Ancient Engineering
It's always seemed sort of odd to me: the huge blocks of limestone in the pyramids were carved and set so finely, using copper tools, that you can't fit a knife-blade between them. And that not one of these copper tools has been found (I suppose the ancient Egyptians were highly disciplined about recycling copper — a valuable metal — but zero carelessness seems improbable). I've always liked, instead, the theory that the blocks were somehow artificially poured, like concrete, but physical evidence has not been persuasive. Dr. Michel Barsoum, an Egyptian-born Professor of materials science at Drexel, brought fresh into the pyramid mystery by a friend, has now, however, found fairly irrefutable proof that the blocks are not natural limestone. I'm sure debate over the pyramids will continue but as far as Egypt goes, for me, this is pretty much 'case closed'! To carry the work further it would be interesting to run similar tests on stone blocks at Machu Picchu and other pyramid sites in South America, where in the absence of concrete technology it sometimes seems anti-gravity rays must be the best explanation :)
Posted by George Kenney on May 19, 2007 5:09 PM 
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Comments
That's an interesting idea, worth looking into. A French scientist recently created an animation showing how blocks could have been moved into place to build the pyramids.
Funny that the methods used have not yet been figured out by moderns. We live in a kind of technology cult and our paradigm does not allow us to think that people who did not have our modern technology were capable of much. Yet our brains are no different than theirs were. Ironically, the ancients are the ones who gave us all of the mathematical, astronomical, and scientific methods which have made our present 'gizmos' possible — the very things that make us feel superior to them.
When we fail to discover the answer to such mysteries, some throw their hands up and say "must have been space aliens, with an even greater technology than our own", rather than to admit that in spite of all the gadgetry we possess, perhaps we're not as smart as we think.
Posted by: pandabonium | May 21, 2007 12:26 AM
Here's a six minute film about Wally Wallington, the man who can move anything. He believes he knows how Stonehenge may have been built.
Love this film!
http://tinyurl.com/yk3gk4
Posted by: Robert B. Livingston | May 21, 2007 3:17 AM
Outstanding film Robert. Thank you. :D
Posted by: pandabonium | May 23, 2007 6:26 AM