A coherent story of Stonehenge may be beginning to emerge • Hacker News Board

Re: A coherent story of Stonehenge may be beginning to emerge

#21

Post by pvg » Thu, Jul 20, 2017, 11:14 PM UTC

fluxby wrote: post #16

mustacheemperor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a very different story about the pyramid. Do you have any sources or articles? I'm a huge ancient Egypt nerd and would love to read more about it - as is unfortunately usually the case with nuanced historical topics, Wikipedia just breezes through the common assumptions (that it was built for Cheops).

Few historical points that we know for certain: - Cheops lived in 26th century BC. This is Stone Age territory. A time where humans still didn't master metalworks, and understanding of mathematics and written language was very poor. - Herodotus traveled to Egypt and later made his claim in 5th century BC. This is about 2100 years after the rule of Cheops! To say that his historic account can be deemed as verifiable i…

Few historical points that we know for certain:

None of these are 'known for certain' and they are at odds with archeological evidence and well-accepted egyptology.

Cheops lived in 26th century BC. This is Stone Age territory. A time where humans still didn't master metalworks, and understanding of mathematics and written language was very poor.

Egyptians at the time had copper tools, two different writing systems, papyrus.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ancient-egypt-shipping...

Herodotus traveled to Egypt and later made his claim in 5th century BC.

Herodotus is by far not the only source of information we have about the Old Kingdom.

Up until 820 AD the pyramid was completely closed off by the granite plates that covered all external walls, and an Arab caliph Al-Mamoun broke most of them and found a way in

You can easily find references to egyptologists who believe most pyramids were robbed by the Middle Kingdom.

On top of everything that most people know, it also has an underground chambers with an artificial lake

The only reference I can find to that is on crackpot sites. Do you have anything better?

Shouldn't we see technological progression, not regression in a rich developing society

We see exactly such a progression in the first four or so pyramids.

What I think is that we have a serious case of Cargo Cult where emperors try to emulate the greatness of the pyramid.

Again, do you have any decent references to all this stuff? Because otherwise it's 'internet person vs all of Egyptology' which is not very convincing.

Re: A coherent story of Stonehenge may be beginning to emerge

#22

Post by rando444 » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 9:43 PM UTC

sbmassey wrote: post #20

fluxby wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few historical points that we know for certain: - Cheops lived in 26th century BC. This is Stone Age territory. A time where humans still didn't master metalworks, and understanding of mathematics and written language was very poor. - Herodotus traveled to Egypt and later made his claim in 5th century BC. This is about 2100 years after the rule of Cheops! To say that his historic account can be deemed as verifiable i…

According to http://archive.archaeology.org/9909/abstracts/pyramids.html carbon dating makes the old kingdom pyramids older than their historical dates, although they suggest they may have been using old wood.

This seems to just lump all of the pyramids at giza together.

The smaller pyramids can be dated because there are the remains of worker villages around each of them.. nothing similar exists for the great pyramid.

Re: A coherent story of Stonehenge may be beginning to emerge

#23

Post by rando444 » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 9:51 PM UTC

pvg wrote: post #21

fluxby wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few historical points that we know for certain: - Cheops lived in 26th century BC. This is Stone Age territory. A time where humans still didn't master metalworks, and understanding of mathematics and written language was very poor. - Herodotus traveled to Egypt and later made his claim in 5th century BC. This is about 2100 years after the rule of Cheops! To say that his historic account can be deemed as verifiable i…

Few historical points that we know for certain: None of these are 'known for certain' and they are at odds with archeological evidence and well-accepted egyptology. Cheops lived in 26th century BC. This is Stone Age territory. A time where humans still didn't master metalworks, and understanding of mathematics and written language was very poor. Egyptians at the time had copper tools, two different writing systems, p…

Asking for references, but providing none of your own?

Saying stuff like:

Herodotus is by far not the only source of information we have about the Old Kingdom

and

We see exactly such a progression in the first four or so pyramids.

You're not only not providing references, you're not even supporting your argument at all..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone

Re: A coherent story of Stonehenge may be beginning to emerge

#24

Post by pvg » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 10:40 PM UTC

rando444 wrote: post #23

pvg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few historical points that we know for certain: None of these are 'known for certain' and they are at odds with archeological evidence and well-accepted egyptology. Cheops lived in 26th century BC. This is Stone Age territory. A time where humans still didn't master metalworks, and understanding of mathematics and written language was very poor. Egyptians at the time had copper tools, two different writing systems, p…

Asking for references, but providing none of your own? Saying stuff like: Herodotus is by far not the only source of information we have about the Old Kingdom and We see exactly such a progression in the first four or so pyramids. You're not only not providing references, you're not even supporting your argument at all.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_the_stone

I didn't ask for references, someone else did and then this person spouted a whole bunch of obviously inaccurate stuff. You can hit the relevant pages on wikipedia and trivially verify that no egyptologist thinks Egyptians during the fourth dynasty lived in the stone age or had barely developed written language (and for that, I did put in a helpful link). The rest is exactly the same - uncontroversial consensus stuff you can get from wikipedia - I don't really need to defend egyptology with meticulous citations.

You can also google the weird claims made by this poster and you'll find that underground lakes below the great pyramid, 'legend of Enoch' and a strange obsession with Herodotus invariably appear on crackpot sites. It seems reasonable to ask for better references for such claims.

Re: A coherent story of Stonehenge may be beginning to emerge

#25

Post by deepsun » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 10:51 PM UTC

fluxby wrote: post #19

deepsun wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, children can design pyramids using sand.

Yeah. Only those pyramids are about knee high and last for about a day. :) The great pyramid stood for at least 5000 years.

You said "design", not build. My point is that designing pyramid is not really that hard. Building it is totally different thing (but still doable by thousands of uneducated slaves).