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Did Ancient Egyptians Possess Advanced Technologies?

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Christopher O'Brien

Christopher O'Brien

Back in the Saddle Aginn
Staff member

Christopher Dunn's thought-provoking new book presents compelling evidence that leaves little doubt.
Worth watching. Promo video only hints at the evidence. Christopher Dunn and David Childress have worked and traveled together off and on for years.
 
It's amazing what the Ancient Egypt artists were able to achieve all those thousands of years ago without the help of modern technology. Although more recent, look at what was done during the Renaissance. Leonardo and Michelangelo were incredible.
It's amazing what the human mind can think up in order to create something beautiful.
 
I like Dunn's ideas, but haven't found anything to support their reality. I recently saw a video animation relating to some of these ideas and watched in dumb amazement as a seven or eight foot diameter cutting saw was used to cut blocks in AE. He takes an engineer's view by looking at what's in front of him and working out from there which construction techniques related.

Unfortunately, his ideas set up a problem with internal logic.

We know as fact that AEs used stone, copper, wood, minerals and sand to quarry and carve their stone. The quarries of Aswan are littered with diorite rock hammers. There are impact marks across the surfaces of unfinished blocks and monuments that conform to those caused by diorite rock hammers. We have the foundation layer of the bedding plane from where blocks were quarried. They represent a grid pattern that remains today. The tools used by AEs are depicted on walls and have been found (in miniature) buried in tombs and grave sites.

The tools have been recreated and used to accomplish what the AEs did back there. Similar tools were used in diverse places across the world then and since.

Where the internal logic problem surfaces for me is right where Dunn's advanced technology arrives. Is it logical that stone and copper saws/chisels were allied with very hard work to quarry stone whilst elsewhere they using powered saws? Whilst we know (know!) that they used manual drills and have the evidence to prove it, is it logical that some used manual and others used power drills?

Dunn has calculated that these power drills and saws operated at several thousand RPM. We have lots of evidence to support the conventional understanding of AE...the conventional theories are as an outcome of the evidence (horse pulls cart). We don't have any evidence of work shops, machine presses, power sources, steel lathes, steel or infrastructure to support the 'advanced technology' theories.

Going down the parsimonious route, which seems more likely? Lost advanced technology or sweat and ingenuity by people who were exactly as bright as we are today?

ETA: @ Chris O Brien. I think about 3 out of 4 of my posts on your threads have been contradictory. Please don't think I've anything against you or that I'm trolling. It's just working out this way.
 
Ted Roe said:
I think I saw an article a few years back whereby they proved that many of the structures and blocks were made from a kind of concrete and were cast in place... gonna have to find the article now.... it took microscopic examination of the stone to resolve that it was caste from concrete... Somehow this all just slipped by the New Agers....
Click to expand...
Sounds like an advanced technology to me. Or, at the very least, a level of technology not recognized by academia and "modern" science.
 
Think people tend to forget that these monuments took decades to create, They didn't appear over night , One block for the Giza Pyramid would take two stone maisons upto a month to carve. Its crazy what these people achieved, humans these days are too lazy lol
 
Ted Roe said:
I think I saw an article a few years back whereby they proved that many of the structures and blocks were made from a kind of concrete and were cast in place... gonna have to find the article now.... it took microscopic examination of the stone to resolve that it was caste from concrete... Somehow this all just slipped by the New Agers....

Here we are:
http://www.geopolymer.org/category/archaeology/pyramids

Discovery Channel :: News - Archaeology :: Were the Pyramids Made With Concrete?
Click to expand...

The guy that broached the claim that AEs used poured concrete (geopolymer) is Davidovits in your link. His theory leads to more complications than the established theory that AEs quarried the stone. The quarries are still there and the techniques are known. Like Dunn, he's looked at the structures and tried to work out how they achieved it without referring to the academic research. He could have saved himself some trouble otherwise.

He compromised by claiming the AEs used both approaches...quarrying and pouring polymer concrete. I used to work on building sites and know about shuttering concrete. Davidovits ideas just wouldn't work. That's my view.

It's better to leave it to the experts to decide. A microscopic analysis of the limestone blocks shows a uniformity of stratification. The fossils within the sedimentary rock are the same in blocks he claimed to be agglomerate as those that he didn't. Comparing modern 'cast' blocks with original AE blocks shows a great difference. An untidy, but definitive presentation is clearer than I can be at this time of night....http://www.cmc-concrete.com/CMC%20Seminars/2007%20ICMA%20Pyramid.pdf

There's a Bosnian man claiming to have discovered pyramids in Bosnia that pre-date the Egyptian pyramids. There are no pyramids there...no evidence to support his claims. I mention this because Davidovits has surfaced in Bosnia. You'll never guess what his 'analysis' of the Bosnian pyramids has found? Yup. Ancient Bosnians used geopolymer to create the blocks of their pyramids. :)
 
thank you, I stand advised. Not my area of expertise but I thought the idea was a good one given the Roman use of concrete and the probable acquisition of that technology from others...
 
I've posted this before in these here forums, but there are stories from South America that the South Americans may have used a plant to "dissolve" rock. They would then mould the rock which was now like a sort of putty and let gravity do its job [got a really bad head cold here so excuse my rough English ...]. It gives a really good solution to how they could build structures with slabs of rock so close together that you can only get a razor blade or some such between the "bricks". If there was a trading route between Ancient Egypt say and South America ... which is entirely feasible, then the plant could have made its way to Ancient Egypt.

Noone has as yet identified the plant but there is at least one story quoted by a Victorian explorer who was shown a bottle full of a plant "solution" which he accidentally knocked over on a stone ... and which turned to a putty whilst he watched it.

Now if only I could find a link to this story ...

[And talking of the past, Dr Joseph Farrell tells how a Russian (?) scientist claims that the Romans could communicate to each other over large distances since the rooms they used for their "Oracles" were in fact structured like radio transmitters, and could pick up weak radio transmissions. He talks about this on his latest appearance on The Byte Show with the nice but mad GeorgeAnn Hughes ... you can hear that here:

http://www.thebyteshow.com/Audio/JosephPFarrell/JosephPFarrell_BabylonsBanksters2_14Aug2010_TBS.mp3 ]
 
The whole pantheon the Egyptians built, is really elaborate.How the Pyramids where built...I'm still thinking a lot of slave labor.
 
paraschtick said:
I've posted this before in these here forums, but there are stories from South America that the South Americans may have used a plant to "dissolve" rock. They would then mould the rock which was now like a sort of putty and let gravity do its job [got a really bad head cold here so excuse my rough English ...]. It gives a really good solution to how they could build structures with slabs of rock so close together that you can only get a razor blade or some such between the "bricks". If there was a trading route between Ancient Egypt say and South America ... which is entirely feasible, then the plant could have made its way to Ancient Egypt.

Noone has as yet identified the plant but there is at least one story quoted by a Victorian explorer who was shown a bottle full of a plant "solution" which he accidentally knocked over on a stone ... and which turned to a putty whilst he watched it.
Click to expand...

A magical plant that could dissolve rock. The combined power of the oceans and winds...aeolian erosion...takes centuries to wear away rock. How large would the plant be to dissolve a simple 4'x4'x4' block? How much area would it take to grow enough plants to dissolve the many tons of rock featured in the world's greatest monuments and megaliths?

The stories could be allegory and refer to maize. The plant provided energy. Maybe they didn't mean dissolve, but recall the labour that was made possible from the high-carb maize plant? It was enough for the Mayans to call God so who knows? BBC - A History of the World - Object : Maya maize god statue
 
dyingsun said:
The whole pantheon the Egyptians built, is really elaborate.How the Pyramids where built...I'm still thinking a lot of slave labor.
Click to expand...

It actually wasn't slave labour - the workers were well compensated and actually had residences near the worksite. First year Art History taught me this but most people don't know since the popular story is the one from The Ten Commandments.
 
I think that the Ancient Egyptians were extraordinary engineers, far ahead of us, not in physical/material engineering but in symbolic/spiritual engineering. Of course for most of my contemporary fellow humans the very topic is just superstitious belief since the invention of the pocket calculator has definitely shown that the universe is only the play of matter and rational determinism. My view is that this aspect is only one side of the coin, the other side being spirit or symbolic meaning and that it actually rules equally the unfolding of events in "reality" and enormous amounts of energy. I really do not wish to even start a debate on this, even less convince anyone. I am just stating this to give context to what I think was the true genius of AEs. There is a monumental thesis by R.A. Schwaller, Le temple de l'homme (The temple of man), that I couldn't recommend more to anybody interested in anthropology and/or symbolism. It makes the case for a concious and powerful engineering of the above mentioned other side of the universe's coin by AEs. It is as I said monumental and very esoteric, one book for the whole year kind of thing.

For those who only have a passing interest in Egyptology I recommend the excellent synthesis of Schwaller's work by John Anthony West, Serpent in the Sky, apparently downloadable for free here.

I think that even the purely rationalists/materialists (left-sided-hemi-brained ;)) could at least appreciate it's fantastic poetical content.
 
justcurious said:
I think that the Ancient Egyptians were extraordinary engineers, far ahead of us, not in physical/material engineering but in symbolic/spiritual engineering. Of course for most of my contemporary fellow humans the very topic is just superstitious belief since the invention of the pocket calculator has definitely shown that the universe is only the play of matter and rational determinism. My view is that this aspect is only one side of the coin, the other side being spirit or symbolic meaning and that it actually rules equally the unfolding of events in "reality" and enormous amounts of energy. I really do not wish to even start a debate on this, even less convince anyone. I am just stating this to give context to what I think was the true genius of AEs. There is a monumental thesis by R.A. Schwaller, Le temple de l'homme (The temple of man), that I couldn't recommend more to anybody interested in anthropology and/or symbolism. It makes the case for a concious and powerful engineering of the above mentioned other side of the universe's coin by AEs. It is as I said monumental and very esoteric, one book for the whole year kind of thing.

For those who only have a passing interest in Egyptology I recommend the excellent synthesis of Schwaller's work by John Anthony West, Serpent in the Sky, apparently downloadable for free here.

I think that even the purely rationalists/materialists (left-sided-hemi-brained ;)) could at least appreciate it's fantastic poetical content.
Click to expand...

I agree with your sentiment that "The Ancient Egyptians were extraordinary engineers, far ahead of us, not in physical/material engineering but in symbolic/spiritual engineering." They had a fascinating idea of how the world worked in both life and death and as we can see today, they we incredible builders.
 
paraschtick said:
I've posted this before in these here forums, but there are stories from South America that the South Americans may have used a plant to "dissolve" rock. _TBS.mp3 ]
Click to expand...

The chemist in me is thinking "how is this possible?"....Rock is not just one substance or compound. This plant stuff must have been very corrosive.....and what did they store it in? Surely anything that they stored it i would dissolve?....I am wearing my skeptical expression here, slightly older person!:D
 
Kandinsky said:
A magical plant that could dissolve rock. The combined power of the oceans and winds...aeolian erosion...takes centuries to wear away rock. How large would the plant be to dissolve a simple 4'x4'x4' block? How much area would it take to grow enough plants to dissolve the many tons of rock featured in the world's greatest monuments and megaliths? ...
Click to expand...

Its completely mad I grant you ... but there is a tree from which you can make stuff that makes your headaches go away :rolleyes:. The natural world is full of things that make you woah. If it is true then it would be an easy solution to the whole problem of how on earth did they get those flamin big bricks so close together. There are stones/rocks/bricks/whatever in some of the places in South America which look like they have scorings on them ... as if they were like clay at some point and have then hardened in place. So there is some evidence to show that they indeed may have been soft at one point in their history.

And sometimes allegory is allegory but sometimes allegory may actually be real history. I can't believe that all ancient civilisations talked in allegory all the bloody time. God ... they would have never got anything done :D

---------- Post added at 12:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:49 PM ----------

MVoltage said:
The chemist in me is thinking "how is this possible?"....Rock is not just one substance or compound. This plant stuff must have been very corrosive.....and what did they store it in? Surely anything that they stored it i would dissolve?....I am wearing my skeptical expression here, slightly older person!:D
Click to expand...

I have no idea :D, slightly younger personage. I'm just mentioning a couple of stories I've read about over the last few years. In the story with the explorer type who was shown a flask of this stuff which he accidentally knocked over, the flask was made of glass ... I think. I'll have to try to track down the story ... which may take some time :D. But of course, the solution they made from this plant might have contained other reagents as well as the plant, so I'm not saying that the liquid was purely just plant and water. But remember these ancient folks were quite clever. Remember the pyramids?? :cool:
 
paraschtick said:
Its completely mad I grant you ... but there is a tree from which you can make stuff that makes your headaches go away :rolleyes:. The natural world is full of things that make you woah. If it is true then it would be an easy solution to the whole problem of how on earth did they get those flamin big bricks so close together. There are stones/rocks/bricks/whatever in some of the places in South America which look like they have scorings on them ... as if they were like clay at some point and have then hardened in place. So there is some evidence to show that they indeed may have been soft at one point in their history.

And sometimes allegory is allegory but sometimes allegory may actually be real history. I can't believe that all ancient civilisations talked in allegory all the bloody time. God ... they would have never got anything done :D
Click to expand...

Para, I do believe we have reached a most amicable disagreement. Between the two possibilities:
1, A plant
2, Human stubborn ingenuity

I'm gonna opt for number 2. I can prove number 2 exists whilst number 1 remains a *possibility.*

Just in passing, I've had disagreements with 4 or 5 members around here that have been a pleasure. No blood pressure or point scoring. It's pretty damn cool :)
 
I read Julian Jaynes' book on the evolution of consciousness awhile ago, but one thing that struck was a comment that he made that consciousness may take up more of the "RAM" of our brains, so to speak.
It recently occurred to me that perhaps the great engineering feats were done by ancient humans who may not have developed completely into consciousness; they would have had more brain power and perhaps physical energy to work out the logistics. I say this because I have a family member who I consider a bit of a philosophical zombie. No consciousness at all and apparently no ability for personal growth and development, but still someone who has the energy to work two or three jobs and also be completely brilliant with math.
 
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