Best explanation for Great Pyramid(s)

[Mike Ontko]

I think consideration should be given to the possibility the pyramid builders had technology that, to modern day man, is so far out of the box thinking we haven't considered it yet. ... Thus far, the ancient engineers have proven they were more ingenious that we.

...or at least more ingenious than we've given credit for.

That is the one key item left starting back at us (present day human)--that something so large was constructed and with a precision purportedly beyond even our present day capabilities (assuming that knowledge and technology alone are the limiting factors and not simply money/control).

The true value in the books, shows, and conversations on topics like this isn't that they provide answers (so far to date, I don't believe any actual factual answers have been revealed), but that they stimulate us to at least ask questions that challenge...or that should challenge...current perceptions of who, what, and why we are.

[Mel Fulks]

Seems strange that the experts buy the tomb purpose. I think the astronomy observation and alignments have more proof and there are early writings about people going to that area to study the stars.

[Mike Ontko]

Seems strange that the experts buy the tomb purpose.

That would depend on which experts you're referring to and what potentially they were expecting to gain from their a$$ertions

[Julie Moriarty]

Without a shred of evidence for such technology, or any need for an explanation beyond copper chisels, you would certainly be wrong for considering that possibility.

Anything is possible, but consideration is best reserved for those explanations that are reasonable. Quantum mechanics allows the possibility that the pyramids simply "appeared", but it is as improbable as the high technology concept and disregarded.

One of the things every person alive today has in common is that none of us was there to witness how the pyramids were built. To close doors on possibilities prevents us from exploring those possibilities further. I can't subscribe to that kind of thinking. There are too many instances where we were sure we had the answers only to find later on that we were wrong. Closed minds stifle innovation.

[Pat Barry]

We simply could not build the pyramids today. There was a show on PBS a year or two ago where they actually tried and failed -they had to bring in the heavy equipment (because of time allowances). Certainly then, we could not build them today not without heavy equipment. The only generally accepted explanation is that hordes of slaves pulled those stones into position using ropes and maybe rollers. That is farfetched enough as to be unbelieveable. Not only to build one pyramid, but many many pyramids. Don't ask why the mayans also built pyramids - great minds think alike even though separated by an ocean they could not cross.

Stilll, there is no evidence of otherworldy intervention so that leaves us with the fact that the slaves were incredibly industrious and committed for a very long time.

I think if I were the alien beings that built those things, I would take my tools back home with me when the job was finished and leave mankind to scratch their heads til eternity trying to figure out how those things got there.

[Wade Lippman]

One of the things every person alive today has in common is that none of us was there to witness how the pyramids were built. To close doors on possibilities prevents us from exploring those possibilities further. I can't subscribe to that kind of thinking. There are too many instances where we were sure we had the answers only to find later on that we were wrong. Closed minds stifle innovation.

Could be built by pixies, intelligent beavers, aliens, or ants; or they could be fallen asteroids, or completely natural phenomenons. If I had a shot at a show on the History Channel I am sure I could come up with 1000 other possibilities.
If you don't close the door on the solutions that are foolish, you will just spin your wheels aimlessly.

Many ideas we now accept were originally rejected as far-fetched. (plate tectonics, quantum mechanics, extraterrestrial organic chemistry, etc. etc.) But they were merely far-fetched; not foolish. If you can't tell the difference, you are doomed to watching "Ancient Aliens".

Personally I like the theory that the Sphinx was build much earlier than the pyramids. I mean come on, that tiny head on that huge body can't be right; it much have originally have been an equally huge lion's head. That every responsible expert disagrees makes it far-fetched; but until some convincing evidence comes along, it isn't foolish. Sadly "can't be right" just isn't evidence; maybe the rock simply didn't have enough material to allow a proper head. Who knows.
But to say aliens must have built it is just plain foolish.

[David Ragan]

One of the things every person alive today has in common is that none of us was there to witness how the pyramids were built. To close doors on possibilities prevents us from exploring those possibilities further. I can't subscribe to that kind of thinking. There are too many instances where we were sure we had the answers only to find later on that we were wrong. Closed minds stifle innovation.

Total agreement.

Could be built by pixies, intelligent beavers, aliens, or ants; or they could be fallen asteroids, or completely natural phenomenons. If I had a shot at a show on the History Channel I am sure I could come up with 1000 other possibilities.
If you don't close the door on the solutions that are foolish, you will just spin your wheels aimlessly.

Many ideas we now accept were originally rejected as far-fetched. (plate tectonics, quantum mechanics, extraterrestrial organic chemistry, etc. etc.) But they were merely far-fetched; not foolish. If you can't tell the difference, you are doomed to watching "Ancient Aliens".

Personally I like the theory that the Sphinx was build much earlier than the pyramids. I mean come on, that tiny head on that huge body can't be right; it much have originally have been an equally huge lion's head. That every responsible expert disagrees makes it far-fetched; but until some convincing evidence comes along, it isn't foolish. Sadly "can't be right" just isn't evidence; maybe the rock simply didn't have enough material to allow a proper head. Who knows.
But to say aliens must have built it is just plain foolish.

I do love the sarcasm so much!

But-considering how much we know about how much we have no idea of (like the huge % of our multiverse that is dark matter, we know it is there, but can't see it or detect it but only indirectly)--how can you possibly say that it is foolish to say there is no one else 'out there'?

I mean, we know that out of the entire electromagnetic spectrum we can 'see' only that little area:


Out of the audio frequency, like from 500 to 20Khz:


Science has shown us over and over again that what we see and think that we can't percieve isn't necessarily the truth.

Around the turn of the century, if you told a guy on the street that a steel beam is mostly empty space, they would say that is foolish, or that a plane could fly.

Some of the mathemeticians now think that travel faster than speed of light is possible. We know that particles can be teletransported (Star-Trek--pls note, I am not a Trekky), on and on. What is foolish today, could be far-fetched in 50 years, and old news in a hundred.

The bottom line is, my personal opinion, and as one who places a great deal of faith in The Scientific Method, that just because we don't see how it could be done, doesn't mean it is foolish or impossible.

Wade-I would respond specifically to your well-grounded point by saying that is why basic research in Science is so important. For instance, put the $$$ for research into understanding the basics more, then, we will make progress on understanding the improbable. In that way, the foolish then becomes the far-fetched.....

[Frank Drew]

There isn't a thing wrong with having some fun speculating about various events and phenomena, indulging in thought experiments, but neither those nor watching a tv show or reading a book or just letting our minds wander is hardly an adequate basis for embracing an extraordinary theory in the absence of any supporting physical evidence.

Think about this: We have actual teeth and bones from the dinosaurs, even foot prints captured in rock, and they lived from 65 million to 250 million years ago. Archaeologists have discovered hundreds if not thousands of stone-age tools, some of which are from 2 to 3 million years old. There are numerous cave paintings that survive from 40,000 years ago, and yet we have nothing, not one single thing, from the time of the pyramids that's not recognizably human and indigenous, and that was only 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. If they packed up and took all their stuff home with them, those were some mighty tidy aliens!

Julie, you're right that not one of us has any direct experience with the construction of the pyramids, but to go from that to suggest that all hypotheses are equally plausible is... well, quite a leap. I haven't actually been on the moon, but I'm pretty confident saying that it isn't made of green cheese .

[Nicholas Lawrence]

Sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct one. The purpose of the pyramids was to serve as a tomb. If there was only one huge pyramid, maybe some other explanation would make sense, but there are dozens in Egypt. People just focus on the ones at Giza because they are the largest. Why would aliens build dozens of pyramids of all different sizes scattered all over Egypt and fill them with dead Egyptians and hieroglyphics?

And why would aliens come across the galaxy to build pyramids out of limestone. Wouldn't they have used some cool space age material instead?

And the fact that we can't do it today doesn't mean it was not done by humans. We can't land on the moon today, but that doesn't mean it was not done.

[Lee Schierer]

On the interior, there are some 70 ton stones that were lifted to about 150' as I recall.

I've been in the pyramid at Giza and I can state for a fact there is no room 150' tall. Most of the tunnels are small and a person 5'-11" has to duck in most of them. The largest room I saw was maybe 12 feet high and 20-25 feet long. They are located in the desert just outside of Cairo.

[Julie Moriarty]

Julie, you're right that not one of us has any direct experience with the construction of the pyramids, but to go from that to suggest that all hypotheses are equally plausible is... well, quite a leap. I haven't actually been on the moon, but I'm pretty confident saying that it isn't made of green cheese .

I'm not talking about plausible or probable. I'm only taking the position that the lack of evidence does not support eliminating possibilities. If you move to plausible or probable, things change.

We simply don't know how the Egyptians built the pyramids with the technology the scientific community generally agrees they had available at the time. If all those brilliant minds can't figure it out, maybe there's a stone they have yet to turn. My position is leaving that possibility open is preferable to closing the door. No one is hurt by that. No one is mislead by that because no conclusion can reasonably come from that. There are those who fabricate conclusions based on lack of evidence but I see that as meaningless, unless their motive is profit.

Scientists can be a stubborn bunch. It was many years ago that noted paleontologist Robert Bakker said that not a single dinosaur bone has been found in the K-T boundary. I have yet to hear anyone disagree with him. I think the closest they have come has been finding bones dating back around 8,000 years before the impact. There is plenty of scientific evidence indicating dinosaurs were dying off thousands to hundreds of thousands of years before the impact. Yet even today, scientists freely say dinosaurs were wiped out by the same event that created the K-T boundary.

I'm not saying the lack of evidence means no dinosaur was killed as a result of the impact but I am saying that lack of evidence should not have allowed anyone to conclude the impact wiped out the dinosaurs. Arriving at a conclusion with absolutely no evidence makes no sense to me. Then you're just guessing.

As for the moon, if there was green cheese and it was edible, there would be shuttles there and back if they could make a profit selling it here.

[David Ragan]

I'm not talking about plausible or probable. I'm only taking the position that the lack of evidence does not support eliminating possibilities. If you move to plausible or probable, things change.

We simply don't know how the Egyptians built the pyramids with the technology the scientific community generally agrees they had available at the time. If all those brilliant minds can't figure it out, maybe there's a stone they have yet to turn. My position is leaving that possibility open is preferable to closing the door. No one is hurt by that. No one is mislead by that because no conclusion can reasonably come from that. There are those who fabricate conclusions based on lack of evidence but I see that as meaningless, unless their motive is profit.

Scientists can be a stubborn bunch. It was many years ago that noted paleontologist Robert Bakker said that not a single dinosaur bone has been found in the K-T boundary. I have yet to hear anyone disagree with him. I think the closest they have come has been finding bones dating back around 8,000 years before the impact. There is plenty of scientific evidence indicating dinosaurs were dying off thousands to hundreds of thousands of years before the impact. Yet even today, scientists freely say dinosaurs were wiped out by the same event that created the K-T boundary.

I'm not saying the lack of evidence means no dinosaur was killed as a result of the impact but I am saying that lack of evidence should not have allowed anyone to conclude the impact wiped out the dinosaurs. Arriving at a conclusion with absolutely no evidence makes no sense to me. Then you're just guessing.

As for the moon, if there was green cheese and it was edible, there would be shuttles there and back if they could make a profit selling it here.

Thank you so much, Julie!

Gotta love females and those verbal skills

I didn't realize the dinosaur part, or that the archeologic record is that precise.

[Lee Schierer]

There was another PBS program a few years back where there was a single guy that was building things with huge blocks of stone or concrete that weighed tons, using only levers, fulcrums and cribbing. Unfortunately I don't recall the name of the program or the largest size block he was moving, but they were immense. He lifted these huge blocks up into the air all by himself. Imagine what a group of 30 guys that all knew the right techniques could do working together.

[Phil Thien]

There was another PBS program a few years back where there was a single guy that was building things with huge blocks of stone or concrete that weighed tons, using only levers, fulcrums and cribbing. Unfortunately I don't recall the name of the program or the largest size block he was moving, but they were immense. He lifted these huge blocks up into the air all by himself. Imagine what a group of 30 guys that all knew the right techniques could do working together.

Yeah it seems a common thread in this thread is that we don't know how they did it with the tools available.

But I don't think there is any mystery left to how they were built (just as Lee states).

Or application (they're tombs).

Or why (basically public works efforts).

[Jerome Stanek]

It was supposed to be a big square box but it was a union job and each shift did just a little less until the last shift. The foremen said put a block up there and take a break