Who Built the Pyramids?

Who Built the Pyramids?

by Liv | Published on September 21st, 2007, 8:37 am | Science

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No matter how science progresses, I'm still not sure if I buy into the human race building the pyramids. Possible? Yes. Plausible? No.

I can't remember the show I saw it on but there's a guy replicating Stonehenge and building it with tools no more modern than the time stonhenge was built. Logs, rope, boulders.

Lots of levers, counter weights, etc. Systematically positioning the stones a little at a time. Very intelligent guy.

However, the pyramids are on a much grander scale.

What is it you find implausible? The effort to build them? This becomes more plausible when you consider the ultimate power of a divine, totalitarian ruler with absolute power in a slave economy seeking immortality. What's a few slaves - they self replicate and you don't have to feed them much.

The inner drive to leave something behind to be remembered by is a powerful one. Few of us have the resources to achieve it with physical monuments but the Pharaohs certainly did.

It's the time frame they were built in.... I don't remember the exact number, but the last numbers I heard had them placing a stone ever few seconds, non-stop for x years in order to build them in the time frame allowed. Seemed unlikely based on the methods that are suggested for building the pyramids.

Then by all means be sceptical about that claim and see if you can find the underlying data.

I think you may be referring to Erich Von Daniken in Chariots of the Gods, who made the point that if ten blocks were laid each day it would take 664 years to complete the structure - he therefore concluded that aliens must be responsible.These people assume it was the Atlantean's

Here's the math.

Assume it took 25 years to build
There are 2,300,000 blocks in the Khufu (Cheops) Great Pyramid
That's 250 blocks a day. or about one block in 5 minutes.
It has been estimated that 100,000 people were involved in building the pyramid - that's 400 men to quarry, move and position one block on average per day.

That's certainly quite an achievement, but not impossible - especially since construction would not all be serial - blocks are being laid in several places. It's also more plausible than postulating alien technology, mysterious technologically advanced Atlanteans or magic.

Well I know it sounds loony, but honestly when you put the "big picture" together, the idea of intervention seems more likely to me then does monkeys within a such small span go from, er, well monkeys.... to build the greatest monuments ever.

Sure it sounds kooky, but given the likelihood of another advance species, and assuming our own nature for meddling in foreign affairs, is it really all that unlikely that we're some genetic science experiment from a more evolved species?

Technically we've already done it here, by genetically modifying our foods, etc....

We talk about bringing back the dinosaurs, these days.

We argue about determining our in utero fetuses gender, sex, and malformities, by DNA and aborting...

Is it really that great of a leap to think in the billions of stars, a group of like oriented beings may have came to earth and given us a small leap in the evolutionary chain?

Didn't you guys see Alien Vs. Predator? It clearly explains it all.

It makes as much sense as any other religion.

However to move from speculation to hypothesis to theory you need some evidence

There is no evidence of high technology having been used at the pyramids, there is evidence of low technology - ramps, tool marks, quarries etc.

Sure it sounds kooky, but given the likelihood of another advance species, and assuming our own nature for meddling in foreign affairs, is it really all that unlikely that we're some genetic science experiment from a more evolved species?

Lot's of things in science are not intuitive which is what you mean when you say "more likely". This is the argument from personal incredulity. (This is different from the 'more likely' that is evidence based)

How do you assess the likelihood of anther advanced species? Is there any evidence of one? To continue RD's ideas on doubt, clearly it's possible an advanced alien species could exist that could possibly have visited Earth, but since there is currently no evidence for one there is nothing to believe.

I guess just like Jodi Foster in that movie where she builds that alien machine, sometimes in order for science to not exclude the improbable you have to have a certain level of faith just like religion..

(I'm going to get torn to shreds on that one, aren't I?)

Crap.... (BHL, Matt????? Save me.)

Liv wrote:I guess just like Jodi Foster in that movie where she builds that alien machine, sometimes in order for science to not exclude the improbable you have to have a certain level of faith just like religion.

Science does not exclude the improbable - if there is evidence for it. Given the choice between an improbable explanation for which there is some evidence and a miraculous one for which there is not, the improbable one will be preferred. Perhaps provisionally until better evidence is produced. If there are competing theories the one that best explains all the evidence without appealing to unsupported entities will be preferred.

I liked Red Dwarf's take on it:

Lister: What makes you think these aliens exist?
Rimmer: They must do, Lister! There's so many things that are strange and odd. So many things we don't have any explanation for.
Lister: Like, um, why do intelligent people buy cinema hot dogs? Do you mean that sort of weird and mysterious thing?
Rimmer: No, Lister, I mean like the pyramids. How did they move such massive pieces of stone without the aid of modern technology?
Lister: They had massive whips, Rimmer. Massive, massive whips.

Liv wrote:I guess just like Jodi Foster in that movie where she builds that alien machine, sometimes in order for science to not exclude the improbable you have to have a certain level of faith just like religion..

(I'm going to get torn to shreds on that one, aren't I?)

Crap.... (BHL, Matt????? Save me.)

Save you? I haven't cracked a Bible in many moons.

Perhaps "exceptance that there is much more than you comprehend" would be a more generic way to put it.

Executive: We must confess that your proposal seems less like science and more like science fiction.
Ellie Arroway: Science fiction. Well you're right, it's crazy. In fact, it's even worse than that, nuts.
[angrily slams down her briefcase and marches up to the desk]
Ellie Arroway: You wanna hear something really nutty? I heard of a couple guys who wanna build something called an "airplane," you know you get people to go in, and fly around like birds, it's ridiculous, right? And what about breaking the sound barrier, or rockets to the moon, or atomic energy, or a mission to Mars? Science fiction, right? Look, all I'm asking, is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision. You know, to just sit back for one minute and look at the big picture. To take a chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history... of history.

We're talking about two different things. One is getting funding for research/development and the other is making unsupported speculation.

If you were a Graduate Student applying for a grant to research "The Role of Aliens in Pyramid Construction" then your impassioned plea might be in order - although if I were your supervisor I would strongly recommend changing the title to something that does not beg the question. Pleading using the Wright Brothers would be met with the response "The Wright Brothers funded their own research program, we suggest you do too"

If you wrote a paper on "The Role of Aliens in Pyramid Construction" and wanted to publish it, the editors would demand to see some convincing evidence. In this case pleading using the Wright Brothers would be met with the response "The Wright Brothers produced a flying machine. Where is your alien?"

Where is your alien?"

Julius Levinson: You had that spaceship.
David Levinson: Dad.
Julius Levinson: Yes, that thing you found in New Mexico. Where was that?
David Levinson: Dad, not the spaceship.
Julius Levinson: Roswell. Roswell, New Mexico. No, you had the spaceship and you had the bodies. They were locked up in a, in a bunker. Where was that?
Contance Spano: Sir... I don't know.
Julius Levinson: Area 51, right? Area 51! You knew then! And you did nothing!
President Whitmore: Sir, regardless of what you may have read in the tabloids, there have never been any spacecraft recovered by our government. Take my word for it. There's no Area 51. There's no recovered spaceship.
Albert Nimzicki: Uh...excuse me, Mr. President. That's not entirely accurate.
David Levinson: What, which part?

Has it occurred to you that men (and women) were much more intelligent back then but just didn't have the resources that we do today? The world is a dying planet (look at global warming, extinct species) and has been since the fall of man.

BecauseHeLives wrote:Has it occurred to you that men (and women) were much more intelligent back then but just didn't have the resources that we do today? The world is a dying planet (look at global warming, extinct species) and has been since the fall of man.

The pyramids were built shortly after Noah's flood (if the Bible is to be believed). It really would be amazing if Noah's family found time to build them, with him being so busy planting vinyards and flashing his gonads at his kids...

So... Noah's sperm created the Pyramids? September 21st, 2007, 2:13 pm

So... Noah's sperm created the Pyramids?

Liv wrote:So... Noah's sperm created the Pyramids?

Makes sense... no tighy whitey underwear back then to lower his sperm count.

A Person wrote:
BecauseHeLives wrote:Has it occurred to you that men (and women) were much more intelligent back then but just didn't have the resources that we do today? The world is a dying planet (look at global warming, extinct species) and has been since the fall of man.
The pyramids were built shortly after Noah's flood (if the Bible is to be believed). It really would be amazing if Noah's family found time to build them, with him being so busy planting vinyards and flashing his gonads at his kids...

That's interesting that you'd go against history books that say the pyramids were built some 3200 years ago. Well after the flood.

Liv wrote:No matter how science progresses, I'm still not sure if I buy into the human race building the pyramids. Possible? Yes. Plausible? No.

Well, OK. But one wonders how you explain the Mayan Pyramids in Mexico and South America....

A Person wrote:
BecauseHeLives wrote:Has it occurred to you that men (and women) were much more intelligent back then but just didn't have the resources that we do today? The world is a dying planet (look at global warming, extinct species) and has been since the fall of man.
The pyramids were built shortly after Noah's flood (if the Bible is to be believed). It really would be amazing if Noah's family found time to build them, with him being so busy planting vinyards and flashing his gonads at his kids...

Hmmm. My sources put the building of Cheop's Pyramid at about 2989 to about 2960 BCE. That would make it just under 5,000 years old. For there to be that many people available to build the pyramid, Noah's flood would have had to be several thousand years earlier. Which, according to the NECs is older than the earth itself. Such a mystery!

I was mistaken. The number I came up that textbooks record should have been 3200 BC instead of 3200 years ago. That just proves that I'm not the best internet miner like A Person is...

Nonetheless, if you are really interested in a biblical explanation here is a link to a very good one from AIG. You can choose to attack the messenger or the article. I know many of you won't even read it because it's from AIG. Your loss there...

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creatio ... ramids.asp

BecauseHeLives wrote:
BecauseHeLives wrote:I was mistaken. The number I came up that textbooks record should have been 3200 BC instead of 3200 years ago. That just proves that I'm not the best internet miner like A Person is...
Thanks for acknowledging I was correct.
BecauseHeLives wrote:Nonetheless, if you are really interested in a biblical explanation here is a link to a very good one from AIG. You can choose to attack the messenger or the article. I know many of you won't even read it because it's from AIG.[/QUOTE]

That isn't a Biblical explanation, the Bible is silent about pyramids - it's an explanation assuming the Bible to be true - a Biblically consistent explanation. It's also speculative and tentative: "perhaps", "could well have been", "might well have been", "may well have" and short on verifiable data.

However the age of the pyramids is well from multiple independent sources of evidence. Documents and inscriptions, wood (tree rings and C14), pottery (luminescence) and C14 dating of human remains.

It's also speculative and tentative: "perhaps", "could well have been", "might well have been", "may well have" and short on verifiable data.

Sounds like you just gave a very good definition of evolution!

However the age of the pyramids is well from multiple independent sources of evidence. Documents and inscriptions, wood (tree rings and C14), pottery (luminescence) and C14 dating of human remains.

I don't know of any documents or inscriptions that say "Hey, we built this 5000 years before Jesus comes to earth" and don't get me started on those dating techniques again.