From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Nov 3rd NOVA on pyramids
Date: 11 Nov 92 18:42:49 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <1992Nov9.235026.9726@wdl.loral.com> mab@wdl39.wdl.loral.com (Mark A Biggar) writes:
>In article <4116@bcstec.ca.boeing.com> small@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Peter Small) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov6.034409.28555@cs.wisc.edu> ayoub@globey.cs.wisc.edu (Nabil Ayoub) writes:
>>The question that I wonder about the pyramids is Why were they built?
>
>No evidence has been found that they arn't just what they appear to be: TOMBS.
>If you're absolute ruler and your people think you're a god, why not build the
>biggest tomb anybody ever heard of?
>
>>The name suggests something - PYR AMID - Fire in the middle.
>
>Pyramid is greek have you look it up in a greek dictionary?
>False etymology means nothing.
>>
>>If they were just for tombs, then why build them so exactly aligned to
>>the polar axis? 
>
>Why do 90% of modern cities have a road grid oriented NS vs EW?
>
>>... Why were no mummies found in them? 
>
>Because they were all robbed.  All of the pyramids contained evidence that
>there was a mummy at one time buried in the pyramid, just someone else got to
>it before we did.
>
>>... And more to the line of this inquiry, how is it that they have stood 
>> for over 4500 year and yet are still level and alligned with the poles 
>> and the Nile Delta?
>
>Because they are built on top of level solid bedrock.  and they arn't perfectly
>aligned to the poles, they are just enough off alignment to account for the 
>presession of the equinoxies sense the dates they were built.
>
>>Some how, the idea of a bunch of men in loin clothes hauling blocks of
>>limestone over greased ramps doesn't seem to fit the technology inherent
>>in the building of these structures.  Much of the building technique
>>cannot be reproduced today, including its accurate alignment.
>
>Did you watch the NOVA episode?  They built a pyramid using only those
>methods, including the alignment NS.  This uses only simple geometry.
>As shown in the program, all you need is a shadow stick and a string compass.
>
>>Much to look into here.
>
>Nope very little.
>
>--
>Mark Biggar
>mab@wdl1.wdl.loral.com

The problem of accuracy and alignment -- just of the sides with themselves --
is still unsolved.  I don't know the size of the Nova experiment, but abso-
lute size is essential to the experiment.  It is one thing to build a 
pyramid 30 feet tall, another to build one the size of Cheops'.

How many times did they have to take a block back down when they discovered
it didn't quite match, or take down a whole section of them when they 
found out the alignment had gotten off?  My suspicion is that given the
most modern equipment and technology and unlimited amounts of money we still
couldn't rebuild the Great Pyramid.  The blocks wouldn't match and the
interior passages wouldn't link up.  It would be a fiasco, or rather it
would be a patchwork of countless repairs and cosmetic coverups of 
construction blunders.

There was a pyramid opened some years ago that had never been robbed. This
was supposed to yield the first pyramid mummy.  There was none.  The
pyramids and the sarcophagi in them were places of initiation.  There are
peoples to this day whose religious/initiation rites involve placing the
neophant in a coffin or coffin like structure while he undergoes the
consciousness-transforming process involving a mystic death experience.
Don't do this at home.

G.P.