Great Pyramid of Giza

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The Great Pyramid of Giza (Template:Coor dms) is the oldest and last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the World. Egyptologists generally agree the pyramid was constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC.<ref name="wonder">(January 21, 2004)(2006) The Seven Wonders. The Great Pyramid of Giza.</ref> It is generally believed the Great Pyramid was built as the tomb of Fourth dynasty Egyptian pharoh Khufu (Cheops), after whom it is sometimes called Khufu's Pyramid or the Pyramid of Khufu.<ref name="oxford1">The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press, New York, 2001. Edited by Donald B. Redford. Volume 2, Page 234.</ref> Khufu's vizier, Hemiunu, is credited as the architect of the Great Pyramid.<ref>http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/egpart.htm</ref>

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Historical context

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Believed by mainstream Egyptologists to have been constructed in approximately 20 years, the most widely accepted estimate for its date of completion is c. 2560 BC.<ref name="wonder"/> This date is loosely supported by archaeological findings which have yet to reveal a civilization (of sufficient population size or technical ability) older than the fourth dynasty in the area.

The Great Pyramid is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now Cairo, Egypt in Africa. It is the main part of a complex setting of buildings that included a special walkway, two temples, three small pyramids (called the queens' pyramids), boat pits (with boats buried inside) and mastabas for the nobles. One of these small pyramids contains the tomb of queen Hetepheres (discovered in 1925), sister and wife of Sneferu and the mother of Khufu. There was a town for the workers, including a cemetery, bakeries, a beer factory and a copper smelting complex. More buildings and complexes are being discovered by The Giza Mapping Project.

A few hundred metres south-west of the Great Pyramid lies the slightly smaller Pyramid of Khafre, one of Khufu's successors who is believed to have built the Great Sphinx, and a few hundred metres further south-west is the Pyramid of Menkaure, Khafre's successor, which is about half as tall. Khafre's pyramid appears the tallest in some photographs as it is somewhat steeper and built on higher terrain.

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Construction

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For additional information see Egyptian Pyramid construction techniques.
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Materials and labor

Many varied estimates have been made regarding the labor force needed to construct the Great Pyramid. Herodotus, the Greek historian in the 5th century BC, estimated that construction may have required the labor of 100,000 workers for 20 years. Recent evidence has been found that suggests the workforce was in fact paid, which would require accounting and bureaucratic skills of a high order. Polish architect Wieslaw Kozinski believed that it took as many as 25 men to transport a 1.5-ton stone block; based on this, he estimated the workforce to be 300,000 men on the construction site, with an additional 60,000 off-site. 19th century Egyptologist William Flinders Petrie proposed that the labor force was largely composed not of slaves but of the rural Egyptian population, working during periods when the Nile river was flooded and agricultural activity suspended.<ref name="workforce">(2006) Tour Egypt. Pyramid Workforce</ref>

Egyptologist Miroslav Verner posited that the labor was organized into a hierarchy, consisting of two gangs of 1000 men, divided into five zaa or phyle of 200 men each, which may have been further divided according to the skills of the workers.<ref>The Pyramids: The Mystery, Culture, and Science of Egypt's Great Monuments, Oxbow Books: October 2001, 432 pages (ISBN 0902117031)</ref> Some research suggests alternate estimates to the aforementioned labor size. For instance, mathematician Kurt Mendelssohn calculated that the labor force may have been 50,000 men at most, while Ludwig Borchardt and Louis Croon placed the number at 36,000. According to Verner, a labor force of no more than 30,000 was needed in the Great Pyramid's construction.<ref name="workforce"/>

A construction management study carried out by the firm Daniel, Mann, Johnson, & Mendenhall in association with Mark Lehner and other Egyptologists, estimates that the total project required an average workforce of 13,200 people and a peak workforce of 40,000. Without the use of pulleys, wheels, or iron tools, they surmise the Great Pyramid was completed from start to finish in approximately 10 years.<ref name="civilengineer">Civil Engineering magazine, June 1999</ref> The study estimates the number of blocks used in construction was between 2-2.8 million (an average of 2.4 million), but settles on a much reduced finished total of 2 million subtracting the estimated area of the hollow spaces of the chambers and galleries.<ref name="civilengineer"/> Most sources agree on this number of blocks somewhere above 2 million.<ref name="shaw">(2006) Raegan Shaw. King Khufu</ref> The egyptologists' calculations suggest the workforce could have sustained a rate of 180 blocks per hour (3 stones/minute) with ten hour work days for putting each individual block in place. They derived these estimates from construction projects in the third world that did not use modern machinery.<ref name="civilengineer"/> This study fails to take into account however, especially when compared to modern third world construction projects, the logistics and craftsmanship time inherent in constructing a building of nearly unparalleled magnitude with such precision, or among other things, the use of up to 60-80 tonne stones being quarried and transported a distance of over 500 miles.

In contrast, a Great Pyramid feasibility study relating to the quarrying of the stone was performed in 1978 by Technical Director Merle Booker of the Indiana Limestone Institute of America. Consisting of 33 quarries, the Institute is considered by many architects to be one of the world’s leading authorities on lime stone. Using modern equipment, the study concludes:

“Utilizing the entire Indiana Limestone industry’s facilities as they now stand [for 33 quarries], and figuring on tripling present average production, it would take approximately 27 years to quarry, fabricate and ship the total requirements.”

Mr. Booker points out the time study assumes sufficient quantities of railroad cars would be available without delay or downtime during this 27 year period and does not factor in the increasing costs of completing the work.<ref>pgs. 104-105, 5/5/2000, Richard Noone, 1982 Three rivers Press, New York ISBN 0-609-80067-1</ref>

These accepted values by egyptologists bear out the following result:

2,400,000 stones used ÷ 20 years ÷ 365 days per year ÷ 10 work hours per day ÷ 60 minutes per hour = 0.55 stones laid per minute

Thus no matter how many workers were used or in what configuration, 1.1 blocks would have to be put in place every 2 minutes, ten hours a day, 365 days a year for twenty years to complete the Great Pyramid within this time frame. To use the same equation, but instead assuming the time of completion to be one hundred years instead of twenty, it would require 1.1 blocks to be set every ten minutes.

This equation, however, does not include the time and labor required to design, plan, survey, and level the 13 acre site the Great Pyramid sits on. Nor does it include the construction time for the two other main pyramids on the site, the Sphinx, the temples, networks of causeways, several square miles of paving stones, the leveling of the entire Giza plateau, the 35 boat pits carved out of solid bedrock, or several other highly laborious features. When considering the time it would have taken to build the Great Pyramid alone, it is worth noting that the entire Giza plateau was constructed over the reign of five pharaohs in less than a hundred years. This feat is even more impressive, given that beginning with king Djoser who ruled from 2687-2667 BC, three other massive pyramids were built - the Step pyramid of Saqqara (believed to be the first Egyptian pyramid), the Bent Pyramid, and the Red Pyramid. Also during this time period (between 2686 and 2498 BC) the Wadi Al-Garawi dam which used an estimated 100,000 cubic metres of rock and rubble was built.<ref>(September 16-22, 2004)(2006) Al Ahram. The World's Oldest Dam</ref> Beginning with Saqqara, Egyptologist Barbara Mertz estimates nearly 700 pyramids were constructed in Egypt during a roughly 500 year period .<ref>Mysteries of the Ancient World, Charles E. Sellier 1995, Dell Publishing, New York ISBN # 0-440-21805-5</ref>

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Construction method theories

Image:Pyramid ramp example 1.JPG Herodotus speculated that the stone blocks used in the Great Pyramid's construction were maneuvered into place by raising them up a succession of short wooden scaffolds. Another possibility proposed by the ancient scholar Diodorus Siculus was that the giant blocks were dragged along a system of ramps to the necessary height. More recently, Mark Lehner speculated that a spiralling ramp, beginning in the stone quarry to the southeast and continuing around the exterior of the pyramid, may have been used.<ref name="lift">(2006) Tour Egypt. Lifting materials to build the Pyramids</ref> The stone blocks may have been drawn on sleds along the ramps lubricated by water or milk.<ref>(2006) ThinkQuest. Cheops' Pyramid at Giza</ref> Some also believe blocks were moved by rollers, logs that were kept constantly under the blocks so they could roll along the ground.<ref>(February 4, 1997)(2006) PBS. "This Old Pyramid" - Transcript</ref>

If a ramp were used to push the top-most blocks of the pyramid into place it would likely grow thinner as the top of the pyramid shrunk. Nonetheless, the ramp's construction would also take a massive amount of resources, slightly more than half the resources used in building the pyramid itself. Excavation on the area south of the Great Pyramid revealed evidence of the remains of a ramp consisting of two walls built of stone rubble and mixed with Tafla. The area in between was filled with sand and gypsum forming the bulk of the ramp.<ref name="lift"/> They were discovered during the work of relocating the Sound and Light Show cables at Giza. Given the mass required to build a ramp of such magnitude to construct the Great Pyramid as ramp theories suggest, it is unknown what purpose this much smaller newly discovered ramp may have served. <ref>The Pyramids of Ancient Egypt. University of Pennsylvania Press, April 1990, Zahi A. Hawass.</ref>

It has also been suggested that Egyptians might have moved the stones with wind power, relying on kites and pulleys rather than huge numbers of slaves. On June 23, 2001, Caltech aeronautics professor Mory Gharib and a small team of undergraduates raised a 6900 lb, 3 metre tall obelisk into a vertical position in 22 mph (35 km/h) winds in a California desert in under 25 seconds. They used only a kite, pulley system, and support frame to demonstrate that wind power can be harnessed to create large lifting forces. Maureen Clemmons first thought of this idea after seeing an image in Smithsonian of some men raising an obelisk. Clemmons also found a frieze that showed an unidentifiable wing pattern directly above some men and possible ropes.<ref>(July 6, 2001)(2006) National Geographic. Researchers Lift Obelisk with kite to test theory on ancient pyramids</ref>

Materials scientist Joseph Davidovits has posited that the blocks of the pyramid are not carved stone, but mostly a form of limestone concrete: i.e. they were 'cast' as with modern cement. According to this theory soft limestone with a high kaolinite content was quarried in the wadi on the south if the Giza plateau. It was then dissolved in large, Nile-fed pools until it became a watery slurry. Lime (found in the ash of cooking fires) and natron (also used by the Egyptians in mummification) was mixed in. The pools were then left to evaporate, leaving behind a moist, clay-like mixture. This wet "concrete" would be carried to the construction site where it would be packed into reusable wooden molds and in a few days would undergo a chemical hydration reaction similar to the 'setting' of cement. New blocks he suggests could be cast in place, on top of and pressed against the old blocks. Proof-of-concept tests using similar compounds were carried out at a geopolymer institute in northern France and was found that a found that a crew of ten, working with simple hand tools, could build a structure of fourteen, 1.3 to 4.5 ton blocks in a couple of days. <ref name=geopolymer>Ari-Kat documentary, Science Applied to Archaeology.</ref>

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Layout

At construction, the Great Pyramid was 280 Egyptian Old Royal Cubits tall (146.5 metres or 481 feet), but with erosion and the theft of its topmost stone (the so-called pyramidion) its current height is 455.21 ft, approximately 138.75 m. As has been proven by papyrus documentsTemplate:Fact, each base side measured in antiquity 440 (20.63 inch) royal cubits. Thus, the base was originally 231 m on a side and covered approximately 53,000 square metres with an angle of 51.7 degrees—close to the ideal for a stable pyramidal structure. Today each side has an approximate length of about 230.36 meters, well within the precision of that measurement. The reduction in size and area of the structure into its current rough-hewn appearance is due to the absence of its original polished casing stones, some of which measured up to two and a half meters thick and weighed upwards of 15 tonnes.

In the 14th century (1301 AD), a massive earthquake loosened many of the outer casing stones, many of which were carted away by Bahri Sultan An-Nasir Nasir-ad-Din al-Hasan in 1356 in order to build mosques and fortresses in nearby Cairo; the stones can still be seen as parts of these structures to this day. Later explorers reported massive piles of rubble at the base of the pyramids left over from the continuing collapse of the casing stones which were subsequently cleared away during continuing excavations of the site. Nevertheless, many of the casing stones around the base of the Great Pyramid can be seen to this day in situ displaying the same workmanship and precision as has been reported for centuries.

The first precision measurements of the pyramid were done by Sir Flinders Petrie in 1880–82 and published as "The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh".<ref>Birdsall, Ronald. The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh.</ref> Almost all reports are based on his measurements. Petrie found the pyramid is oriented 4' West of North and the second pyramid is similarly oriented. Petrie also found a different orientation in the core and in the casing ( – 5' 16" ± 10"). Petrie suggested a redetermination of North was made after the construction of the core, but a mistake was made, and the casing was built with a different orientation. This deviation from the north in the core, corresponding to the position of the stars b-Ursae Minoris and z-Ursae Majoris about 3,000 years ago, takes into account the precession of the axis of the Earth. A study by egyptologist Kate Spence, shows how the changes in orientation of 8 pyramids corresponds with changes of position of those stars through time. This would date the start of the construction of the pyramid at 2467 BC.<ref name="katespence">(November 15, 2000)(2006) New Scientist. Pyramid precision</ref>

For four millennia it was the world's tallest building, unsurpassed until the 160 metre tall spire of Lincoln Cathedral was completed c. 1300 AD. The accuracy of the pyramid's workmanship is such that the four sides of the base have a mean error of only 50 mm in length, and 12 seconds in angle from a perfect square. The sides of the square are closely aligned to the four ordinal compass points to within 3 minutes of arc and is based not on magnetic north, but true north.

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The pyramid was constructed of cut and dressed blocks of limestone, basalt or granite. The core was made mainly of rough blocks of low quality limestone taken from a quarry at the south of Khufu’s Great Pyramid. These blocks weighed from two to four tonnes on average, with the heaviest used at the base of the pyramid. An estimated 2.4 million blocks were used in the construction. High quality limestone was used for the outer casing, with some of the blocks weighing up to 15 tonnes. This limestone came from Tura, about 8 miles away on the other side of the Nile. Granite quarried nearly 500 miles away in Aswan with blocks weighing as much as 60-80 tonnes, was used for the portcullis doors and relieving chambers.

The total mass of the pyramid is estimated at 5.9 million tonnes with a volume (including an internal hillock) believed to be 2,600,000 cubic metres. The pyramid is the largest in Egypt and the tallest in the world and is surpassed only by the Great Pyramid of Cholula in Puebla, Mexico, which, although much lower in height, occupies a greater volume.

At completion, the Great Pyramid was surfaced by white 'casing stones' – slant-faced, but flat-topped, blocks of highly polished white limestone. These caused the monument to shine brightly in the sun and even in the evening under moonlight being visible from mountains in the south of Egypt as far away as 200 miles (300 km). Visibly all that remains is the underlying step-pyramid core structure seen today, but several of the casing stones can still be found around the base. The casing stones of the Great Pyramid and Khafre's Pyramid (constructed directly beside it) were cut to such optical precision as to be off of true plane over their entire surface area by only as little as 1/50th of an inch. They were fit together so perfectly that the tip of a knife cannot be inserted between the joints along any edge even to this day.

The Great Pyramid differs in its internal arrangement from the other pyramids in the area. The greater number of passages and chambers, the high finish of parts of the work, and the accuracy of construction all distinguish it. The walls throughout the pyramid are totally bare and uninscribed, but there are inscriptions — or to be more precise, graffiti — believed to have been made by the workers on the stones before they were assembled. All the five relieving chambers are inscribed. The most famous inscription is one of the few that mentions the name of Khufu; it says "year 17 of Khufu's reign". Although alternative theorists have suggested otherwise, given its precarious location it is hard to believe it could have been inscribed after construction; even Graham Hancock accepted this, after Dr Hawass let him examine the inscription. Another inscription refers to "the friends of Khufu", and probably was the name of one of the gangs of workers. Though this doesn't offer indisputable proof Khufu originated the construction of the Great Pyramid or when building began, it does however clear any doubt he at least took part in some phase of its construction (or later repairs to an existing building) during his reign.

There are three chambers inside the Great Pyramid. These are arranged centrally, on the vertical axis of the pyramid. The lowest chamber (the "unfinished chamber") is cut into the bedrock upon which the pyramid was built. This chamber is the largest of the three, but totally unfinished, only rough-cut into the rock.

The middle chamber, or Queen's Chamber, is the smallest, measuring approximately 5.74 by 5.23 metres, and 4.57 metres in height. Its eastern wall has a large angular doorway or niche, and two narrow shafts, about 20 centimeters wide, extending from the chamber to the outer surface of the pyramid, but blocked by limestone "doors" at several points. Egyptologist Mark Lehner believes that the Queen's chamber was intended as a serdab—a structure found in several other Egyptian pyramids—and that the niche would have contained a statue of the interred. The Ancient Egyptians believed that the statue would serve as a "back up" vessel for the Ka of the Pharaoh, should the original mummified body be destroyed. The true purpose of the chamber, however; remains a mystery.<ref>Winston, Alan. The Pyramid of Khufu at Giza in Egypt. InterCity Oz, Inc.</ref>

At the end of the lengthy series of entrance ways leading into the pyramid interior is the structure's main chamber, the King's Chamber. This chamber was originally 10 x 20 x 5V5 cubits, or about 17 x 34 x 19 ft, roughly a double cube.

The other main features of the Great Pyramid consist of the Grand Gallery, the sarcophagus found in the King's Chamber, both ascending and descending passages, and the lowest part of the structure mentioned above, what is dubbed the "unfinished chamber".

The Grand Gallery (49 x 3 x 11 m) features an ingenious corbel halled design and several cut "sockets" spaced at regular intervals along the length of each side of its raised base with a "trench" running along its center length at floor level. What purpose these sockets served is unknown. The Red Pyramid of Dashur also exhibits grand galleries of similar design.

The sarcophagus of the King's chamber was hollowed out of a single piece of Red Aswan granite and has been found to be too large to have fit through the passageway leading to the King's chamber. Whether the purpose of the sarcophagus was ever intended to house a body is unknown, but regardless, it is too short to accommodate a medium height individual without the bending of the knees (a technique unpracticed in Egyptian burial) and no lid was ever found.

The "unfinished chamber" lies 90ft below ground level and is rough-hewn, lacking the signature precision of the other chambers. This chamber is dismissed by Egyptologists as being nothing more than a simple change in plans in that it was intended to be the original burial chamber but later King Khufu changed his mind wanting it to be higher up in the pyramid.<ref>Unfinished Chamber. PBS</ref> Given the extreme precision and planning given to every other phase of the Great Pyramid's construction, this conclusion seems premature at best considering according to these same Egyptologists the whole purpose of building the structure in the first place as they claim was to house the king's burial chamber.

Two French amateur Egyptologists, Gilles Dormion and Jean-Yves Verd'hurt, claimed in August 2004 that they had discovered a previously unknown chamber inside the pyramid underneath the Queen's Chamber using ground-penetrating radar and architectural analysis. The believe the chamber to be unviolated and could contain the king's remains. They believe the King's Chamber, the chamber generally assumed to be Khufu's original resting place, was not constructed properly to be a burial chamber.<ref>(2003)(2006) Tour Egypt. Secret Chambers of the Great Pyramid of Khufu by Jimmy Dunn.</ref>

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Dating evidence

The Edgar Cayce Foundation, endeavoring to research claims that the pyramids were at least 10,000 years old, funded the "David H. Koch Pyramids Radiocarbon Project" in 1984. The project took samples of organic material (such as ash and charcoal deposits) from several locations within the Great Pyramid, and other pyramids and monuments from the Old Kingdom period (ca. 3rd millennium BC). These samples were subjected to radiocarbon dating techniques to produce calibrated date-equivalent estimates of their age. This yielded results averaging 374 years earlier than the estimated historical date accepted by egyptologists (2589 — 2504 BC) but still more recent than 10,000 years ago.<ref name="koch">(September/October 1999)(2006) Archeology Dating the Pyramids Volume 52 Number 5 by members of the David H. Koch Pyramids Radiocarbon Project</ref> An astronomical study by Kate Spence suggests the pyramid dates to 2467 BC.<ref name="katespence"/>

A second dating in 1995 with new but similar material obtained dates ranging between 100-400 years earlier than those indicated by the historic record. This raised questions concerning the origin and date of the wood. Massive quantities of wood were used and burned, so to reconcile the earlier dates the authors of the study theorized that possibly "old wood" was used, assuming that wood was harvested from any source available, including old construction material from all over Egypt. It is also known, given the poor craftsmen quality and relative scarcity of native Egyptian woods, that King Sneferu (and later Egyptian pharohs) imported fine woods from Lebanon and other countries such as Nubia for the creation of decorative furniture, royal boats (as found buried around the Giza plateau), or other luxuries generally reserved for royalty<ref>http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/furniture.htm</ref>. But as Mark Lehner points out, not without "great cost"<ref>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/1915mpyramid.html</ref>. It is unknown, given the expense, effort, and value of such woods if they were ever imported as an expendable source of industrial fuel, especially on such a large scale.

Project scientists based their conclusions on the evidence that some of the material in the 3rd Dynasty pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser and other monuments had been recycled, concluding that the construction of the pyramids marked a major depletion of Egypt's exploitable wood. Dating of more short-lived material around the pyramid (cloth, small fires, etc) yielded dates nearer to those indicated by historical records. As of yet the full data of the study has yet to be released<ref name=Schoch2003>Template:Cite book</ref> in which the authors insist more evidence is needed to settle this issue. In the absence of the "old wood" theory, the study admits "The 1984 results left us with too little data to conclude that the historical chronology of the Old Kingdom was in error by nearly 400 years, but we considered this at least a possibility." <ref name="koch"/>

In his book Voyages of the Pyramid Builders <ref name=Schoch2003>Template:Cite book</ref> Boston University geology professor Robert Schoch details key anomalies in both radiocarbon studies most notably that samples taken in 1984 from the upper courses of the Great Pyramid gave upper dates of 3809 B.C. (± 160yrs), nearly 1400yrs before the time of Khufu, while the lower courses provided dates ranging from 3090-2723 B.C (± 100-400yrs) which correspond much closer to the time Khufu is believed to have reigned. Given that the data implies impossibly the pyramid was built from the top down, Dr. Schoch argues that if the information provided by the study is correct, it makes sense if it is assumed the pyramid was built and rebuilt in several stages suggesting later Pharaohs such as Khufu were only inheritors of an existing monument, not the original builders, and merely rebuilt or repaired previously constructed sections.

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Alternative theories

In common with many other monumental structures from antiquity, the Great Pyramid has over time been the subject of a great number of speculative or alternative theories, which put forward a variety of explanations about its origins, dating, construction and purpose. In support of these claims such accounts either rely upon novel reinterpretations of the available data from fields such as archaeology, history and astronomy, or appeal to mythological, mystical, numerological, astrological and other esoteric sources of knowledge, or some combination of these.

Such ideas have been part of popular culture since at least the turn of the 20th century and can be traced back among others to such figures as the early-twentieth century American psychic Edgar Cayce, whose "psychic channeling" of "Ra Ta" purports to have conveyed that the pyramids were built by refugees from Atlantis, and even to his predecessor Ignatius Donnelly. In recent years, some of the more widely-publicised writers of alternative theories include Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval, Adrian Gilbert and Boston University geology professor Robert M. Schoch. These have written extensive alternate theories about the age and origin of the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx. While many Egyptologists and field scientists tend to dismiss such accounts out of hand as being a form of pseudoarchaeology (if only because of the subject material), other specialists such as astronomy professor Ed Krupp who have been involved in debate surrounding their ideas have produced astronomical refutations based on analyses of the presented evidence for several of their claims. <ref>(2006) Antiquity of Man. Astronomical Integrity at Giza</ref>

A common theme found in many of the alternative theories put forward concerning the Giza pyramids and many other megalithic sites around the world, is the suggestion that these are not the products of the civilizations and cultures known to conventional history, but are instead the much older remnants of some hitherto unknown advanced ancient culture. This progenitor civilization is supposed to have been destroyed in antiquity by some devastating catastrophe brought about by the end of the last ice age, according to most of these accounts sometime around 10,500 BC. For the Great Pyramid of Giza in particular, it is maintained (depending on the theorist) that either it was ordained and built by this now-vanished civilization, or else that its construction was somehow influenced by knowledge (now lost) acquired from this civilization. The latter point of view is more common among recent theorists such as Hancock and Bauval, who have acknowledged that the Great Pyramid incorporates star shafts 'locked in' to Orion's Belt and Sirius at around 2450 BC, though they argue the Giza ground-plan was laid out in 10,450 BC. <ref>(2006) Graham Hancock. Like a Thief in the Night</ref>

The a priori existence of such a civilization is postulated by such theorists who believe this is the only reasonable explanation how the most advanced of ancient historical cultures, such as Egypt and Sumer, were able to reach such high levels of unequaled technological advancement from their very beginnings with what might appear to be little or no precedent. This precedent they argue is not unknown, but found all over the globe in the form of megalithic ruins discovered at the beginnings of history but too complex they argue to have been constructed by the cultures they are ascribed to by the mainstream. As another of these theorists John Anthony West writes in reference to Egypt in particular: "How does a complex civilization spring full blown into being? Look at a 1905 automobile and compare it to a modern one. There is no mistaking the process of 'development'. But in Egypt there are no parallels. Everything is right there from the start."<ref>(1979)(2006). Serpent in the Sky</ref>

Egyptologists accuse Hancock of "just acknowledg[ing] the existence of a large body of data and the detailed hypothesis formulated to explain them, then bypass[ing] that hypothesis and present[ing] his alternative"Template:Fact. This is because most of the evidence presented by Hancock has already been rejected by most Egyptologists and geologists since the evidence has not been subject to the system of peer review. However, he is only one of the many authors and researchers to have questioned the veracity of the evidence given to support the mainstream theory, and contest that there are too many weaknesses overlooked in their arguments. These shortcomings, they argue, include weak evidence tying the building of the pyramid to Khufu — a link which is accepted on far less strong a base than is generally acceptable in egyptology.

Hancock, Schoch and others who put forward alternative theories contest that traditional thoughts of egyptologists should not prevent us from considering new information with a new model, and that if the old theories cannot explain anomalies then they have to be reevaluated in light of new information, rather than brushing these anomalies under the carpet, for this is the scientific method.

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References

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See also

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External links

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