Lining up a structure so that light on a particular day will shine in a certain way shows a good understanding of the natural world. A number of cultures did this. It can be done without extensive math or an indepth understanding of astronomy etc. You just need to mark the movement of the sun thru the arc of the sky. Which can be done with sticks and stones.

I'm sure it impressed the leaders and peasants alike.

Good and interesting study.

It probably grew out of their need (for the Egyptians) to know when the Nile would begin to flood. A few years of observation would have brought to notice that the rising of certain star was an alert that the flood time was near. Similar associations were made to let people know when to plant and when to expect the onslaught of winter or the Monsoon.

As a wise German archaeologist said, if you lie out under the night sky for a few years you pick up a number of observations and correlations with the rest of natural world.

I can't stand the way people assume that our ancestors were not as intelligent as we are today. I don't mean that they knew about jet engines, but their capacity for learning was just as strong as it is today.

The ancients knew a lot more than we give them credit for, if common understanding prevailed it would have all ancient people dragging their knuckles and running from loud noises.

One thing the ancients knew very well was astronomy, it was more important to them than we can imagine today. In some religions the gods literally, or in some cases metaphorically, were the stars. They knew the paths they took through the heavens, they could predict the future positions of the stars, phases of the Moon and eclipses.

I would honestly find it hard to believe that Egyptian structures didn't incorporate elements of astronomy either in part or in whole as the purpose of the structure.

Nice article! Not really surprising, since they had a number of important festivals and it would be easy enough to time the day by having the morning (or evening) sun hit a certain mark in the temple. I'd like to see more of this research; which temples were aligned with what.

My guess is that if it was a major "cult temple" devoted to one god that there would be a sunlight marker associated with that day.

I've seen the sun markers used by ancient Native Americans, so I'm not really skeptical of the ability to make these things... or use them.

Howdy CITB

I wouldn't necessarily call it wishful thinking;

Hans: Perhaps the term, willful disregard for knowledge influenced by a desire for the existence of aliens to be proved overwhelming their critical senses, would be a better fit?


More so like trying to put together the long lost pieces of a puzzle necessary for our advancement as a species.


Hans: The palimpest you speak of is part of standard Egyptian statement, a series of panels- it isn't a stand alone plaque. When the translation was first published (I believe in 1883) the Egyptologists then had no difficulty as they knew what the damaged hieroglyphs said and were not influenced by the by chance damaged that looks to us like modern equipment.

A step toward understanding that we truly do not know anything and we need to give more credence to our ancestors.

Hans: I disagree we know a great deal to include knowing that we don't know everything.

Right now i am reading the Bhagavadgita an excerpt from the Mahabharata. It makes mentions of vimanas or flying machines and i believe ancient India shares ties with ancient Egypt.

Hans: Most religions have mentions of flying gods, it doesn't mean they were real. Such notions are not proved in the archaeological record.

I'm a proponent of the Tower of Babel and we all descended from one race.

Hans: We agree we are all Homo Sapiens then, the tower of B story is just that a story to explain, in an non-scientific world, why there are different languages. If it were real it would run counter to the Xian concept of free will.

Say what you'd like and break down my reply how you wish, but the point i am trying to prove still stands.

Hans: I respectfully think not

We have no clue what they did have and didn't have in those times, but i for one am not gonna say we now have anything more than they had then.

Hans: Ah but we DO have clues and hard information as what was going on in those times. Archaeology has given us a good peek into those times

Originally posted by Comfyinsidethebox
Yea but how do you describe the immense number of stones used in the "20 year" window that the pharoahs are said to have created them in?

Um, when did that happen? You are the second person in a week I have heard make that statement. All my life I have repeatedly learned that the pyramids took hell-of-forever to build. Now it's 20 years?

Did I get caught in one of those parallel matrix time-line shift abductions?

the problem was never "proving" the technology involved

the problem was the so called early "experts" and the all the financial means provided for them to "study" the early findings

have to do a bit of cleaning and grave shifting

what do you do to the whole "authorised" and study syllabus in all the top Universities and sacred cows of the fields involved ... do they get to give the funding money back if they openly debunks their early studies ?

it's money and money and more money going to who and from who they wanna get from

sad fact of it all ..... the blind rather remain blind

[edit on 9-9-2009 by third_eye]