Questions Not Answered by Modern History

1. The Great Pyramid – Precision Engineering

The last of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World still has humanity puzzled. The Great Pyramid is simply stunning in its size even by today’s standards. So the question is how did the Egyptians, with their primitive tools, create a structure of 2.3 million blocks and a weight of about 4 million tons to staggering precision? Below are some of the unanswered questions regarding the Great Pyramid.

1.Creating precision-cut casing blocks weighing 16 tons, fitted together and held by a super-glue mortar that maintained a tight seal forming a nearly seamless shell.

2. Leveling the 13-acre limestone bedrock base to a degree of accuracy only recently achieved with laser technology.

3. Squaring the base to True North with minimal deviation.

4. Excavating the ‘Descending Passage’ 350 feet into solid bedrock at a 26-degree angle while keeping the tunnel arrow-straight for its length.

5. Bringing the massive 48-story pyramid together around complex internal structures, retaining the true shape to enable the builders to form the apex. (These internal structures include four enigmatic ventilation shafts and a coffer in the King’s Chamber that is too large to have been moved through the opening. It shows evidence of having been cut with a jewel-tip saw.)

6. Extensive usage of different types of machined granite inside the Great Pyramid chambers.

2. The Origin Of Dogs – Biogenetic engineering

Until the 1990’s when genetic information was processed on the common dog our thoughts on the evolution of man’s best friend was simple, dogs branched off from a common group of wild canids. However, geneticists have shown that dogs actually branched off from wolves 40- 150,000 years ago. The problem with this is that it is impossible.

Think about those statements for a moment. If you are thinking that dogs evolved naturally from wolves, that is not an option. No scientist believes that because the stringent wolf pecking order and breeding rituals would never allow a mutant to survive, at least that is one strong argument against natural evolution.

Now, if our Paleolithic ancestors could have pulled off this feat, and the actual challenges posed by the process are far more taxing, then wolf/dog breeders today certainly should have no problem duplicating it. But like the Great Pyramid, that does not seem to be the case. No breeders have stepped up to the plate claiming they can take two pure wolves and produce a dog sans biogenetic engineering techniques.

The evolution of the domesticated dog from a wild pack animal appears to be a miracle! It should not have happened. This is another unexplained enigma.

Mohenjo Daro – Civil Engineering

The great city of the Indus Valley civilization, of which almost nothing is known, is remarkable by even today’s standards of civil engineering. The city was constructed with standard building materials, standard roads, water tight swimming pools, and drainage canals. Below are a list of the problems associated with this great city.

1. Where are the cities that demonstrate the path of urban development, social and technical organisation, leading to Mohenjo Daro?

2. How do you explain the sudden emergence of a complex society when 99.99% of the rest of humanity were living primitively?

From here the article goes on to explore three other enigmas but I will let those interested proceed to read them. The three are:

Sumeria – The Source Of Civilisation
Teotihuacán – Anomalous Technical Evidence
High Technology In Stone Age Peru

Link

Originally posted by BlackJackal
1. The Great Pyramid – Precision Engineering

1.Creating precision-cut casing blocks weighing 16 tons, fitted together and held by a super-glue mortar that maintained a tight seal forming a nearly seamless shell.

2. Leveling the 13-acre limestone bedrock base to a degree of accuracy only recently achieved with laser technology.

3. Squaring the base to True North with minimal deviation.

4. Excavating the ‘Descending Passage’ 350 feet into solid bedrock at a 26-degree angle while keeping the tunnel arrow-straight for its length.

5. Bringing the massive 48-story pyramid together around complex internal structures, retaining the true shape to enable the builders to form the apex. (These internal structures include four enigmatic ventilation shafts and a coffer in the King’s Chamber that is too large to have been moved through the opening. It shows evidence of having been cut with a jewel-tip saw.)

6. Extensive usage of different types of machined granite inside the Great Pyramid chambers.

#1 Several different mortars were already in use at the time.

#2 The base is off by about 2 inches corner to corner. The ability to do better than that was being used by the Egyptians and other nearby cultures centuries before.

#3 The base is off true north by about 1/4 of one degree. The Egyptians invented surveying. They resurveyed property lines annually after Nile flooding. They were usually more accurate than that. The only mystery is why did they screw up that badly?

#4. Easily done. Many cultures around the world were already making straight lines.

#5 The Great Pyramid is not a perfect pyramid. It is lopsided by about 4 inches. Again, we know the Egyptians were capable of greater precision than exhibited in the Great Pyramid. Why the error?

#6 The granite was not machined. Tool marks are visible. Some of the faces are dressed better than others, but it is not a technological marvel by contemporary standards. Only the blocks that are visible from the outside or in the walls of the internal passages are dressed smoothly. The internal blocks are quite rough and coarsely fitted together. There are large voids in the solid portion of the Pyramid that were just filled with rubble.

The earlier pyramids are still visited by thousands of tourists every year. The progression of the earlier, more primitive pyramids on up to the Great Pyramid clearly indicate they were all built by the Egyptians using technology available at that time and they learned from each pyramid as they built them. Why is it so hard to accept that early civilizations were capable of figuring out design and engineering, especially by trial and error? We do not know the specific mechanisms and techniques used for every part of the pyramids, but that does not mean it was not a simple solution.

It is racist to assume that Egyptians could not build large stone structures.

[edit on 7-7-2005 by dave_54]

Also there is no missing link. How old are Humans? 50-100k years old.? I dont exactly know. One thing is evolution states we evolved from apes. So i guess these apes in our zoo's ancestors will be humans in a couple hundred thousand years right? I dont get it. Humans couldnt of evolved that quick. It takes more like millions of years to evolve naturally.

Originally posted by jonSUN
Also there is no missing link. How old are Humans? 50-100k years old.? I dont exactly know.

Allow me to introduce you to the power tool used by all the posters here on ATS -- Google:
www.google.com...

If you ask the question (and you can ask English language questions, by the way), you'll discover that the most recent estimate is that homo sapiens has been around for about 150,000 - 160,000 years. You'd also see that the date wasn't gotten through carbon dating and that this is a recent find.

One thing is evolution states we evolved from apes.

Google is your friend. It keeps you from making embarrassing errors like that. As it turns out, the only people saying "humans evolved from apes" are actually the Creationists who say "evolutionists say that humans evolved from apes."

Sorry. That's not correct. You might also like to look around www.talkorigins.org...

So i guess these apes in our zoo's ancestors will be humans in a couple hundred thousand years right? I dont get it. Humans couldnt of evolved that quick. It takes more like millions of years to evolve naturally.

Well, no... as I've explained before.

And another googling would have showed you that there are a lot of examples of things that evolve rapidly in short time periods (the AIDS virus, for one.) If you state "it takes millions of years to evolve naturally" you'd probably have some good example in hand, otherwie people are going to march up and hit you over the head with information about punctilated evolution, Darwin's finches, and other similar things.

Originally posted by jonSUN
One thing is evolution states we evolved from apes. So i guess these apes in our zoo's ancestors will be humans in a couple hundred thousand years right? I dont get it.

That's one of the most common misconceptions on the theory of evolution people out there have....

We did not evolve from apes....Modern day apes will not become humans....We simply share a common ancestor....

Think of evolution as a huge tree with millions and millions of branches.....and each branch has millions and millions of twigs.....and each twig has thousands of leaves........

We belong to the animal Order of primates - which would represent a branch on that tree.....On which we share with all other primates, who have taken their own separate routes in evolution....

But you're right about one thing....It has taken millions of years for human beings to evolve.....100 thousand years ago we were just beginning to develop into the sub-species we are known as today – Homo sapiens sapiens.....But as long as 6-7 million years ago hominids walked the Earth....

Edit: See? Indellkoffer and I posted the exact same thing simultaneously.....Another "ex-ape" who would agree that you might want to reconsider your opinion.....

[edit on 7/7/2005 by EnronOutrunHomerun]

I am not puzzled over how the pyramid was built, Giza, and neither is my father, just aked him. We actually came up with some cool ideas. Besides, it is built out of stone and really nothing else. It is not as if it is a modern day sky skraper wher a foundation is poured, a metal frame installed, wiring, plumbing, pipelines, etc...

Wolves may not allow a genetic alteration to exist, not mutant, but neanderthals did a poor job at stopping us from existing. Take a picture of the two and tell me you are not convinced.


Mohenjo Daro, not too sure. Wars may have swept away other cities, buried underground and waiting to be found or these cities exist today but with renovations and changes that can not indicate their ancient origins.

One thing modern history can prove is the caravan routes used by nomads in Sahara desert. In the 80's, while orbiting in the space shuttle, astronauts noticed lines sprawled throughout the Sahara desert. They were odd in the fact that no roads existed, paved. But upon further analysis, historians came to the conclusion that these were caravan routes used in ancient times, and still today. Paved out naturally be the foot of man and his animal tool. Very interesting.

Originally posted by BlackJackal2. The Origin Of Dogs – Biogenetic engineering

Think about those statements for a moment. If you are thinking that dogs evolved naturally from wolves, that is not an option. No scientist believes that because the stringent wolf pecking order and breeding rituals would never allow a mutant to survive, at least that is one strong argument against natural evolution.

Now, if our Paleolithic ancestors could have pulled off this feat, and the actual challenges posed by the process are far more taxing, then wolf/dog breeders today certainly should have no problem duplicating it. But like the Great Pyramid, that does not seem to be the case. No breeders have stepped up to the plate claiming they can take two pure wolves and produce a dog sans biogenetic engineering techniques.

I think you might want to go back and check your sources a bit more carefully. What they say is that dogs and wolves are almost identical from a genetic standpoint. And breeding dogs from wolves isn't possible though it's not done in a single generation as you seem to be implying.

magma.nationalgeographic.com...

Taming an animal produces changes within a few generations. Animals that are kept grow stronger and larger and traits such as cooperation are valued (so the unruly ones get turned into dinner.) Things that humans find attractive (longer mane, longer legs, broader body) are bred by encouraging desirable animals to breed with each other.

For instance, the Doberman Pinscher breed began back in 1890 and it's now a standard and popular dog breed:
www.puppydogweb.com...

Now please don't try to tell me that Dobies were genetically engineered.

The Coton de Tulear originated on Madigascar in the 1600's:
www.giftsforpets.ca...

The curly coated Rex Devonshire first appeared in 1951:
www.cornbredcornishrex.com...

The ancients weren't stupid, and if we can create new breeds of dogs and cats by domesticating breeds from the wild (the occicat is one such creature) then why do you think it's so impossible for the ancients to have picked the happiest, tamest wolves to breed and eventually produced the fireside-lounging dog?

Mohenjo Daro – Civil Engineering

The great city of the Indus Valley civilization, of which almost nothing is known, is remarkable by even today’s standards of civil engineering. The city was constructed with standard building materials, standard roads, water tight swimming pools, and drainage canals.

Firsts, but there were examples of some of this in other areas.

And sorry, no swimming pools. A great bath, yes... pool, no:
www.harappa.com...

And everybody knew how to coat things with tar/bitumen to keep them watertight. That knowledge was far older than this city.

1. Where are the cities that demonstrate the path of urban development, social and technical organisation, leading to Mohenjo Daro?

It was one of the first cities in the world. However, if you'll go look at some of the villages of that age and older, you'll see the precursors of this.

2. How do you explain the sudden emergence of a complex society when 99.99% of the rest of humanity were living primitively?

Okay, how do you KNOW it was so far above the rest of society and how primitively humanity was living at the time? As I recall, there are other towns and villages of that age... people weren't out living in the woods.

Well, not EVERYWhere.

From here the article goes on to explore three other enigmas but I will let those interested proceed to read them. mathaba.net...

So we have this information from a web page that says "as long as the scientists agreed with our theories, it was okay but then those darn archaeologists refused to accept information that contradicted their years of study on the subject."

That's not really convincing, you know?

Originally posted by Indellkoffer

Originally posted by jonSUN
Also there is no missing link. How old are Humans? 50-100k years old.? I dont exactly know.

Allow me to introduce you to the power tool used by all the posters here on ATS -- Google:
www.google.com...

If you ask the question (and you can ask English language questions, by the way), you'll discover that the most recent estimate is that homo sapiens has been around for about 150,000 - 160,000 years. You'd also see that the date wasn't gotten through carbon dating and that this is a recent find.

One thing is evolution states we evolved from apes.

Google is your friend. It keeps you from making embarrassing errors like that. As it turns out, the only people saying "humans evolved from apes" are actually the Creationists who say "evolutionists say that humans evolved from apes."

Sorry. That's not correct. You might also like to look around www.talkorigins.org...

So i guess these apes in our zoo's ancestors will be humans in a couple hundred thousand years right? I dont get it. Humans couldnt of evolved that quick. It takes more like millions of years to evolve naturally.

Well, no... as I've explained before.

And another googling would have showed you that there are a lot of examples of things that evolve rapidly in short time periods (the AIDS virus, for one.) If you state "it takes millions of years to evolve naturally" you'd probably have some good example in hand, otherwie people are going to march up and hit you over the head with information about punctilated evolution, Darwin's finches, and other similar things.

Im not camparing the evolution on man to a virus created by the government. Ive read the stuff you linked to before & alot doesnt make sense. And BTW what is Google?

Google is a search engine, jonSUN.

Also, you really should read about the research being done with foxes, and how they are trying to breed and develop domesticated animals, to parallel how dogs, and yes, even pigs. horses and cattle have changed due to domestication.

In Novosibirsk, Siberia, geneticists have been working for four decades to turn foxes into dogs. They're breeding them with one trait in mind - friendliness towards humans.

Kits, baby foxes, will play with humans up a certain age. What the researchers did was, those kits that would remain playful the longest got to breed when they were adults. Soon they had foxes with longer and longer periods of youthful playfulness and these foxes even eventually accepted human contact and seemed to even want it, like how cats and dogs are.

These animals started developing different markings, white on their chests, head etc.

Domestication is more to do with extending the 'puppy' stage in the fox, where juvenile playfulness and bonding is selected. The new animal will crave to learn and imprint from the surrogate parents or pack longer than is possible under natural conditions. Continued breeding into the puppy state would also produce changes in other features as well, such as fur color and eye development. The retention of juvenile traits in adults appears to be a common feature of domestication in other animals as well.

Read this:

www.floridalupine.org...


[edit on 8-7-2005 by Jadette]

What about corn (maize)? Somebody had to decide that this useless unedible grass would eventually be turned into a useful crop (which requires knowledge of genetics). They, and their kids, then had to grow it until it became edible.

Originally posted by Snap
What about corn (maize)? Somebody had to decide that this useless unedible grass would eventually be turned into a useful crop (which requires knowledge of genetics).

I've spent years working with plants and I have some knowledge of genetics. I know if I save the seeds from the best plants with the traits I desire I will be able to reproduce and strengthen those traits in the next season or generation of that plant.

Ancient man was very aware of nature because that was the only means of survival. I'm thinking that somebody found a trait in maize that was usefull, such as having small seeds that were edible and it progressed from there to the multiple varieties we have today.

I'm not sure you want to call this a "knowledge of genetics" because they had no idea that there was such a thing as a genome for all life. But I'm sure they observed things like familial similarities and could extrapolate that knowledge to other things.

Agriculture developed over thousands of years, and with plants the cycle is a lot faster than with mammals. It's not a stretch to imagine a mother telling her daughter that if you save the best seeds and grow them the next year your crop will be better. You don't need a lab with a powerful microscope and modern equipment to figure out how to grow the best quality plant, you just need to work with them and make some basic observations.

Humans have altered so many aspects of our planet and to just list a few I'll add fruit trees to this and domestic livestock. You don't think nature produced the Granny Smith apple or Bing Cherries or any of the peaches or pears you find in the market. If nature had its way these would only be a small fruit to contain the seeds. It was the intervention of man that made these the fleshy fruits we see today.
And take a look at the modern dairy cow with that massive udder. Nature sure didn't do that to those poor cows. It was created by man through selective breeding with no scientific knowledge of genetics.

MAybe humans found maize adn saw that it growed when put in the ground so they began to do it theirself. The different varieties could have been pure chance. A for dogs imagine you had a colelction of dogs, now you like ones with nice big ears so you say out of your social group that youll look after all the ones with long ears. The by chance eventually these long eared ones will become a common thing in the gene line of the specific dogs children.

About the wolves and domesticated dogs -

Since evolution takes a long time of subtle changes, those subtle changes wouldn't be visible to their elders in the pack. It's so subtle it's extremely hard to see it without comparing them from two different points in time.

I know their sense of smell is extremely good, but it's not good enough to locate a variation in a gene that will always be inevitible in offspring.

It's not like one new cub suddenly has many traits of a chihuahua.