From: odlin@reed.edu (Iain Odlin)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Nov 3rd NOVA on pyramids
Date: 7 Nov 92 05:50:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: reed.1992Nov7.055033.20778
Organization: The Stuffed Animal Trauma Team  (We're Trained Professionals)

In article <4116@bcstec.ca.boeing.com> small@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Peter Small) writes:
>The question that I wonder about the pyramids is Why were they built?

  Tombs befitting Kings who would be Gods once they were put in them.  Osten-
  taity is not unknown even in modern burials.

>If they were just for tombs, then why build them so exactly aligned to
>the polar axis?

  Why'd my next door neighbor align the addition on his house with magnetic
  north?  Why is my apartment full of 45 degree angled walls?

  Why not?

  [To answer slightly less flippantly:  There are numerous ideas regarding
  religious significances of the alignments of pyramids and tombs.  I'll let
  you look them up.  As a quick precis, just keep in mind that the tombs were
  machines to convert the Kings/Pharaohs into Gods and everything in a machine
  must be aligned correctly. (Maybe I'm wrong, but it sure sounds nice ;) ]

>Why were no mummies found in them?

  Because they had been removed by tomb robbers and destroyed.  The problem
  with getting the jewelry off the mummies is that the embalming process used
  a lot of pitch which, in just a few decades, turns as hard as rock.  So, the
  robbers would take the mummies out and burn them, which left behind ashes and
  puddles of gold and loose jewels.  Didn't do much for the mummy or the jewel-
  ry (as a work of art, anyway), but it was pure profit for the robbers (unless
  they got caught, of course ;).

  Now, while no mummies were found, sarcophagi were.  Usually damaged.  Which
  leads to the above paragraph.

>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?
>
>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.

  *sigh*  Read something other than tabloids, please...  Every single bit
  of the construction (including the "accurate alignment") can be done today.
  We have lost no "special techniques" and the records on how these monuments
  were built is nowhere near as sketchy as the popular press would have you
  believe.

  When considering the "inherent technology," keep in mind that these were
  built by slaves who did *nothing else*.  These were a people who spent months
  on *one arm* of a statue, just to get it right.  And it wasn't just one per-
  son; it was scads of them working cooperatively in a way not really seen
  since.

  Now:  Do not make the mistake of assuming that, just because something isn't
  done, it cannot be done.  ["Man cannot walk on the moon."  "Moon?  He can't
  even fly, you twit.  And the Earth's flat, too."]  Look at the Hoover Dam,
  fer crying out loud.  Rest assured that a pyramid could be built even now.
  It may not be economically feasible with today's economics and today's views
  on labor, but it is an equally henious sin to view the past as though the
  economic conditions, politics, morals and world-view of *today* held sway
  *then*.  They did not.
-- 
 --------------------------------- Iain Odlin ---------------------------------
                  10 Crosby Street, Level 3, Portland ME 04103
                                 odlin@reed.edu
 - Bread falls butter-side down.  If it doesn't, you buttered the wrong side. -
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology