Greetings Cladking,

And thank you for your detailed reply to my post.

However, it would appear that you are not cognizant of the copious amount of archaeological, linguistic, and contextual evidence regarding the purpose for and manner of construction of the Great Pyramid.

Ramps are in fact the most reasonably efficient method of construction that has been proposed thus far. The amount of work required to drag the stones would have been lessened considerably by the incline of the ramps themselves. With full consideration of the weight of the stones in mind, it has been estimated that it would have taken a mere 10 to 20 men to drag a single block of stone. And far from being unattested, the archaeological remains of several of the external ramps have been discovered on the Giza Plateau.



[oi.uchicago.edu]


Based upon your post, I would assume that you are under the assumption that the Great Pyramid could only have been built by aliens. Such a hypothesis is both unfounded and unnecessary to even consider, especially given the fact that the Egyptians themselves possessed all of the necessary tools and technical expertize to construct massive stone structures. Your claim that the inclusion of arsenic into the copper smelting process was "accidental" is entirely unconvincing. Personally, I find it hard to believe that the very people who developed the most sophisticated civilization of the Bronze Age would not have known how to improve the strength and technical efficiency of the metals available to them. At any rate, your assumption would seem to be negated by the fact that nearly all of the copper tools and weapons discovered from the Old Kingdom contain significant traces of arsenic. The copper tools of the Pyramid Age would have been more than capable of working limestone, and the addition of quartzite abrasives would have enabled the workmen to effectively cut through and shape the granite used to construct the King's Chamber and portcullises. Neither you nor anyone else on the fringe can deny that the Egyptian masons of the Old Kingdom employed the use of abrasives to work granite, dolerite, and other hard stone.

And as I posted above, all of this was done to build a tomb for a man who was believed to be a god. Contemporary linguistic and textual evidence from the Old Kingdom conclusively demonstrates that the Egyptians believed there king to have been a living god. The title "Hm.f," in fact literally means "His Incarnation." "NTR-NFR" translates to the "Good God." Each king also had a Horus Name which he chose upon his ascension to the throne. Khufu's was Hrw-Mdjw, which translates to the "Horus that Strikes." In addition, the Pyramid Texts, which provide our primary source for the religious beliefs of the Old Kingdom, prove the king was considered to be a god. And yes, he did hold the power over the life and death of his subjects in his hands. This is demonstrated by the Pyramid Texts themselves which declare concerning the king, "He whom he wills to live, shall live. He whom he wills to die, shall die."

I should let you know, that I am in fact a PhD candidate currently working towards his doctorate in Egyptology. And as such I am well aware of most of the available evidence concerning the royal ideologies and mortuary beliefs of the Old Kingdom. And believe it or not, as part of my university curriculum, I took a course which related all of the current fringe theories about ancient Egypt, and which trained me in the most effective ways to counter fringe arguments. I in fact wrote my class paper on Erich von Daniken's "Chariot of the Gods." He is an alternative theorist that I assume you and Open Mind hold in high regard. However, having read his book, I can assure you that it is rife with errors. For starters he assumes that it would have taken the Great Pyramid 600 years for Bronze Age people to build. In fact, as I mentioned earlier it took 20 years. He also, mistakenly mentioned Alexandria as being contemporary with Egypt's Fourth Dynasty. Alexandria didn't even exist until 331 BC. During the Old Kingdom the area where Alexandria would be built was an isolated fishing village. There was no major port there. I mention this because von Daniken claims the ships carrying Cedar of Lebanon would not have been able to reach the Nile from Alexandria. As you can see, von Daniken doesn't know much of anything about ancient Egypt. This kind of puts a damper on his assertion that extraterrestrial visitors built the Great Pyramid or anything else on earth, wouldn't you agree?