Pre-Egypt Technology

[Nik]

"The latitude of the Kings Chamber is the same exact number as the speed of light."
Google found a bunch of enthusiastic folk who, of course, reference each other exhaustively...

Given latitude and speed of light are profoundly different units, they're working to absurd precisions unwarranted by their environment and the whole lot is measured in the still-uncertain pyramid inches or eg deci-cubits, I'd say it was all a load of tosh...

Pyramidology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Ursa major]

You only have to look at the Great Pyramid of Giza to see that there's no point in those speculations.

[The Ace]

It's like the old one that the Giza pyramids, together with a couple of others picked at random, together with the Nile, match the exact pattern of Orion and the Milky Way.

No matter how many people gush about this, it's amazing that none of them remembers that you have to turn one of the images upside-down first.

[J Riff]

The numerological, astrological and Biblical references are legion, but that may be reverse engineered. The speed of light in metres per second is the exact number of the north latitude of the king's chamber in the great pyramid, that's this guy's factoid, based on the google earth specs for the great pyramid. That is one spooky 9-digit number if it's true.
Oh well. Researching the pyramids for a story and it's great. Theory after theory. Scaffolds and pulleys. Water power, magnetic antigravity, counterweight systems. Built in 20 years, 30, 70, 14, 200. Slaves or artisans.
10,00 years old vs. 4000. Black Egyptians or white. A tomb or a machine.
What were the thousands of inscriptions on the outer casing blocks? All destroyed.
The possible internal ramp system. Evidence of the great pyramid being submerged. The cracks in the huge granite blocks above the chamber, and the tunnel dug through solid rock to go up and check on them. Plaster inserted in the crack to see if it was spreading. Details still emerging.
Napoleon's comment after a night in the king's chamber "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Someone calculated Bill Gates couldn't afford to build the thing today.
Many of these interesting ideas seem to come from level-headed scientific-minded people who have done a lot of research.
I should go look up carbon-dating. Is it possible to prove when an ancient strucure was built, as opposed to the age of the building materials? Probably not. The mind boggles. (Boggle, boggle)

[Stephen Palmer]

Originally Posted by The Ace

It's like the old one that the Giza pyramids, together with a couple of others picked at random, together with the Nile, match the exact pattern of Orion and the Milky Way.

No matter how many people gush about this, it's amazing that none of them remembers that you have to turn one of the images upside-down first.

... and that the resemblance is in fact not that accurate...

[Vertigo]

Wasn't the problem with that one that they were trying to match the position to the constallation as we see it now rather than how it was then (significantly different I believe).

[Nik]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_p...ion_(astronomy)

YMMV, but wiki suggests temples were rebuilt every couple of centuries to keep their alignments...

[Vertigo]

Yup that's what I thought but it would be pushing it a bit to move the great pyramids every couple of centuries

[The Ace]

Naaah, 4 aliens'd just take a corner each.

Even taking procession into account, you'd still have to turn Egypt upside down, that was my point.

[Nik]

It's those new-fangled instrumental astronomers and their inverting optics !!

Now, back when you had dark skies, astrolabes and dutifully humble scribes...

[paranoid marvin]

Well in my opinion the pyramids are just massive heat sinks cooling the worlds first CPUs.

[J Riff]

After more long hours research I reach the conclusion that the so-called historians are as far out of whack as some of the Alien/Atlantean crowd.
Who are these nutbars want to 'clean up' history to fit their notion of 'what would be best' for everyone. Kuh-razy.
You can't read the newspaper today and get the truth, yet they wanna imply everything from ancient scattered random evidence that they can't even convincingly date.
Once that 'Egyptologist' or 'Historian' degree is present, they hew to the story as if yoked like mules.
Obviously, Great Pyramid, and others, are not tombs. Yet that story is still held up. The other irritating one is the 'they didn't use slaves.' They are actually trying to tidy up their fairy tale, and will fake evidence to do it!
Who are these whackos? They seem like the kind of people would build a pyramid and live on top of it throwing rocks down on anyone they didn't like. )
Anyway, lots of people with degrees.... disagree. There's a few thousand years missing or a cataclysm or two.
Astonishing to still be arguing about 4-10,000 yr. old tech. Unbelievable. Really, it shows just how far people have gone to cover things up.
I notice that perpetual motion machines, magnet-based, are appearing on youTube. This's the gizmo rumored to be used by Ed Leedskalnin to build Coral Castle in Florida.
I saw one of these gizmos back in the sixties, made from a record player and magnets, essentially. It'll run for months without touching it. The guy built it was trying to get a patent, or at least some recognition but gosh nobody would even talk to him, like he was some kinda nut. He currently languishes on the canuck welfare rolls, like a lot o' talent, and other people are showing up with the same gadget.
Whoo, the mystical power of magnets! Hardly. Did Ed figure some way to use electromagnets to help him lift big stones? Probably. Did the Egyptians have this tech? Apparently not.
But, the Great Pyramid is ....a giant cathode-ray tube? Or a hydrogen power plant... or something useful. Should be obvious to modern scientists. I'm ashamed for you guys can't figure this out.)
Really, the more you delve into it, and there are oceans of info, the more the mainstream crowd, who want a nice tidy world of civilized primitive people, are looking more like the fringe loonies than the people with the far-out theories.

[Ursa major]

There are a lot of obvious reasons for building pyramids:

• power, because the ruler can order it done and it will be done;
• pride, as seen at San Gimignano, but using pyramids other than towers;
• security, e.g. keeping a lot of idle hands (because the fields are inundated) busy at a task that unites the society rather than letting the lesser folk sit wondering why they have to do all the work when the fields aren't under water;
• religious zeal (which can be seen in the many huge edifices built over the millennia: churches, mosques, temples, etc.);
• vanity.

I'm sure that there are many more, none of which need involve our wacko theories (although they might include their wacko theories ).

[J Riff]

Just when you think you've seen it all.
The shaft theory. A giant steam engine/ water pump. The whole thing was a giant mining operation, probably doubling as a sauna for the Pharoah and crowd.
Well, you go try an write about it, as if you're there. Fictional, but based on the evidence - as you interpret it. Imagine the pyramid is done, just finished, and you are just sitting there looking at it one moonlit night. Maybe smoke is coming out of it, maybe not. What the frag were they doing?
Marsheopatra gazed abstractedly past Faroukmans head at the huge pyramid looming over them in the darkness. He was saying something.
"What ?" she said. "It's so noisy I can't hear you."
"Yes." he yelled. "And all just to make ___ for ___ so we can use it to ___."
"We must leave this place of evil ___"
"I will prepare the flying __."
"The Pharoah will __ when he learns of this."

[Nik]

Well, given that the pyramids' evolutionary path went something like small mastaba, big mastaba, stacked mastaba, stepped pyramid, bent pyramid, great pyramids, modest stuff...

Harking back to the 'how did they build them' argument, there's a French architect who's proposed that the bottom third of Great Pyramid was built using traditional ramp, then a semi-internal spiral passage was used, opening at the corners, which was subsequently back-filled.
Khufu Revealed - Dassault Systèmes
Naturally, he's not being allowed to poke his endoscope into likely gaps...