muyenp - 04 March 2011 07:20 AM

I saw the documentary on ancient astronauts on the history channel, it’s a pretty interesting theory to fathom about. How on earth did our ancestors create the pyramids and stonehenge using primitive tools and stones?

Silvar - 30 April 2010 02:11 AM

I watched the History channel and i read book. And after that, I am starting to believe XD

Ancient humans had thousands of years of experience building pyramids and the like.  Wally Wallington demonstrates how even a single person can erect megalithic structures using ancient technology.  Imagine what hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands could have accomplished.  The pyramids don’t seem so imposing when you picture 1000 Wallys directing 10,000 workers for 20 years.

Admittedly he started small, but there’s no reason the techniques can’t be scaled up.

http://www.theforgottentechnology.com/

I’ve been thru that site.  It’s pretty neat the way he maneouvers around those huge rocks by himself.  His explanations are pretty good too.  With a bit of effort and thought anyone could make a stonehenge in their back yard if they had the space and a good supply of large rocks.

You can see quite impressive works of manual labour even in modern times.  Just consider the trenches in WWI:  a vast network of trenches, bunkers, and underground rooms stretching from Switzerland to the North Sea that was created in only a few months. . .and mostly built by means of guys with shovels and picks, often working under threat of enemy fire.  Get together enough people with enough determination and a few simple tools, and build things that would be impressive even with modern technology helping.

Oh, and just one thing:  the workers who built the pyramids weren’t slaves.  They were ordinary Egyptian farmers and townsfolk, who were required by law to do public work for a certain amount of time each year (generally during the off season for farming).  The Pharaoh literally had the entire population of Egypt as his workforce, so he could really get things built when he felt so inclined.

Maybe the real issue is people have this mindset of people in ancient times being a pack of morons who couldn’t figure things out for themselves. Had the Library of Alexandria not been destroyed I’m sure we’d have plenty of evidence to dispute this.

Peter - 04 March 2011 09:30 PM

Maybe the real issue is people have this mindset of people in ancient times being a pack of morons who couldn’t figure things out for themselves. Had the Library of Alexandria not been destroyed I’m sure we’d have plenty of evidence to dispute this.

I have opined on that fact numerous times. So much lost.

Imagine having the history of even the last 7000 years all in one place, with translatable documents that we could use to work our way back through the works of the ages.

Stupid burny-combustible things….

I heard about the ancient astronaut theory from the history channel. It does make you wonder whether our ancestors had the aid of UFO technology. How else could they have constructed stonhenge or the pyramids so perfectly?

As stated above, it’s pretty easy to do, really. You might as well argue that a modern skyscraper requires UFOs, or that the Hoover Dam was put up using magic.

Our ancestors weren’t a stupid bunch of cavemen flinging rocks at one another. They had mathematics, they knew how to organize folks into large groups, they knew exactly what resources and tools they had, and how to use them. They made these giant structures as a way of saying ‘Yes, we are clever bastards’ to their neighbors.

Sadly, while they probably kept records of how their labor was organized, and the techniques were used, these have not survived, or simply not been found. There is probably a stone slab that has exacting details on the construction of the pyramids, that was re-used by some peasant as a bread oven.

Maybe a group of us should arrange to meet somewhere and Acci can demonstrate possible ancient ways of lining up pyramids to the points of the compass. We could then build a scaled down model of the Great Pyramid using cardboard boxes.

I love Aliens!
Without them we never would have been able to build something like the Pyramids.
Without some serious alien help we, in The Netherlands, would have been totally incapable of building the “Delta Works”.
Yeeaah, Aliens rule! They really save and help us.
Damn, they are so good for us. Without them the human race would be ... euh….
Anyway.

But from now on. . .
ET can call but we

strive101 - 26 April 2011 10:48 AM

How else could they have constructed stonhenge or the pyramids so perfectly?

Uh, they didn’t.  They practiced until they got it right, which means there are surviving examples of imperfect pyramids (Stonehenge has the same thing, but all built on top of the older models). 

Some pyramids weren’t capable of supporting their own weight and collapsed.  Other times the builders recognized the dangers and adjusted the angle after construction had been underway a while.  But you never see these on shows about the ‘perfection’ of the pyramids.  The ancient Egyptians failed, and learned from their failures, just like modern peoples.  Nothing unusual, spooky, or mysterious about it.

For Stonehenge, the only really difficult part would have been moving the stones around.  But if you get enough people pushing and pulling at a rock, then you can move it.  It’s just a matter of getting enough workers.  And if you throw in a few simple tricks such as rollers or skids or whatever, then that makes it even easier.  Plenty of people have made life-sized models of Stonehenge or bits of Stonehenge, using nothing very fancy or mysterious.

As for the pyramids, another thing that a lot of the “aliens did it!” crowd don’t notice is that there is a long, long established line of pyramid development.  It starts with the simple little mastabas, which were basically just rectangular stone boxes not unlike many modern cemetery crypts.  Then people started showing off, and making them into a box on top of a bigger box.  And then a box on top of a bigger box on top of a bigger box.  Eventually they wound up with the step pyramids.  And then they started getting the idea of making the sides all nice and sloped and smooth.  And they totally messed that up the first few times that they did that, and the resulting pyramids were unstable.  And then they modified their technique and made nice sturdy pyramids.  And then they modified their techniques again, and made pyramids that were junk.  And they recorded much of their techniques in pictures, often within the pyramids themselves.  We know where they got the stone and how they dug it out and moved it.  We know how they prepared the foundation, and how they made sure each level of the pyramid was properly set.  We know some details of how they moved the stones up onto the pyramids, though not all the details (plus it seems that there wasn’t any one single way that they did it, either).

Again, the pyramids are mainly just a matter of getting enough people all together and motivated.  Even with a few simple tools, it can be done.  Again, people have done the same thing in modern times and shown how simple (though not necessarily easy) it is.

I expect that there’s probably a fairly good series of sites that also show the gradual development of the monuments of Stonehenge’s type, too, maybe going from simple menhirs to dolmens to whatever.  But that’s not really something I’ve made any study of.