>Umm...haven't they already shown how the Pyramids were built? >I mean didn't they have an endless workforce? > >And the reason that other countries would not attempt it is the >inevitable loss of life?
Yeah - the pyramids really haven't been "mysteries" for many years. A workfoce in the millions with no safety concerns, decades-long projects and religious zeal seem to explain things pretty well. I've not read this specific work but there are many like them. They tend to first and foremost underestimate our ancestors. Ancient peoples were just as intelligent as we are. What they lacked was our collective cultural knowledge (our technology, science, etc), not our smarts. But for something like pyramid-building they had everything they needed: most of the math, geometry and basic mechanical understanding that we have in fact. The rest of the works are often anomaly-hunting pure and simple. They'll look through air shafts and claim that the stars seen through them have meaning. Or find number-relationships in the measurements and claim insights. It's been proven over and over that you can do the same thing with any structure. All windows look out on some star or another, all rooms can be found to have interesting numbers embedded in their measurements. It's reverse science: they look at the facts and thy to fit together reasons for them. They wrongly assume that all facts HAVE meaning when they probably just don't. For example there's continual talk about the vale Pi as "discovered" in the pyramid's structure. Many people claim this is proof of an ancient culture helping out. In fact it would be difficult NOT to incorporate Pi into the pyramid. For one thing distances in ancient times were often measured out using a notched wheel - roll the wheel, count the number of times the notch hits the dirt and repeat. Anything measured out using a circle will incorporate pi as a matter of course! There are many other reasons but that's a simple one that supports the point. Most of these theories conveinently ignore the huge body of evidence which supports an evolutionary understanding of pyramid construction. The (many) examples we have of experimental, failed or otherwise imperfect pyramids (the most famous is the "bent" pyramid which began with too great a slope then had to be changed midway to prevent collapse). They also point out that pyramids are cross-cultural and use that infer a connection between vastly seperated cultures. This is just plain silly. Pyramids from different cultures resemble each other only slightly and use clearly different construction methods. Surely the simple fact that to gain hieght with simple construction materials you need to have a wide base with a tapering structure doesn't require outside intervention... children learn that at the beach by themselves. The best minds of the ancient world surely could have come up with it independently. In short these theories tend to insult the intelligence of the ancients. There's also a (giving the benefit of the doubt, problably unintentional) racism at work. These theories tend to focus exclusively on non-european cultures: predominantly Africa and South America. Apparently white guys didn't need any help building the many wonders of Greece or Rome but brown folks below the equator just couldn't manage on their lonesomes. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Create robust enterprise, web RIAs. Upgrade & integrate Adobe Coldfusion MX7 with Flex 2 http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=RVJP Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:236407 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
