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NOVA: In your extensive work and research at Giza have you ever once questioned whether humans built the pyramids?
LEHNER: No. But have I ever questioned whether they had divine or super intelligent inspiration? I first went to Egypt in 1972 and ended up living there 13 years. I was imbued with ideas of Atlantis and Edgar Cayce and so on. So I went over, starting from that point of view, but everything I saw told me, day by day, year by year, that they were very human and the marks of humanity are everywhere on them. And you see there's this curious reversal where sometimes New Age theorists say that Egyptologists and archaeologists are denigrating the ancient culture. They sometimes put up a scarecrow argument that we say they were primitive. And the New Agers sometimes want to say these were very sophisticated, technologically sophisticated people who built these things, they were not primitive. Well, actually there's a certain irony here, because they say they were very sophisticated technological civilizations and societies that built the pyramids and the Sphinx, and yet they weren't the ones that we find. So to me, it's these suggestions that are really denigrating the people whose names, bodies, family relationships, tools, bakeries that we actually find.
Everything that I have found convinces me more and more that indeed it is this society that built the Sphinx and the pyramids. Everytime I go back to Giza my respect increases for those people and that society, that they could do it. You see, to me it's even more fascinating that they did this. And that by doing this they contributed something to the human career and its overall development actually. Rather than just saying, you know copping out and saying, there's no way they could have done this. I think that denigrates the people whose evidence we actually find.
Originally posted by Byrd
And they're not made of granite. They're made of limestone (some are made of brick, I believe.)
Originally posted by neomoniker
Originally posted by Byrd
And they're not made of granite. They're made of limestone (some are made of brick, I believe.)
Limestone blocks were used to construct the exterior and bulk of the interior, however, the "King's Chamber" is lined in granite.
PS: I've just discovered that the exterior casing of the pyramid was also made granite but has long since pealed away leaving the limestone bulk exposed.
[edit on 15-7-2004 by neomoniker]
Originally posted by MacKiller
I remember hearing something that because of the amount of blocks they used, and the time that they did it in, in order for them to do it all by hand, they would have to lay one block (weighting somewhere between 500 pounds to sometimes up to 9 tons) every 30 seconds, 24/7 straight for something like 20 years.
I think that that is next to impossible! How would these people survive???
Has anyone else heard this and would like to share the exact details of it?
Originally posted by Quest
Originally posted by MacKiller
You can talk about magical levitation or aliens if you want...but in the end HUMAN DETERMINATION built the pyramids. Don't sell humanity short with fancy ancient tech or alien races.
But it's so much fun th other way
Originally posted by LadyV
The study of ancient Egypt is one of my hobbies and it is "my" personal opinion they are not man-made, or not only man made, How or who? I don't know......
The majority of the outer casing, which was polished limestone, was removed about 600 years ago to help build cities and mosques which created a rough, worn, and step-like appearance.