Scientists map massive underground structures beneath the Giza Pyramid

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Woogieman

People seem to dismiss that the higher the structure, the further from the base edge you are.
Fact: 25 ton blocks (forget the larger ones, which are nearly 80 tons) can't be moved rollers/sleds at greater angles than 10 degrees. You could build a perimeter ramp for a few levels, but the materials required to build a ramp system from ground entry to the top of the structure, all at 10 degrees or less, would be a creation several times that of the pyramid. You would start your uphill journey more than a mile away...can you imagine building a mountain (of mostly sand?) strong enough to hold thousands of workers and hundreds of tons of equipment and granite blocks just to build another mountain made of block?

How could the pharoah afford that? Quarrrying, transporting, loading/offloading, ramp duty, sled construction, pulley-level-crane maintenance staff, rope-making team...and most importantly, the staff to feed and water several thousands. Who would be left to work the fields and staff the world's greatest military of its time? Egypt was already susceptible to famines and plagues, would the pharaoh and a "willing" work force spend decades building a vanity project knowing that leaving the fields could result in starvation?

You've obviously never been to central Europe. It's littered with castles of lesser lords that couldn't afford them. Where there's a will, there's a way.

Read up on the Sabeans (Sheba). They built structures unbelievable at the time including massive dams.

[Woogieman]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

You've obviously never been to central Europe. It's littered with castles of lesser lords that couldn't afford them. Where there's a will, there's a way.

Read up on the Sabeans (Sheba). They built structures unbelievable at the time including massive dams.

I have, and I've visited castles. They most often COULD afford to build them, they and their progeny just couldn't afford to maintain them. I'm not saying man was uncapable of such construction, what I AM saying is, it wasn't done in the manner and time frames we were told. Popular Eqyptology claims the Khufu pyramid was completed in about a decade, later stretched to 20 years...pretty amazing considering it took 15 years to complete a tunnel in Boston.

My point: the ancient 7 wonders were very well detailed by multiple eyewitness going back to Alexander. Only one remains, which was lumped in with 6 missing, which givens SOME creedence to the testimony. These constructions would still be wonders of the modern world, but with a few exceptions, man's engineering feats started over, and we lived an agrarian existence for centuries. I believe it likely that the pyramids were built by advanced societies with technology we still don't know about, and that Atlantis was probably based on truth, although maybe exaggerated or misunderstood like much of the ancient "wisdom". A catastrophic meteor like Chicxulub, massive tectonic movement, or natural, long-lived climate cycles wiped out most of civilzations and we had to start over again. I just don't believe the Egyptians of 2,400 BC? came from nothing and built something like the pyramids.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Woogieman

I have, and I've visited castles. They most often COULD afford to build them, they and their progeny just couldn't afford to maintain them. I'm not saying man was uncapable of such construction, what I AM saying is, it wasn't done in the manner and time frames we were told. Popular Eqyptology claims the Khufu pyramid was completed in about a decade, later stretched to 20 years...pretty amazing considering it took 15 years to complete a tunnel in Boston.

My point: the ancient 7 wonders were very well detailed by multiple eyewitness going back to Alexander. Only one remains, which was lumped in with 6 missing, which givens SOME creedence to the testimony. These constructions would still be wonders of the modern world, but with a few exceptions, man's engineering feats started over, and we lived an agrarian existence for centuries. I believe it likely that the pyramids were built by advanced societies with technology we still don't know about, and that Atlantis was probably based on truth, although maybe exaggerated or misunderstood like much of the ancient "wisdom". A catastrophic meteor like Chicxulub, massive tectonic movement, or natural, long-lived climate cycles wiped out most of civilzations and we had to start over again. I just don't believe the Egyptians of 2,400 BC? came from nothing and built something like the pyramids.

There are states in Germany that remain relatively poor today because of castles built 300 years ago. In some cases, the commoners died en masse due to starvation and disease, all to build a castle. And these were people that believed in God.

The ancient Egyptians believed that Pharaoh WAS God. You don't think they would have gone to their death to serve him?

Aliens aren't real.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by BWillie

You would be surprised what you can do with 100,000 slaves and whips

They don’t believe slaves had anything to do with construction of the great pyramids anymore, FYI. It was built by free men during the agricultural offseason. Apparently they’ve got writings about how they were paid with food, beer, etc.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Which was just comically arrogant of us.

Exceptionally intelligent people have always existed. And as a fairly firm believer in the 'great man' theory, I do think most moments that shape humanity came about as a result of just a handful of brilliant people who were in the right place at the right time.

I mean agrarian society is one that I point to a lot. You look at certain grasses/wheats and they have drought protection mechanisms that mean only 1 in 5 or so seeds actually germinate in a year. They didn't know that then.

So they have 100 people in their village and they plant enough wheat seeds for 100 of them....20% of those germinate and half the village starves to death.

In most cases that probably ended things. They went back to hunting and gathering.

At some point then there was one guy who said "Nah, we're gonna try this again..." and they powered through and made it work. And suddenly agriculture was born.

There has always been brilliance in the world. Doggedness. Industriousness. And there's always been lazy and/or simply mediocre and forgettable.

Why should we have EVER believed that there weren't people who were absolutely as innately intelligent as anyone we have on the planet today. And as such would have problem-solving skills that rival anything we see in modern times. They use the tools at their disposal but as brilliant people they could make those tools do some pretty remarkable things.

Has nothing to do with ingenuity but I always think about the poor bastards who shit their brains out for a lifetime until one of their kids randomly developed the lactose tolerance mutation.

Now I can enjoy ice cream and pizza with no issues.. thank you, determined ancestor!

[Woogieman]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

There are states in Germany that remain relatively poor today because of castles built 300 years ago. In some cases, the commoners died en masse due to starvation and disease, all to build a castle. And these were people that believed in God.

The ancient Egyptians believed that Pharaoh WAS God. You don't think they would have gone to their death to serve him?

Aliens aren't real.

" In some cases, the commoners died en masse due to starvation and disease, all to build a castle"...that's basically what I said about the people 2500 years earlier. Cram nearly the entire region's population into an area just off the Nile and inland to Giza and it would be a miracle if you avoided significant water-borne disease and starvation over the time frame it would take to complete the pyramids.

"Aliens aren't real" - where did I mention that?

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Woogieman

" In some cases, the commoners died en masse due to starvation and disease, all to build a castle"...that's basically what I said about the people 2500 years earlier. Cram nearly the entire region's population into an area just off the Nile and inland to Giza and it would be a miracle if you avoided significant water-borne disease and starvation over the time frame it would take to complete the pyramids.

"Aliens aren't real" - where did I mention that?

And yet the pyramids are there. If you don't believe the Egyptians built them and you don't believe aliens built them, who did?

[Woogieman]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

And yet the pyramids are there. If you don't believe the Egyptians built them and you don't believe aliens built them, who did?

Well, I just explained it- I said explicitly that I don't believe the Egyptians of that time frame built it, but people of a past, more capable civilzation built it, people that built many incredible structures in the Mediterranean area, maybe beginning with Gobekli and Karahun Tepi.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Woogieman

Well, I just explained it- I said explicitly that I don't believe the Egyptians of that time frame built it, but people of a past, more capable civilzation built it, people that built many incredible structures in the Mediterranean area, maybe beginning with Gobekli and Karahun Tepi.

That's fair. It's at least plausible.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Woogieman

Well, I just explained it- I said explicitly that I don't believe the Egyptians of that time frame built it, but people of a past, more capable civilzation built it, people that built many incredible structures in the Mediterranean area, maybe beginning with Gobekli and Karahun Tepi.

It's gonna be funny if one of these days we find out that radio carbon dating is just quack science.

Because man, Gobekli Tepe put the world on its ear. NOBODY saw anything that old being that advanced.

(Because again, we seem to think that everyone back in pre-recorded history was stupid or something. I guess that'll happen when we keep saying we descended from Apes...)

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

There are states in Germany that remain relatively poor today because of castles built 300 years ago. In some cases, the commoners died en masse due to starvation and disease, all to build a castle. And these were people that believed in God.

The ancient Egyptians believed that Pharaoh WAS God. You don't think they would have gone to their death to serve him?

Aliens aren't real.

We're in a time where mankind has progressed in a linear fashion for literally centuries.

That is absolutely unprecedented in human history.

Mankind has operated in fits and starts for eons. It hasn't gone inexorably forward -- it's gone forward, collapsed, risen from the ashes slightly better than it started, moved forward again. Both on micro and macro levels; mankind writ large as well as individual societies dominating geographic regions.

Even through the 1500s it was common for explorers to find fallen civilizations that were far more advanced than anything they knew could exist.

Why do you think the Flood narrative exists and existed BEFORE Christianity? These folks found collapsed civilizations and figured "well hell, something wild must have happened..." That same story or some variation of same exists in essentially every culture.

We just operate through such a limited lens these days. We are so used to the idea that societies are linear that the idea that there were societies using advanced mathematics and complex tools thousands of years ago is simply not under consideration. "It must have been Aliens!" is little more than arrogance on our part, IMO.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

We're in a time where mankind has progressed in a linear fashion for literally centuries.

That is absolutely unprecedented in human history.

Mankind has operated in fits and starts for eons. It hasn't gone inexorably forward -- it's gone forward, collapsed, risen from the ashes slightly better than it started, moved forward again. Both on micro and macro levels; mankind writ large as well as individual societies dominating geographic regions.

Even through the 1500s it was common for explorers to find fallen civilizations that were far more advanced than anything they knew could exist.

Why do you think the Flood narrative exists and existed BEFORE Christianity? These folks found collapsed civilizations and figured "well hell, something wild must have happened..." That same story or some variation of same exists in essentially every culture.

We just operate through such a limited lens these days. We are so used to the idea that societies are linear that the idea that there were societies using advanced mathematics and complex tools thousands of years ago is simply not under consideration. "It must have been Aliens!" is little more than arrogance on our part, IMO.

Even primitive people (by modern standards, when judged against the Greek and Romans) had astounding understandings of the natural world. Ancient Celts and Teutons built burial chambers that were perfect aligned with the passage of time, so that months, years, and even centuries later, the sun would shine through a pinhole and illuminate the buried body inside.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

Even primitive people (by modern standards, when judged against the Greek and Romans) had astounding understandings of the natural world. Ancient Celts and Teutons built burial chambers that were perfect aligned with the passage of time, so that months, years, and even centuries later, the sun would shine through a pinhole and illuminate the buried body inside.

And I also think we fail to adequately differentiate between extremely smart and genuinely brilliant.

I would say that someone in the top 20% of the population in terms of raw intelligence is closer to the bottom 25% than he is the top 5% if you were to 'score' that intelligence.

It's kinda like the richter scale -- the difference between a 2 (barely felt) and a 6 (moderately damaging) is nowhere NEAR the difference betwen a 7 (powerful, 4 billion lbs of TNT) and an 8 (cataclysmic; 123 billion lbs of TNT).

When we're talking about thousands of years people, that's a long time for several of those truly staggeringly intelligent people to pop up. And when they do, the world changes.

And when they're gone, it goes backwards (often because we lacked the means of memorializing what they knew). Until the next wave builds out of it, another brilliant person comes along and the cycle begins anew.

But finding the smartest guy on CP isn't going to find the guy that re-set society and started moving it forward in antiquity. Because you're talking richter scale level gaps between that guy and historically brilliant.

[tyreekthefreak]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

We're in a time where mankind has progressed in a linear fashion for literally centuries.

That is absolutely unprecedented in human history.

Mankind has operated in fits and starts for eons. It hasn't gone inexorably forward -- it's gone forward, collapsed, risen from the ashes slightly better than it started, moved forward again. Both on micro and macro levels; mankind writ large as well as individual societies dominating geographic regions.

Even through the 1500s it was common for explorers to find fallen civilizations that were far more advanced than anything they knew could exist.

Why do you think the Flood narrative exists and existed BEFORE Christianity? These folks found collapsed civilizations and figured "well hell, something wild must have happened..." That same story or some variation of same exists in essentially every culture.

We just operate through such a limited lens these days. We are so used to the idea that societies are linear that the idea that there were societies using advanced mathematics and complex tools thousands of years ago is simply not under consideration. "It must have been Aliens!" is little more than arrogance on our part, IMO.

Nobody has ever found any complex tools at any of these ancient sites. Colossal buildings but never any tooling. Did the tooling just erode away under the sands?

[seamonster]

Originally Posted by tyreekthefreak

Nobody has ever found any complex tools at any of these ancient sites. Colossal buildings but never any tooling. Did the tooling just erode away under the sands?

LOL. That was twelve thousand years ago. Twelve thousand years ago the average human is trying not to starve to death and hunting game with sticks and Egypt was a hundred or so years separated from being a tropical savanna. Doesn't compute in my brain that hunter gatherers infected with parasites and unable to grow crops could build eighteen foot tall stone support columns.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by seamonster

LOL. That was twelve thousand years ago. Twelve thousand years ago the average human is trying not to starve to death and hunting game with sticks and Egypt was a hundred or so years separated from being a tropical savanna.

Then - like now - the 'average human' meant ****-all in the grand scheme of things.

Nobody gives a shit what the average human was doing back then. Average humans don't drive this stuff.

The question is the human capacity for greatness and I think it existed then as much as it exists now.

Doesn't compute in my brain that hunter gatherers infected with parasites and unable to grow crops could build eighteen foot tall stone support columns.

I direct you to my comment above.