Yeah … scholars are so overwhelmed by the building projects of the ancients that they just have no idea how it was done. They’re so frightened by the clarity of the ancient alien visitation idea that they remain silent. There’s just no way to explain the precise placement of large blocks.
What a pile of crap.
The truth is that the ancient alien theorists (a) have never looked at the history of scholarship on these issues and (b) they don’t want to look. They are the ones afraid to subject their views to peer review, not the other way around.
Here’s a recent article I came across and thought readers would be interested (at least those who have not surrendered their synapses to the ancient alien idea):
Coulton, “Lifting in Early Greek Architecture,” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 94 (1974), pp. 1-19
The article discussions various *known* techniques for lifting and precisely placing large blocks in construction. Some of the methods are known back to Assyrian times.
The alien-minded reader will naturally ask, “What about larger blocks, like the ones at Baalbek?” No aliens needed there, either. But that’s the next post (news flash to ancient astronaut theorists: scholars of ancient engineering really *have* thought carefully about Baalbek).
I help admin a Facebook group, ‘Armchair Egyptologists’, for Egyptophiles of many shapes and sizes 🙂
The one thing we don’t have time for, though, are people who support ‘alternative’ history theories (to put it kindly). Just in the last week I’ve had to kick out two members for trying to bend discussions around to the idea that the Egyptians didn’t build the pyramids at Giza (“it’s just too complicated for ‘quasi-stone age’ people, blah, blah, blah”) and that the pyramids are much older than thought.
In fact, when informing the group of their ejection, another person (who happens to be friends with one of those kicked out!) stated that ‘many believe the inscription [of Khufu’s cartouche in the Great Pyramid] may have been a fake.’
Well, I couldn’t just take that sitting down, could I! None of my academic books said anything about this, so I got on to Google, which led me to Sitchen, and then onto your site.
Thank you for providing me with the ammo I needed to answer this man’s assertion, and thank you for posting articles like this 🙂
you’re most welcome.
b”h
Nice article. Thanks for posting it.
you’re welcome