OFF: Re: Pyramids

[J Strobridge]

WARNING * very long but I won't write again on it *


Gordon Hundley writes:

> Sure, if you were to try and use astronomical evidence alone, you'd find
> that the conditions would be the same at 36500BC (due to precession).
> This would clearly be even more unacceptable to conventional wisdom.

Still, my recollection is that the both the stars and the timescales
are being moved around until they fit with a theory.   One day I too
shall sit down, select a group of monuments, connect them in some way
and relate them to a chunk of night sky at some period of remote history
and I'm sure I'll end up with some very interesting results!  Maybe it
could even be done with rock-festival sites across the UK or Hawkwind
venues over the last 25 years.    Maybe.

I'm actually quite happy with the idea of a society reproducing the shape
of a fixed constellation on the ground by building appropriately sized
pyramids.   Nice idea - well noticed.   But to extend it by pulling in
star positions from thousands of years earlier seems unnecessary in the
extreme.


> However, the real point is that it isn't just astronomical evidence that
> has been presented, but also reasonable interpretations of a number of
> otherwise puzzling heiroglyphic texts.

I understand that interpreting heiroglyphic texts is prone to uncertainty
even today (although I admit the only definite example I know of is
that originally "nefer" was thought to be a female name like Judith or
Catherine and on the strength of this some lady had been called
"Nefer-nefer-nefer" in translation.  It was only much later that someone
realised it was being used more like an adjective "nefer = this is a
female person" so whatever the poor lady's name turned out to be it
certainly wasn't that).   But with such confusion over just a name I
would guess that trying to identify the meaning behind puzzling heiroglyph
texts must be a bit like interpreting the prophecies of Nostradamus.
One *might* have the correct interpretation but then again....


> understanding precession, and highly advanced mathematics. It goes
> without saying that their engineering was also unbeleivably advanced. We
> still have very little idea how pyramids were made and all modern
> attempts at building using such large stones have failed.

Not entirely true - recent attempts at building a small pyramid
definitely struggled with a small workforce, a restricted timetable and
academic, not to mention, social and cultural conflicts!   As I recall
the more complex methods failed completely but the simpler the process
was made the easier it became to accomplish and significant progress was
made on construction.   It took a heck of a long time tho'.

I think we sometimes fail to appreciate just how much sophisticated
work can be achieved by using very simple techniques, practice, a good
workforce and some intelligence applied to the problem.    After all
it's only 150 years ago that the first accurate Ordnance Survey maps
were produced using nothing more complicated than a linked metal chain
to measure distances right across the whole country.   Everything's been
resurveyed now using EDM's and other electronic devices but all it's
done is to confirm the astonishing accuracy of the originals.


> From Hancock's book 'Fingerprints of the Gods'. These are the Piri Reis
> maps, drawn by an Ottoman explorer in 1513, in which he cites older maps
> from the library at Constantinople. These were examinded in 1960 by the
> USAF recon (SAC) who concluded, as Prof. Hopwood, who had submitted them
> had, that Antartica as shown represented the land mass of Queen Maud's
> Land *before it was buried under 2 miles of ice*. The most recent this
> could have been mapped would have been in 6000BC according to our
> knowledge of the ice cap. Other, similarly aged maps also show similar

I think you'll find that people have been sailing around in boats since
at least this date and possibly long before that (although the evidence
isn't conclusive yet in terms of settlement sites - but I'm hopeful)
Admittedly not many will have made it down to the Antarctic regions and
survived but I can't believe that in the whole of maritime history
enough folk didn't get blown off course and manage back with tales of
lands to the south.    They've only recently discovered a bronze age
boat (c.2,000BC), of simple construction but larger than anyone ever
gave credit for since none other had survived that long.  Boats of that
period and far earlier were already capable of conveying live animals
as well as humans from one country to another.

It's also perhaps worth bearing in mind that Magellan's circumnavigation
of the world was as early as 1519.

I don't know the maps of Peri Reis, but the world according to Schoner in
1523 shows many large chunks of land in the far south (at the bottom of
the map, in other words) one of which does resemble in outline a part
of Queen Maud land.   However the Schoner map is notable for *not*
showing Australia anywhere!  Do you know if the Peri Reis map does?

Has Antarctica been recently mapped without its ice cover?  I've
certainly never seen this anywhere and would be interested to see it.

I honestly don't think human kind needs prompting by any higher
authority - I think we are more than capable of doing these
strange things all by ourselves!   Still, y'never know.

I think I'd better abandon this now

Enough!

cheers

jill
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J.D.Strobridge at ed.ac.uk                         eset08 at tattoo.ed.ac.uk
                                                ELIJSA at srv0.arts.ed.ac.uk

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