From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: Nov 3rd NOVA on pyramids
Date: 16 Nov 92 16:04:20 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <4230@bcstec.ca.boeing.com> small@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Peter Small) writes:
>In article <1992Nov12.182544.5475@spectrum.xerox.com> chris@eso.mc.xerox.com writes:
>>In article <1992Nov11.184249.6310@digi.lonestar.org> gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo) writes:
>>>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.
>>
>>Oh come off it.  If I can singlehandedly lay out 100 feet of 20' wide 
>>driveway (plus a perpendicular turnaround), with all corners at 90 
>>degrees, using nothing but a bunch of pointy sticks and two strings 
>>of known length (ok, I had a hammer, too), in about 60 minutes, it 
>>would be a good bet that a team of Egyptians could have done the same.  Maybe 
>>they could have even extended the techniques to larger projects.
>>
>>The Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70 in Colorado was built using the most modern 
>>equipment and technology.  It's about 1 1/2 miles long, and the `interior 
>>passages` were off by just fractions of an inch in th middle.
>>
>Yes, but there is a very big difference between contructing using concrete
>and steel or bricks and mortar and constucting using stone blocks one set on
>top of the other with no mortar to hold them together.  And this was done
>with blocks weighing over a ton each.  The 20th century cultural brain tends
>to look back at the technology of the ancient world with disdain, totally
>discounting what is in front of them to be seen.  There is no way that
>the pyramids could be built using the technology of today, let alone the
>structures in the Andes which used 50 to 100 ton blocks.  There is much
>that is an enigma in the ancient remains, that speaks of a different 
>technology, possibly, at play.  To dismiss these things as the works of
>savages or ignorants ignores the evidence of the structures themselves
>and pontificates the religion of 20th century scientific dogma as the only
>way that things can and should be viewed.  What if there are things that
>science cannot explain, because it's in too small a bird cage?
>
>PS
>
>
>-- 
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>-- uunet!bcstec!small        |
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Hear hear!

To jump back in, it also assumes that the extant examples of 
primitive man, his consciousness, and religion are fairly 
representative of what man, his consciousness, and religion 
were in the time of the Old Kingdom. and that religion was 
then, as it is now, more or less a matter of theological 
specualation, rather than a form of original participation 
in objectively real spheres that are darkened to us now.  I.e.,
neither bug eyed primitives nor modern engineers have the where-
withall to do what they did, let alone the understanding of why
it was so important to do so. Such ostentatious burial of 
Pharaohs was no more a good reason then than it would be today,
and it was not the reason why they were built (IMO).

Cordially,
Gerry Palo (73237.2006@cis)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology