Russian Engineer Reveals Evidence for Advanced Ancient Civilisation

a reply to: tigertatzen

I wonder if they ever thought that thousands of years in the future they would be the topic of someone else's debate?

Speaking about Egypt? Why not. The embalmed their dead to live eternal lives. They survive as mummies in museums. Immortal remains? Who would have thunk?

Nah, couldn't be.

a reply to: Byrd

Mmmmmm, I don't think they made the blocks; I think they used a chemical soup to aid in cutting the blocks, just as in the picture of them hollowing out the Alabaster vase by pouring in a vinegar/alkaloid plant based material that softened the Alabaster into a near putty consistency making it easier to hollow out. That same chemical combination would have made it easier to carve out the granite stones and obelisks and it also has the quality of smoothing and polishing the surface.

I don't know..........but I'm going to try to experiment with some such chemicals to see if it works.

a reply to: TonyS


I wouldn't have any open flames around, when you start experimenting.

Good luck!

It makes sense that the Egyptians find many things (or have been given to) and used them. One of this was the pyramids imo.

In one texts was found that the peasants were calling the pyramids in a way that shows this. Were this villagers just angry at their Pharaoh, for blaming the pyramids NOT theirs, or it was reality? Considering what I saw in Bosnia I bet with my two hands that Egyptian pyramids were created 25.000 till 12.500 B.C.E

originally posted by: carewemust
With so much labor toiling away in the heat, you'd think there would be thousands of skeletons in a big pit. Ironically, a pit that was dug by the slave laborers for their own demise, once it became apparent that these projects would kill a lot of men..and women?

Well, no.

You might die of the heat, but I live in Texas. When I visited Egypt, it was about the same temperature as West Texas. People don't work in the full noonday sun (they take siestas) and no we take plenty of water. I'm sure you'd probably expire shortly, but I've worked paleontological digs in 100 degree temperature (I haul wheelbarrows of dirt, among other things), and as you see I'm still here.

Egyptians grew up in the desert heat. Like Texans, they know how to deal with it.

originally posted by: Lassiecat
It makes sense that the Egyptians find many things (or have been given to) and used them. One of this was the pyramids imo.

In one texts was found that the peasants were calling the pyramids in a way that shows this.

Which text was this? Can you give a link?

The reason I ask is because the populace was generally illiterate.

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: Byrd

Mmmmmm, I don't think they made the blocks; I think they used a chemical soup to aid in cutting the blocks

Consider how much of this "soup" they would have had to make to cut 7 million blocks.

just as in the picture of them hollowing out the Alabaster vase by pouring in a vinegar/alkaloid plant based material that softened the Alabaster into a near putty consistency making it easier to hollow out.

What picture? I've seen them hollowing vases with drills (pictures of... and it says this in hieroglyphs on the pictures so it's clear that's what they're doing) but never any soup.

...and alabaster is fairly soft, you know.

originally posted by: jeep3r

originally posted by: Byrd
The problem with the engineer completely ignoring archaeology... is that he's not aware of

* all the tools buried with their owners
* the numerous workshops in villages and in cities with these same tools and unfinished/finished/broken samples
(...)

Archaeologists largely ignore the inexplicable engineering feats and he largely ignores archaeology. Fair play ... on the other hand, he doesn't call into question everything archaeologists found and uncovered.

I disagree. A well known engineering company studied the problem of construction as a project management paper years ago. You can read a journal article about it here. It gives their results.

Regarding stone working, I already stated that Denys Stocks has shown this not to be so inexplicable as it may appear.

You can read the results of some of his sawing tests on granite at this old OLD website: link

Harte

originally posted by: Harte

I disagree. A well known engineering company studied the problem of construction as a project management paper years ago. You can read a journal article about it here. It gives their results.

Regarding stone working, I already stated that Denys Stocks has shown this not to be so inexplicable as it may appear. You can read the results of some of his sawing tests on granite at this old OLD website: link

I also disagree: Stocks and others went to great lengths trying to demonstrate how it could have been done with the tools allegedly available at the time and it would be ignorant not to appreciate their efforts. But by limiting the range of possible tools to what AE alledgedly had at their disposal (despite evidence suggesting the use of more advanced tools) they largely ignore alternative explanations that don't fit into the paradigm.

From the text you reference:

The dimensions of the pyramid are extremely accurate and the site was leveled within a fraction of an inch over the entire base. This is comparable to the accuracy possible with modern construction methods and laser leveling.

This kind of summarizes the whole problem: they acknowledge the incredible effort and accomplishment that rivals today's possibilities but then they conclude it had to be done using primitive tools.

That's why I think the expertise of people coming from other disciplines and different backgrounds shouldn't be so easily dismissed when it comes to interpreting the traces and marks left behind in various artifacts.

originally posted by: jeep3r

originally posted by: Harte

I disagree. A well known engineering company studied the problem of construction as a project management paper years ago. You can read a journal article about it here. It gives their results.

Regarding stone working, I already stated that Denys Stocks has shown this not to be so inexplicable as it may appear. You can read the results of some of his sawing tests on granite at this old OLD website: link

I also disagree: Stocks and others went to great lengths trying to demonstrate how it could have been done with the tools allegedly available at the time and it would be ignorant not to appreciate their efforts. But by limiting the range of possible tools to what AE alledgedly had at their disposal (despite evidence suggesting the use of more advanced tools) they largely ignore alternative explanations that don't fit into the paradigm.

From the text you reference:

The dimensions of the pyramid are extremely accurate and the site was leveled within a fraction of an inch over the entire base. This is comparable to the accuracy possible with modern construction methods and laser leveling.

This kind of summarizes the whole problem: they acknowledge the incredible effort and accomplishment that rivals today's possibilities but then they conclude it had to be done using primitive tools.

That's why I think the expertise of people coming from other disciplines and different backgrounds shouldn't be so easily dismissed when it comes to interpreting the traces and marks left behind in various artifacts.

Why do you think such leveling, though comparable to laser leveling, wouldn't be possible through means other than some modern technique?

Do you have a reason to believe such leveling couldn't have been done any other way?

Have you read any of the theories on how the site of the GP was leveled, how the courses of stones were leveled, etc.?

Have you seen the hand-held levels used by workmen in Ancient Egypt?

Harte

"hand held level" lol Oh Fharte yer so funny!

those stick drawings don't begin to show one thousandth of a percent of the scale of work involved. If the Romans could do it they would've capitalized on it but they didn't. you can not dispute the tool mark evidence that's why you keep harping on these stick drawings and bamboo theories. Nothing you've provided up to this point has been anything even close to explaining the cut marks that are not only found there but all over the world. Even similar cutting styles and designs. You can't explain that so you keep throwing out this same nonsense. It's old and stale and does not address the op so go away.


a reply to: Harte

high speed cut marks are as distinguishable as fingerprints. chemicals do not leave what we find there so that theory is moot.


a reply to: TonyS

originally posted by: bottleslingguy
Nothing you've provided up to this point has been anything even close to explaining the cut marks that are not only found there but all over the world. Even similar cutting styles and designs. You can't explain that so you keep throwing out this same nonsense. It's old and stale and does not address the op so go away.

Sling that bottle! Hell yeah!!

No one in academia stomps around those cuts. They tiptoe and keep the fact that they are there as suppressed as possible. Now, if they found some way to have those machining marks fit their narrative ... And they ARE found everywhere. That old civilization sure managed to get around, didn't it?

Wonder where they finally got off to. Anyone seen Astr0 around here lately? -chuckle

originally posted by: bottleslingguy
"hand held level" lol Oh Fharte yer so funny!

those stick drawings don't begin to show one thousandth of a percent of the scale of work involved. If the Romans could do it they would've capitalized on it but they didn't. you can not dispute the tool mark evidence that's why you keep harping on these stick drawings and bamboo theories. Nothing you've provided up to this point has been anything even close to explaining the cut marks that are not only found there but all over the world. Even similar cutting styles and designs. You can't explain that so you keep throwing out this same nonsense. It's old and stale and does not address the op so go away.


a reply to: Harte

You are a good argument for the return of the ignore function.

You argue about tool marks when all you know on the subject is what Cris Dunn has decided to spoon feed you.

Argue with Stocks results. Here's some from a single set of tests:


The source is the website I linked which you never read - you just look at the pictures.

On the left is the ratio of granite removal to wear on the copper tool for slabbing saws on granite. Along the bottom are wet and dry results calculated three different ways.

Test executed by inexperienced workers, not native stonemasons or whatever.

Ask Dunn about that.

And don't tell me about wrapping a thread around a granite core from Giza. I showed you saw marks virtually identical to yours done by Stocks right here at this forum and you have yet to address that.

You can't explain that, nor can you explain your own claim, you just keep throwing out Dunn's nonsense.

Harte

I will say this though a bow drill and electric drill will drill the sane holes. Diffrence is ones faster and takes less effort. If they had power tools we would know ever been to a rock quarry?? Do you know how often they have drills break off in stone. Its the torque ratio so just like our rock quarrys you would expect the sane in egypt. Yet no trace of ant power tools discovered o ly workshops using simple tools. But Im sure they were just for show keep the stone hammer around when you have a steel one in your tools.

originally posted by: BatheInTheFountain
I don't understand how anyone can look at these findings and think some "dumb desert dwelling nomads" and slaves did work on stone like this.

* they weren't nomads. They were (possibly) the first real civilization (toss up between them and Sumeria). They had been unified as a kingdom for about a thousand years BEFORE the pyramids were built.

* they made at least three true pyramids before making the Great Pyramid. Khufu's father, Sneferu, was a real nut about pyramids. The total volume of all his pyramids is greater than the volume of the Great Pyramid.

Djoser started the pyramid craze with his elaborate Sed court and Stepped Pyramid. (I've been there. It's as big as a football stadium) . After Djoser, Sekhemkhet had his own pyramid. After him, Huni went pyramid crazy, building three and possibly four pyramids

And then there was Sneferu, as I said.

So there were four generations of pyramid builders BEFORE Khufu started the GP. That means that there was four generations of expert stoneworkers to call on for his pyramid, four generations of corvee labor used to working on these projects, support of the temples and cities, four generations of architects and planners since Djoser and Imhotep.

...at least 100 years of the whole nation building pyramids.

originally posted by: jeep3r
But by limiting the range of possible tools to what AE alledgedly had at their disposal...

...you mean the ones they were buried with, the used tools found at the sites, and the ones they're shown depicted using?
(one example - wooden chisel from Dynasty 5, found in worker's grave. There are many others)

(despite evidence suggesting the use of more advanced tools) they largely ignore alternative explanations that don't fit into the paradigm.

Perhaps it's because the alternative folks don't know about things like the sarcophagus of the butler, Kai-em-nofer (about the same size and in the same material as the unfinished Khufu sarcophagus)? The butler's sarcophagus is finished and has beautiful detailing on the stonework.

Of course, it's not in the Great Pyramid and it's JUST a butler's sarcophagus....

...but a thorough researcher will be familiar with this and other examples from the time of Khufu and before Khufu.

Check this out,modern stone cutting circular saws in action

a reply to: Byrd

Actually I think it was a book that I read in another country (Germany). The book was not conspiracy stuff it was about Egyptian way of life and religion, written in very balanced way, looking from many different view points, not standing on certain belief. It was a good one, indeed. Actually now I remember it was an Encyclopedia type formed, yet the exact name I do not reckon. In the pyramids section (I guess it was really from that book) I read that in some scrips its obvious that the peasants call the Cheops pyramid in very embarrassing way to the Pharaoh itself. They were calling all the area there something like "the shepherd site of *insert random name here*). Knowing the social order in Egypt, the authors pointed that if the pyramid was really built by the Egyptians the only logical explanation for the villagers to call it "Shepherd's place" not "Emperor's greatest palace" or something else fancy was that the low-level society hated the Pharaoh and wanted by this way to insult him. The other possible option the authors put there was that the Pyramids were known to everybody in Egypt, that they were there from ages ago and they wee not build by any of the Pharaoh, thus no importance were given to any Pharaoh about them like it was given to many other small pyramids which were actually Egyptian structures, a copy-pastes on a small scale. Thus if this is true comes very naturally why they called the site of Giza "The shepherd's place of *insert name here*". Simply they were living there, and somebody obviously was handling his cattle around the pyramids, and as in every rural situation the site gets the name of whats most prominent to it. This was the speculations of the authors, as much as my mind can recollect. It was really a nice book, I remember I felt pity that I cannot take it with me.

Hope it helps a bit.

originally posted by: Harte

Do you have a reason to believe such leveling couldn't have been done any other way?

Have you read any of the theories on how the site of the GP was leveled, how the courses of stones were leveled, etc.?

Precise leveling also involves getting the stones right in order to achieve the results we see at Giza, which brings us back to the question of how the actual stonework was accomplished.

Regarding the bow drills: do you happen to have any close-up photos of Denys Stocks' drilling experiments, because I'd love to see the striations (and other details) resulting from his work. On the old PBS/NOVA website, I only found a few blurry images.

I'd also be interested in photos of the work he did to prove that the granite sarcophagi of the Serapeum could be fabricated using conventional tools (those that were allegedly used at the time) ...