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The Pyramids Of Giza

These alternative theorists' actions don't help in any way, and might well result in further restrictions impeding research ... :roll:

(The concluding section is a skeptic's rebuttal of their theories, so take or leave it as you wish ...)

Great Pyramid at Giza Vandalized to 'Prove' Conspiracy Theory

Dominique Goerlitz and Stefan Erdmann who visited the Egyptian pyramids in April 2013 now face criminal charges for their attempt to prove their "alternative history" conspiracy theories through vandalism.

The men are apparently convinced the cartouche identifying Khufu as the creator of the Great Pyramid at Giza is a fake.

Two German men who visited the Egyptian pyramids in April 2013 now face criminal charges for their attempt to prove their "alternative history" conspiracy theories through vandalism. The men, Dominique Goerlitz and Stefan Erdmann, were joined by a third German, a filmmaker who accompanied them to document their "discoveries."

The men were allowed to enter the inner chambers of the Great Pyramid at Giza normally off-limits to the public and restricted to authorized archaeologists and Egyptologists. The group reportedly took several items from the pyramids, including taking samples of a cartouche (identifying inscription) of the pharaoh Khufu, also known as Cheops. Goerlitz and Erdmann, who are not archaeologists but have instead been described as "hobbyists," allegedly smuggled the artifacts out of the country in violation of strict antiquities laws, according to news reports.

In addition to the three Germans, six Egyptians are being held in connection with the case, including several guards and inspectors from the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry who allowed the men into the pyramid. Tourism, one of Egypt's most important industries, has dropped dramatically in recent years due to social and political unrest. Tour-agency owners — including one of the men recently arrested in connection with this case — are often willing to bend or break the rules if it means satisfying wealthy foreigners, news reports suggest. The German government expressed outrage over the acts, and categorically stated the men were private citizens and not in any way affiliated with its German Archaeological Institute.

Trying to prove a conspiracy

Goerlitz and Erdmann acknowledged their acts, and even went so far as to post photographs and videos of themselves vandalizing the archaeological sites. However, they claimed their goal was a noble one: to prove their "alternative history" conspiracy theory that the pyramids were not built by ancient Egyptians.

The men are apparently convinced the cartouche identifying Khufu as the creator of the Great Pyramid at Giza is a fake, and they hoped to do an analysis on the pigments to prove they were not as old as the pyramids themselves. In essence, they claimed, pharaoh Khufu simply put his name on (and took credit for) pyramids that had been built thousands of years earlier by people from the legendary city of Atlantis. They accuse mainstream archaeologists of covering up — or willfully ignoring — evidence pointing to non-Egyptian origins of the pyramids.

The conspiracy theories that Goerlitz and Erdmann endorse did not appear in a vacuum; instead, they have been widely promoted by best-selling authors such as Erich von Däniken, who wrote "Chariots of the Gods?" first published in 1968. Such authors claim the true builders of the pyramids were not ancient Egyptians but instead others, like extraterrestrials or residents of the legendary Atlantis. While "alternative history" and "ancient astronaut" theorists such as von Däniken do not explicitly endorse vandalism of any Egyptian sites, Goerlitz and Erdmann's actions were clearly driven by belief in such theories. (Ancient-astronaut theorists propose, unscientifically, that extraterrestrials intelligently designed humans.)

The true pyramid builders

As physicist Wolfgang Pauli famously said about a ludicrous idea, "It's not even wrong." There are countless glaring fallacies in Goerlitz and Erdmann's wild theory, beginning with the fact that Atlantis never existed; it was first described in two dialogues by Plato — the "Timaeus" and the "Critias" — written around 330 B.C. The Atlantis discussed by Plato did not refer to any actual ancient empire, because the dialogues were fictional stories and fables. Suggesting that people from Plato's Atlantis built the pyramids is like saying people from Tolkien's Middle Earth built the pyramids, or inhabitants of Superman's home planet of Krypton built the pyramids — it makes no sense, because they're fictional characters. [Top 10 Wild Conspiracy Theories]

Aside from that, there's clear evidence that ancient Egyptians did, indeed, build the pyramids. Ken Feder, an archaeologist and professor of anthropology at Central Connecticut State University and author of "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology" (McGraw-Hill, 2013) takes a dim view of such baseless ideas.
"Here's an archaeological shocker: Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids," Feder told Live Science. "Contrary to what some purveyors of fantasy maintain, the technological skills necessary to construct the pyramids were not unknown in ancient Egypt. In actual fact, the Great Pyramid at Giza was the culmination of a lengthy, multigenerational, evolutionary process."

Archaeologists have found several early, failed attempts to build the pyramids, Feder noted. "Early attempts at true, geometric pyramid burial monuments resulted in spectacular screw-ups, including a 'collapsed' pyramid (the slope of the face of the monument was too steep)," Feder said. "In another attempt, cracks appeared in the lower part of the pyramid, again because the slope was too steep and one corner of the pyramid was positioned on a soft, sandy base."

"Finally, the Egyptian builders were not above taking credit for their labors; workers sometimes actually incised dates onto pyramid blocks, and one piece of graffiti in a chamber in the Great Pyramid bears the phrase, 'We did this with pride in the name of our great King Khnum-Khuf,' another name for the Pharaoh Khufu," he added.

In the end, "There is no controversy concerning who built the pyramids," Feder said. "Anyone caught trying to rewrite this history through theft or subterfuge isn't doing archaeology. They're breaking the law and insulting the memory of the thousands of ancient workers whose labors produced one of the wonders of the ancient world."


SOURCE: http://news.yahoo.com/great-pyramid-giz ... 26469.html
 
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Are there suddenly a lot of Mysterious Egypt stories to lure back the lost chamber of tourists? :cool:
 
They really should test for radiation. It's where the ancient aliens stored their nuclear fuel.
 
JqMwgOF.jpg
 
I don't think it's so much keeping Zahi Hawass in a job as keeping him onside, as he has the power to stop them doing any research. He's one of the variety of academics/administrators, who manages to his name on all the publications in the field, without actually doing anything and is determined to take credit for everything that's discovered.
Well it's not as though Dr. Hawass is a snob or anything. He a critical thinking open minded scientist ha ha.
 
He's a nice man :oops:
 
I'm not an Egyptologist!
 
But he /is/ a nice man :)
 
There was a debate that was supposed to have occurred last year between Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass and Graham Hancock.
Watch in the beginning of the presentation from (5 to 16) minutes in and decide for yourselves about Dr Hawass’s open minded, well informed nature?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mvIHCZrLjU
 
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Yes, Hawass seems to know nothing about ground-penetrating radar and is openly hostile to new theories.
 
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Megan Fox is a Pyramid Truther

Her interest in the supernatural mysteries of the world began during filming for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in Egypt in 2009, she told the Times. She and Shia LaBeouf were given a tour of the Great Pyramid of Giza by the Ministry of Antiquities, and someone “high-ranking in that field—I will not say who” said the pyramid wasn’t actually a tomb.

“They presume they may have been some type of energy plant at some point,” she continued. “The sarcophagus that is in the Great Pyramid was put there by the government for tourism. And that sparked in me an interest in really exposing this sort of sort of [sic] thing, because I realized I have access to things I shouldn’t have access to because of what I do for a living.”


http://jezebel.com/megan-fox-is-a-pyramid-truther-and-aspiring-vice-corres-1780403260

(As the commenters say :

*high ranking official to other high ranking official*: "Hey wanna f*** with some gullible Americans today?"

“Depends, who are they?”

“Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf.”

“Oh f*** yeah.”
)
 
Megan Fox is a Pyramid Truther

Her interest in the supernatural mysteries of the world began during filming for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in Egypt in 2009, she told the Times. She and Shia LaBeouf were given a tour of the Great Pyramid of Giza by the Ministry of Antiquities, and someone “high-ranking in that field—I will not say who” said the pyramid wasn’t actually a tomb.

“They presume they may have been some type of energy plant at some point,” she continued. “The sarcophagus that is in the Great Pyramid was put there by the government for tourism. And that sparked in me an interest in really exposing this sort of sort of [sic] thing, because I realized I have access to things I shouldn’t have access to because of what I do for a living.”


http://jezebel.com/megan-fox-is-a-pyramid-truther-and-aspiring-vice-corres-1780403260

(As the commenters say :

*high ranking official to other high ranking official*: "Hey wanna f*** with some gullible Americans today?"

“Depends, who are they?”

“Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf.”

“Oh f*** yeah.”
)
Ha! Energy plant!
I played with that idea myself a few years back.
If you look at the way the Great Pyramid is constructed, it could (by a stretch of the imagination) have been used to house a nuclear reactor. It has thick radiation-proof walls, is earthquake-proof and impervious to attack by even modern weapons, it has air vents, it is near a river...
 
Logbook of pyramid construction found.

http://www.livescience.com/55439-ancient-logbook-on-great-pyramid-unveiled.html

more at link above
----------------------

"Over a period of several months, [the logbook] reports — in [the] form of a timetable with two columns per day — many operations related to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza and the work at the limestone quarries on the opposite bank of the Nile," Tallet and Marouard wrote.

Merer recorded the logs in the 27th year of Khufu's reign. His records say that the Great Pyramid was near completion, with much of the remaining work focusing on the construction of the limestone casing that covered the outside of the pyramid, Tallet and Marouard wrote.

The limestone used in this casing, according to the logbook, was quarried at Tura near modern-day Cairo, and was brought to the pyramid site by boat along the Nile River and a system of canals. One boat trip between Tura and the pyramid site took four days to complete, the logbook notes.
 
Logbook, mate? How old is it? 4,500 years? Piss off, you'll not get a loan on that heap of crap! :(
 
Logbook of pyramid construction found.

http://www.livescience.com/55439-ancient-logbook-on-great-pyramid-unveiled.html

more at link above
----------------------

"Over a period of several months, [the logbook] reports — in [the] form of a timetable with two columns per day — many operations related to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza and the work at the limestone quarries on the opposite bank of the Nile," Tallet and Marouard wrote.

Merer recorded the logs in the 27th year of Khufu's reign. His records say that the Great Pyramid was near completion, with much of the remaining work focusing on the construction of the limestone casing that covered the outside of the pyramid, Tallet and Marouard wrote.

The limestone used in this casing, according to the logbook, was quarried at Tura near modern-day Cairo, and was brought to the pyramid site by boat along the Nile River and a system of canals. One boat trip between Tura and the pyramid site took four days to complete, the logbook notes.
So, nothing about aliens or Atlanteans? It's a conspiracy!
 
There have been many theories concerning the method(s) used to align the Giza pyramids during their construction. This article introduces a new approach focused on the autumnal equinox as another possibility. This approach seems to have the advantage of explaining the slight deviation of the pyramids from a strict cardinal directions orientation.

Secret to Great Pyramid's Near Perfect Alignment Possibly Found
Though slightly lopsided, the towering, Great Pyramid of Giza is an ancient feat of engineering, and now an archaeologist has figured out how the Egyptians may have aligned the monument almost perfectly along the cardinal points, north-south-east-west — they may have used the fall equinox. ...

"The builders of the Great Pyramid of Khufu aligned the great monument to the cardinal points with an accuracy of better than four minutes of arc, or one-fifteenth of one degree," wrote Glen Dash, an engineer who studies the Giza pyramids, in a paper published recently in the Journal of Ancient Egyptian Architecture.

The pyramid of Khafre (also located at Giza) and the Red Pyramid (located at the site of Dahshur) are also aligned with a high degree of accuracy, Dash noted. "All three pyramids exhibit the same manner of error; they are rotated slightly counterclockwise from the cardinal points," Dash wrote.

For over a century, researchers have proposed different methods used by the ancient Egyptians to align the pyramidsalong these cardinal points with such accuracy. In his paper, Dash demonstrates how a method that makes use of the fall equinox could have been used. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/61799-great-pyramid-near-perfect-alignment.html
 
Colavito's book is coming in 2020.

I am pleased to announce that I have received a commission from Red Lightning Books and Indiana University Press for a new book, tentatively titled Legends of the Pyramids, which will explore the mythical history of Giza pyramids, from Joseph’s granaries to antediluvian giants to space aliens. The short book will be written for a general mass-market audience and is intended to serve as an overview of the many ways people have imagined the history of the pyramids. It will incorporate material from my blog and focus on the importance of the medieval legend of the antediluvian pyramids from the Akhbar al-zaman in shaping popular understanding of the pyramids and Egyptian history down to the present. The book is currently scheduled for release sometime in 2020.

Here’s a brief overview of the book from my book proposal:

About the Book
Around a thousand years ago, an Islamic writer gazed on the great pyramids of Giza and composed in awe an ode to their impossible wonder: “There is nothing for which I do not fear the effects of time, except for the two pyramids. However, I rather fear for their effect on time.” Over the centuries, these lines were polished into their familiar form: “Man fears time, but time fears the pyramids.” Symbolic of the veil of mystery and myth that hangs over the pyramids, the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs professes not to know the source of the quotation, though it is rather clear: It first appears in the Egyptian history of al-Maqrizi around 1400 CE, attributed to an anonymous earlier writer. But few today have read medieval chronicles laying claim to a wondrous history of Egypt. This blind spot unintentionally created the means through which a bizarre fictional history of Egypt has come to dominate pop culture’s view of pharaonic civilization, from Freemasonry to Stargate and from the Curse of King Tut to Ancient Aliens. ...

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/announcing-my-new-book-legends-of-the-pyramids
 
I have just watched a Prime documentary about the pyramids of Giza. I was struck over the claims by some architects and engineers over how with some blocks of granite, your couldn't even get a razor blade between them. Also how many blocks on other structures and of an irregular shape, but match an opposite wall. This, according to some architects, would have made it structurally stronger.

Also, another claim that one of the huge carved statues has an exactly symmetrical face, would cause huge technical difficulties.

For me, it went downhill when it went all Daniken and talked of heiroglyphs showing helicopters and such. But have a Fortean mindset, I am interested if the technical difficulties with what materials they had to hand, makes such structures a genuine mystery.
 
I have just watched a Prime documentary about the pyramids of Giza. I was struck over the claims by some architects and engineers over how with some blocks of granite, your couldn't even get a razor blade between them. Also how many blocks on other structures and of an irregular shape, but match an opposite wall. This, according to some architects, would have made it structurally stronger.

Also, another claim that one of the huge carved statues has an exactly symmetrical face, would cause huge technical difficulties.

For me, it went downhill when it went all Daniken and talked of heiroglyphs showing helicopters and such. But have a Fortean mindset, I am interested if the technical difficulties with what materials they had to hand, makes such structures a genuine mystery.
I was lucky enough to go inside the pyramid a few years ago, (not sure if you can still do it now) and I too was very amazed at the closeness of the joints, especially considering the sizes of the stones that we're talking about. We're told they only had copper chisels and if that is true it's even more astounding to me (as someone who has worked with stone).
 
We're told they only had copper chisels and if that is true it's even more astounding to me (as someone who has worked with stone).

Most of the fine shaping was done by grinding, not hammer and chisel :) According to the archaeology anyway.

I do accept fully that not everyone believes the archaeology!
 
Couldn't find the right thread to dump this in... interesting further ramblings about how the stones were carved:
 
I’ve read a lot on this topic, mainly Hancock, but I’m never sure how reliable he is.
Is the stuff true about engineers not being able to build with the same level of precision nowadays?
 
I’ve read a lot on this topic, mainly Hancock, but I’m never sure how reliable he is.
Is the stuff true about engineers not being able to build with the same level of precision nowadays?

No :)
 
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