The reason Hawass and other countries with antiquities don't allow amateurs to digs into their monuments is simple:
1. They damage the structures - and more importantly THEY DO NOT PUBLISH.
2. Archaeology technique destroys the context of the site, if you destroy the context and then "lose" the data - all is lost
3. Historically "fringe" research have an exceeding poor record of publishing the data they have found, this is for two reasons:
a. lack of skills
b. abandonment of project when wished for results are not found
c. lack of money for negative reports
1. even real archaeologists have trouble obtaining funding for documenting finds that add little or nothing to knowledge
4. Unless fringe "researchers" can find government or respected institutions to support them they are kept out - that is pretty much a universal
standard. One can see the mess one gets if you look at the sad story of the Bosnian hills.
5. Even large respected organizations sometimes fail to publish data, however I'd estimate the "fringe failure to publish rate" at over 98%.
Oh and good luck in finding traces of a "machine based" stone cutting industry, after 200 plus years of intensive archaeology, centuries of looting
and overwhelming fringe desire to find it - nothing so far. Oh by the way here is a question. If they had "advanced machining", why doesn't there
weaponry reflect this? You guys are realling showing unfortunate disrespect for the skills and determination of the Egyptian stone workers.
Speaking of data, publishing and bad people hiding stuff here is a twelve page review of all research dealing with the dating of the sphinx
www.davidpbillington.net...
It is written for general readership
Edited: Just got this from an associate, in regards to the earlier false claim of only Egyptians having granite working capaicity
rail-history.suite101.com...
It would seem the ancient Greeks cut parrallel grooves four miles long...in granite....I guess they had advanced machines too! LOL
[edit on 11/2/08 by Hanslune]
[edit on 11/2/08 by Hanslune]