge py-
rami and perhaps less than 2% if they used ramps.  But no such thing exists.  They went straight
from building litle tiny mastabas to impossibly large pyramids.  The fact that the pyramids are
there does not prove how they were built or who built them. The fact that the first pyramid was
so huge it was never duplicated again in size after the great pyramid building age suggests that
the current paradigm is simply wrong.

The evidence points away from any muscle based system of any sort.  The people who were ac-
tually on site said the gods built them.  One can add two and two in myriad ways that can each be
correct but there was only one means used to build the pyramids and it has yet to be identified
and proven.

It's time to look at the evidence and putting up gates to keep people from seeing evidence is not
the solution.

Why were people like Herodotus explaining it with muscle power by a hundred thousand men and other people? What were all those Egyptians doing at the site? Watching? It's hard to lose information like UFO's, power tools and automobiles. But there is that thought of white people or other "guys" exchanging information with Kings. I'm not sure who they are. How do you think the Pyramids appeared and I guess all of Egypts Pyramids?

The first Pyramid built by Egyptians was the Step Pyramid right? That's what you're explaining? Well in my opinion slaves existed to help and it was pretty bad compared to the Great Pyramid of Giza. Especially today when compared side to side. It's just not impressive in my opinion. But what else are some people going to do to make money and a life? It's not the 1900's. Some masons/architects were celebs.

Edited by kampz, 21 December 2012 - 09:47 PM.

[cladking]

kampz, on 21 December 2012 - 09:46 PM, said:

Why were people like Herodotus explaining it with muscle power by a hundred thousand men and other people? What were all those Egyptians doing at the site? Watching? It's hard to lose information like UFO's, power tools and automobiles. But there is that thought of white people or other "guys" exchanging information with Kings. I'm not sure who they are. How do you think the Pyramids appeared and I guess all of Egypts Pyramids?

The first Pyramid built by Egyptians was the Step Pyramid right? That's what you're explaining? Well in my opinion slaves existed to help and it was pretty bad compared to the Great Pyramid of Giza. Especially today when compared side to side. It's just not impressive in my opinion. But what else are some people going to do to make money and a life? It's not the 1900's. Some masons/architects were celebs.

I believe it would have been impossible or, at least, virtually impossible for the
ancient Egyptians to have built the pyramids with the ancient technology typically
ascribed to them.  There are several practical reasons that it would be impossible.
It's not merely the impossibility of projecting 55 HP on constricted ramps but the im-
possibility of raising the resources for putting together a large percentage of the pop-
ulation in a primitive economy.  These are the chief two causes of it being impossible
but there's simply the fact that people would never concieve of such a project in a va-
cuum.  A man dragging a stone to the top of a hill could not turn to his fellow stone drag-
ger and suggest it would be more profitable to drag the stones up ramps into a pile. Things
just don't work this way.

It's really almost irrelevant that all the evidence says they didn't use manpower because
even if the evidence suggested muscle power it needs to be rejected as a virtual imposs-
ibility.  The size of the pyramid and more especially the size of the blocks suggest that some
motive force was probably employed.  It doesn't matter that the physical evidence supports
the idea that a motive force was used simply because there was likely no other way.

When you look at the record in this light it actually makes sense.  The historical accounts
actually agree with logic and common sense.  There were likely around 100,000 people who
worked on the Great Pyramid.  But this doesn't mean 100,000 barefoot bumpkins were mak-
ing ramps and dragging stones up them simultaneously but that in aggregate over 20 years
about 100,000 people had a hand in building.  At any given time there might be only about
3,000 men in  the quarry and 800 elsewhere and 4,000 women and children making beer,
baking bread, running errands, and doing the work to keep things going.  But these people
had short life times and there was a high turnover.  The work on the pyramid was probably
highly sought but quarry work was harder and the lines to get the jobs shorter.  Over twenty
years there could easily have been 100,000 people who could say they had a hand in building
the pyramid (or would if they were still alive).

The Step Pyramid was first and they didn't have all the systems yet to aid building.  I believe it
was built over a very long time period and repairs were needed while it was still under construc-
tion. It's hardly surprising it's less attractive and solid as the later efforts.

[kmt_sesh]

Let's summarize a few things. Some other posters have pointed out reliable facts and some have contributed...well, material of questionable repute.

• Aliens are not part of the equation. They never were. They never will be. Alien intervention remains in the sphere of science fiction and the wider fringe agenda, so there is no reason to take it seriously. This is the stuff of Ancient Aliens, not reality.
  
• The Great Pyramid didn't pop up as some newfound tradition in monument building. From the time of Djoser, it followed on the tradition of nearly 200 years of pyramid building.
  
• Slaves did not build the Great Pyramid, nor any other royal tomb. While some number of slaves was no doubt on-site to carry out menial tasks, the vast majority of the workforce was comprised of skilled craftsmen and corvée labor. These men were paid for their work and well treated, and very few of them spent the entire length of the building project working there.
  
• Some writers of late antiquity attributed an exaggerated length to Khufu's reign. Manetho, for instance, gives Khufu a reign of over 60 years. There is simply no evidence to substantiate this. Extant textual evidence contemporary to Khufu's time gives him a reign length of up to 34 years, but no more. This, of course, figures into the length of time it took to build the pyramid.
  
• Estimates vary on how long it took to build the pyramid but the average is about twenty years. A workforce of several thousand craftsmen and laborers, together with possibly an equal number in support staff, could've accomplished the task within the posited timeframe. In other words, it certainly didn't take half a century to build the thing. Khufu would've been long dead by then.
  
• There is no evidence to support the idea of a vast network of caverns and corridors and passages under the Great Pyramid, or the Plateau in general. What lies down there of notable size is burial chambers of tombs, although there certainly would be voids and pockets in the limestone matrix. Scott Collins's endless network of caves extending from his "Tomb of the Birds" is a red herring, meant to sell his book. This tomb, actually designated NC2, was explored by George Reisner and his team in the 1930s and then again by an archaeological team of the SCA subsequent to Collins's claims—and in neither case was anything remarkable found.

[the L]

kmt_sesh, on 21 December 2012 - 11:23 PM, said:

• Slaves did not build the Great Pyramid, nor any other royal tomb. While some number of slaves was no doubt on-site to carry out menial tasks, the vast majority of the workforce was comprised of skilled craftsmen and corvée labor. These men were paid for their work and well treated, and very few of them spent the entire length of the building project working there.

How do we know that for sure? Its hard to me to belive in it.

[kmt_sesh]

the L, on 21 December 2012 - 11:30 PM, said:

How do we know that for sure? Its hard to me to belive in it.

For one thing there's no chance Egypt possessed thousands and thousands of slaves in the Old Kingdom. Even in later periods the number of slaves per capita was decidedly small. Egypt never operated under a slave economy one thinks of with the likes of Rome.

For another, slaves could not have accomplished such a colossal task. Professional craftsmen and paid laborers were needed. The Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom have all yielded archaeological sites where professional workforces lived and were supplied and paid (in other words, workmen's villages—not vast slave compounds).

For yet another, autobiographical texts found in the tombs of Old Kingdom noblemen relate their pride in their ability to raise sufficient manpower when called on by the king, be it for military campaigns or work projects.

[cladking]

kmt_sesh, on 21 December 2012 - 11:23 PM, said:

There is no evidence to support the idea of a vast network of caverns and corridors and passages under the Great Pyramid, or the Plateau in general. What lies down there of notable size is burial chambers of tombs, although there certainly would be voids and pockets in the limestone matrix. Scott Collins's endless network of caves extending from his "Tomb of the Birds" is a red herring, meant to sell his book. This tomb, actually designated NC2, was explored by George Reisner and his team in the 1930s and then again by an archaeological team of the SCA subsequent to Collins's claims—and in neither case was anything remarkable found.

Until someone explores what's under Giza we just don't know what's under there.  The
ancient name is often translated as "The Mouth of Caves" so it wouldn't surprise me if
there are at least a few caves under here.  Hints of caves are everywhere and the geol-
ogy of the plateau virtually assures some caves.  Dr Hawass was exploring the cave in
the Osiris Shaft at the same time he was saying there were no caves.  This is just a nar-
row cave with no known outlet but there are plenty of places one could search for caves
on the plateau.

[LRW]

kmt_sesh, on 21 December 2012 - 11:23 PM, said:

Aliens are not part of the equation. They never were. They never will be. Alien intervention remains in the sphere of science fiction and the wider fringe agenda, so there is no reason to take it seriously.

To deny aliens being absent from the equation shows that there is a lot of hypocrisy inherent in your views. It shows a general lack of knowledge about the subject material of the "Egyptologists" theory and so called research, the so called academic research that you obide by.

Aliens are part of the equation whether real or not. You can't exclude them from the mythology of the tribes around that region, whom you and "Egyptologists" say built the pyramids. They (aliens) are still apart of yours and the "Egyptologists" theory, whether real or not. They might not be real to you, because you probably view it as fiction, thats fine, but to the tribes who worshipped them, they viewed them as real, that can be seen in their worship patterns.

To be ignorant of their beliefs is fine, but you can't say that the builders in the "Egyptologists" theory did not worship extraterrestrial entities, the hieroglyphs says otherwise.  

According to "Egyptologists" research and theory, the ancient egyptians, the so called builders of the pyramids were worshipping alien entities whether fiction or not, the people from the culture that supposedly built the pyramids believed in their mythology that "creator gods and godesses" (can be described as alien) intervened upon on earth and created man, whether those beliefs were based on fiction or not, to exclude aliens from the beliefs of the people that built the pyramids in the "Egyptologists" theory and research is an act of hypocrisy and stupidity.

The sun-god RA in the egyptologists theory, can be described as an extraterrestrial, whether he was real or fiction is irrelevant to the fact that the character is alien in origin, the character is an extraterrestial deity.

Perhaps the "Egyptologists" consider the ancient egyptians in their theory fringe lunatics?

Edited by LRW, 22 December 2012 - 01:25 AM.

[kampz]

cladking, on 21 December 2012 - 10:40 PM, said:

I believe it would have been impossible or, at least, virtually impossible for the
ancient Egyptians to have built the pyramids with the ancient technology typically
ascribed to them.  There are several practical reasons that it would be impossible.
It's not merely the impossibility of projecting 55 HP on constricted ramps but the im-
possibility of raising the resources for putting together a large percentage of the pop-
ulation in a primitive economy.  These are the chief two causes of it being impossible
but there's simply the fact that people would never concieve of such a project in a va-
cuum.  A man dragging a stone to the top of a hill could not turn to his fellow stone drag-
ger and suggest it would be more profitable to drag the stones up ramps into a pile. Things
just don't work this way.

It's really almost irrelevant that all the evidence says they didn't use manpower because
even if the evidence suggested muscle power it needs to be rejected as a virtual imposs-
ibility.  The size of the pyramid and more especially the size of the blocks suggest that some
motive force was probably employed.  It doesn't matter that the physical evidence supports
the idea that a motive force was used simply because there was likely no other way.

When you look at the record in this light it actually makes sense.  The historical accounts
actually agree with logic and common sense.  There were likely around 100,000 people who
worked on the Great Pyramid.  But this doesn't mean 100,000 barefoot bumpkins were mak-
ing ramps and dragging stones up them simultaneously but that in aggregate over 20 years
about 100,000 people had a hand in building.  At any given time there might be only about
3,000 men in  the quarry and 800 elsewhere and 4,000 women and children making beer,
baking bread, running errands, and doing the work to keep things going.  But these people
had short life times and there was a high turnover.  The work on the pyramid was probably
highly sought but quarry work was harder and the lines to get the jobs shorter.  Over twenty
years there could easily have been 100,000 people who could say they had a hand in building
the pyramid (or would if they were still alive).

The Step Pyramid was first and they didn't have all the systems yet to aid building.  I believe it
was built over a very long time period and repairs were needed while it was still under construc-
tion. It's hardly surprising it's less attractive and solid as the later efforts.

How do you think Egypts pyramids got there in the first place? I think I missed it in your post. Could it be technology that's like an advanced lever and pulley but still basic? Something that's advanced basic technology? What about every other monument made up to the Roman Empire and even after? The guy on YouTube was creating his own Stonehenge minus the light shining through thing and the transporting.  I agree it's difficult to sustain a large happy population in that area. These guys had to make a living though. As I and others suggested, the Nile was over flowing everywhere crazy to force the peasants out of the farms to the Pyramids. We don't know or I don't about how much money was made.

I thought a giant slab of granite laid underneath the Pyramids which is was the only way during their time to hold such weight.

kmt_sesh, on 21 December 2012 - 11:42 PM, said:

For one thing there's no chance Egypt possessed thousands and thousands of slaves in the Old Kingdom. Even in later periods the number of slaves per capita was decidedly small. Egypt never operated under a slave economy one thinks of with the likes of Rome.

For another, slaves could not have accomplished such a colossal task. Professional craftsmen and paid laborers were needed. The Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom have all yielded archaeological sites where professional workforces lived and were supplied and paid (in other words, workmen's villages—not vast slave compounds).

For yet another, autobiographical texts found in the tombs of Old Kingdom noblemen relate their pride in their ability to raise sufficient manpower when called on by the king, be it for military campaigns or work projects.

Snefru and the Palermo stone alludes to the use of slaves and capture cattle to help with projects.(11,000 prisoners raided from the land of blacks) That wasn't to much before the time of the Great Pyramids. I am assuming that there was a majority of slaves there. The Palermo stone put me there, but there's at least one slave there. I bet.

[cladking]

Everyone gets unhappy when I say how I think it was made. I'll start a thread one
of these days.

Suffice to say there are several motive forces that could have been harnessed and
the evidence is very dramatic that they employed one that lifted stones 81' 3" at a
time as shown in the gravimetric scan.

[cladking]

kampz, on 22 December 2012 - 01:59 AM, said:

... the Palermo stone alludes to the use of slaves and capture cattle to help with projects.(11,000 prisoners raided from the land of blacks) That wasn't to much before the time of the Great Pyramids. I am assuming that there was a majority of slaves there. The Palermo stone put me there, but there's at least one slave there. I bet.

I don't believe this is accurate.  The Palermo Stone does say that slaves were
captured but doesn't say they were used on pyramids.  In ancient times it was
often the more educated and skilled who were captured as slaves.

I do agree there probably was at least one slave on site but odds are he was sip-
ping his favorite drink in the shade and overseeing some aspect of construction
like most other people on site rather than straining under a whip dragging stones.

[kampz]

Well ok. I won't be unhappy if you post your opinions.

[LRW]

Imaginarynumber1, on 16 December 2012 - 08:41 PM, said:

http://www.scienceda...4302.htmvidence

There is plenty of evidence. You just ignore it.

People ignore the so called evidence because it fits into a theory that others find extremely difficult to duplicate even on primitive miniature versions.

If the theory can not be duplicated even on primitive miniature versions then how on earth do you expect the theory to be taken seriously, not everyone  will succumb to credulity.  

Its all very well saying that there was ramps and copper chisels found around the area, but until you can actually duplicate the original with those ramps, chisels and saws, then it won't be seen as a proven theory, it would be just seen as speculation and still remain just a theory.

They were not even using the correct stone weights from the giza complex, they were only using one ton stones in that failed replication, resorting to modern technology to finish the project only shows up the "Egyptologists" for what they are, hyperbole theorists!

The blocks were taken from the alledged quarry that provided the facing stones for the "Great Pyramid". Once cut into the approximate one-ton blocks (terrible inaccurate cuts btw) the blocks could not be barged across the river nile.  The blocks had to be ferried by steamboat. Then teams of 100 people, each attempted to move those stones over sand and could not even move them an inch. They had to resort to modern construction equipment once again and when they got the one-ton blocks to the site, the team could not lift the blocks more than a foot or so .A crane and helicopter was used to position the blocks.  Even after using modern technology to complete the terrible mini-pyramid, it still lacked the precision engineering and beautiful symmetrical lines seen in the great pyramid.

Yet, egyptologists are still adamant that it had to be built by ramps and primitive saws and chisels. Logic fails them, when primitive methods were unachievable and modern technology had to be used that still did not replicate the great pyramid even in a miniature version.

[Paul Rubino]

cladking, on 21 December 2012 - 08:55 PM, said:

You're overlooking the most important fact of all.

The very first pyramid was a great pyramid.  The very first pyramid was nearly 200' tall!!! This
simply is not consistent with the idea of using ramps or muscle power as people believe today.
If they were going to use muscle power than why didn't they warm up with an 80' pyramid just
to see if they could do it.  An 80' pyramid would require less than 10% of the work of a huge py-
rami and perhaps less than 2% if they used ramps.  But no such thing exists.  They went straight
from building litle tiny mastabas to impossibly large pyramids.  The fact that the pyramids are
there does not prove how they were built or who built them. The fact that the first pyramid was
so huge it was never duplicated again in size after the great pyramid building age suggests that
the current paradigm is simply wrong.

The evidence points away from any muscle based system of any sort.  The people who were ac-
tually on site said the gods built them.  One can add two and two in myriad ways that can each be
correct but there was only one means used to build the pyramids and it has yet to be identified
and proven.

It's time to look at the evidence and putting up gates to keep people from seeing evidence is not
the solution.

You can say they're impossibly large pyramids but they WERE built. The Pyramid of Djoser took 10 - 15 years to build. Why is it impossible to complete this task in that time frame if given enough resources and manpower?

What evidence "points away from any muscle based system of any sort"? The only evidence you have is YOU don't know how humans built these structures in 10 - 15 years? Is that your evidence?

What if i told you:

• one person could easily move a 2400 lb block of rock 300 ft per hour with little effort;
  
• one person could move a 10,000 lb block of rock 70 ft per hour with little effort;
  
• one person can stand two 8 ft, 2400 lb blocks on end and place another 2400 lb block on top (stonehenge style), taking about 2 hours per block;
  
• one person can do all these things, working by himself, without the use of wheels, rollers, pulleys, or any type of hoisting equipment?

See it for yourself here.

Now imagine thousands of people performing similar, solo feats to accomplish the building of a single pyramid. How long would it take? 10 - 15 years?

[Time Spy]

kmt_sesh, on 21 December 2012 - 11:23 PM, said:

Let's summarize a few things. Some other posters have pointed out reliable facts and some have contributed...well, material of questionable repute.

• Aliens are not part of the equation. They never were. They never will be. Alien intervention remains in the sphere of science fiction and the wider fringe agenda, so there is no reason to take it seriously. This is the stuff of Ancient Aliens, not reality.
  
• The Great Pyramid didn't pop up as some newfound tradition in monument building. From the time of Djoser, it followed on the tradition of nearly 200 years of pyramid building.
  
• Slaves did not build the Great Pyramid, nor any other royal tomb. While some number of slaves was no doubt on-site to carry out menial tasks, the vast majority of the workforce was comprised of skilled craftsmen and corvée labor. These men were paid for their work and well treated, and very few of them spent the entire length of the building project working there.
  
• Some writers of late antiquity attributed an exaggerated length to Khufu's reign. Manetho, for instance, gives Khufu a reign of over 60 years. There is simply no evidence to substantiate this. Extant textual evidence contemporary to Khufu's time gives him a reign length of up to 34 years, but no more. This, of course, figures into the length of time it took to build the pyramid.
  
• Estimates vary on how long it took to build the pyramid but the average is about twenty years. A workforce of several thousand craftsmen and laborers, together with possibly an equal number in support staff, could've accomplished the task within the posited timeframe. In other words, it certainly didn't take half a century to build the thing. Khufu would've been long dead by then.
  
• There is no evidence to support the idea of a vast network of caverns and corridors and passages under the Great Pyramid, or the Plateau in general. What lies down there of notable size is burial chambers of tombs, although there certainly would be voids and pockets in the limestone matrix. Scott Collins's endless network of caves extending from his "Tomb of the Birds" is a red herring, meant to sell his book. This tomb, actually designated NC2, was explored by George Reisner and his team in the 1930s and then again by an archaeological team of the SCA subsequent to Collins's claims—and in neither case was anything remarkable found.

It seems we're being a little close minded once more Kmt.   Determining that aliens have never been in the picture, and never 'will be'?  It sounds like you're promoting yourself from moderator to prophet?  Just because some bad apple 'fringe' thinker is wrong about an opinion does not mean you can throw out the whole case.   Jury, judge, and executioner?  I don't think so.  There are billions of stars in the night sky.  To assume we are the only living beings on the only habitable planet in existence anywhere, seems very selfish and naive.

Furthermore, Egypt had MUCH more than its share of slaves, even when in comparison to other world powers to follow.  To say otherwise is wrong, and everyone already knows as much.  You're right about one thing, there were many learned craftsman and skilled workers at the site of construction.    However, they started out on the Great Pyramid as the first in construction, just as CladKing pointed out, and it would take a lot longer than 22 years to build such a monument even in today's world of modern day technology.  Nevertheless they weren't waiting around for Khufu to die in the first place, since you're still forgetting the most important fact of the matter.  The Pyramids were NOT built as tombs.  They BECAME tombs.   Is there an echo in here?

EVERYWHERE you look throughout ancient Egypt you see evidence of man made labyrinths, caves, caverns, and tombs, site after site....  Suggesting that this could not be possible elsewhere, nearby, seems very naive.  How can we say that the cave of the birds doesn't lead to the pyramids or the foot of the Sphinx for that matter?  Who has explored it?

[cladking]

Paul Rubino, on 22 December 2012 - 03:49 AM, said:

You can say they're impossibly large pyramids but they WERE built.

And this is usually just about the sole justification people use to say they used ramps.

The argument is that the pyramid is there and they only had primitive means therefore
they mustta used ramps.

This is utter hogwash.  We don't know how it was built whether aliens or flying stones
therefore we need to investigate not stop thinking.  The evidence says they used a mo-
tive force.  Just because the evidence is thin doesn't mean we should toss it all out and
assume things that are nowhere in evidence.

Quote

The Pyramid of Djoser took 10 - 15 years to build. Why is it impossible to complete this task in that time frame if given enough resources and manpower?

It's not impossible.  The fact that it's there proves it's possible by some means.  It doesn't
prove they had infinite manpower and could magically project that manpower.

Quote

What evidence "points away from any muscle based system of any sort"? The only evidence you have is YOU don't know how humans built these structures in 10 - 15 years? Is that your evidence?

We know the titles of the builders and none of them are even remotely associated
with the use of a muscle based system.  Orthodox theory does not fit the evidence
and is not able to make accurate predictions.  The news is, has been, and will remain
at odds with orthodox theory because orthodox theory is wrong.  It is wrong across
the board.