Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => That CAN'T be true! => Topic started by: Anad Rutner on 02/08/2020 20:52:17
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If you have a modern house it possibly has synthetic marble vanities/tubs/countertops. The Egyptians had technology wayyyy beyond this. They manufactured stone - setting forms and pouring the liquid into them. We might be good with kitchens and baths but the Egyptians excelled at pyramids which were NOT tombs. Not a single body has ever been found in any of them and the technical expertise of the interior is incredible - not to mention their ability to send electricity to lights without wires.
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If you have a modern house it possibly has synthetic marble vanities/tubs/countertops. The Egyptians had technology wayyyy beyond this. They manufactured stone - setting forms and pouring the liquid into them. We might be good with kitchens and baths but the Egyptians excelled at pyramids which were NOT tombs. Not a single body has ever been found in any of them and the technical expertise of the interior is incredible - not to mention their ability to send electricity to lights without wires.
Since this is a science site you will get asked to provide evidence for those claims.
Will you be able to provide any?
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I too would like to see evidence.
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Forgot to mention: When Pliny The Elder arrived in Giza one of the things which astounded him was that not a single tailing (stone chips) could be found nearby nor were any chisel-marks present on the stones of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
With the tremendous amount of stone involved the size of the quarry would be hundreds of feet in depth, miles in circumference. The question is not only how the Egyptians could have transported the stones but how they got them out of the depths of the quarry using rope. And where is this huge quarry?
They had to have been manufactured in situ.
Let's travel to the Valley of The Kings where numerous labyrinths were cut into the rock with precision. Some were hundreds of feet in length. What happened to the mountains of debris? I am also reminded of a letter in The London Times where a reader fascinated by Howard Carter's "discovery" wondered how the Egyptians lighted the "tomb".
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And where is this huge quarry?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tura,_Egypt
Do your research.
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Forgot to mention: When Pliny The Elder arrived in Giza one of the things which astounded him was that not a single tailing (stone chips) could be found nearby nor were any chisel-marks present on the stones of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Suggests it was saw-cut, or maybe the sharp edges had been eroded by 2500 years of sandstorms, which certainly defaced the Sphinx.
With the tremendous amount of stone involved the size of the quarry would be hundreds of feet in depth, miles in circumference.
Or, to be precise, the volume of the pyramid. Archimedes Principle was true long before Archimedes was born!
The question is not only how the Egyptians could have transported the stones but how they got them out of the depths of the quarry using rope.
Contracted the work to the Neolithic Britons, who had already been doing it for about 3000 years. And where is this huge quarry?
Wherever the stone came from - ask a geologist.
They had to have been manufactured in situ.
Never a good idea. There's no evidence of major cutting and forming at Stonehenge or any other megalith. Why carry rubbish from A to B and back again, or schlep your saws from one building site to another? Unless you want raw stone for a rockery, every professional quarry supplies material cut to size. The clever bit is writing the specification.
Let's travel to the Valley of The Kings where numerous labyrinths were cut into the rock with precision. Some were hundreds of feet in length. What happened to the mountains of debris? I am also reminded of a letter in The London Times where a reader fascinated by Howard Carter's "discovery" wondered how the Egyptians lighted the "tomb".
If you have to tunnel through hard rock in 2500 BC, you will find a ready market for your waste as road dressing, flood defences, small building blocks, or ship's ballast. Spoil heaps are a consequence of mining (particularly soft rock, for coal) rather than tunneling, where the target material is a lot more valuable than the waste. In a well-integrated command economy you can plan your roads and flood defences alongside your tunneling activities. Pity we can't always do so nowadays, though I believe that Crossrail spoil has made a few football pitches on marshland (but sadly not enough to replace those turned into car parks for the London Olympics).
Not sure about lighting, but I guess they had discovered fire. Olive oil lamps burn fairly clean and you can make good candles from animal fat. Unlike coal mining, you don't have an explosive problem with flames in rock buildings.