Theory Tells How Egyptians Aligned Pyramids To True North

blackage sends us news about how the Egyptians may have aligned their pyramids. The craziest part seems to be that their accuracy was good enough in aligning with these stars that the pyramids can be dated to within five years! Nature has a nice description of the theory.

Comments

Re:ARGH! flies-horseshit, nutters-pyramids

[DrXym]

What is so fascinating with ancient monuments that nutcases are driven to invent the wildest explanations (usually involving aliens or ancient global wars) for their existence? The truth is obviously so much more mundane - pyramids were built to deify the king and to praise the gods. I'm don't doubt star alignment etc. came into it, but that's true of a lot of religious buildings, including christian churches.

In fact one might as well suggest that Europeans in the middle-ages built huge cathedrals because the aliens made them do it. Except of course we'd laugh at anyone who suggested that. And so we should for those who suggest the same thing for older monuments including the pyramids. People build buildings because their leaders tell them to and the resources are there to do it.

Does that mean we know everything about the ancient world? Nope. But neither should we start invent a bunch of bullshit alien conspiracy stories from the barest of "facts".

About the sphinx

[Dervak]

2.The big sphinx is WAY older than we thought. some geologist proved this.

While this isnt accepted in the main stream (yet) I find the evidence for this compelling. The facts go roughly like this:

• The sphinx is not built, but carved from a large rock jutting up from the desert. It is made of sandstone.
• Orthodoxy says that its head is the likeness of Pharaoh Chefren (who claims this), but it is not very similar to other portrayals of him.
• The lion body is very badly eroded indeed, but the head no nearly as much, contrary to what one might expect. Also, the head is far too small compared to the body - the proportions are way wrong.
• In the desert, the primary erosion agent is wind (sandblasting), which carves out horizontal grooves. The sphinx body is covered with very deep and extensive vertical grooves. Vertical grooves are formed by intense rains.
• The last time Egypt had intense rains was at the end of the last Ice Age, some 10 000 years ago.

So, the alternative model goes something like this:

• Some time around the end of the last Ice Age, members of some forgotten people carve out a giant statue (of a lion?) from the great rock, for whatever purpose.
• This statue is eroded badly in torrential rains (during hundreds or thousands of years) around the end of the last Ice Age.
• The climate turns arid, the rains stop and vegetation disappears. Loose sand begin to collect in dunes. The statue is partly buried in sand, with the head jutting up.
• Throughout the millenia, the head is eroded even more by wind sandblasting, until it is unrecognizable. Around the time of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the statue is uncovered from the sand.
• Pharaoh Khefren (or some other, earlier pharaoh) takes a liking to it and decides to recast its unrecognizable head into his own likeness and take credit for the hole shebang.

Now, the pyramids may or may not be older than the currently accepted value, but the sphinx certainly is. I wouldnt be surprised if the pyramids are far older too.

The fact that Cheops, Chefren and Menkaure takes credit for them means nothing. Remember that it was not uncommon for a king to expropriate something someone else did as his. Also, it makes no sense that the biggest pyramid is claimed to be the oldest. If you were Pharaoh, wouldnt you want to build a bigger pyramid than your dad did? OTOH, if they merely claimed already existing structures, it makes perfect sense. First dibs...

/Dervak

Re:About the sphinx

[jd]

The dates of the pyramids are definitely iffy.

(I seem to remember a Horizon special, talking about a particular sacrifice made every 50 years or so, and by using that as a benchmark, the errors in dating may be as much as +/- 300 years. Not much, in archaeological terms, but VERY significant, when you're talking about what order the Pyramids were built in.)

The Sphinx date (according to Dr. Robert Schoch) is verifiable, because the rocks carved off the Sphinx were used to make the Sphinx Temple, that is immediately in front. This temple shows the same (vertical) erosion and does not conform to any architecture known to be contemporary with Khufu.

The new date only added a few thousand years to the age of the Sphinx. Certainly very plausable, in terms of climate and what -is- known about the sort of technology at that time.

The main fly in the ointment has been Anthony West, who has mixed some very astute observations (eg: "If you're going to build something the size of the Sphinx, you're going to have a reason") with some phenominally stupid baiting (eg: his support of the idea that there is a Sphinx on Mars and that both Sphinxes were built by the same people comes solely - by his own admission - from his desire to upset scientific applecarts).

AW's idea that the Sphinx isn't merely decoration is something that the Egyptologists have chosen to ignore, in preference to bashing him for his more bizare views. A pity, because if the idea has value, it's likely to never be studied by the one group of people who have enough data to really study it.

My own theory is that it could have been a warning and/or navigational beacon (both of which would have required prominence). But if it was built AFTER the first of the three pyramids, it would have been useless for either purpose. The smallest of the three Pyramids still dwarfs the Sphinx. If the Sphinx was visible, so was the Pyramid, so any function as a landmark would have been utterly pointless.

The only way it could have had any real value or meaning, if my idea is within a few lightyears of being close to right, would be if there had been an earlier (2000+ years prior) civilisation with a working knowledge of art, exploration, A-frames, log rollers and rope.

Re:About the sphinx

[thogard]

>My own theory is that it could have been a warning and/or navigational beacon
I think your close with the navigation.

There is water under the Sphinx. The water table under egypt is quite large but tends to be very deep except in some places and the Sphinx is one of them. The sphinx is also what I would guess is the first days travel out from the markets in Cairo which means its a likly resting place. The "hidden chambers" under the Sphinx lead to water.

If you talk to American Indians about acient navigation they talk about rocks that have shapes like that look like animals or gods or other things that show up in storys that were used to remember navigational information. Its likly that navigation in acient egypt was done something like that.

My theory is that it was a outcrop that looked kind of like a lion head and was adapted over time to make it look more like one till a powerful man decided to go the whole way and put his face on it. that was only done because there was water there.

Re:About the sphinx

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the Sphinx is the worlds oldest and largest hacked site! Pharao Khefren is truly the l33t master. We should worship him!

Aligning with north is easy!

[KjetilK]

Let me first said that the Great Pyramids of Giza is the most impressive work I have ever seen (yes, I have been there). It's just incredible, and the feeling of standing at the foot, or being inside them is hard to describe. So is, BTW, the feeling you get in many of the newer temples in Egypt, for instance the Carnac temple.

However, aligning anything with True North is easy. It has never been a riddle, whoever says so is just out to get some good press for a book or research grants.

I describe in my How to use a Compass-pages (in a section on how to navigate without a compass), how you can find true north easily, and to extremely high accuracy by only using the sun. They could well achieve the desired accuracy with the methods described there.

Re:Aligning with north is easy!

[KjetilK]

After reading the original articles, they claim a 3 arcminute alignment accuracy, and this claim is backed by scholars who I respect very much and who are not likely to exaggerate the accuracy of such things, I guess I will have to read the references given. I must say I have a really hard time understanding how they could measure the alignment to more than about half a degree or so, but perhaps somebody has thought of something smart I haven't considered. Oh well.

limestone clad

[peter303]

When periodically buffed, on a sunny day they would look shiney diamonds.

what about the UFOS?

[Alien54]

"hey! what about the UFOs?

The guys who used the pyramids to pump water into the sky to terraform the planet and shut if off because of political infighting and ....."

[muffled thumps are heard as a bunch of Men in Black drag the speaker away into a waiting limozine]

Please ignore the above, we obviously had a fruit loop trying to take over the topic .....

I have my doubts

[rde]

I don't doubt that the method used would have worked, but the article (I think; I'll have to read it again) gives no reasons for the anicent Egyptians to be aware of how or why that method would have worked. The article seems to imply that the scientists have figured not how the Egyptians did it, but how the scientists themselves would have done it had they found themselves thrown back in time.

Re:I have my doubts

[xpccx]

For question 1c), There are more than the 3 pyramids in Ghaza to verify the error in alignment.

For the rest of question 1), in the Nature article is says "...the earth's axis is not fixed; it precesses so that the north celestial pole moves in a small circle on the sky with a 26,000-year period. When the Egyptians were constructing their tombs, there was no visible pole star within two degrees of true north, yet they were able to achieve an accuracy of just three arc minutes (one twentieth of a degree)." I highly doubt this would be achieved by chance or human error.

Then it continues. "By running computer simulations of the night sky back to the time of the Egyptian kingdoms, she has also identified the stars that were most probably used -- z-Ursae Majoris and g-Ursae Minoris -- one each from the constellations of The Great and The Little Bear, which had simultaneous transits in 2467 BC."

And then, "Because of the precession of the Earth's axis, these two stars would have simultaneous transits only for a year or so. One would therefore expect errors in alignments to increase with time away from 2467 BC. This is exactly what is seen -- plotting the estimated construction date of the pyramids against their error in orientation produces a remarkably straight line, with those built before 2467 BC pointing slightly east and those built afterwards pointing slightly west."

For question 2), the answer is not necessarily. Because some of the pyramids are slightly east of true north and some are slightly west, and because the star(s) closest to true north vary with a 26,000 year period, I don't think there would be many other instances (in the time frame that the pyramids were built) that this could have happened. If all of the pyramids were built earlier than 2467 BC they would all be off slightly to the east and if they were all built after 2467 BC, they'd all be off to the west.

For question 3, I don't believe the Egyptians knew that they weren't exactly at true north. And it's not so much that they would have been less accurate at any other period of time, it's that there would have been more pyramids to either the east or west of true north depending on when they started building them. The first pyramid built that is slightly to the west of true north tells you the first pyramid build after 2467 BC. And by measuring the error, it should tell you when the pyramid was built, since they know how long it would have taken the two starts to be off from true north by that amount.

Re:I have my doubts

[crulx]

The reason that she feels that this is how the Egyptians aligned the pyrmids is that if they used this method, then the earlier pyramids would be out of alingment by a certain amount and the latter pyramids would be off a different amount. This is what she observed.

So given the deviations of the pyramids directions, she has come up with a theory that fits all the data. As it seems to be the best theory for accounting how the pyramids where aligned, It will remain so either forever if it is true, or until a theory that better describes the actual methond is proven to fit the data.

---
crulx

Re:I have my doubts

[tooth]

Here's the important bit:

The Egyptians were trying to find true north but they didn't have a star marking the pole. So they used two stars, Kochab in Ursa Minor or the Little Dipper, and Mizar in Ursa Major, or the Big Dipper to find the pole.

``It (the pole) is on a line between those two stars. You measure when the two stars are basically on top of one another and if you line them up with a plumb line that will give you true north,'' Spence said.

According to astronomical data, 2,467 BC is the year in which the line that goes between the two stars passes exactly the trajectory of the pole.

Re:I have my doubts

[DeadSea]

This was on NPR last night. According to them, the egyption kings had a good reason for wanting to have their pyramids face true north. The kings wanted to become stars (of course!). They wanted to join the stars that were in the sky all night every day of the year and those stars are right around true north.

Given this motivation and what we currently know about the ages of the pyramids it sounds as if they might have done it this way and we will be able to see if they really did do it this way. Sounds exciting to m

Re:I have my doubts

[xpccx]

The Reuters article says, "Their building expertise is beyond doubt, but Spence said her findings show they were poor astronomers."

The technical explanation of the theory, to me, is a bit misleading in that it includes information that the Egyptians did not understand. The information is included to explain the deviation of the pyramids from true north over time. It does not mean the the Egyptians were aware of this deviation (otherwise they would have corrected for it).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this area of Egypt is very flat so they wouldn't have been able to use a point on a mountain range (for example) as a point of reference. Therefore, they theorize, that they used these two stars as their point of reference because they believed they were fixed in the sky.

Re:I have my doubts

[Dervak]

Some questions still remain, though.

1a): How accurate is the measurement of this misalignment?
1b): How well does it correspond to the theoretical value?
1c): How significant is this with only three data points (3 pyramids)?
1d): How likely is it that this misalignment is due to low accuracy in the pyramid construction, the measurements, or just chance?

2): This misalignment, wouldnt it appear even if the pyramids were built at some other date, as long as their relative ages remained the same?

3): Since this alignment only occurred in a very limited time period, isnt it odd that the pyramids were built just around that time then? What are the chances of that?

(3000 BC: "Sorry Pharaoh, we cant bulid ay pyramid yet, cause we will not be able to map exact north for 500 years yet...")

/Dervak

reccomended book on practical pyramid theory

[PhantomHarlock]

The Pyramids: An Enigma Solved by Joseph Davidovits. Amazon link here

Davidovits also runs www.geopolymer.org, and is extremely knowledgable in geopolymer technology, which is what led him to do Pyramid research. Afer reading his straightforward and forthright facts about the physics of scale in carving and hauling massive blocks, one can see why the conventional theories of pyramid building fall apart very quickly.

He suggests that the Pyramids are made of agglomerated, man-made stone. A very very quick gloss over of his theory is available on his website here.

While the book doesn't go into detail about the astronomical alignment, many other theories brought up in the followup threads are questioned and addressed, including the dangerously stupid "brothers from space" idea.

--Mike

Mike Massee

Re:Those clever pyramid builders.

[afc]

Just so you know, some egyptolgists (like Christian Jacq) contend that there was never any slave labour in classical Egypt, in spite of what the Hebrew version is. They claim all those workers indeed received pay, perhaps not generous, granted, but they were salaried, or so they say.
--

Re:Hiding the real truth

[mpe]

I'm not terribly good at orbital dynamics, but I assume you include Lagrange points in that list - aren't they great collectors of dust and garbage? If I were to leave something there I'd have to take special care to make them last longer, right?

Any aliens who can manage to get a ship to travel at an acceptable fraction of the speed of light without knocking big holes in the hull (and getting fried with radiation) shouldn't find this an especially hard engineering problem.

Re:Aliens are not the ONLY explenation

[British]

Yes, I find it rather difficult to believe dead people could consume cocaine..(ba-dum ching)

. They are pretty confident that the people actually consumed cocaine while they were alive.

So you're saying the drug problem has existed for THOUSANDS of years? We'll never win the drug war.

Some people have proposed that ancient Egyptians where trading with Central and South America thousands of years before Colombus or the Vikings had even thought about it.

Re:Navigation beacons

[91degrees]

So the aliens are clever enough to build space ships that can travel across the vast distances of space reliably that many generations live and die on the ship before it arrives on the target planet. And they are sophisticated enough to convince and teach the local human population to use alien technology to build pyramids, and they're good enough at teaching the young aboard the ship to preserve this knowledge but not clever enough to teach the young how to actually fly the spacecraft that is holding the entire venture together?

Yes. How to build pyramids can be written in a book. Flying and landing spaceships requires training. A driving test is not something that you do on paper. Similarly for flying - You need a planet and a reasonably good spacecraft and fuel supply to teach landing on a planet. Simulators can only go so far. The amount of alien technology used for building pyramids is quite small.

They got to earth, they landed, presumably they had to spend a good deal of time exploring to find the right human civilization to be the guardians of their "spaceport", but they couldn't draw a map of the landscape? They didn't have to know about our geography before they got here, only afterwards!!! But if the pyramids were built by them, or by their influence upon us, then naturally they would have had to arrive here to do that influence - and they would have seen the landscape.

But to do that they need to redraw the map each time someone gets there. They need to guess where previous visitors landed. They actually need someone on every single vessel. Who says they don't ever want to send unmanned supply ships?

Re:Orion and the Milkyway

[WhiskeyJack]

Galileo keeps popping up in discussions like this....but there is a world of difference between being jailed for going against a religious doctrine and a theory being met with skepticism because it contradicts a good deal of evidence (especially when the theory relies strongly on supposition instead of hard evidence).

Strikes against the Orion theory as I understand it:

• In order to get a "match" between the pyramid layout and Orion's Belt, you have to "flip" the star chart, if I recall correctly.
• Matching any given three or four points to some other three or four points is an easy coincidence, especially when the margin of error in placing either set of points is high (putting a star chart on top of a map of the Giza Plateau will yield literally millions of star combinations that happen to fall on the patches of ground covered by the pyramids...the fact that the stars that form Orion's Belt do so, while perhaps interesting, does nothing to prove that such a match was intentional).
• The projected date of construction the Orion theory points to (again, from my understanding) contradicts the date supported by a large body of archaeological evidence, including (but not limited to) contemporary literary source, digs on the villages erected around the site to house the construction workers, and items (such as the ships buried at the Great Pyramid's base) placed on site apparently during or soon after construction.

Until the theory is better supported, I can't help but dismiss it.

-- WhiskeyJack

Re:Navigation beacons

[mpe]

How much could you store on a space shuttle in terms of construction tools?

The space shuttle can't even manage an Earth-Luna round trip, where radio lag isn't an issue. You'd want something a bit more sophisticated for travelling any distance...
Why mess around with big piles of rock when a transmitter powered by radio isotopes will do the job far more easily.

I believe you are correct...

[cr0sh]

Not having my library (and too lazy to do a Google search), makes me think you are correct. I stand corrected...

I support the EFF - do you?

Hoagland II

[Ektanoor]

Well I think that this looks much like the Mars Face you know? You have tons of alignements and try to guess what the Hell they mean... Funny? No. Real. Even not knowing Hoagland's inventions/visions I and a few people discovered that there are real alignements in Cydonia. All we knew before this was that some american dodos talked about some "schemes" in Martian Cydonia.

And yes they are aligned. The City, the Fortress, the D&M pyramid, the "Fussy Face" and a bunch of other landscape formations. And they do make some very curious and nearly ordered patterns. So one could talk about a "scheme".

However...

First these orders are not absolutely perfect. they have errors ranging 100-200 meters. Even considering all possible landscape movements, possible unexperience of the "supposed authors", such discrepancies are too big. That would mean not aliens flying in saucers but someone building a gigantic Stonehendge at most.

Second. I never saw Hoagland's theory in detail. However the 2-3 diagrams I saw show that ours and Hoaglands are COMPLETELY different. Yes we use the same formations and the same primitive relations. However one ends talking about Hyperphysics and other talking about organisms and Stone Ages. That's what we end in. Among several other things.

So if the Gize pyramids have some sort of alignment and these alignments fit on something this is not even half way to conclude the Truth. Maybe the contrary. In Mars we have only alignments with a weird discrepancy. NOTHING ELSE.
In Egypt we have a mess of alignments, joined with tons of fairy tales, a bit of History, and a bit of Maths. Don't wonder if suddenly that big Pyramid turns into a bizarre monument to fertility or something more weird. Or some equivalent to our Arms Race (ex. "Hey Babilon we have a much better ziggurat"). And don't search for the aliens there. If they have been here, then they have all passed away ~3-5 thousand years before anyone thought about building this stuff.

Re:Navigation beacons

[mpe]

A great lump of rock will continue to be a great lump of rock indefinitely.

Except for being erroded and the locals using it as a "quarry".

Re:Aliens are not the ONLY explenation

[thogard]

Keep in mind that the "solar" boat found at Gizi was larger and had more load capacity than the first boats used by Europeans to visit North America.

The Egyteans knew of 4 races other than their own and often showed pictures of Africans and Indians (from India) in their pictures.

The surveys of the differnt areas of acient Egypt show they knew the basis for surveys since the 4000 yr old ones are more accurate than the ones from 100 years ago. That sort of implys that they knew about astronomey based surveys which would imply they could navigate long distances. There are rumors about them navigating around Africa. They had the boats, why not?

The Egypteans seemed to want to stay at home and didn't seen to have a spirit of adventure. The old writings say they would use forien crews for their boats. I wonder if there was something about their religion that keep them from going far.

Re:Magnetic Termite Mounds

[Kevin T.]

Traditionally it was held that magnetic fields have no effect on living organisms - but this is far from true. Given a constant force present in the environment it makes sense that a creature would evolve to account for it in some way. The earth has had a magnetic field since the dawn of life - it is not surprising that living creatures take advantage of it.

NOAA warns that class G1 and above magnetic storms may affect animal migrations.

Yup.

Re:Hiding the real truth

[DreamerFi]

Indeed. Excellent point. Glad to see my assumption on the Lagrange points wasn't that far off :-)

Re:Aliens are not the ONLY explenation

[corvi42]

"The Egypteans seemed to want to stay at home and didn't seen to have a spirit of adventure. The old writings say they would use forien crews for their boats. I wonder if there was something about their religion that keep them from going far. "

Well, they did present the nile and egypt in their mythology as the cradle of all of creation, so I can imagine that for them travelling as far away as Judea ( Israel ) would be like sailing off the edge of the world.

Re:Hiding the real truth

[goliard]

If the aliens wanted navigation beacons, and are so impressively advanced technologically - why not build them themselves? Why should they convince the native human populations who would take centuries to build them, and would require the entire economic output of the largest civilizations then in existence? If the aliens had the capacity to cross the gulf of space, why should they waste so much time on having us build these irregular beacons when they themselves could easily have built much better ones in a much shorter time?

Lucky bastard, you so clearly don't work in IT. Obviously, the aliens had "marketting" departments.

Re:Hiding the real truth -

[juakali]

All our scince and technology is based on the works of a couple of scientists and engineers who lived about 100 years ago (more or less). The Great Pyramids were built about 4,000 years ago. Clearly they had their own technology probably based on something thing entirely different from what we have our science based on. we all know about the law of Gravity and Newtons laws of motion. These laws have alwasys existed but the way the were understood and implemented must have been different. So I guess what I am trying to say is, it is very difficult to understand something looking from the outside.

Other resources...

[beebware]

The BBC News (grahics) also has this story.
Richy C.
--

Hiding the real truth

[91degrees]

Why do scientists always have to come up with "rational explanations" when a simpler explanation is available?

They quite clearly had outside help. Visitors helped them. They assisted in the construction of huge pyramids which they found useful as a navigation device. This also explains why the same shapes wer e found both in Egypt, and in South America.

Re:Hiding the real truth

[QuantumG]

don't forget mars, the moon and venus too.

Re:Hiding the real truth

[mpe]

You are assuming the beacons are only saying "This is a good landing spot". Maybe they are saying "someone has made contact with a civilization here, and recomend them for xxx."

Isn't making a map less hassle? There are 5 safe places to leave one, none of them on the Earth's surface, but obvious to anyone who understands orbital dynamics.

Re:Hiding the real truth

[NoNeeeed]

Ok, not sure how much of a piss take that comment was, but I just have to say a couple of things.

There is a very good reason why the pyramid is so popular, it is about the most stable structure that can be built to any decent height. Both civilisations also built more tradidtional building, with columns etc, but these havn't survived as well so don't feature in the public conscience.

Why do people continually put down the abilities of ancient peoples. Theses guys were probably no less intelligent than us today, they just knew less stuff. That north african region has always been quite prosperous, making the construction of the pyramids economically viable. People forget that technological developement has been exponential, the pace has been increasing all the time. Technology 7,000 years ago wasn't that much worse than that 2,000 years ago. vertually all we know in medicine and the physical sciences has been descovered in the last few hundred years of human existance.

Also, don't lump the egyptians and the south americans, the latter were MUCH more recent, remember the incas were only wiped out a few hundred years ago by the spanish, while the hayday of the egyptians was several thousand years earlier.

Re:Hiding the real truth

[corvi42]

What are you afraid of?
That humans might be capable of remarkable things without alien intervention?

1) a pyramid is a very commonly understood shape - it doesn't take a genius to figure it out, little kids can spontaneously come up with pyramidal shapes when playing - there's nothing mystical or extraterrestrial about multiple cultures coming up with them independantly.

2) If the aliens wanted navigation beacons, and are so impressively advanced technologically - why not build them themselves? Why should they convince the native human populations who would take centuries to build them, and would require the entire economic output of the largest civilizations then in existence? If the aliens had the capacity to cross the gulf of space, why should they waste so much time on having us build these irregular beacons when they themselves could easily have built much better ones in a much shorter time?

3) Why should aliens need navigation beacons? If they managed to find their way across the immense gulf of space, what help would a few piles of rocks do them? mountains and other natural marks are much more prominent and ( *apply cluestick* ) visible from space !!!

4) If they really needed a few human-built pyramids to navigate with - why are these structures limited to central america and the middle east? there have been tons of human civilizations capable of creating pyramids - and theoretically the aliens would want navigation beacons spread all over the world - why only these two places?

5) The central american pyramids and the egyptian pyramids were constructed at times differing by thousands of years - why such a gulf in time? If the aliens wanted to fly about - they'd want them all over the place at the same time?

Wacked out theories like this are a convenient explanation for the naive and the ignorant. Do a little research and you'll see just how shabbily the theory holds together - ie. it doesn't at all.

The pyramids are marvels of human accomplishment, and you really do a disservice to the heritage we have inherited by making up fairy stories to discredit the achievements of these people.

Re:Hiding the real truth

[91degrees]

Well, I can't really speak for the aliens since I've never met anyone who I can be sure is an alien. However, since we must be at least as clever as the ancient Egyptians, it seems odd that we have a lot of trouble repeating their endeavours.

The pyramids were porobably designed to be easily recognisable by optical recognition software. Hence alignment is also critical.

Terrestrial navigation and interstellar navigation are 2 completely different problems that need to be solved separately.

RA time difference of several thousand years just shows that they weren't in a hurry. Given the time it takes to cross interstellar differences they must have felt it worth the wait. Drafting in local labour and materials reduces the amount of machinery needed to transport across the galaxy.

As for location, I would guess that they were only interested in reasonable advanced civilisations near the equater for exactly the same reason that NASA is based so far south.

Re:Hiding the real truth

[Trinition]

[Points 1-5]

Because then we wouldn't have story lines for great movies like StarGate .

Re:Hiding the real truth

[corvi42]

Well, I can't really speak for the aliens since I've never met anyone who I can be sure is an alien. However, since we must be at least as clever as the ancient Egyptians, it seems odd that we have a lot of trouble repeating their endeavours.

We do???
When was the last time anyone had trouble building big buildings? The medieval cathedrals are larger than the pyramids - nobody has trouble believing that human technology was insufficient for that. Anyone have any doubts as to whether the office towers in big cities around the world are constructed by humans or aliens?

As for any uncertainty about the exact methods the Egyptians employed, that's just an issue of scholarly debate. To say that because its unclear means that it must have been outside forces is not simply a fallacy of reasoning. Look at it this way:

pyramid building == mystery.

aliens == mystery.

therefore: pyramid building == aliens ?!?

just because two things are mysterious doesn't mean they are the same. a mystery is by definition unknown and therefore there are no criteria at all upon which to associate it with anything else. It is a fallacy of the mythic imagination that can make the type of conclusions: aliens == mystery == God == quantum physics etc.

The pyramids were porobably designed to be easily recognisable by optical recognition software. Hence alignment is also critical.

Why would optical recognition software be necessary? just because its a current technology doesn't mean it is at all necessary to interstellar or planetary navigation. People manage to go into space and have no trouble getting home without the need for such software, people managed to land on specific geographic areas of the moon without the need for it, we can land probes in precise regions of distant planets without any such need. Maybe the aliens are stupid?

Terrestrial navigation and interstellar navigation are 2 completely different problems that need to be solved separately.

RA time difference of several thousand years just shows that they weren't in a hurry. Given the time it takes to cross interstellar differences they must have felt it worth the wait. Drafting in local labour and materials reduces the amount of machinery needed to transport across the galaxy.

Again this doesn't explain why they would need such beacons. Why not just use a longitude & lattitude system? or why not navigate by geographical features? Finding Egypt from space isn't hard when you know even a little bit about geography. The pyramids are not visible from space without telephoto zoom - and that means you need to already know where to look.

As for location, I would guess that they were only interested in reasonable advanced civilisations near the equater for exactly the same reason that NASA is based so far south.

There were plenty of civilizations further to the equator than egypt - why them? There were civilizations along the Indus river very early - no pyramids, there were civilizations in south east asia very early - no pyramids.

Re:Hiding the real truth

[corvi42]

Why do scientists always have to come up with "rational explanations" when a simpler explanation is available?

Since when has the rational explanation not been the simplest? I guarantee that a smart person watching the sky with the aid of a few wooden tools is a lot simpler than fairy stories about aliens.

It's called Occam's Razor my friend, the simplest explanation is the best.

Re:Hiding the real truth

[Lord Ender]

Why hasn't someone modded this as funny yet? Aliens helped the egyptions. Yeah...

Re:Hiding the real truth

[bluGill]

And it still doesn't explain why they would need such ridiculous beacons.

You are assuming the beacons are only saying "This is a good landing spot". Maybe they are saying "someone has made contact with a civilization here, and recomend them for xxx." the Incas where a different group who wanted more data. since they were latter they also put in some more detail (which is why their pryimid differs).

Remember there are several ideas for the ship, but unless the law of relativity doesn't work as we think it does they are not going at light speed and so their journy took thousands of years at least. (Indeed you could say that the inca expididtion started before the egypt expididiont was close to earth, because they weren't sure the earlier one would make it - in this case redundancy is good. Also due to the lenght of time in space they probably had to have the nship full of their own food. By recruiting local labor they saved the need to bring cranes.

The last point is important: by recruiting local labor they could fill the sapce a crane would take with more food, or maybe something to keep them enertained. In this case the beacons say by their existance that locals are controllable enough to build these. No pryimid with locals suggests that either they are uncontrollable or the locals tried to kill them. Better to mark out a potential civilization before they have the technology to kill you, to figgure out if you need to build a defense system around their solar system before they advance or not. In this case pryimids would be a means to see what they can do, and serve no purpose.

I've put forth several suggestions above. Some are contradictory, until/unless we accually make contact with the civilization that kept records of what they did we will not know.

Re:Why does it _have_ to be aliens?

[Ektanoor]

There is a pyramid nearby being built. A Egyptian-like pyramid. Strictly geometric and with a very misterious air of techno-mystics.

Most of the pyramid is empty.
The walls are made of glass.
Most of the foundations are steel and concrete.
There are no sphynxes, bulls or hulls. Only geometry levered to techno-exageration.
Light, light, light, light everywhere. Tons of electricity. The pyramid itself rises little more than 20 meters. But the light show can be seen from quite far away.

These are our pyramids.
We are more primitive than aliens.
Both of us are technoholic.
So why would aliens care to such bulky things like Gize pyramids?

Yes you could be partially right on saying that pyramids in Egypt are a sad copy of something else. But note that the oldest pyrmaids do resemble something: Zigguraths of Sumer/Chaldea in modern Iraq. What could be more truly is that Gize pyramids are zigguraths leveled to the absurd of geometric/technological perfection.

Re:Wow

[jmccay]

Actually, that article was not very informing. The three pyramids that are in a line with the third slighty off center are directly lined up with orion's belt. If you taken in a couple of the other pyramids they line up with other parts of the pyramids. There have been a couple of shows that have mentioned this on either the Learning Channel or the Discovery Channel.

Another show was looking at several of the ancient structures built by these ancient people and the astrological significance. After analising the data. A year kept coming up something like 10500 bc(I am not 100% sure that was the year) that all of the structures line up with there astronomical equivilants.

Even in the Americas evidence has been found that points to ancient civilations having great knowledge of Astronomy. THe was one civilation that set up a type of calender to measure the Suns movement around the sky, and the same civilation also tracked the moons movement across the sky which is something like 8 years.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, astonomy was very important to ancient civilizations. That doesn't mean aliens travel to Earth. It just means these civilations valued the information they got from Astronomy.

Re:Maybe, just maybe...

[cr0sh]

I'm not sure on the records part, but I have seen the theory of the "center of mass" Pangea idea. Look up the Pangea theory (which is based on plate tectonics, and seems logical - I remember looking at a map when I was 9 or so, and thinking - it's like a jigsaw puzzle - only later learning about the theory).

It is really a puzzle how the pyramids (esp the large ones) were put together. These are structures that today we would be hard pressed to build. The blocks are HUGE - some as large as small houses. They were cut, dressed, then moved many miles to the site, then LIFTED into place - some so accurately that one can't even stick a piece of paper in between the joints. Many of the blocks are so large only today's heaviest lifting cranes could move them.

I have read many theories on the construction of the pyramids - but only one stood out, and I wish I had a link. One researcher wrote about how the pyramids (and many other large structures around the world) actually seemed to be made out of a form of concrete aggregate of some sort. The form of concrete essentially allowed the blocks to be "poured" into place, much like we build large highway projects (and even buildings) today. The concrete was special (not like typical concrete), and that only recently have companies been able to recreate it, and use it comercially. The author of the book goes into great detail on the theory, and it seems plausible. He explains how he came to the conclusion, various tests he did, etc. It was a very interesting perspective, that doesn't throw history on it's head (like an alien help theory), but does give rise to questions about the real level of Egyptian technology...

I support the EFF - do you?

Interesting

[Selanit]

I wonder if this technique might have been known in other cultures of the same age. If, say, Babylonian buildings of equivalent age and orientation show the same offsets from true north, that might suggest that the technique was widespread. It's a pity that the Romans didn't start building monumental architecture until considerably later, else we might have a larger sample of buildings to measure. As it is, Egypt and Babylon are about the only two countries in that region building things to last at that point. Does anyone know if there are Chinese/far-east buildings of similar antiquity? I'm going to have to show this article to my teachers -- recently took Archeoastronomy, and currently taking Intro to Egyptian Heiroglyphs. Which I have a test in in the morning. Must . . . sleep . . . Selanit

Re:Navigation beacons

[mpe]

They got to earth, they landed, presumably they had to spend a good deal of time exploring to find the right human civilization to be the guardians of their "spaceport", but they couldn't draw a map of the landscape?

You don't think they just might have gone into a polar orbit, mapped the planet, analyzed the atmosphere, etc, etc. before taking the major step of landing.

They didn't have to know about our geography before they got here, only afterwards!!!

Well they wouldn't know "geography", but it's just unbelievable that any race capable of intersteller travel wouldn't know about mapping planets, from orbit.

Talk about a Spring-Winter Relationship

[cibrPLUR]

Dating pyramids is just wrong.

Re:Talk about a Spring-Winter Relationship

[Lonesmurf]

Ya, talk about getting a relationship off to a rocky start.

*SMACK*!.

[Moderators: puns are funny, and this is not offtopic. Reply instead of vaguly moderating, please.]

Rami
--

Talk about old news!

[PhilHibbs]

I submitted this story 4,400 years ago!

Re:Navigation beacons

[mpe]

But to do that they need to redraw the map each time someone gets there. They need to guess where previous visitors landed.

The only bit of information they really need to pass on is where the longitude prime meridian is. If there is any need for a marker then you don't get the locals to build it, you don't build it out of local rock and you make sure it can't be missed from orbit.

Orion and the Milkyway

[Leto2]

What happened to the theory that the three great pyramids were aligned according to the stellation of Orion, and put together in such a way that the Nile would be the Milkyway. And to make it even more perfect, if you look through a tunnel in the biggest of the three pyramids, you can see Aurora rising.

Both that exact configuration of Orion and the Milkyway and the star rising and being visible through that tunnel also happened only once in history, so that's how other scientist claim they know how old the pyramids really are.

Re:Orion and the Milkyway

[WhiskeyJack]

The theory that you're talking about is not widely accepted; it yields a construction date more than 7000 years out of line with all of the other evidence.

In fact, the only support I've heard for this theory has come from the few people who believe that crackpot geologist who claims the Great Sphinx is 10000+ years old based on weathering patterns in the stone (and not taking into account how salt crystal formation in the stone would accelerate weathering). They inevitably seem to use this "new finding" of the pyramids' older-than-expected age to support their pet ancient Sphinx theory, ignoring the piles of evidence against it.

-- WhiskeyJack

Re:Navigation beacons

[mpe]

What kind of bullshit is this? It's called latitude and longtitude. I know this might be hard for such a deluded mind as yourself, but by measuring angles to the sun and the stars, you can *** gasp *** figure out where you are without pyramids.

Should be rather trivial for these space travelling aliens to work this out.

Or, on a more advanced level, you keep a few satellites in space and set up a GPS system.

Might even have them map the planet too...

Equally curious 'fact'.

[onion2k]

Just as curious as the Northern alignment of the pyramids is the fact that they correlate perfectly to the relative positions of the stars that make up the belt of Orion. Theres a good article about the positions here. Apparently it goes further than the 3 main nodes at Giza too, with the Nile representing the Milky Way, and a few other pyramids further afield being in the exact positions of other prime stars.

Re:Equally curious 'fact'.

[LordBhaal]

Yup, and that actually happens in several places around the world.

The pyramids at Giza in relation to the Nile = the belt of Orion in relation to the band of the Milky Way. The Sphinx looks direct (East, I think) and faces Taurus rising (or something) however, it's not Leo, which would make sense given that it's the Sphinx here. However, around 10,000 years ago (or so) the Sphinx faced directly into Leo rising on Mid Summer's Day (or some other silly conjunction)

Now let's visit Asia. The temples at Ankor Wat (and the various other Wat's) mirror the stars in the constellation Draco, with the main entry to the complex pointing direct (East, I think) into Draco rising on Mid Summer's Day, 10,000 years ago (or so) The people who built these also knew about precession etc and it's mirrored in their architecture.

The same sort of thing happens with the ruins in S.America (the Olmecs particularly apparently) There's carvings there that predate Chris Columbus by quite some time, that show bearded, caucasian faces. Pity the oil companies blew up all their pyramids to get at the oil.

And there's this sunken temple just south of Japan which also apparently lines up astronomically for 10,000 years ago

It all builds up into a funky little conspiracy theory (linking in Easter Island no less) about a race of people who knew Astronomy damn well, predicted the end of the world, which then happened. But because they'd predicted it, some escaped and spread the knowledge of shipping and astronomy, math, etc to various cultures around the world.

Some guy wrote a book on this, which I should get around to reading at some point.

Re:for the record

[mpe]

Egyptians were not Africans

So do you want them to be Europeans or Asians? They can hardly be Americans or Australisians, Atlantians maybe...

Those clever pyramid builders.

[corvi42]

I always like seeing such simple common-sense answers as these coming out. It shows that a little common sense is all that's needed to dispel the ridiculous "mysteries of the pyramids - were the egyptians in communication with aliens?" type hype.

Aliens are a modern mythology, this is true, and we like our mythologies to explain all unknowns. But it really does a big disservice to our appreciation of what these people accomplished with their limited technology.

I think in the end we moderns have a strong cultural prejudice, and like to believe that without the wonders of our modern world such accomplishments as the pyramids should not be possible without the aid of equally or greater technological skill - hence the desire for bringing aliens into the issue. But lets face it, the Egyptians weren't stupid, there's no evidence to suggest that human intelligence has increased over the millenia - just our technology. The Egyptians managed to create structures on a scale so grand that today we still marvel at them, its a marvel of human ingenuity - nothing to do with little grey men.

Re:Those clever pyramid builders.

[rde]

But it really does a big disservice to our appreciation of what these people accomplished with their limited technology.

Well said, that [wo]man.
This whole 'alien' asininity started off when smug, relatively modern theorists decided that there was no way for so backward a people to have built the pyramids without help. Like the 'face' on Cydonia, this view has fuelled the aliens theory, all based on the scantiest of evidence (and I use the word advisedly).

Now that we know how the pyramids were (probably) built - using ramps - you'd think this nonsense would just evaporate. But no.

The more we know about past civilisations, the more we realise that they weren't the unsophisticated yokels that we've always assumed.

Re:Those clever pyramid builders.

[Jonathan]

Well, it is well known that aliens own most Tim Hortons franchises, so abducting Canadians just wouldn't make economic sense.

Re:Maybe, just maybe...

[mpe]

Look up the Pangea theory (which is based on plate tectonics, and seems logical - I remember looking at a map when I was 9 or so, and thinking - it's like a jigsaw puzzle - only later learning about the theory).

Problem is that it's uncommon to have this shown on a globe. It's usually shown with a Mercator projection map, in which case you can only move things east and west.

Magnetic Termite Mounds

[ranulf]

Travelling around Australia, you see lots of termite mounds in various places. In some parts, they are called "magnetic termite mounds", because they are tall, long, narrow things. And the length of the mound runs north-south (to within about 5 degrees).

Apparently this is so the termites always have a warm side of the mound to rest in (the side will always be east or west of the mound, so it will always be heating up one of the long, tall sides, so there's always a lot of surface area).

One thing puzzles me - how do these termites "know" how to do this?

There are other pretty amazing things about these mounds too. They're made up entirely of waste grass, the termites eating grass and excreting this dry grass stuff, they're absolutely massive. Inside, there's a huge network of tunnel, and if you break a bit of the mound off so it's exposed, an army of termites will come out and start repairing it. Awesome!

Apparently, you can also make a drink with water and crushed termite mound, which has some medicinal value, but I've forgotten what now.

Go and visit Australia - there's so much there that's different from the rest of the world. I was gobsmacked!

Re:Magnetic Termite Mounds

[Rude Turnip]

Some people aren't too different than termites when it comes to building. Whenever I build stuff with Lego (yes, still do), I always make sure that the word "Lego" on the plastic nubbins all face forward (or to the left if installed sideways). In addition, I use I-295 to align myself in a northern direction when I sit on the floor.

Re:Magnetic Termite Mounds

[corvi42]

As for how animals know about north-south.
In the case of these termites, it may be that they have an instinctual response to the warmth of the sun, and so naturally tend towards such construction. Simple instinctual coding like:

if( front == warm || back == warm ){
turn 90 degrees;
}
if( left == warm || right == warm ){
build straight forward;
}

It is also interesting to note that very many animals seem to have an instinctual sense of north & south based on magnetism. Many cellular colonies will align themselves along the force lines of a magnet if it is left next to them. Geese have a high magnetic content in their blood and monarch butterfiles seem to use a magnetic sense to conduct their epic multi-generation migrations across continents. Various desert plants use a magnetic sensibility to detect oncoming storms and close their flowers. The list goes on and on.

Traditionally it was held that magnetic fields have no effect on living organisms - but this is far from true. Given a constant force present in the environment it makes sense that a creature would evolve to account for it in some way. The earth has had a magnetic field since the dawn of life - it is not surprising that living creatures take advantage of it.

Re:Maybe, just maybe...

[mpe]

Take a world map, unfold it onto the floor. Draw a vertical line straight through where the pyramids are. Now measure how much land is to the left and how much is to the right.

Not really much point doing this with a Mercator map, since anything near the poles is grossly distorted. Has anyone tried this with a globe?

I found this with a little searching...

[cr0sh]

Makes the whole pyramid thing even MORE enigmatic:

Coral Castle

Essentially, it is now a "tourist" attraction that was built from 1920-1940 by a single man, who was 5 feet tall and weighed 100 pounds, who had a 4th grade education, with hand tools. No one knows exactly why he built it, though he alluded it was for his "Sweet Sixteen", though that explanation is of dubious value.

He built it during nighttime, alone - and moved it once mid-construction. The blocks/sculptures are made of coral, and the largest weighs 30 tons! Absolutely NO ONE knows how he did it, though he claims he knew the methods of the Egyptians. Some teenage boys who witnessed a portion of the contruction (and who appear to be the only individuals to do so), said he floated the blocks around like "hydrogen balloons". He apparently took the secret of the construction to his grave.

Here is something relatively modern that we can relate to - yet just as enigmatic. Is it a grand hoax? Has anyone visited this site? Reading about this has me boggled!

I support the EFF - do you?

Apropos, pyramides.

[Anonymous Coward]

Paraoh doesn't Pay
(To the tune of "I've been Working on the Railroad")

We've been working on these buildings;
Pharaoh doesn't pay.
We've been doing what he tells us
Mixing straw with clay.
Can't you hear the master calling,
"Hurry up, make that brick!"
Can't you feel the master whip us
'Til we're feeling sick.

Oy vay, it's a mess,
A terrible distress,
Oy vay, it's a mess for Jews, us Jews.

Moshe's in the palace with Pharaoh,
Warning of all God's clout, clout, clout.
Moshe's in the palace with Pharaoh,
And God's gonna get us out!

We're singing . . . .
Fee, Fi, Fiddely eye oh,
Make our matzahs "to go" oh oh oh.
Fee, Fi, Fiddely eye oh,
Stick it to the ol' Pharaoh!

Re:We're talking 4500 years

[cr0sh]

But they were finished - near the apex of the Cheops pyramid is what is left of the smooth finishing (casement) stones - most were removed. It doesn't make sense that they would start at the top, and work down.

Also, I never said that all pyramids were done this way, but most certainly the larger ("newer"?) ones were. You do have a point why we don't see angular blocks, but maybe they were cut down, reshaped, and dressed for other purposes (they were really large stones, after all).

Finally, look for my other post where I talk about a book I have read postulating that the pyramids may have been made out of a poured concrete-like substance. Furthermore, for even more wackiness, I posted on the thread regarding "Coral Castle", a site in South Florida that is stupifying once you learn about it (look it up on Google, or find my post - it has a link)...

I love this "occult" archaeology and such - here are these huge megalithic constructions - just sitting there laughing at us - then you find out about one in your own "backyard" (the Coral Castle), find out it was built in the 20th century - and it is just as stupifying - it both excites and creates wonderment - I love it!

I support the EFF - do you?

Re:primitive? I don't think so!

[NoNeeeed]

Why do you suppose that looking at the stars isn't an accurate way of finding north. Sailors have been using the stars to navigate for centuries (and possibly more). Remember they were using true north, not magnetic. True north is defined by the point at which the axis of rotation meets the earth, meaning that using the stars is actually very accurate. Magnetic north, as any walker will know, does not always point to true north, the correction given on Ordanance Survey maps of the north of England give the correction at about 6 degrees. Quite large if you are navigating in fog using a compass over a large distance.

Using two stars in this way is very simple and elegant and would give a very accurate result.

Why must things be complex in order to be good or accurate?

Re:Magnetic Termite Mounds ... not really

[antdude]

I asked about this on my message board and got:

http://pub8.ezboard.com/fantfarmtheantfarmsmessage board.showMessage?topicID=573.topic (one long URL)

"...The termites orient the mounds that way by sensing temperature differences in the parts of the mound heated by sunlight as opposed to those parts which are shaded. There is no evidence they can sense the Earth's magnetic field, but solar-based directions are close to magnetic ones, so it looks like they can."

Incans?

[Trinition]

Are the South American pyramids aligned to true north also? Perhaps that fashion trend wasnot only limited to Africa.

Typically if you find two people doing the same thing in two disconnected places, it tends to beef up a theory.

Re:Incans?

[Kickasso]

There are two poles. The North pole and the South pole. You can apply this technique to either one. You only need the pole and two nearby stars lying on the same straight line (or rather on the same big circle of the celestial sphere).
--

Re:Incans?

[EricWright]

I don't know where in SA the Incans live (by latitude, that is), but for the 'trick of the Egyptians' to work, you have to be able to see a star that is 10 degrees below the celestial pole. The angle between your local northern horizon and the north celestial pole (NCP) is equal to your latitude. To see a star 10 degrees below the NCP pole, you have to be at least 10 degrees north of the equator.

This would also work in the southern hemisphere IF there are a similar pair of stars surrounding the SCP. But, since I don't live there, and have never been farther south than 16 deg N, I'm not too sure.

Eric (who used to teach freshman astronomy)

At least this isn't another fairytales :)

[Forge]

What I find real silly were all the strange stores with magic, witchcraft and aliens to explain how the pyramids were built. After all it would take around 50 years to make one of these with modern equipment like Tractors and cutting lasers. How cold those primitive Egyptians do it?

Only latter (1988 or so) when someone finally translated the inscriptions on the walls of one of the larger pyramids did it become clear. You see that story had been written by a prince who gave up his shot at becoming Pharaoh in order to be a scribe and an apprentice to the master architect.

It seams they did it with lots of ingenuity and by share force of numbers. As many as 150,000 on the project at some points. The sand of the desert was used the way we would use Hydraulics now. In short this was pure genius and not even a little odd.

So what of those fairytales? Some of them resurface every now and then. As for this alignment to the stars, Well the way I figure it; If you can pile a thousand rocks of 10 tons or more into a perfect pyramid that holds without cement figuring out which direction is north seams simple :)

Aliens are not the ONLY explenation

[fons]

Sceptics always laugh these theories away because they think it's all in the head of a bunch of alien-spotters.

But there are some serious scientists working on this, and they don't believe in aliens but in an unknown civilisation previous to the one of ancient egypt.

I saw an interesting (and serious) documentary on this a while ago (don't know if this has been posted before). I don't remember the details but here are some of the facts i do remember:

1. Giza Pyramids in Egypt are aligned with Orion
2. The big sphinx is WAY older than we thought. some geologist proved this.
3. The Teotihuacan Pyramids (In SOUTH AMERICA)display about the same layout as the Giza Pyramids with regard to Orion's belt. (by the way these people didn't have the knowledge of the wheel, yet they are supposed to have build these pyramids)
4. Various sculptures from different cultures that lived about 4.000 to 5.000 years ago in SOUTH AMERICA portray bearded people and black people. How did they get there? South Americans are genetically unable to have such beard-growth and arn't black either.
5. Old maps show almost the exact shape of antarctica. But antarctica is covered with ice and we only know the shape of antarctica because of radar and other hi-tech stuff. So how did they do that?
6. In China they olso have big old pyramids

Possible answers are:

1. There used to be a civilsation we know nothing about that existed BEFORE continent-drift began.
2. Continent-drift started later then we think

All very interesting stuff and worth some seious research if u ask me. (sorry for my poor english)

Re:Aliens are not the ONLY explenation

[Trinition]

5. Old maps show almost the exact shape of antarctica. But antarctica is covered with ice and we only know the shape of antarctica because of radar and other hi-tech stuff. So how did they do that? Here's a link to information on the famous "Piri Reese Map" which showed Anarctica's true land-mass. The map was supposedly compiled from other maps he collected during his worldy travels -- some of which supposedly dated back to the LIbrary of Alexandria.

Re:Aliens are not the ONLY explenation

[Dervak]

electromagnetic waves such as radar do not propagate in water or ice more than a few mm, depending on wavelength used of course.

Wrong. Radar waves penetrate ice just fine (depending on wavelength). Special glacier-radars are currently used to map the thickness (and the bottom topography below) of ice.

The shape of antarctica was surely not found using radar. They used seismic imaging.

Oh, but it was. They usead a little seismic shots at first, but that is way more impractical and expensive, and only gives a few point values. Radar gives you continuous profiles, and when you array many of them, a map. Another advantage is that you can do it from the air.

/Dervak

Re:Aliens are not the ONLY explenation

[Elvis Maximus]

Various sculptures from different cultures that lived about 4.000 to 5.000 years ago in SOUTH AMERICA portray bearded people and black people. How did they get there? South Americans are genetically unable to have such beard-growth and arn't black either.

And therefore...

There used to be a civilsation we know nothing about that existed BEFORE continent-drift began. Continent-drift started later then we think

So all the bearded and black people moved to certain designated areas so they wouldn't be on the wrong continent when continental drift came?

-

Re:We're talking 4500 years

[Old Wolf]

126 yards without rotation still leaves it facing north :)
I think, considering the distance between the North Pole and the equatorial regions of Egypt, 126 yards would fall well under the 3 arc minutes that she quoted as the 'margin of error'.

We're talking 4500 years

[Galvatron]

Aren't there going to be a lot of other forces working to move the pyramids out of alignment? If I remember correctly, continental drift is about an inch per year. That would be 126 yards. Plus, the ground could have sunk irregularly, or there could have been errosion. Besides which, the pyramids used to be coated with sandstone, which has since weathered away, and I'm not sure if anyone knows how thick it was. I'm not saying that this theory couldn't be right, but saying that the movement of the stars is the only thing that we need to know to figure out what the pyramids were aligned to seems rather silly. A lot can happen in 4500 years.

Re:We're talking 4500 years

[cr0sh]

Your ideas are sound, but I have to make one minor correction:

You state the pyramids were covered in sandstone, which has worn down. Actually, I believe they were covered in highly polished granite stones, so that each face was perfectly smooth. At the top of the Cheops pyramid, was a small pyramid of marble, put on as a "cap" stone.

These finishing touches weren't worn down - but instead stripped off the pyramids for use in building other structures (predressed stones, of a high quality - who will miss em?) - I think the cap stone of Cheops was taken by "grave robbers" or some such. Looking at Cheops today, one can still see what is left of the cladding stones near the apex of that pyramid.

One can only wonder what these structures looked like when they were first built - probably an insane sight to behold.

This is not to say all pyramids were built this way - many of the early pyramids were closer to ziggurats than true pyramids, and had a squat stepped appearance.

I support the EFF - do you?

About 20 minutes of rotation

[peter303]

Is the figure I heard for the Africa the past five millennia. Thats about four times non-computerized astronomical accuracy.

P.S. For plate tectonics on a sphere, every small movement can be represented a rotation about some pole. A nearly linear moveoment is a far away pole while a twist is a local pole.

Re:Occam's Razor

[91degrees]

Well, it wan't a documentry. If it was, it would have proved the existence of aliens, and therefore would not be a good example of why Occam's Razor is such a useless deductive tool. Do you expect me to come up with a real world example of where our accepted explanation is wrong? Its rather hard because I'd have to challenge an accepted explanation by proving a less probable explanation.

That's Great But...

[Greyfox]

What if they aren't aligned to anything and just coincidentally point north-ish? Wouldn't your dating process say they were built 5,000 years ago when they may, in fact, all have been built in the fifteen-hundreds?

Just a thought...

Maybe, just maybe...

[fzammett]

Can we maybe deal with some facts folks? There is more that is unknown about the pyramids than is known...

(1) There are NO officially recognized (and by that I mean what the all-knowing scholars declare to be real) records by the Egyptians mentioning their construction of the pyramids. Not a one. Seems like something you might want to leave a note or two about, no? I mean, you put all that effort and time and everything else in them, whatever their purpose is (more on that later), but never bother to tell the world how proud you are of your accomplishments?

(2) No body has ever been found in a pyramid, so to say they were constructed as tombs for Egyptian kings is, while certainly one possibility, not supported by any evidence. Yes, its possible early graverobbers took them, but why? Why take a body? Sure, they might have snatched all the gold and whatever other goodies were left there, but why a body? Note that I'm not saying they WEREN'T tombs, simply that there really is no evidence to support this.

(3) As I think someone else wrote earlier, I'd be willing to bet my wife (ok, that's not saying much, so I'll bet my PocketPC, that's worth more!) that if you did celestial models over a wide period of time, you would find all sorts of star alignments with true north that we could theorize helped the Egyptians do it. Wouldn't exclusivity need to be a part of that observation for it to be valid? I mean, if I can only find one five-year period where two visible stars lined up with true north, that would be saying something, but if I find 100 such periods, the conclusion no longer seems valid, does it?

(4) Keep in mind that the alignment to true north is only ONE mystery of the pyramins, and not really even one of the more hard to explain. What else? Here's some that I am aware of:

a. The pyramids sit in the exact center of land masses of the planet. In other words: take all the land masses on the planet and scrunch them together. The pyramids are in the exact center. How was this possible since the Egyptians certainly didn't know about the rest of the world, e.g., what we now call the United States? Did they just get lucky? Or where the pyramids actually built when Pangea existed (when all the continents where theoretically one solid chunk), which would of course mean the Egyptians didn't build them? Or did they have some help? Or did they just simply know MUCH more than we think? If so, how?

b. The near perfect alignment of all the blocks used to construct the great pyramids (just referring to the three main ones here, not the smaller ones scattered about the plateu). We're not talking about some Egyptian architect eyeing it up saying "yeah, that looks about centered". We're talking about hundreds or even thousands of blocks with alignment accuracies so perfect that we can only determine their difference by use of lasers today. This is an Egyptian with one HELL of good eye, wouldn't you say?

Well, look, I'm not saying they were built by aliens. I'll also say I do believe aliens exist and that they probably have been here, but I'm also a scientist (of amatuer standing anyway!), so I'm not going to simply say "I don't have all the facts about this so it must be aliens". All I want to point out is that there are a great many anomolous things about the pyramids to consider. Maybe aliens WERE involved, maybe they weren't. I don't think it's a good idea to close one's mind either way.

On a semi-related topic: why is it that people can accept God and religion so easily, but aliens are completely beyond belief? Why can we believe Adam & Eve, Noah, Jesus and all that, but aliens helping an ancient civilization construct something (for whatever reason), is totally absurd?

(P.S. - If aliens WERE involved, I very much doubt they pyramids were navigational beacons. I imagine their purpose was something else, although I haven't the faintest idea what. But then again, I'm *STILL* not saying aliens were involved!)