Fingerprints of the Gods

[Tortoise]

I just finished reading Fingerprints of the Gods, a fascinating book by Graham Hancock that a friend of mine recommended to me a few years ago. I think dualstow also briefly mentioned it in a thread here relating to the Great Pyramids.

Has anybody here read Fingerprints of the Gods? If not, how about any other books that challenge the mainstream view that human civilization began no earlier than around 5,000 BC?

The mainstream theories regarding the supposed origins of human civilization around 5,000 BC--and especially regarding the origin and purpose of the Great Pyramids and Great Sphinx, and the "coincidence" of the eerily common flood/cataclysm myths and common megalithic architectural wonders in completely different parts of the world--have never quite added up to me in light of the evidence. Fingerprints of the Gods puts forth an interpretation of the facts that seems much more plausible to me.

[dualstow]

I just finished reading Fingerprints of the Gods, a fascinating book by Graham Hancock that a friend of mine recommended to me a few years ago. I think dualstow also briefly mentioned it in a thread here relating to the Great Pyramids.

You are correct. I'm not a believer, but that was a really great read. Lots of fun.

[Tortoise]

You are correct. I'm not a believer, but that was a really great read. Lots of fun.

I assume you're using the term "believer" figuratively rather than literally, since the book does not ask the reader to believe or have faith in anything? It is simply a presentation of facts and various interpretations of those facts. One could just as easily say he is "not a believer" in the mainstream story of the age of human civilization.

Even the mainstream view is simply a particular interpretation of the facts, is it not?

[Gosso]

I haven't read the book or heard all the arguments, but I really want to believe that it is true.  All I know comes from a few YouTube clips and the interview that Hancock did on the Joe Rogan Podcast...although they went off on a major tangent regarding other recreational activities.

I'm guessing the book is far more convincing than the interview and YouTube clips?

How does the book deal with the geologic records, which should show clear evidence of flooding or other major cataclysmic events?

What about other pieces of evidence beyond the many ancient pyramids?  Did the more advanced technology simply disintegrate back into dust/earth?

[Gumby]

I recently watched The Revelation of the Pyramids, a documentary now available on YouTube.

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It's hard not to be a believer after watching that movie.

The movie interviews some very high-profile engineers, architects, curators and archeologists, and the evidence is overwhelming. Based on many of the professional opinions of these high-profile experts, the general consensus is that whoever built the pyramids were far more advanced than the ancient Egyptian civilization — who likely inherited the physical pyramids.

In order to build the pyramids — with the specific dimensions, orientation, accuracy, materials and speed that it was constructed with — the builders would have had to have knowledge of the metric system, the speed of light (in meters), Pi, Phi (The Golden Ratio), precise geographic north, magnetic north, the circumference of the earth, and the exact position of the pyramids on the planet. And they would have needed access to some extremely advanced tools — which only exist today. The Giza pyramid itself points to geographic North so precisely, the technology to make that alignment — on that scale — is barely even possible today. All of these are represented in the basic measurements of the pyramids (watch the movie to see how).

For instance...

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Pi - Phi2 = 0.523558665

http://www.google.com/search?q=pi+-+phi+squared

0.523558665 meters = 1 cubit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubit

The ancient Egyptians used the Cubit for measurement. The meter is one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole (at sea level).

And if you draw a circle — with a diameter of 1 meter — 1/6th of that circle would be equal to the ancient Egyptian Cubit.

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Did the Egyptians understand advanced concepts such as Pi, Phi and meters? Or did they inherit the Cubit from a preceding and more advanced culture?

It would be easy to dismiss all of these measurements and mathematical constants if it weren't for the fact that if you draw a perfect circle of circumference — equal to the size of the Equator — that intersects the Giza pyramid and Easter Island, you get a circle that intersects the Equator at 30º and perfectly aligns with 17 of the world's most ancient pyramids and archaeological sites — most containing extremely similar and highly advanced architectural properties. The pole of that circle of circumference points to Earth's magnetic north.

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That's an awful lot of coincidences to be chance.

[Tortoise]

I haven't read the book or heard all the arguments, but I really want to believe that it is true.  All I know comes from a few YouTube clips and the interview that Hancock did on the Joe Rogan Podcast...although they went off on a major tangent regarding other recreational activities.

I'm guessing the book is far more convincing than the interview and YouTube clips?

I haven't seen the interview or the YouTube clips, but in general, topics as complex as the origin of human civilization don't lend themselves well to 30-second sound bites or single-paragraph summaries. There is a lot of meat in the 500-page book, so I'm guessing Hancock covered less than, say, 10% of it (if that) in the interviews and clips you mentioned.

How does the book deal with the geologic records, which should show clear evidence of flooding or other major cataclysmic events?

The book doesn't focus so much on geological evidence of cataclysms per se (although it does touch on that briefly), but more on a combination of archaeological and local geological evidence that certain massive stone structures around the world may have been built far, far earlier than we currently think.

That observation then leads to the question of what happened to the advanced civilization that built those structures, why it left behind so few signs of its existence, and what may have caused it to disappear. Hancock brings together all sorts of evidence to bear on that question, including the earth's 26,000-year precessional cycle, the geological evidence of the coming and going of Ice Ages in different parts of the world, the uncanny commonality between the flood/cataclysm myths of various cultures across the globe, and the clear astronomical alignments depicted by the ground plan of the Giza necropolis and the shafts in the Great Pyramids.

The book is 500 pages in length, so it covers a lot of ground.

What about other pieces of evidence beyond the many ancient pyramids?  Did the more advanced technology simply disintegrate back into dust/earth?

Hancock thinks the most likely possibility is that the highly advanced ancient civilization was based on present-day Antarctica before the last cataclysmic pole shift moved it over the South Pole, which means the remains of that civilization would be buried under two miles of ice today. A controversial map from the early 1500s called the Piri Reis map depicts what appears to be the subglacial topography of Antarctica--i.e., Antarctica before it was covered in ice thousands of years ago. One possible explanation is that the Piri Reis map is based on a much older map--many thousands of years older.

[Tortoise]

Here's an astonishing fact from Hancock's book:

The circumference of the base of the Great Pyramid, 921.6 meters, divided by the pyramid's height of 146.5 meters, is equal to about 6.291. That is the number 2p to within an error of about 0.1%, where p is defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.

Halfway across the world, in Mexico, the ancient Pyramid of the Sun has a base circumference of 893.9 meters and a height of 71.2 meters. The ratio between the two is about 12.555. That is equal to the number 4p, again to within an error of about 0.1%.

This is not simply numerology. The number p is one of the most important, and arguably the most recognizable, transcendental numbers in mathematics. And it was evidently built into the very dimensions of two of the largest and most mysterious pyramids in the world--in completely different parts of the world.

Amazing.

[FarmerD]

I guess the part of Hancock's book that fascinated me was the precision work the ancients performed in gigantic granite and diorite blocks.  From an engineering standpoint, much of this work had to have been accomplished by high speed diamond tipped saws.  I can't see any possible way to cut out perfectly flat surfaces with perfect right angles by using stone pounders or copper chisels as claimed by Egyptologists.  Engineer Christopher Dunn has writen a couple books about the machining tools and techniques the Egyptians apparently used.  Needless to say, only modern methods/tools can cut with that precision. 

[MediumTex]

Where is all the equipment from this ancient advanced civilization?  One would think that there would be something unearthed somewhere sooner or later showing advanced tools, rather than just advanced final products.

Is the thesis that perhaps aliens visited the earth, loaned some of their tools and technology to these cultures, and then left, along with their tools and technology?

It is sort of interesting to ponder how a group of people can simultaneously hold in their minds a set of rigorous scientific principles that are not open to discussion or debate (such as the geometry of the pyramids) at the same time that they hold what appear to be nothing more than the superstitions of a primitive culture (e.g., worshiping the sun, moon, deceased kings, etc.).  One would think that one of the engineers would say: "Hey guys, rather than building this big monument to a corpse, how about we build something really useful like some houses or cars or ships?"

I saw the King Tut exhibit that came through town a couple of years ago and it was hard to believe that some of that work was the product of a civilization from several thousand years ago.  It looked like it had been produced with the aid of some very advanced design tools.  Some of it just didn't look like anything that the human hand could produce, no matter how skilled the artist.

[Tortoise]

Where is all the equipment from this ancient advanced civilization?  One would think that there would be something unearthed somewhere sooner or later showing advanced tools, rather than just advanced final products.

Is the thesis that perhaps aliens visited the earth, loaned some of their tools and technology to these cultures, and then left, along with their tools and technology?

Extraterrestrials are not part of Graham Hancock's thesis in his book. He thinks the advanced ancient civilization was entirely human.

Nobody knows where that civilization's tools, equipment, and other artifacts went. It's a genuine mystery. One possibility is that most of that stuff is trapped under two miles of ice on Antarctica, and below miles of water and dirt in various other parts of the world. It's definitely a mystery.

It is sort of interesting to ponder how a group of people can simultaneously hold in their minds a set of rigorous scientific principles that are not open to discussion or debate (such as the geometry of the pyramids) at the same time that they hold what appear to be nothing more than the superstitions of a primitive culture (e.g., worshiping the sun, moon, deceased kings, etc.).  One would think that one of the engineers would say: "Hey guys, rather than building this big monument to a corpse, how about we build something really useful like some houses or cars or ships?"

It's not a contradiction if the people who built the Great Pyramids were from a completely different civilization from the superstitious people who subsequently inherited them or stumbled upon them and decided to start storing dead pharaohs inside of them. In stark contrast to the lesser pyramids and temples, the Great Pyramids are completely unmarked--no carved writing, no hieroglyphics... nothing. Just strange doors, passageways, and shafts.

Graham Hancock thinks the Great Pyramids and the Great Sphinx were not built by superstitious people at all. The structures' astronomical alignments and associations were not based on superstitious beliefs, but rather as a way to signal a particular moment in history. For example, the fact that the three Great Pyramids are aligned in relation to each other and to the Nile River in exactly the same way that the three stars of Orion's belt were aligned in relation to each other and to the Milky Way around 10,450 BC strongly suggests that whoever built the Great Pyramids wanted to draw attention to the date of 10,450 BC for some reason.

This idea is further suggested by the fact that the Great Sphinx has a lion's body and faces east, directly into the rising sun on the vernal equinox. The last time the constellation of Leo (the lion) housed the rising sun on the vernal equinox was around--you guessed it--10,450 BC. The Sphinx may not be the work of a superstitious people. It may instead have been a way to take a very important moment in time (the cataclysmic destruction of an entire civilization?) and immortalize it in the form of a giant statue hewn from solid limestone bedrock, so that future generations would be made aware of that moment in time--and what it might imply for their own future.

Note that the head of the Sphinx is disproportionately small relative to the rest of the body and is eroded far less than the body. This strongly suggests that the Sphinx originally had a much larger head--probably a lion's head, to symbolize the Leo constellation--and that at some point, thousands of years later, a pharaoh with a big ego re-carved the original head into a (necessarily smaller) human head. The Sphinx has been buried up to its neck in sand for most of recorded history, so if someone did re-carve the head, they may not have been aware that they were messing up the proportions of the statue since most of it was not even visible to them.

[Gosso]

Tortoise,

There is something screwy going on and I agree that the typical explanation provided by the mainstream is likely wrong.  I'm just not sure how far I need to go into "crazy land" to find the answers 

Graham Hancock thinks the Great Pyramids and the Great Sphinx were not built by superstitious people at all. The structures' astronomical alignments and associations were not based on superstitious beliefs, but rather as a way to signal a particular moment in history. For example, the fact that the three Great Pyramids are aligned in relation to each other and to the Nile River in exactly the same way that the three stars of Orion's belt were aligned in relation to each other and to the Milky Way around 10,450 BC strongly suggests that whoever built the Great Pyramids wanted to draw attention to the date of 10,450 BC for some reason.

In one of the interviews with Hancock he mentioned that the Hoover Dam has a star map embedded in it, which could be used by future astronomers to precisely calculate the construction date of the dam.  From Wikipedia:

Surrounding the base of the monument is a terrazzo floor embedded with a "star map". The map depicts the Northern Hemisphere sky at the moment of President Roosevelt's dedication of the dam. This is intended to help future astronomers, if necessary, calculate the exact date of dedication.[67][80]

It seems that the stars can represent a universal calender that any intelligent civilization can decipher.  The fact that the builders of these pyramids were aware of this is incredible.

Also, the Joe Rogan Podcast interviews Graham Hancock in episode #142.  Another good episode is #125 where Joe interviews Giorgio Tsoukalos (he is from the Ancient Aliens show).

[dualstow]

You are correct. I'm not a believer, but that was a really great read. Lots of fun.

I assume you're using the term "believer" figuratively rather than literally, since the book does not ask the reader to believe or have faith in anything? It is simply a presentation of facts and various interpretations of those facts. One could just as easily say he is "not a believer" in the mainstream story of the age of human civilization.

Even the mainstream view is simply a particular interpretation of the facts, is it not?

I meant that I don't believe in the ancient advanced civilization whose existence is suggested by Hancock. I first read the book when I was 26. I was more impressionable then, and an English friend who recommended it was very excited about it. At some point in my late 20s I became more skeptical about, well, everything fun. It wasn't intentional, but rather more like what a child must feel when he finds out that there's no Santa.

I also read the title co-authored with Robert Bauval which goes into more detail about dating the Sphinx by examining erosion and weather patterns of the region. Very interesting indeed.

[FarmerD]

Where is all the equipment from this ancient advanced civilization?  One would think that there would be something unearthed somewhere sooner or later showing advanced tools, rather than just advanced final products.

Is the thesis that perhaps aliens visited the earth, loaned some of their tools and technology to these cultures, and then left, along with their tools and technology?

It is sort of interesting to ponder how a group of people can simultaneously hold in their minds a set of rigorous scientific principles that are not open to discussion or debate (such as the geometry of the pyramids) at the same time that they hold what appear to be nothing more than the superstitions of a primitive culture (e.g., worshiping the sun, moon, deceased kings, etc.).  One would think that one of the engineers would say: "Hey guys, rather than building this big monument to a corpse, how about we build something really useful like some houses or cars or ships?"

I saw the King Tut exhibit that came through town a couple of years ago and it was hard to believe that some of that work was the product of a civilization from several thousand years ago.  It looked like it had been produced with the aid of some very advanced design tools.  Some of it just didn't look like anything that the human hand could produce, no matter how skilled the artist.

You are, of course, correct.  That's the paradox that is so fascinating to me.  On one hand, it seems the only known solution to the crafting of the granite and diorite blocks is some sort of modern technology but on the other hand, where did that advanced equipment or technology go.  Where are all the plastics, ceramics, steel artifacts of this supposed highly advanced civilization?  I don't see  any reasonable explanation for it.

I can conjecture that technologies had been discovered then lost to the ages.  We now know of many examples of this happening.  We can see  glimpses of highly advanced ancient technology such as:
- the Antikythera computer,
- Bagdad battery,
- the mystery of how Romans made concrete
- the first steam engine was supposedly built 2,500 years ago

My own idea is that the Egyptians discovered and utilized some highly advance machining technology that we use today.  That technology became lost then has been recently discovered in modern times. 

[Lone Wolf]

It's not a contradiction if the people who built the Great Pyramids were from a completely different civilization from the superstitious people who subsequently inherited them or stumbled upon them and decided to start storing dead pharaohs inside of them. In stark contrast to the lesser pyramids and temples, the Great Pyramids are completely unmarked--no carved writing, no hieroglyphics... nothing. Just strange doors, passageways, and shafts.

There's an inscription above Khufu's burial chamber that directly identifies the pyramid as being Khufu's.  The workers themselves left writing throughout the pyramids, in one case charmingly identifying themselves as "the Friends of Khufu gang".

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/wh ... amids.html

Tantalizingly, robotic cameras have recently uncovered additional hieroglyphs in the pyramid's shafts.

http://news.discovery.com/history/pyram ... 10526.html

I think that this ScienceDaily article serves as a decent logistical overview of how the Egyptians constructed pyramids.  These were huge projects, no doubt, but well within the abilities of a civilization with the focus, knowledge, and engineering aptitude of the ancient Egyptians.  Remember, these were really, really smart people.  Their brains worked every bit as well as ours did.

But the process of building pyramids, while complicated, was not as colossal an undertaking as many of us believe, Redford says. Estimates suggest that between 20,000 and 30,000 laborers were needed to build the Great Pyramid at Giza in less than 23 years. By comparison, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris took almost 200 years to complete.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 104302.htm

Also, this gives some good coverage on some of the more specific techniques that the Egyptians and other ancient masons used to achieve such great results.

http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/constru ... niques.htm

[Gumby]

The mainstream belief of the Egyptians building the pyramid does not explain why the most similar ancient sacred sites throughout the world all create a perfect circumference around the Earth that is tilted exactly 30º from our Equator.

Giza
Easter Island
Nazca
Machupicchu
Petra
Siwa
Tassili n'Ajjer
Pyramids of Paratoari
Ollantaytambo
Aneityum Island
Preah Vihear
Sukhothai
Pyay
Khajuraho
Mohenjo Daro
Persepolis
Ur

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The polar circumference of the Earth is 24,860 miles

The equatorial circumference of the Earth is 24,901 miles

The circumference of the circle of the ancient geographic sites listed above is 24,892 miles — a perfect circumference of the Earth at a 30º angle. The pole of this circle points to Magnetic North.

The Giza Pyramid itself points so precisely to True North (by less than a twentieth of a degree) that even a centimeter difference in any other direction would have caused it to be misaligned. It is oriented to True North with a greater accuracy than any known monument.


Mainstream archaeologists have a very difficult time explaining why many of the most famous megalithic sites, which congregate along this highly precise circle, have similar construction techniques.

For instance, here are photos of highly precise stonework at the Valley Temple in Giza...

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Here are photos of highly precise stonework at Machu Picchu

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Here are photos of highly precise stonework at Ollantaytambo

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Here is a photo of highly precise stonework on Easter Island:

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Notice a pattern?

Are we to assume that this perfect circle around the Earth, with similar unexplained construction techniques, is just a coincidence?

[MediumTex]

Gumby,

I know that this is an incomplete explanation, but doesn't that path around the world more or less track the most favorable locations for human survival in terms of food growing environments?

If we assume that all monument building is the result of an agricultural society that stays in one location and is able to generate enough surpluses to build monuments in the first place, maybe it isn't a surprise that the big monuments trace this line around the earth.  Maybe the rest of civilized people around the world also wanted to build big pyramids, but didn't have enough surplus production to be able to do it.

It doesn't explain the similarity of design and building methods across cultures, but if we assume that these cultures were essentially sun, moon and weather worshipers, it makes sense that they would want to be closer to the things they are worshiping, and maybe a pyramid is the most common sense way of getting closer to the heavens in the form of a monument.

[Gumby]

Gumby,

I know that this is an incomplete explanation, but doesn't that path around the world more or less track the most favorable locations for human survival in terms of food growing environments?

If we assume that all monument building is the result of an agricultural society that stays in one location and is able to generate enough surpluses to build monuments in the first place, maybe it isn't a surprise that the big monuments trace this line around the earth.  Maybe the rest of civilized people around the world also wanted to build big pyramids, but didn't have enough surplus production to be able to do it.

It doesn't explain the similarity of design and building methods across cultures, but if we assume that these cultures were essentially sun, moon and weather worshipers, it makes sense that they would want to be closer to the things they are worshiping, and maybe a pyramid is the most common sense way of getting closer to the heavens in the form of a monument.

It's too precise to be an accident. We're talking about a perfect circumference perfectly aligned at 30º. In other words, the circle is at the widest possible point of that angle around the Earth. And the circle points to Magnetic North as its pole.

If you dig further, the dimensions of the Giza Pyramid represent a scale model of this circle (as well as the Earth itself) and helps pinpoint some of those sites.

See also, Pages 1 - 13 here: http://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/

[MediumTex]

Gumby,

I know that this is an incomplete explanation, but doesn't that path around the world more or less track the most favorable locations for human survival in terms of food growing environments?

If we assume that all monument building is the result of an agricultural society that stays in one location and is able to generate enough surpluses to build monuments in the first place, maybe it isn't a surprise that the big monuments trace this line around the earth.  Maybe the rest of civilized people around the world also wanted to build big pyramids, but didn't have enough surplus production to be able to do it.

It doesn't explain the similarity of design and building methods across cultures, but if we assume that these cultures were essentially sun, moon and weather worshipers, it makes sense that they would want to be closer to the things they are worshiping, and maybe a pyramid is the most common sense way of getting closer to the heavens in the form of a monument.

It's too precise to be an accident. We're talking about a perfect circumference perfectly aligned at 30º. In other words, the circle is at the widest possible point of that angle around the Earth. And the circle points to Magnetic North as its pole.

If you dig further, the dimensions of the Giza Pyramid represent a scale model of this circle (as well as the Earth itself) and helps pinpoint some of those sites.

See also, Pages 1 - 13 here: http://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/

What is the speculation regarding the purpose of this string of monuments?

When it comes to Easter Island especially (and maybe because I am more familiar with that one), it seems like they decided to build monuments for entirely local reasons (when you are in the middle of the ocean and have few or no neighbors it's hard to spread cultural beliefs).  Are you suggesting that what they were doing was part of a global coordinated monument building project?  Who directed it?  How would they have directed it?  For what purpose? 

[Lone Wolf]

It doesn't explain the similarity of design and building methods across cultures, but if we assume that these cultures were essentially sun, moon and weather worshipers, it makes sense that they would want to be closer to the things they are worshiping, and maybe a pyramid is the most common sense way of getting closer to the heavens in the form of a monument.

In addition to what you just pointed out, the construction techniques used in Egypt vs. those used in Mesoamerica are very different.  The Egyptian pyramids are smoothly sloping and made entirely from cut stone.  The Mesoamerican pyramids are of much more modest size and built in a "tiered" formation.  The Mesoamerican pyramids, consequently, have not held up nearly as well as something like the Great Pyramid.

Apart from that, the Egyptian pyramids predate those of Mesoamerica by millennia.

The archaeological evidence also shows each pyramid construction type evolving independently.  The Egyptians refined their techniques greatly over time.  For example, check out the "Bent Pyramid of Dahshur".  The angle changes sharply toward the tip of the pyramid, likely to compensate for stability problems.  Just ancient engineers honing their craft and muddling through as best they can when they make a mistake.  Very much like the engineers of today.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pyramids/bent.html

The mainstream belief of the Egyptians building the pyramid does not explain why the most similar ancient sacred sites throughout the world all create a perfect circumference around the Earth that is tilted exactly 30º from our Equator.
...
Are we to assume that this perfect circle around the Earth, with similar unexplained construction techniques, is just a coincidence?

Is there a link that goes into detail about this idea?  Preferably something that cites sources and is subject to scrutiny and peer review (like all the hard work that mainstream Egyptologists have performed for so many decades?)  Like Harry Browne, I'm extremely skeptical of numerology but if there's something rigorous that could be interesting.

I posted some links to ancient masonry techniques above that I think are very illuminating.  YMMV as to whether or not you find them convincing.  But if the pyramids are supposed to be the product of incredibly advanced technology, wouldn't we expect something more than lots and lots of rocks stacked in a very precise manner?

The evidence that the ancient Egyptians constructed the pyramids is overwhelming.  Is it more likely that all of this evidence is wrong\fabricated\etc. or that "ancient astronauts" theorists are entertainers rather than archaeologists?

[Gumby]

What is the speculation regarding the purpose of this string of monuments?

One speculation is that some of these sites were constructed on top the previous key sites that originally belonged to an older and more advanced ancient civilization. In other words, the Egyptians, Polynesians, Incas and Mesoamerican cultures were learning and copying from their more advanced predecessors.

When it comes to Easter Island especially (and maybe because I am more familiar with that one), it seems like they decided to build monuments for entirely local reasons (when you are in the middle of the ocean and have few or no neighbors it's hard to spread cultural beliefs).  Are you suggesting that what they were doing was part of a global coordinated monument building project?

Why not? The idea that Polynesians navigated to Easter Island in tiny canoes from islands that were 1,600 miles away is equally preposterous. And none of that explains the incredibly similar, and highly advanced, wall-building techniques in many of these sites (including Easter Island).

Who directed it?  How would they have directed it?  For what purpose?

No idea. All of those sites are total mysteries in their own right. The fact that they all share a common perfect circle of circumference in common has to make you wonder.

[MediumTex]

I don't find it crazy to think that aliens visited the earth at some point and perhaps suggested to the natives that building pyramids would be a cool thing to do.

If I was a space explorer I would probably do something like that as well.  I would park my ship, step out, make sure I was dealing with relatively peaceful natives, and then proceed to show them pictures of what I had in mind.

Just to mess with them, though, rather than suggesting they build pyramids, I might suggest that they dig pyramid-shaped holes.  Imagine how impressive it would be to come across an enormous pyramid-shaped hole with limestone finished sides (it would be in the desert so it wouldn't be full of water).

Modern strip mines are sort of the non-monument equivalent of this sort of thing.

[MediumTex]

Gumby,

One thing that troubles me about the ancient advanced civilization thesis is the same thing that troubles me about Bigfoot--no bones or other remains.

Why is there nothing about these people in the acheological record?  If they were able to leave behind monuments that lasted as long as these have, why did they apparently not leave anything else?

One of the things we know about any monument building society is that it is energy intensive and needs a lot of surplus production.  One way to get this is to have enough food to feed slaves, while another is to have a Mother Nature give you a gift like fossil fuels.  I wonder what these ancient people used for energy?  If it was slaves it makes me think more than ever that it would have left an archeological trace.  If it was fossil fuels, it seems like there would be evidence in ice cores of a burst in carbon in the atmosphere during this era.

If it's all buried under Antarctica, why didn't these ancient people just move to more favorable locations when the climate began changing?

It seems like when you are dealing with the leftovers of an ancient civilization it would be more obvious that later inhabitants didn't build the monuments (e.g., it would be clear to anyone that the current inhabitants of Mexico and South America did not build the ancient monuments in those regions).  When it comes to the ancient Egyptians, however, even if it may seem farfetched, it's certainly not impossible that they built the pyramids, Sphinx and everything else.

What IS interesting to me is the way later Egyptian cultures re-purposed the Sphinx for their own cultural beliefs.  That's an awesome trick to be able to pull off--take a monument everyone has been looking at for centuries, come up with a new story about how it got there, re-paint the face and you've got a new set of beliefs that validate your rule, values, norms, etc.  Actually, what we are doing in this discussion is not too dissimilar from that.  We are a culture that prizes engineering, design and form.  We are suggesting that a more ancient civilization that is like us in many ways actually built it.  This story would, ironically, make the Sphinx a monument that could be more properly claimed as a monument to our values and beliefs than it was to the ancient Egyptians. 

[Gumby]

One thing that troubles me about the ancient advanced civilization thesis is the same thing that troubles me about Bigfoot--no bones or other remains.

Skip to 19:37 of the documentary (that I cited above) by clicking the following link and watch it for a few minutes — at least until 28:00:

http://youtu.be/SmnnJytYjpM?t=19m37s

Why is there nothing about these people in the acheological record?  If they were able to leave behind monuments that lasted as long as these have, why did they apparently not leave anything else?

If the ancient advanced civilization predated the Egyptians by a few millennia, then evidence of their existence would be even harder to find than that of the Egyptians we know much of.

See: http://youtu.be/SmnnJytYjpM?t=8m45s

Perhaps they did leave evidence behind after all (as theorized at the 26:24 mark in the documentary).

The problem with archaeology (according to the film) is that everything that is found is assumed to have religious significance. What an engineer might see as a piece of a machine or extremely high-tech construction is automatically assumed to be a religious item.

This is supposedly a vase...

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These are supposedly religious basins...

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It seems like when you are dealing with the leftovers of an ancient civilization it would be more obvious that later inhabitants didn't build the monuments (e.g., it would be clear to anyone that the current inhabitants of Mexico and South America did not build the ancient monuments in those regions).  When it comes to the ancient Egyptians, however, even if it may seem farfetched, it's certainly not impossible that they built the pyramids, Sphinx and everything else.

Except that they didn't really "outdo" themselves after the Giza pyramids did they? It's almost as if they became less advanced over time.

[MediumTex]

It seems like when you are dealing with the leftovers of an ancient civilization it would be more obvious that later inhabitants didn't build the monuments (e.g., it would be clear to anyone that the current inhabitants of Mexico and South America did not build the ancient monuments in those regions).  When it comes to the ancient Egyptians, however, even if it may seem farfetched, it's certainly not impossible that they built the pyramids, Sphinx and everything else.

Except that they didn't really "outdo" themselves after the Giza pyramids did they? It's almost as if they became less advanced over time.

This happens a lot.

Look at Greece, Iran and Egypt today.  

In Jared Diamond's "Collapse" he shows how this de-complexification process is pretty typical when a culture sees the invalidation of its organizing principles, typically in the form of shifts in climate or scarcity of fuel (the two are, of course, often interrelated).

[Gumby]

Still, there is too much that cannot be well explained. The Unfinished Obelisk, for instance, is just one example...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfinished_obelisk

It would have weighed nearly 1,200 tons upon completion and would have been transported hundreds of miles from that quarry. Archaeologists suggest that laborers would have used ropes to pull it onto a barge, transport it hundreds of miles, and then raise it in its desired location. But archaeologists haven't been able to successfully move or raise something even close to that scale before with the system they've imagined.

And yet, somehow, thousands of tons of granite in the great pyramid came from a quarry, 580 miles away, and found its way up in the King's chamber with ropes and camels. And the chamber was assembled with extremely high space-age precision.

All this supposed "rope-pulling" technology and laser-precision stone cutting lost somehow.

All while the Egyptians had no clue or reference to the fact that they had built their largest pyramid perfectly along a precise global circumference — that sits at exactly 30º to the equator — with the other sacred megalith sites around the world: Easter Island, Nazca, Machu Picchu, Petra, Siwa, Tassili n'Ajjer, the Pyramids of Paratoari, Ollantaytambo, Aneityum Island, Preah Vihear, Sukhothai, Pyay, Khajuraho, Mohenjo Daro, Persepolis and Ur... all sharing Magnetic North as their geographic pole.

How is this all coincidence?