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Great Pyramid not built by Khufu?


The Puzzler

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These are two distinct arguments. For reasons outlined (very clearly I think) in my posts prior in this thread, I think the second argument is much less useful than the first. It amounts to looking for a preconception of what a society needs to be in order for stone structures to exist. They don't need civilizations, those come much later in human history than religion and temples. This is my version of your dislike for the "Hawass is untrustworthy" tack. It's not supported by even consensus history anymore. It is a myth that human beings were civilized before holy sites existed. The massive pyramids imply the need for labour and you can cite lack of evidence of labour. That's as far as it goes.

Besides that, the aliens were just leaving behind a message, they didn't stay.

;)

Yet the great stumbling block for any alternative theory on who built the pyramids is a lack of evidence for this 'other'. May I suggest you focus on that for that is the reason why the mainstream theories remain intact - because there is no viable alternative. You can 'question' the mainstream forever and guess what, no matter how much personal incredulity you pour into your belief - it will have absolutely no effect - while finding evidence of the 'other' will. So what is the logical course of action to take?

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The abandonment and repossession of ancient monuments and buildings is typical of many sites and not an idea only in the head of fringe thinkers. Classic want-to-be's and tourist attractions, religion and or sports centers etc added over the centuries is normal in the discoveries of ancient ruins.

To walk into an ancient site and give all the credit of its construction to a native paddling a canoe nearby, may be exciting but foolish. Then to write a book on how many millions of canoe paddlers it took to build the thing, is a great idea too, for money.

Just think of all those stuffed monkeys that will buy into it.

Then to send in a team of 200 university students to move one stone of about 400 kg, and erect it with ropes and buckets of water, or whatever the going thing is, it's great entertainment for a documentary, watched by the beige.

Still, we can up on that and send in a scientist to decipher the markings on the walls, which have to be significant, otherwise the team will look silly to the watching world, especially if the man in the canoe comes up and tells them he did it, just for graffiti.

Kufu or whatever his name is, came upon an abandoned site, no more pastures around as there were when it was built, just the desert. Well, what an opportunity for tourism and trading with the passing caravans. And that's how the Egyptian kingdom started. Kufu was the old mayor of this new estate under the shadow of the triangles. Buildings were added, roads improved, markets opened, agriculture and canals were built etc. Slavery as a major human resource did not enter until Jacob settled there, due to people from surrounding populations selling their labor for food. Slavery did not become compulsory until about a century later.

Although slaves built many things in Egypt, they did not build the pyramids, not even under Kufu, any more than the man in the canoe is a king.

Well as KS said what is the evidence for this 'other', again all you are doing is questioning and downplaying the mainstream evidence. What independent evidence do you have that their were 'others' involved?

Lets take a look

Writing at the Giza pyramids

Other NONE

AE Yes

Pottery

Other NONE

AE Yes

Burials

Other NONE

AE Yes

C-14 dates

Other NONE

AE Yes

Historical writings

Other Some mythology could be considered to speak of 'others'

AE Yes

Etc.

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Billionaire comment

The 1984 C-14 tests were paid for by the Edgar Cayce Foundation while the 1995 test were paid for by the David H. Koch Foundation, Now before that Willard F. Libby did testing on Djoser pyramid which agreed with the later two studies.

Now ECF would have wanted a date to support their seers prediction of 10,500 BC - they didn't get them, so what would DKF have wanted? He's a libertarian conservative who in general supports science. So how did the wants (if you believe results of the tests support who ever paid for them) of ECF not get supported?

You also have a problem in that the collection wasn't done by Lehner by himself a team did it and of course the actual measurement were done by another team; so they all would have had to be in on it too......lol.

Now if this was all a frame up why were the result not exactly in support of the existing Cambridge time line that was then the gold standard? As a matter of fact the two studies themselves showed differences in the dating.

http://www.aeraweb.o...e-the-pyramids/

Puzzling eh?

Edited to add: There were the folks involved in the 95 study

The David H. Koch Pyramids Radiocarbon Project was a collaborative effort of Shawki Nakhla and Zahi Hawass, The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities; Georges Bonani and Willy Wölfli, Institüt für Mittelenergiephysik, Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule; Herbert Haas, Desert Research Institute; Mark Lehner, The Oriental Institute and the Harvard Semitic Museum; Robert Wenke, University of Washington; John Nolan, University of Chicago; and Wilma Wetterstrom, Harvard Botanical Museum. The project was administered by Ancient Egypt Research Associates, Inc.

Edited by Hanslune
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A common charge laid on us "skeptics" is that this section of UM is about alternative history and ancient mysteries. I totally agree. But there are two sides to every coin, and this would be an awfully boring place if both sides weren't represented. Long before I became a Moderator, I came to UM to help represent the orthodox approach to historical research. Speaking for myself, I still consider that an important thing to do.

Yes definitely! But it's a volunteer effort and you know exactly what is coming your way when you dive in. The idea of doing this in a hostile spirit and being all frustrated makes no sense!

I am only an amateur historian. People want to read such things from the minds of respected professionals

I don't think that's true, if you footnote you'd be fine. Professionals are not as respected as you think by the vast majority of ordinary curious people, and the ability to communicate and reach the target audience in the right tone or flavour matters way more. (imo)

Up to you :)

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Billionaire comment

The 1984 C-14 tests were paid for by the Edgar Cayce Foundation while the 1995 test were paid for by the David H. Koch Foundation, Now before that Willard F. Libby did testing on Djoser pyramid which agreed with the later two studies.

Now ECF would have wanted a date to support their seers prediction of 10,500 BC - they didn't get them, so what would DKF have wanted? He's a libertarian conservative who in general supports science. So how did the wants (if you believe results of the tests support who ever paid for them) of ECF not get supported?

You also have a problem in that the collection wasn't done by Lehner by himself a team did it and of course the actual measurement were done by another team; so they all would have had to be in on it too......lol.

Now if this was all a frame up why were the result not exactly in support of the existing Cambridge time line that was then the gold standard? As a matter of fact the two studies themselves showed differences in the dating.

http://www.aeraweb.o...e-the-pyramids/

Puzzling eh?

Edited to add: There were the folks involved in the 95 study

The David H. Koch Pyramids Radiocarbon Project was a collaborative effort of Shawki Nakhla and Zahi Hawass, The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities; Georges Bonani and Willy Wölfli, Institüt für Mittelenergiephysik, Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule; Herbert Haas, Desert Research Institute; Mark Lehner, The Oriental Institute and the Harvard Semitic Museum; Robert Wenke, University of Washington; John Nolan, University of Chicago; and Wilma Wetterstrom, Harvard Botanical Museum. The project was administered by Ancient Egypt Research Associates, Inc.

helpful. :)

Edited by onefourfour
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the great stumbling block for any alternative theory on who built the pyramids is a lack of evidence for this 'other'

Wrong headed thinking. You can know what isn't without yet knowing what is. Don't take this as an invitation to ascribe some new viewpoint to me please.

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kmt - on the post about what is needed or not needed as a precursor -- I agree on the need for labour. (I don't think we necessarily would have evidence of that labour's logistical support especially as the stone work gets older.)

The rest about needing "a well established bureaucracy" and social inferences of that kind are purely your ideas about how the world needs to work, what human "psychology" is, social norms, etc. You may as well say they needed free-markets, or communism, or a church. They're all just assumptions and preconception. We've been back and forth on that a couple times now so I guess we're not going to reach an agreement. I know I'm being nitty: like I said, this is my version of your Hawass thing.

It's an artifact of bad "history" (the practice), and we think it needs to be toned down a lot or eliminated entirely. If you care about such things :)

Edited by onefourfour
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You missed #365, would really like your direction on that. I could make it a new thread, it's a bit of topic.

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Oh my goodness, this argument about the inscription being in a part of inaccessible (since building) stone appears to be only based on the word of a guy named Robert Bauval regarding some mortar that had to be removed. (Please tell me they kept and dated that mortar if it existed at all... lol!)

http://www.robertschoch.net/EECampInscripCaCMD2006x.JPG

Looks completely accessible.

It looks like this is all collapsing toward hanging on the carbon dating. At least as far as my willingness to believe.

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You're too kind. Believe it or not it's not the first time someone has suggested I write a book, and I'm always flattered. But I immediately come back to earth with the realization: Who in the hell would want to read it?

Especially considering you'd probably make it 2 or 3 thousand pages long. :innocent:

Harte

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Wrong headed thinking. You can know what isn't without yet knowing what is. Don't take this as an invitation to ascribe some new viewpoint to me please.

Wrong headed thinking. If you cannot find a fault with the mainstream idea and people have been trying for a century or more you need something to replace it - again nothing has been provided or found.

Very wrong headed thinking, indeed. Remember your personal incredulity doesn't make mainstream evidence disappear. lol

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helpful. :)

So did that sway your opinion or was this your way of ignoring the information you didn't really want to see?

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Oh my goodness, this argument about the inscription being in a part of inaccessible (since building) stone appears to be only based on the word of a guy named Robert Bauval regarding some mortar that had to be removed. (Please tell me they kept and dated that mortar if it existed at all... lol!)

http://www.robertsch...pCaCMD2006x.JPG

Looks completely accessible.

It looks like this is all collapsing toward hanging on the carbon dating. At least as far as my willingness to believe.

Not at all you are cherry pick and making declarative statements based on such.

kmt - on the post about what is needed or not needed as a precursor -- I agree on the need for labour. (I don't think we necessarily would have evidence of that labour's logistical support especially as the stone work gets older.)

The rest about needing "a well established bureaucracy" and social inferences of that kind are purely your ideas about how the world needs to work, what human "psychology" is, social norms, etc. You may as well say they needed free-markets, or communism, or a church. They're all just assumptions and preconception. We've been back and forth on that a couple times now so I guess we're not going to reach an agreement. I know I'm being nitty: like I said, this is my version of your Hawass thing.

It's an artifact of bad "history" (the practice), and we think it needs to be toned down a lot or eliminated entirely. If you care about such things :)

Construction of large projects have all been done with the help of bureaucracy, please point to a large construction project where no social order existed.

You are following a traditional fringe believers play book - demand evidence then either ignore it, belittle it or make up specious reason to reject it........

Here is an idea why not look up an idea see what the fringe say, then what the mainstreams says; then explain why the mainstream is wrong.

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Fresh direction-

The Osirion and the argument about it being much lower and not well integrated with the Seti temple. I can't remember where I heard about this - sorry. I'm sure you're familiar with this. What are the best explanations?

The earth and moon proportions of the GP and the special decimal degree latitude (it is the speed of light in meters per second.) Someone elsewhere suggested that it was a modern fraud, that somehow the meter and the second were invented suitably for this purpose by the illumanati or something. The meter is the distance a pendulum must be in order to have a period of 1 or 2 seconds, I don't recall which off hand. They are gravitational numbers tied with the mass of the earth. Looking for something better.

The other two pyramids on the Giza plateau, and the "bent" pyramid, also demonstrate an affiliation with mathematics and geometry. Good reads that talk about the subject would be appreciated.

Gish gallop; lets stay with tired old pyramids until we get a declaration of you of acceptance or you get tired of following the failed tenets of the fringe believers 'method of non debate".

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Compassion

Compassion? If you feel compassion for the poor skeptics here trying using a debating technique that doesn't stink of long dead fringe concepts and ideas while attempting to hide behind a mask of "just asking questions". That would be more useful.

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Fresh direction-

The Osirion and the argument about it being much lower and not well integrated with the Seti temple. I can't remember where I heard about this - sorry. I'm sure you're familiar with this. What are the best explanations?

Built by different (Egyptian) architects as the site was redesigned and repurposed over time. This would be the classic example of "someone wanders in and decides to change an older building/monument into something wonderful and new." We know which pharaoh did what (usually) because their own records mention them sending work crews to work on these monuments and quite often the records say something about amount of resources dedicated to this or what additional items were sent.

Here (one of many, many examples) is a blog that contains the translation of Ramses II fixing up Abydos in his father's memory: http://famouspharaohs.blogspot.com/2009/03/monuments-of-ramses-ii.html

The earth and moon proportions of the GP and the special decimal degree latitude (it is the speed of light in meters per second.) Someone elsewhere suggested that it was a modern fraud, that somehow the meter and the second were invented suitably for this purpose by the illumanati or something. The meter is the distance a pendulum must be in order to have a period of 1 or 2 seconds, I don't recall which off hand. They are gravitational numbers tied with the mass of the earth. Looking for something better.

Well, they didn't have decimals and latitude is something that was invented after 1440: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~feegi/

They could have used any numbers they liked and any scale they liked (they could have gone Babylonian and picked 60/120/whatever. Furthermore, there are many things you can find that show this same kind of proportion (the ears on my cat, for example)... you just have to pick your items carefully.

The other two pyramids on the Giza plateau, and the "bent" pyramid, also demonstrate an affiliation with mathematics and geometry. Good reads that talk about the subject would be appreciated.

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

And sources that we browse for available texts include:

http://www.memphis.edu/egypt/docs/exported_bibliography5.html

http://www.egyptologyforum.org/EEFSeries.html

Somewhere around here I have another book on Egyptian mathematics and geometry that might answer your queries better, but I can't seem to find the silly PDF file. It was a reliable scholarly source. Will post when I find it.

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back to earth wrote

Possible, probable and plausible but certainly not proven.

According to Mendelssohn the pyramids were constructed as cenotaphs, not as tombs and did not have to coincide with a Pharaoh's lifetime.

Building of the Great Pyramids must have required a large workforce. Considering the state of perfection these pyramids show, a decisive amount of this workforce must have been highly trained professionals. Furthermore due to the geometrical constraints, the higher a pyramid grows, the fewer people are able to work on it. If the pyramids were built independently of each other and at distinct times, it would have been necessary to assemble and train the workforce for each building and lay them off as the work continued. According to Mendelssohn, as soon as a pyramid had reached about half its final size, work started on the successor to alleviate this problem.

The change of the angle seen at the Bent Pyramid can be explained as a reaction to a catastrophic collapse of the Meidum Pyramid, if these monuments were not constructed successively but with an overlap.

From Kurt Mendelssohn's wikipedia page

Edited by Hanslune
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No, not proven , but I found his observations interesting and plausible ... from an engineering perspectives; problems and issues and their resolution ... also his analysis of the development of construction methods and design.

The reason I asked was, earlier when I mentioned it I got some sort of smilie response, but no comment on what that meant.

So thanks.

(I am just starting a 2nd reading of it) .

Edited by back to earth
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Compassion? If you feel compassion for the poor skeptics here trying using a debating technique that doesn't stink of long dead fringe concepts and ideas while attempting to hide behind a mask of "just asking questions". That would be more useful.

Compassion for skeptics? Mmm. They do have a choice don't they, or may be not?

Edited by Starhunter
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And your peer-reviewed evidence for this would be?...

People are fast recognizing that "peer reviewed" is a loose term designed to suffocate independent thought and new discoveries, and that the peer reviewing sources are broad enough not to solely support an ignorant line of groin scratching skeptics.

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So that'll be a "no" then.

That's right, no material for skeptics from skeptics. They don't have anything on it do they?

Should I give my sources out? no, never.

Edited by Starhunter
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So you can't prove what you say?

Look at it from my perspective, you're saying things that go against everything I know and put of genuine curiosity I ask for details and get told variously I'm a septic skeptic, I need to do my own research and I'm not clever enough to know the truth. Ohh and SWINE, that's not insulting at all, nooo.....

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