Egypt, Pyramids, page 2

Originally posted by RogueOne
What would we do without the "party line"? Perhaps you know Philip Klass?

Originally posted by RogueOne
According to your source, there are "2 million blocks of stone" -- not "million".

Sorry, that's my spelling mistake. My calculations did have 2*10^6 = 2 million.

The original topic was about the "true purpose", not ramblings such as "The pyramids were probably monuments for the pharaos. I agree that there is not much evidence they were used as a tomb . . ." etc.

It is the best hypothesis. There is a clear evolution from small mastaba to pyramids. Mastaba were used as tombs and monuments. "Excavations of Zoser’s Step Pyramid reveal that many changes in design occurred during its construction. First, an unusual square mastaba was built in the unusual material of stone. Then it was added to, in various stages, until it became rectangular, then built upwards to become a four step pyramid, then extended on two sides and upwards to become a six step pyramid, which was its final form. All of this indicates that there was no sudden infusion of new ideas from ‘somewhere else’ that suddenly changed ‘primitive’ Egyptians into brilliant engineers and stonemasons, a theory beloved of the more irrational speculators on matters Egyptian." (source)

You state that "The pyramids are by no means too perfect for ancient 'struction' methods. You can use ropes with sticks to create straight lines." REALLY?
Yet, your own source states that "it is not known how the blocks were put in place" ...and "The maximum error between side lengths is astonishingly less than 0.1%" ... plus "the interior stones fit so well, a card won't fit between them"!

The funny thing with ropes is that if you put one between two sticks you get a straight line. Straight enough for a 0.1% difference. That's a difference of:

229 m * 0.001 = 0,229 m = 22,9 cm.

In my opinion this is easily possible with ropes and good trained engineers (or their egyptain equivalent).

Originally posted by RogueOne
You conclude that there is "absolutely no evidence of an earlier advanced civilization." Would you like to bet on that? Read Hancock, et al.

I would. Unless you count monuments build thousands of years and thousands of kilometres apart mirroring different constellations not that well as evidence of an ancient civilization. The pyramids in Egypt and South America were build thousands of years apart and for different purposes. The cultures just both used the most most easy and stable structure for their buildings.

Since it seems you have read Hancock better than me, please give any other evidence of an ancient civilization.

[Edited on 12-2-2004 by amantine]