Napalm was invented in WWII. The first time that it was ever used was in July of 1944. The Greeks also used napalm between 1946 and 1949 during the Greek Civil War. Although it has been proven Greeks have been using an extremely close (almost exact) varient of modern day Napalm since at least the 11th century. (As found in ancient sphero-conical vessals). Napalm was invented almost 100 years AFTER the first documented case of the "greek hand grenades".


Another "thought" that I have is the use of electricity. Ancient painting seemingly depict the use of electricity. One painting of 2 Egyptian goddesses viewing Denderah wall text, have what appear to be "electric filament lamps". In an Ancient Egyptian temple at Denderah, an illustration depicts what appear to be "carbon arc searchlights". Another painting shows Egyptian deities presenting Hathor with what looks like an "electric lamp, battery, and cable".



Please don't feel that I'm stating ALL of the above to be factual evidence of a smarter existance, I'm just asking why is it that few will admit, our recent civilization might NOT be more technologically advanced then the ancient ones?

Oh yeah. We (especially on this fourm) generally vastly under-estimate our ancestors. A lot of people, rather than credit them with anything, will invoke aliens or gods!


--Jaylemurph

I think a lot of people dont give them enough credit.

Steam engines have been around for about 3000 years (though it was a while before they worked out what they could do!)
Penicillin has been used since the 11th century(ish)
I suspect our ancesters weren't advanced with computers and electricity, but they certainly werent stupid. The basicis for most modern maths are milenia old, same with astronomy. I doubt they were more advanced than us though, there'd be an awful lot more information around about it if they were. One thing everyone in history had in common though is the odd belief that everthing was better in the past though nobody from two different ages agrees when that was! Dont belive that? Ask any pensioner! Their childhood was better than today, so was yours, and so will your unborn childrens! Funny really. But I wonder why everyone ever has thought that? The truth is that the golden age is now and it always has been! Here and now you are alive!

They might not have been able to put equations and numbers to a lot of the things they could do, but they could still do it! Its just that in later centuries weve started to piece together the scientific framework that it all fits into (or rather weve actually started to realise there might be one!) This is becouse in the last few thousand years the west has become monotheistic, which gives us an advantage cos we can expect a single god to be consitent and then get curious and try and see how all parts of his creation interact!

Ive said before I dont belive in God, but I think that some peoples belief has helped us along the way. Others of course have done their best to impede us unfortunatly.

Although I agree with almost everything that you state above..I still strongly feel that they had the right idea. (Yes, we do have life easier in the aspect of convience) I still feel that the ancient civilizations were not smarter, per say, but far more economical. I am not an invironmentalist, but they didn't abuse the natural resources as we do today. Their garbage capacity was far less then our's is today. What I wouldn't give to live back then LOL!

Im not quite sure what you mean here....If you do the research you'll notice the only reason any civilization achieves equilibrium with its enviroment is becouse it nearly drives itself to extinction with its excess's! The aborigines of both australia and america did this(and I would suspect everwhere else) probably as we are now! They forced thousands of species of animal to extinction and they nearly followed in each case! Only by learning to live in tune with their envorment could they have survived. It wasnt by choice, it was neccessity!. And accordingly neither lifestyle is easy, living in those times would have still been a constant struggle.

This should teach us that humans in any period of time are greedy! Also that we should start sorting ourselves out before its too late . At least we know there are issues like global warming, we should use that to our advantage! I wonder how many civilizations didnt work it out till too late?

nowhere did I state that it would be EASIER to live back then....I merely stated that I feel it would have been amazing. And yes, I'm quite sure that global warming due to factories, car emissions, aerosol cans, and every other modern "tabu" were quite the issue among ancient civilizations.

I never said you had said that! Was just a friendly warning in case you decieded to build a time nmachine and head back there And it would be amazing, especially for somebody like me who studied history at uni!

I also never said they had the same issues we do. They had their own issues, gererally something like wiping out all the species they used to eat (by over hunting or whatever, killing creatures just for the hell of it. Untill recently native americans killed far more animals than they needed to, and then it got worse when the discovered repeating rifles!) and then starving to death. Where did i say that they did have the same issues?

It's amazing the things our ancestors were able to do and accomplished. Technology has made us lazy.

I believe the real problem today is specialization.

The ancients had bid advantages such as natural selection to weed out the
slower and weaker. They would each learn as much as was possible about
the world and then try to add to it what they could. Today by the time a kid
is ready to go into the world he has probably already had several years of
education geared to a single subject. Even those who don't get a lot of edu-
cation are likely to wind up on a job that requires a specialized knowledge or
specialized activity. Even jobs which require a general knowledge like cata-
logers and librarians tend to be specialists.

Specialization is great if you want to know where a book is or have a specific
fungal infection but it does not lead one to be able to pick the forest out of the
trees. Even in massive companies you are likely to have specialists in opera-
tions, instrumentation, electrical, mechanical, planning, finance, software, hard
ware, supervision, janitorial, painting, and dozens of other specialties and not
one individual who can look at the entire structure and process and identify the
fundamental problems. Instead the plant is shut down and the engineers come
up with a better design (frequently to be built in China).

The ancients rarely had such problems. Most processes were small and opera-
ted by a single individual. If he failed someone else would pick up the slack.

It's almost impossible now days for a specialist to make new discoveries in his
field. The amount of capital required to begin a new business is simply stagger-
ing and even the research tools usually required to make new discoveries are
usually priced well beyond the ability of the individual to afford. Doctors rarely
make new discoveries in medicine. Most come from labs or sources outside of
medicine. When the pyramids were build practically all medical discoveries were,
no doubt, made by doctors. It would be much the same in all fields. Each reason-
ably well-educated man would readily understand advancements everywhere and
see other applications. Doctors would know math and architects would be well
acquainted with paper production and mining. Most individuals were farmers or
hunters in pre-history but most would be have a well rounded education by today's
standards.

Writing isn't to be underestimated. Vast amounts of knowledge are made avail-
able to vast numbers of people. But we tend to lose what we don't use and the
modern world is hardly condusive to using a general knowledge. I suppose the
engineers are able to use the most knowledge but even here there are several
types of engineers and most will end up in an occupation that is nearly as limited
as everyone else.

But... writing makes sure things don't get lost.

Several centuries ago, we passed the point where one person could read all the books in the world (or even in one language*) or learn enough to be working polymaths (and there really have only ever been a few of those) , but we've still managed to make progress. And I would argue that most people today are generally smarter (i. e., with more general education) than most people a few centuries ago.

--Jaylemurph

*I think Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the last one to do it in English -- and he took several years out of his life to do nothing but that.

I know that you took history at uni and all, so I would like to ask you where you got your information about the native americans killing far more animals than they needed to, your misconceptions about rifles (repeating rifles were used for warfare, not hunting because they were underpowered for hunting game) If you're referring to the Buffalo being wiped out, that is all due to the white people....to trade/sell the hides, for the tongues(to sell to wealthy whites), to make way for the railroad, and to take away the Native Americans (in this case, the Sioux and other great plains natives) most important food source to force them onto reservations where they were lucky if they even got flour to eat.......that, is why they starved.

Now airica, I was wondering if you had more info on the ancient use of electricity?

I'm very pleased with the way this thread is going. I greatly appreciate all views and opinions. (And who doesn't love a little friendly banter) Anyway Uhmanduh, here are the pictures that I was directly referring to in my initial post. I hope that you find them as fascinating as I.

Yes. I agree entirely. I was talking about on the individual level. Knowledge
we don't use is lost.



Again I agree except I believe we passed the point one person could hope to
know about everything back around the invention of language.

Those are fascinating pics!

...so then we've had specialists for several thousands years with no awfuklly ill effects, right?


--Jaylemurph

awkfuklly??

Uhhh... it's a compound word like "fugly" that means "like an awe-struck awk that's full of himself."

--Jaylemurph

Im at work at the moment so dont have a huge number of text books to hand! But wiki and google are still pretty handy if you can cut thru the rubbish. In america humans are thought to have arrived around 11000 years ago(though some might have been there a bit before that) with the arrival of the clovis people. In the last 50000 years there have been 33 extinctions. 15 were in the last 10000 years alone. Thats a significant increace considering how few people there were. Hardly living in touch with their enviroment! It appears that clovis weapons technology was a little better than everyone elses at the time and was adopted by other peoples. one example is the Atlatl which enabled them to hurl spears a long distance and with great strength making hunting large critters easy!

Btw its bison not buffalo, in america. buffalo are aisian/african critters.

And its true that a winchester rifle won't penetrate a bisons skull but they can still kill one!

And hunting was paid for by the europeans in the fur trade, but it was carried out by the native americans with or without firearms.

havnt got time for more Im afraid I'll c what i can find later on!

I do believe ancient cultures were just as capable, given their level of technology, as we are today. In fact they were probably more creative with the problems they had to cope with and having only simple machines to effect a solution, notwithstanding more complex machines like the Antikythera mechanism which (I believe) had a scientific rather than industrial use.

The reason we assume they were less capable is mainly cultural. Yes we think - because we have all these marvellous machines to perform tasks that we could not (perhaps) ordinarily undertake - we are at the current 'peak' of human achievement but we are operating under a different cultural paradigm than the ancient cultures where superstition reigned more strongly (secular authorities were virtually unknown) and the dispersion of information was restricted to a privileged few.

As for the premise that the ancient Egyptians had the use of electricity, well those are interesting pics and the Dendera relief is debated at length as to what it represents. Some point to the fact there is no soot in many of the dark passages where colourful images are to be found but this is not direct evidence of the use of electricity in the form of lights (cleaners anyone?) Where, for example, is any of the miles and miles of wiring that would have had to have been used? Ok, it may all have been robbed or recycled but we have access to some ancient structures that were relatively undisturbed yet we have found no evidence of either the lights (apart from some contentious motifs in some reliefs), the wiring or any fixtures for where these would be affixed.

Another point against the use of electricity in ancient times is, if the Egyptians had it how did they keep this knowledge from all the other cultures they were in contact with? Knowledge and ideas are notoriously difficult to contain and it is almost inconceivable the Egyptians could have such a wonderful thing but keep it so secret no other contemporary culture even mentions their ownership of it?

(Willing to concede the last point if someone does find reference to Egyptian electricity in the writings of other, contemporary cultures as I don't have such all-encompassing knowledge of these cultures to be able to claim so without reservation.)

The Dendera pictures, I am afraid, are an intentional deception. The two pictures with priestesses at the foot of what look like bulbs and the one giant spotlight-looking thing are only two panels out of an entire wall which tells the story of the birth of some goddess from a Nile flower. How do we know the bulbs aren't lights? Because a few panels later, the snakes that everyone calls filaments break free of their eggs and move on to populate the world.

One of the major reasons skeptics do not readily accept evidence of ancient advanced technology is not so much because of hoaxes such as the above, but more because of logic. Technology does not develop in isolation. You cannot create a lightbulb without the supporting technologies that are required along with it. Prior to believing the Egyptians had the ability to create a lightbulb, you need more than a picture of something that might be a lightbulb. You also need evidence that they had the fine glass-making technology needed to make a bulb (all we have from them are somewhat primitive, blocky, glass sculptures). We need the fine wires that would be used as an electrical system. We need some sort of power source for the electricity (and no, you can't point to a country hundreds of miles away and say "they had something like it!"). To say that a bulb simply appeared out of nowhere, with nothing more than a picture, isn't going to do a whole lot.

There are ill effects.

Perhaps these are inconsequential to most individuals. Why does a pediatrician
need to know anything about trigonometry or a garbage collector about hydrau-
lics. But there are huge losses from a societal point of view. Most employers don't
want their employees doing tasks for which they aren't trained and that makes
much less efficiency. Even doing one's own job might be be much more efficient
if you're aware of the needs and abilities of those you interact with on the same
and related tasks.

Simply being a good citizen in a republic or democracy requires some knowledge
of history, economics, and sometimes a basic knowledge of almost all subjects.

Individuals will almost invariably lose sight of the big picture if they look at too small
a piece of it for too long. Often this has already occurred long before they get out
of college. To some degree this defines our culture yet it is simultaneously under-
mining it.

WOW...I didn't say that. It was simply a question. I do appreciate your information on those paintings being a hoax though....I was more hoping that this thread would not cause people to accuse other's of what might or might not have been said, but just simply bring more information "to the table". (which YES you and other's have done, and that is greatly appreciated.)

Now, now, don't get your dander up. I'm not accussing you of anything, and I try to avoid making assumptions as to what other people think. I no more meant that "you" yourself said that this was a lightbulb than I meant that "you" yourself could not create a lightbulb without the supporting technology, or that "we" here on this thread, needed fine wire, or some power source to power one up. All of these are not refering to specific people (us), but rather they the address the argument of what the major reasons skeptics do not readily accept evidence of ancient advanced technology are.

Blame the English language. There are just to many neutral words in it. It is a good point though. Always make sure that you read someone else's post a few times before coming to a conclusion on what the intent was (this is for everyone, not specifically you ). Honestly, we get reports from people demanding justice for a slight or insult and, on reviewing the situation, we can only find the most tenous justification for what one person perceived another one to say. As in any sort of deductive endevour, try to stay as objective as you can, and in a topic of emotional value, be doubly careful.

It's not as if the tradition of an education in the libeal arts is dead or anything. I went to a well-regarded liberal arts university where I was encouraged (nay, even forced) to take classes in at least three sciences, two maths, two arts, writing and several other disciplines. And our elementary and high schools are formulated along the same basis.

--Jaylemurph

airika,
The consensus today is that the environment of the Middle East was changed by humans living there since about 5,000 BCE. (They've been there much longer than that, but as nomads they didn't have much opportunity to do any real damage.)
A good example is Lebanon/Israel today. These areas were lush as little as 3 thousand years ago. Overpopulation due to an abundance of food which came from progressive agricultural discoveries is the likeliest culprit. Deforestation almost always is the result of such an explosion.

While you may continue to yearn to live back then, try to keep in mind what Torchwood said:
As well as Carly Simon;


If you lived back then, your husband could whip you within an inch of your life for making the statements I quoted from your post. Not that there's anything wrong with those statements - he could do it for anything he wanted. And not that there's anything wrong with whipping, as long as you're into it I guess. But I would oppose indiscrimate and coerced beatings of women, as I imagine you would as well. In fact, they'd probably stone me for saying that.

You've really got it pretty good here and now.



Thanks aquatus for the insightful post. I have a link for anyone here that's about ready to give up on their belief in some secret Egyptian advanced technology. Here it is:
The fantastic Catchpenny's Mysteries of Ancient Egypt Website, with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time.

The owner of that site, Larry Orcutt, is a very nice guy and there you will find perfectly good (and mundane) explanations for a great many Egyptian "mysteries" that people post here on a regular basis, such as the Dendera "lightbulbs."

I wonder if any of you know of John Anthony West? He's the self-taught "egyptologist" that first brought Robert Schoch (Geophysicist - Boston University) in to look at the erosion on the Sphinx. Schoch's the guy with the paper about the Sphinx being possibly much older than previously thought.

Anyway, West is no dried-up academician. In fact, he is not an academician at all, rather an organizer of Egyptian tours, and author of several pseudoscientific books on ancient advanced civilizations. Yet at the Catchpenny site I linked above, the section on the Dendera "lightbulbs" contains a quote explaining these reliefs, written by none other than John Anthony West!

Further explanation from Catchpenny (not written by West):

That was from François Daumas' Dendara et le Temple d'Hathor. Daumas was a recognized expert. The expert, at the time. The statuettes he mentions are now long gone (stolen.)

Go to the Catchpenny site, everyone. You'll be surprised to see many of the issues unanswered here at U-M have been addressed there.

Harte

As much as I tend to blame the educational system for most of the ills in the US,
in this particular case they are a small part of the problem. About the only thing
they could do is to spend a little more time making clear to kids why knowledge
about diverse subjects is important. Many of the teachers believe most of what
they're teaching is unimportant or most of the other classes are unimportant.

Schools do an excellent job of teaching the right subjects up through 12 years of
age. They continue to do a pretty good job through 17 years. In most universirties
this breaks down at the undergraduate level and it is marginal at best. Graduate
schools probably all do a poor job.

I had a terrible calculus class in high school. The teacher was poor and the text
had errors in it. I didn't realize this at the time and did poorly in the class. It was
years later that I bumped into the salutatorian of the class and the best student
in calculus. He's a famous doctor now in Chicago. I started asking him about the
class because I wanted to understand how he could do so well under the circum-
stances. He claimed to remember none of the course work... ...not even the most
basic principles. Here was a doctor, apparently, with no command of math while I,
a mere ditch digger found the need of math in my job regularly and even needed
trig and calculus. I'm sure if I had more advanced training I'd have needed it as
well.

Obviously individual differences play a huge role in how people relate to the world.
If I were going to see this doctor I'd be far more concernerd with his knowledge of
anatomy than his knowledge of parabolic functions or derivatives, but then, if I knew
he knew nothing about "extraneous" subjects I just might seek a different doctor.

The main cause of the problem is beyond human control; the explosion of knowledge.
In order to gain good understanding of a subject they have to be broken down into
increasingly small parts of the spectrum.

But the world is about to revert to something more like what the ancients experienced.
When machine intelligence arises the need for most specialists will simply be decima-
ted. Some specialties will be completely eliminated. The world needs to prepare for
this.





There's little doubt that the ancients had a great deal more technology than they often
are credited for. But this was ancient technology and bears little resemblance to the
way things are done today. They had different needs than we do caused by the situ-
ation in which they found themselves. Many people were isolated alone or in groups
so might use something that was not widely known. Things like a compass are very
easily made and invented. Simply hammering on a small piece of iron can turn it into
a magnet. They are known to have used naturally occurring magnetic material. If a
magnet is placed onto a leaf floating in a puddle it will always tunn to face the magnetic
pole. Surely this was observed and used by most long distance travelers. There was
even a large piece of non-meteoritic iron found in the great pyramid, so they had some
knowledge of this metal.

There are also the pottery which appears to have been used as batteries. Probably they
were used for other than usefull purposes or there'd be more of them, but it's hardly im-
possible they provided light in some tunnel building.

If I'm on the savannah trying to chase down a mastadon to feed my family, I'd much
sooner have a pyramid builder with me than a modern day doctor. And if we were suc-
cessful and wanted the beast to heal then I'd need a vetrinarian more than the doctor
too. It is this difference more than anything which makes ancient technology so im-
pressive to me.




Is there a spellcheck here?

... Seriously? Spell-check? But... oughtn't you to know spelling and grammar ?

I can't help but detect at least a smidgen of an all-too American dislike of intellectualism here. I definitely think you're being too hard on teachers. Speaking as one, we don't teach things we don't think are unimportant. We wouldn't /become/ teachers if we thought are subjects are important. I'm grateful you said 'many' and not 'most' or 'all'; I won't deny there are a few disaffected teachers out there, but you're tarring way too many people with one brush with that accusation.

And I'll say again, there is a lively tradition of liberal arts schools that do nothing better than teach a multiplicity of disciplines for the very same reason you value them; the assumption that a well-rounded eduction will draw on and be improved by many subjects. This was especially true of graduate school experience and PhD training... but it depends on what you go for. I suspect (not very firmly) that people going for higher science degrees may suffer from over-specialization.

"The main cause of the problem is beyond human control; the explosion of knowledge.
In order to gain good understanding of a subject they have to be broken down into
increasingly small parts of the spectrum."

So what's the answer? Abandon knowledge? Return to hunting and gathering and religion?

"But the world is about to revert to something more like what the ancients experienced.
When machine intelligence arises the need for most specialists will simply be decima-
ted. Some specialties will be completely eliminated. The world needs to prepare for
this."

You're assuming an awful lot here. And it looks like you're being heavily influenced by dystopic sci-fi like the Terminator films. Computer knowledge is never going to be able to replace humans as diagnosticians in medicine or science (let alone social sciences or the arts) simply because of the limits of logic that computers will not be able to breach. Much of what experts do is based on extra-logical facts: their education and experience is only a starting place for their work. Einstein used his training in physics and mathematics along with his personal genius to come up with his theiry of relativity. I doubt machines will ever do something like that.
If nothing else, computers would have to keep engineers and designers around to maintain them.

"If I'm on the savannah trying to chase down a mastadon to feed my family, I'd much
sooner have a pyramid builder with me than a modern day doctor."

Why?

"And if we were successful and wanted the beast to heal then I'd need a vetrinarian more than the doctor
too."

But... you were going to eat it. Things don't generally get better after that.


--Jaylemurph

I don't necessarily agree with all your other points.



No. Not at all.

I started working on machine intelligence back in the '70's. It might not surprise
you to know there wasn't much progress but I think I came to understand some of
the challenges. Much of the problem was sheer numbers. In those days there were
only several thousand computers in the world and if they were hooked up to function
as a brain they would have far less intelligence than a flea even if they were equally
efficient. Now days the typical PC set-up contains dozens of computers and there
are billions in the world. I wouldn't be overly surprised to boot up one day and find
that someone has put a virus on the net that makes it self aware.

It probably won't happen this way but there are people working on machine intelligence
now. Great strides have been made in chaos and in mimicing biological processes.
Artificial intelligence will largely be made obsolete long before it is really perfected.

Look at the revolutions in field after field brought about by the computer. This is with-
out any sort of intelligence whatsoever. A computer program can now beat the finest
chess players. Imagine what a very stupid computer could do even with a bad program.
It could quickly rewrite the program and still win. A computer were even the least in-
telligence could investigate almost any subject and understand things that are far be-
yond human capability. It could probably even learn to play "hunches" but all it would
save is a few milliseconds of proccessing time.

Human thought will be mostly obsolete within only a couple generations. Some of the
fields thought most protected will be among the first to fall. Even manual labor will give
way to thinking machines given enough time.

This will revolutionize human life. It will also usher in an era of great abundance. This
will constitute the greatest danger yet faced by the species. Population growth spurred
by technology (computers) has already been staggering. Pandemic becomes a certain-
ty at some point. War over resources or politics increases in importance and likelyhood.
Our dependence on technology will increase even more. Financial panic or other sudden
shifts will be more devastating. Health will degenerate further if current beliefs and trends
persist.

The future is always risky but for the first time we're enterring an era where this risk be-
comes greater for nearly all individuals and never before have things been more inter-
connected.

OK....I love you all.....(hope that wasn't too emotional for ya aquatus )

Anyway.....Here's a thought, and maybe we could discuss if it is in any way possible. The clay pots with a copper cylinder surrounding an iron rod, and vinegar or wine, (assumed to be batteries) have been proven to produce up to 2 volts of electric current. Tests were conducted connecting several "batteries" and with using grape juice, have been found to produce a small shock. So....my thought is this.........Would it work if we took a wet rope, with pieces of copper or iron all throughout, would this be able to carry a current? Place one end of the rope on the "battery", and on the other end, a couple of iron rods. Would this be able to produce an arc between the rods, emiting light? And if so, this would easily explain why no wires and cords were ever found. Or is my thought completely irrational, and not at all a possibility? Thoughts please.

A wet rope would carry a current reasonably well soaked in calcium
chloride or sodium chloride water (most salts would work), but copper
would work far better and they'd have known this.

Without the wheel, though, it would be just about impossible to draw
wire. They could have pounded it flat and woven it into strip or some-
thing, but evidence of this is unknown. Thin pieces of copper might
not survive except under ideal condition.

Thank you very much...so at least this part was possible..(not that there is proof of it being done) but could then the iron rods on the end produce an arc enough to emit light?

The 'Baghdad Batteries' are not generally assumed to be electricity generating devices. It is true that experiments were one by filling the copper cylinder inside with vinegar and also with lemon juice (separately). It was found that by linking 10 such devices a small 4 volt charge could be produced. However the devices - as found - were sealed with asphalt. To be useful as batteries the electrolyte inside would have had to be regularly topped up and the asphalt seal would have rendered that problematic.


It is possible they were used as batteries but we should not assume so.

source for Baghdad Battery

Hemp (for the rope) is an insulator and even wet would not be good material for your wires. The conductive material would have to be continuous through the length of the wire to enable it to carry any current. Even today, a break in your wiring will prevent the current from traversing the wire and results in a short-circuit.

Sorry to be so pessimistic about this. It is possible that electricity was known of - at least in the form of electrostatic energy - but I do doubt these cultures were able to effectively generate enough electricity to provide lighting.

Noticed that cladking had mentioned soaking the rope in a salt solution. This is possible but the rope would have had to be kept wet. Also water and electricity don't tend to get on very well. The procedure of keeping the rope wire attached to the generating device and away from any grounding source (as you don't have them insulated) would be extremely tricky.

Yes my dear.....great points, although I'm not assuming anything..just merely asking...are you saying that they could NOT produce a continous piece of copper that could be "protected" by a length of rope?

No, any culture knowing how to work copper would be able to produce wire.

I didn't intend for my post to insinuate you were assuming anything. My 'we' in the sentence



was not directed at you personally but as a generic statement. My apologies if you read it as a personal barb. I'm simply offering another point of view to the debate.

LOL...and it's greatly appreciated.....and I didn't assume that you were insinuating that towards me....I am not easily offended....I love hearing all points of view.....and I in no way felt that you were singleing me out. (I keep forgetting that tone of voice doesn't come across in typing all the time LOL )

Has there been any evidence that they did make wire?




OK, this is has nothing to do with wire, I apologize!!


First of all, buffalo is a colloquialism that most americans use and they are also commonly known as the american buffalo (from Wiki) ...we call them buffalo jumps, buffalo burgers, buffalo hides, etc. I have even been employed at a wild game processing business and have personally skinned buffalo (and they were referred to as Buffalo on the order ticket) and I grew up just north of Yellowstone Park which has the only truly wild bison herd in the US...

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


OH...I could go on..... but this is rather off topic.....

hmm.......I'm still trying to figure out if my idea COULD actually work. I feel that if it is a probability, then why couldn't they have actually done it. (I'm not trying to make myself out to be overly intelligent by any means) But...I'm not an educated person, (I'm sure I have FAR less formal education then most on here) and if my idea could be an actual possibility...then I just wonder what our ancient ancestors really did accomplish. (Even if we omit the water in my idea LOL)

I think you'd need a battery about the size of a pyramid to get this kind of energy.

But that doesn't mean that there wasn't another way of accomplishing about the same
thing.

I have to agree, that you would need a larger size battery, but now I want someone to try it LOL
They have proven on myth busters that this battery will power a lightbulb...but they didn't try to prove they had the capabilities of producing "lamps" if you will.

source

While the technique described was used for gold I'm not certain it could have been used for copper as it's not as soft as gold.

Leonardo my dear.....fascinating.....and I thank you so very much!

I know this is off the wall....just a thought here!
What if they weren't trying to create electricity at all....what if the "batteries" were used to harness hydrogen from H20? A friend and I experimented with this last summer....we used a lawnmower battery connected to a tube with H2O in it(not a metal tube!) that housed stainless steel tubes (yes i realize they didn't have stainless steel). We were able to harness and control a certain amount of hydrogen....It is relatively easy to do, but hydrogen in itself is very difficult to control due to its small size (fortunately, we managed to create a good seal)...I really don't know if this adds anything but it's just an idea

Interesting, but what would they do with the hydrogen?

I must admit, the theory regarding the batteries (if they are batteries) that tickled me the most was that priests were using them to give statues of their gods a slight charge. A supplicant would touch the statue and feel a small tingle - 'proof' indeed of the god's presence.

LOL that is funny! and what a use for the "batteries" too! zap

Well, the point of our experiment was to try to harness the hydrogen to use in an engine, which we momentarily accomplished (with problems) before winter set in. I really don't know what they would be doing with it....although there are a lot of possibilities for its use.

Interestind Uhmanduh.....harnessed hydrogen for the use as energy.....maybe this could turn into another idea as to HOW this could have occured. The thoughts and ideas could be quite interesting. Maybe even since the exact purpose of the pyramids is still a mystery....they could even come into play as "ancient hydrogen infrastructures". I'm not sure if that was even possible....I'd love to hear all thoughts on that....and I have another question that maybe someone could help me answer....Scientists feel that there was more hydrogen on earth because of the higher amounts found in the ancient artifacts... could it be possible that the higher amounts of hydrogen in the artifacts is due to the use of hydrogen in their everyday life? GREAT idea again uhmanduh!..and yes Leonardo....I have to agree with the battery thing...and it WOULD make sense as to why people "saw god" when they touched the ark of the covenant.


Another quick thought Leonardo....would be...could they then have used gold in the rope instead of copper?

Perhaps hydrogen could have been used to fuel a pumping action of the pyramid.

I'm not really suggesting this so much as pointing out that a large amount of hydrogen
could be quite useful. Cracking water requires a lot of energy and you get it back with
the efficiency losses when it is burned.

I was wondering when someone else would think of this. Either gold or silver would have been ideal as malleable conductors in ancient times. As well as being much harder to work so fine copper was used in the crafting of tools and weapons (and later, armour) and would likely have been reserved for this important use (unless they had an awful lot of it.)

the problems are fundamental: generating the electricity and carrying it. To generate electricity reliably you need a generator and before you can pass the electricity to the device that is going to consume it you need a rectifying device and a regulator. The rectifier converts the current from alternating to direct (if direct current is required) and to change the phases from 3 to single. The regulator controls the amount of current in terms of hertz, the normal being 50 hertz @ 240v ac in Britain, and is sensitive to the demand placed on the generator.
The wire designed to carry the current is a specialised and carefully designed device. It has to carry current with minimum resistance which does two things: stops the wire from getting warm and stops current from being lost thru generating that heat.
Ropes soaked in salty water would be conductive but the current loss would be considerable.

I understand what you're saying....BUT....there was an experiment done on TV using these batteries...and a wire..and a lightbulb....and the lightbulb lit up... later on in the thread we had decided to omit the water...and now we're trying to figure out which would have been the best conductor to get from point A to point B....and although you seem to know quite a bit about electricity....I feel you're trying to over think what we're saying.....thank you for your input though! it's greatly appreciated my dear

AHHHHHH my dear Leonardo!!.....Makes total sense....thank you my dear sir for your information.....
(OH...BTW..in my head...I said that with a brittish accent )