Interesting how the pyramids have been around for 4500 years and we still don't know all about their structure... Fun fact: there's a Neolithic site in Ireland, Newgrange, that's actually older than the pyramids. Fascinating and worth a visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange
Imagine if they find an opened chamber, and that it contains artefacts that can be carbon-dated, and they turn out to be thousands of years older than conventional Egyptology expects. (I expect there will be artefacts, and I expect their dates will coincide with what we already expect, but I’m always holding out for ”new science” that needs to be explained.)
'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
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Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#212Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine if they find an opened chamber, and that it contains artefacts that can be carbon-dated, and they turn out to be thousands of years older than conventional Egyptology expects. (I expect there will be artefacts, and I expect their dates will coincide with what we already expect, but I’m always holding out for ”new science” that needs to be explained.)
I still subscribe to theory that the pyramid was meant as a landing pad for starships.
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fun fact: Cleopatra and Mark Antony etc. lived closer in time to the invention of mobile phones than to the construction of the Great Pyramids. Egyptian history is deep . Funner fact: the Great Pyramids were built closer in time to the invention of mobile phones than to the construction of Göbekli Tepe. Human history is way deep. Funnest fact: if we don't fuck it up, we're still only at the dawn of history, not at th…
Yeah but I am pretty worried about us fucking it up these days.
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is something I think about a lot. How do we build a "data pyramid" that can be interpreted by future generations. I feel like much of our culture will be lost to bit rot.
One line of thought I was going down recently was information encoded by printing very specific and precise three-dimensional "monoliths" that display information based on postion of the nearest star (which I assume would still be Sol, and would still be around in this distant future). To give an illustration of what I am trying to describe, I am imagine something like the cover of GEB ( https://images.gr-assets.com/…
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability_of_the_Solar_System
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Me too. If this is a worry of yours, though, may I suggest, in no way rhetorically, going into the "not fucking it up" business? The pay is generally terrible, but nothing beats making your own hope.
I could really go for some hope and would very much like to do something of that nature, but it's hard to figure out where my skills are best allocated. As for the pay I am very difficult to motivate with money beyond what makes for housing and food security.
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#217does that disprove Jean-Pierre Houdin's beautiful theory, that there is an inner construction passage? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lasCXujNPfs&list=PLf_5zbxiQ4...
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#218Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
I could really go for some hope and would very much like to do something of that nature, but it's hard to figure out where my skills are best allocated. As for the pay I am very difficult to motivate with money beyond what makes for housing and food security.
> it's hard to figure out where my skills are best allocated Better is the enemy of good enough -- just do something, and if that doesn't work, do something else. There are so many issues facing the world: climate change, population growth (/collapse, depending on where you are), food security, energy security, biodiversity, civil society, socioeconomics in the face of automation, supervolcanos, etc. etc. etc. There…
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems that peoples through the ages have respected the pyramids enough to leave them mostly intact and undisturbed, giving us the unique heritage that we have today. I can't help but contrast this with the British explorers who just started blowing through it with explosives and pulling stuff out wholesale.
I'm aware that they were subjected to grave robbing. That seems like more low-level thieving than actual organized pillaging though, which required destroying structure to pull off, as evidenced by the fact that the most important artifacts, including the riches of the burial chamber and the sarcophagus itself, were still there until modern times.
Finding Tutenkhamen's tomb that hadn't been systematically cleared of all its contents was unprecedented but owed nothing to being protected by any elaborate superstructure that needed destroying, and everything to do with it being concealed by mudslides and workers' huts rather than the sort of superstructure graverobbers were used to partially dismantling to find a way in.