www.world-mysteries.com
Articles by Will Hart published on the World-Mysteries.com:
- Egyptologists: It is Time to Prove Your Claims
- Something is Wrong with this Picture! Great Pyramid Shocker
- Perspective - Settling an Old Controversy
- Archaeological Cover-ups: A Plot to Control History?
- The Ancient Enigma - Moving the Megaliths
- About the Author
Egyptologists: It is Time to Prove Your Claims
by Will Hart
Egyptologists are displaying irrational and unscientific fixations by stubbornly clinging to ideas that have already been discredited. Mr. Lerhner and Mr. Hawass use every public forum to repeat their unproven speculations about how the ancient (Egyptian) builders quarried, transported, lifted, dressed and precisely positioned blocks of stone weighing from 50 to 200 tons.
The problem is that they have not proven that the primitive tools and methods that they assert the builders used are equal to the task. In fact, several well-documented attempts over the past 30 years have actually failed to replicate what the builders achieved. In the 1970s a Japanese team funded by Nissan tried to build a one-third, scale model of the Great Pyramid using the methods Egyptologists claim the ancient engineers employed. They could not duplicate a single step of the process.
They gave up and called on modern technology. Even with the aid of trucks and helicopters they could not position the stones accurately and the finished pyramid turned out to be a haphazard mess. Then in the 1990s NOVA filmed another effort aimed at proving that Egyptologists were right. It was nowhere near as ambitious as the Japanese project. This time a team of experts tried set about the task of quarrying a 35-ton obelisk -- rather small by Egyptian standards -- using dolorite hammers, then transporting it on wooden skids and lifting it into place via a dirt ramp.
The NOVA team gave up rather quickly so slow was the quarrying process. They soon realized that the ancient method of transport was also hopeless and they called in a bulldozer to quarry the stone and a truck to carry it to the site. The first difficult steps having been performed with the aid of modern machinery they tried to lift the obelisk into place using their primitive scheme. That also failed.
Now consider that the blocks of granite forming the ceiling of the King's Chamber weigh 50-tons and they had to be lifted to that height and precisely manoeuvred into a difficult position. Furthermore, the largest obelisk in Egypt weighs ten times as much as the one the NOVA team struggled with unsuccessfully. We have to keep in mind that the only tools and sources of power that Egyptologists are willing to allow were primitive. They had no steel hammers or chisels, no pulleys and no horse drawn wheeled vehicles. The builders had to quarry the blocks with stone hammers and haul them using ropes, wooden sleds and manpower.
Many modern day engineers, physicists and other scientists have scratched their heads in wonder when they have come face-to-face with the problem. Some have been willing to publicly voice their doubts as to whether the ancients could have built the pyramid and raised the obelisks using primitive methods. Independent researchers have raised a number of serious questions and several have posed alternate theories.
The debate has raged on for decades without resolution. But there is a simple, definitive way to end the controversy once and for all.
I propose that an independent panel of scientists and civil engineers devise a straightforward test to see if blocks of stone weighing 50 to 200 tons can be manipulated, moved and lifted into place using the primitive methods that Egyptologists claim the ancients employed.
Using smaller stones proves nothing, you have to successfully manipulate the largest blocks not the smallest.
This challenge is proposed in the true spirit of scientific inquiry and public disclosure. There is no reason to accord a free lunch to any group of social scientists and no reason to accept unsubstantiated (historical) theories that are based on little more than idle speculation and wishful thinking. There is also no good reason to allow a protracted controversy to reign when the means of disposing of it are readily available.
Human history is a universal reality that belongs to all people and the pursuit of its underlying truth is more important than catering to the interests of any individual(s) or group(s).
© 2002 by Will Hart
Email: Wrtsearch1@aol.com
Something is Wrong with this Picture! Great Pyramid Shocker
by Will Hart
Everyone including Egyptologists, historians, alternative researchers and tourists agree on one thing: the Great Pyramid is awesome. The experts claim that it was constructed about 4500 years ago by the early Egyptians using primitive tools and methods to serve as a tomb for the reigning Pharaoh Khufu.
Egyptian scholar's claim that it was built in 23 years with stone hammers, cooper chisels, wooden sledges, ramps and manpower. But is this possible? Let's look at the facts and statistics first. The Great Pyramid is estimated to be composed of 2.3 million blocks of stone having a combined mass of 6 million tons. The stone blocks weigh from 1 to 70 tons and the average is about 2.5 tons.
Logic, common sense and basic math tell us that there is a serious problem with the formula and timeline presented by Egyptologists. We will assume that the builders were intent on finishing the massive project before Khufu died so they worked every day of the year for 20 years. That gives us a total of 7300 days to build the pyramid. Now we take the 2.3 million blocks that had to be quarried, transported, dressed and placed into position and divide that by 7300 and we come up 315 blocks.
So to build the pyramid in 20 years the builders had to place 315 blocks per day on average. We can further break that down into hours and minutes. Using a ten-hour workday they had to place between 31 and 32 per hour or about 2 blocks per minute. To further refine and conform the formula to the real world the experts tell us the builders only worked seasonally, about 120 days per year. So we can throw out the above average delivery rate because we have a massive "peak" delivery rate to configure.
To finish the pyramid on time working seasonally they would have had to radically increase the delivery rate to about 900 blocks per day or about one every 45 seconds. Is this possible? The truth is, none of it is possible and a careful analysis of the actual construction process using the primitive tools and methods clearly demonstrates that these scholars need to go back to the drawing board and quick.
For starters the closest quarry is about 1,000' from the site. It takes an average walker about 3 to 4 minutes to cover that distance. Now let's include the ramps. The pyramid is about 700' on each side. That means the lowest ramp would have to be at least 1000' long since it is on an incline. So if we walk from the quarry to the site and up the first ramp we have used up 7 to 8 minutes. Probably more since it is uphill.
Clearly a crew pulling a sledge bearing a 2.5-ton load is going to take longer, much longer. Conservatively we could triple the walking time and say 24 minutes. But we have to back up and add the quarrying process. How long does it take to quarry the average block of limestone? The quarry crew has to cut a trench around the blocks, then undercut the block and finally lift it out and onto a waiting sledge. Could this possibly take less than 20 minutes?
Actually, we have to account for two lifts, one from the quarry to the sledge and then off the sledge at the delivery point. It is as plain as day that the quarry-lift-transport-delivery-lift-and-place process, which is unavoidable given the tools and methods, would have taken at least 45-50 minutes per block. Anything less is physically impossible and that assertion can be easily proven.
We have added the practical physical steps and constraints into a real world formula as opposed to the abstract one that Egyptian scholars have made to fit their scenario. In addition to the average size blocks we have 30-70 ton granite megaliths and 140,000 outer casing stones weighing from 10 to 15 tons to factor in. Studies performed by Denys Stocks, the leading expert on ancient Egyptian stone working, have shown that using primitive hammer-stones required massive amounts of time to quarry large granite blocks. The Aswan quarry was 500 miles from Giza.
The casing stones also pose a significant challenge. They were cut from the Tura and Masara quarries east of Cairo across the river. These quarries produce high-grade limestone that polishes into marble as it ages. The rough-hewn blocks were probably 40 tons apiece. Engineers have marveled over how precisely these casing stones were cut and finished at right angles on all sides except the outer surface, which was honed to a 51-degree plane. There are no tool marks on the remaining casing blocks and the accuracy with which they were set into position is stunning.
How long did it take to haul these blocks from the quarry? Then they had to be finished and carefully set into place, some more than 400 feet up the pyramid. It is laughable to think this was supposed to have been done by men pulling wooden sledges or stone- masons pounding the blocks perfectly smooth with hammer-stones and then sanding them. 300 blocks per day for 20 years…more like 20 blocks per day for 300 years!
By what series of miracles did the ancient builders quarry, transport and position the huge granite slabs above the King's Chamber that are more than 150 vertical feet above the base? Egyptologists should get close to a group of computer programmers, systems analysts, mathematicians and construction engineers because their formula is not viable -- and does not matter if it includes levers, poles and spiral ramps -- it is embarrassingly flawed and illogical.
© 2002 by Will Hart
Email: Wrtsearch1@aol.com
Perspective - Settling an Old Controversy
an article by Will Hart about the vexing "how the ancients built the stone monuments" issue
A long-standing debate some refer to as a mystery confronts us. How were the Great Pyramid, Tiahaunaco and other monolithic and megalithic monuments in Egypt, Peru and elsewhere constructed, moved and lifted into place? Some people believe that matter has been settled because several teams were able to build and move inexact replicas or demonstrated that it is possible to move a block of stone weighing several tons using primitive methods.
However, those simulations did not prove that the methods modern scholars ascribe to the construction of ancient artifacts could work. In fact, it appears that they actually proved the opposite, as we will see. At any rate, this article will definitively show they could not have been manipulated using primitive methods.
How? A man may be able to lift 350 pounds off the ground, but that doesn't mean he can lift 3,500 pounds. The problem quickly goes from difficult to impossible as you add weight to an object that has to be moved. We could frame it another way. If I claimed that I was the strongest man in the world and I could lift 3,500 lbs. and Ripley's took me up on that boast. Do you think they would include me in the record book for lifting 350 pounds? Of course not and I would be foolish for even trying that kind of trick.
But that is exactly what the academic promoters of the "primitive method" theory have done. Oddly enough, the public seems to have bought into the hoax. In 1994 NOVA sponsored a team of experts that wanted to prove the old theory, dispose of "alternative theories" and lay the debate to rest. As NOVA writers framed it: "In 1995, the NOVA team dared to demonstrate firsthand what has mystified historians for millennia: how to raise an obelisk using only materials and techniques the ancient Egyptians might have used."
The team included an archeologist, a master stonemason and one of Egypt's foremost specialists in moving heavy statues, Aly el Gasab. They chose to quarry, dress and lift a 35-ton obelisk. That was a cheat right away. The largest Egyptian obelisks weigh 400 tons.
The problem is even more complex than people generally suppose. Setting the finished stone in place is only one part of the building process. The first step involves cutting the stones away from the matrix rock at the quarry. Then it has to be dressed into a transportable shape. Next it has to be transported, sometimes great distances, from the quarry to the construction site and then lifted.
With what tools did the ancient Egyptians free the stone from the matrix rock? According to the archeologist they used dolorite hammers. How were the stones transported? Gasab said they would use ropes and wooden sledges. The first problem, and it proved insurmountable, came when they soon realized the dolorite hammers could not do the job. That "ancient method" was quickly abandoned.
The ancients executed considerable engineering feats. We gain a useful perspective by examining a modern day moving attempt. In 1996 The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology found that it needed to renovate an Egyptian burial tomb that was part of its collection. An article from the department's newsletter contains the following sub-heading.
Massive moving effort
"…the treated section of the tomb chapel was disassembled, including
one block which alone weighs five tons, and moved to the Conserv-
ation Technical Associates Connecticut Lab. Due to the massive
size and weight of the chapel blocks, special handling equipment
was employed for removal from the chapel."
Why is a five-ton lid considered a "massive" size and weight with the modern equipment the movers had? Much larger monolithic stones were "easily" manipulated by the primitive methods used by the ancients according to historians and archeologists. A special block and tackle system and rollers had to be set up to lift the slab and move it out of the chapel. What would they say if they had to move and lift the 2.5 million stones that went into the construction of the Great Pyramid some weighing 50 tons?
Examining how several modern day monuments were built is a fascinating juxtaposition. The Statue of Liberty is a beacon to the world. The actual statue, less the pedestal, stands 151' high from the base to the torch and 305' from the foundation of the pedestal to the top. It was made in Paris. Construction began in 1875 and was completed in 1884. The statue was made of copper. Steel was added to the structure to increase its strength.
Following its completion in France it was shipped to the U.S; broken down into 350 pieces that were packed into 214 crates. Lady Liberty's head is 17'3" from chin to cranium. Her right arm is 42' long. Her sandal is 25 feet, a ladies size 879! It is a stunning piece of work and a profound symbol; it is also massive.
When we look at the total weight of the copper and steel that went into the statue it really puts an edge on the 'ancient construction' problem: 200,000 pounds, or 100 tons, of copper were used then add 250,000 pounds, 150 tons, of steel. That is a combined weight of 250-tons. Two and half million stones went into the Great Pyramid and the estimated weight is 6 million tons! The largest stone blocks in the pyramid weigh about 70 tons. However, there are numerous 40, 100, 200 and a few 400-ton blocks of precisely cut stones in Peru that had to be hauled a considerable distance and then fit into place at various sites.
The Statue of Liberty was assembled in New York using cranes. What did the Maya use to raise Setele E the Quiroga site, which is 35' high and weighs 65-tons? They did not have the benefit of block and tackle let alone cranes and as far as we know they didn't have cables or high strength rope.
After throwing in the towel on the first basic challenge, the NOVA team brought in bulldozers and other modern equipment to quarry and move the 35-ton obelisk. This is a rather stunning fact. The team was comprised of top professionals who had the benefit of 5,000 years of engineering history to draw upon. What did the ancient Egyptians have?
Mount Rushmore yields a different kind of perspective. This amazing monument sits where it was sculpted out of solid rock in the mountains of South Dakota. It is a massive work of art and a wonderful testimony to key figures in American history. The epic sculpture features 60-foot high faces, 500 feet off the ground. How and why was it made?
In 1923 state historian Doane Robinson wanted to memorialize the history of the West by carving some giant statues in the Black Hills. Backers thought it was a great idea that also might attract tourists to the state. A sculptor by the name of Gutzon Borghum was brought in to do the work. In an era when many artists scorned traditional patriotism, Borghum made his name through celebration of things American. He had already achieved a degree of fame by remodeling the torch for the Statue of Liberty.
A crucial change was made when Borghum entered the picture. The master sculptor refused to work on anything that was not of national importance. The committee agreed to his selection of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln.
A huge amount of rock had to be removed as the sculptor and his assistants worked. Dynamite was used to remove 90 percent of the unneeded rock, about 450,000 tons of it. It took 14 years from start to finish. The actual carving used up about half of that time. The rest was spent on blasting. He had a crew of 400 skilled men under his supervision working with high-powered drills. Most of the men were experienced hard- rock miners. They were accustomed to strenuous work, harsh conditions and long hours.
Could all the slaves in Egypt really lift and drag millions of tons of stones with rope and wooden sleds? According to the Nova team's experiment, they could not have used the dolorite hammers to quarry the stone that historians claimed were the only tools they had at the time. The Nova team did not even try to move the obelisk. Once the bulldozer had quarried it the piece was hauled to the site by truck. The second cheat; strike two.
The Washington Monument is an elegant testimony to America's first president. It is reminiscent of Egyptian and Roman obelisks. The monument is 555' high, the tallest freestanding stone structure in the world. The cap at the top weighs 300 tons and the weight of the entire structure is 90,859 tons. But the monument is not a single solid piece of stone, it is hollow inside and was built in stages.
The Lincoln Memorial statue is 19' high and weighs 175 tons. It is a fitting testimony to the man who had the misfortune to be president during the civil war. The statue is large and imposing. The weight of it is similar to mid-sized statuary and obelisks in Egypt and there are many comparable artifacts in Peru.
These are examples of modern large-scale stone work and large monuments. But nearly all have been constructed using modern equipment and machinery. This in no way detracts from the artistry, craftsmanship or the spirit embodied in them. Who wouldn't utilize state-of-art tools to accomplish such Herculean tasks? The NOVA team sure did. They reluctantly admitted their failures but they pressed on to at least try to prove they could lift it using the one primitive method they had left.
That brings us back to the main issue. How did the ancient builders cut, dress and move 20 to 200-ton blocks of stone? We've all seen a diesel tractor-trailer with a load of 10 new full-size American automobiles driving down the freeway headed for the new car lot. The combined weight of the vehicles is about 15 tons. If you are getting the idea that the magnitude of the problem is severe, you're right!
We are not saying it is impossible to move the 1 and 2-ton stones using the primitive methods ascribed to the builders of the Great Pyramid. We are saying that it is impossible to move a 200-ton stone using those methods!
If you have ever done any landscaping that involved moving boulders around you know what is involved. It takes a 300 horsepower diesel engine and hydraulic lifter to pick up a 7- ton granite slab. That is a cut and dry fact. The Great Pyramid consists largely of stones weighing 1 to 2 tons, however, there are 20-ton, 40-ton and 60-ton blocks and the largest block at Giza hoisted up several hundred feet. They could not have been moved by the methods that scientists claim they were moved. The NOVA team was just attempting a single rather smallish obelisk that was not going to be lifted upwards as the elevated tiers of the pyramid demanded of those building blocks.
We are back to the principle outlined at the beginning of the article. Because you can lift up and carry 10 sleeping children weighing 30 lbs each from the van to the house, one at a time, doesn't mean you can lift up one 300 lb man and carry him up a flight of stairs.
The ancients did not have jackhammers, dynamite, loaders, tractor-trailers, cranes, hoists, pulleys, dray animals or block and tackle devices. This is the kind of equipment it would take to handle megalithic stones. Part of the difficulty in grasping the engineering problem involved seems to stem from the fact that we don't build with monolithic stones in the modern era. If we routinely saw the kind of equipment that is needed to manage a 50-ton stone the average person might have a better appreciation of the underlying dynamics of this long-standing debate.
When the problem is broken down and compared to every day experiences and how we handle these kinds of challenges in the present, reality and pragmatism start to sink in. The typical boxcar on a train weighs about 25 tons and can handle a payload of around 60 tons. A 48' tandem tractor-trailer has a load capacity of approximately 20 tons.
To be more cogent to the problem at hand we need to examine the latest Caterpillar equipment used in quarry operations. The 973C track loader has a 229 horsepower engine. It has an operating weight of almost 30 tons, a big machine. The bucket is rated at a maximum capacity of 4 yards, which is a little over 4 tons. That means one bucket can pick up 4 tons of rock and dump it into a waiting dump truck.
The 771D off-highway Caterpillar dump truck weighs about 90 tons. It runs on a 518 horsepower diesel engine, a very large dump truck. The payload capacity is 45 tons. It would take the loader 10 trips to fill up the dump truck presumably with rocks and gravel. But the loader cannot lift a single 40-ton megalith. You need a crane for that.
There are a number of cranes on the market that are rated to the 100 and even 300-ton capacity. They could handle the 40 to 300-ton blocks. However, it takes a specially made crane to lift anything above that tonnage. NASA had to make a custom crane with a lifting capacity of 430 tons to lift the shuttle during attachment to the fuel tanks. There is a New York engineering company that also has a specialty crane with a lift capacity of 500 tons that is used to lift other cranes to the top of high-rise construction sites. These are custom pieces of equipment used for specialized operations.
But as huge as the dump truck described above is - it so big that it cannot travel on the highway - we would also need an even bigger truck. Out of luck again. The biggest earthmovers used in large-scale open pit mining operations max out at about the 350-ton carrying capacity. It is preposterous to think that a group of men could do what it takes out largest pieces of machinery to achieve.
The NOVA team tried valiantly to lift the obelisk in place but that too failed. Strike three!
They took a hiatus and came back three years later. This time at the plate they decided to skip the first two steps and concentrate on the visual pay off, lifting it into place in the second attempt. They succeeded in doing it the second time, but what did the two efforts prove? They actually demonstrated that the pyramid could not have been built using the "primitive theory" methods. The Egyptian who owns the rock quarry was asked what he thought about it. He replied that he did not think, "Any attempt below 100 tons proved anything." He is absolutely correct and his point says it all.
The bottom line is that we can barely move a 300-ton megalithic block of granite today; they surely did not do so with primitive means in the distant past. You may as well believe they used teleportation or some other magical means because that is as practical a
solution as the old dolorite hammers, wooden sledges and ropes concept. So how did they
build the monuments? No one knows. If any scientist or engineer still desires to debate this issue, the author would be happy to oblige in any public forum. I would be even happier to arrange a test of proposed methods.
© 2002 by Will Hart
Email: Wrtsearch1@aol.com
Archaeological Cover-ups: A Plot to Control History?
by Will Hart
The scientific establishment tends to reject, suppress or ignore evidence that conflicts with accepted theories, while denigrating or persecuting the messenger.
THE BRAIN POLICE" AND "THE BIG LIE
Any time you allege a conspiracy is afoot, especially in the field of science, you are treading on thin ice. We tend to be very sceptical about conspiracies--unless the Mafia or some Muslim radicals are behind the alleged plot. But the evidence is overwhelming and the irony is that much of it is in plain view.
The good news is that the players are obvious. Their game plan and even their play-by-play tactics are transparent, once you learn to spot them. However, it is not so easy to penetrate through the smokescreen of propaganda and disinformation to get to their underlying motives and goals. It would be convenient if we could point to a plumber's unit and a boldface liar like Richard Nixon, but this is a more subtle operation.
The bad news: the conspiracy is global and there are many vested interest groups. A cursory investigation yields the usual suspects: scientists with a theoretical axe to grind, careers to further and the status quo to maintain. Their modus operandi is "The Big Lie"--and the bigger and more widely publicised, the better. They rely on invoking their academic credentials to support their arguments, and the presumption is that no one has the right to question their authoritarian pronouncements that:
1. there is no mystery about who built the Great Pyramid or what the methods of construction were, and the Sphinx shows no signs of water damage;
2. there were no humans in the Americas before 20,000 BC;
3. the first civilisation dates back no further than 6000 BC;
4. there are no documented anomalous, unexplained or enigmatic data to take into account;
5. there are no lost or unaccounted-for civilisations.
Let the evidence to the contrary be damned!
Personal Attacks: Dispute over Age of the Sphinx and Great Pyramid
In 1993, NBC in the USA aired The Mysteries of the Sphinx, which presented geological evidence showing that the Sphinx was at least twice as old (9,000 years) as Egyptologists claimed. It has become well known as the "water erosion controversy". An examination of the politicking that Egyptologists deployed to combat this undermining of their turf is instructive.
Self-taught Egyptologist John Anthony West brought the water erosion issue to the attention of geologist Dr Robert Schoch. They went to Egypt and launched an intensive on-site investigation. After thoroughly studying the Sphinx first hand, the geologist came to share West's preliminary conclusion and they announced their findings.
Dr Zahi Hawass, the Giza Monuments chief, wasted no time in firing a barrage of public criticism at the pair. Renowned Egyptologist Dr Mark Lehner, who is regarded as the world's foremost expert on the Sphinx, joined his attack. He charged West and Schoch with being "ignorant and insensitive". That was a curious accusation which took the matter off the professional level and put the whole affair on a personal plane. It did not address the facts or issues at all and it was highly unscientific.
But we must note the standard tactic of discrediting anyone who dares to call the accepted theories into question. Shifting the focus away from the issues and "personalising" the debate is a highly effective strategy--one which is often used by politicians who feel insecure about their positions. Hawass and Lehner invoked their untouchable status and presumed authority. (One would think that a geologist's assessment would hold more weight on this particular point.)
A short time later, Schoch, Hawass and Lehner were invited to debate the issue at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. West was not allowed to participate because he lacked the required credentials.
This points to a questionable assumption that is part of the establishment's arsenal: only degreed scientists can practise science. Two filters keep the uncredentialled, independent researcher out of the loop: (1) credentials, and (2) peer review. You do not get to number two unless you have number one.
Science is a method that anyone can learn and apply. It does not require a degree to observe and record facts and think critically about them, especially in the non-technical social sciences. In a free and open society, science has to be a democratic process.
Be that as it may, West was barred. The elements of the debate have been batted back and forth since then without resolution. It is similar to the controversy over who built the Giza pyramids and how.
This brings up the issue of The Big Lie and how it has been promoted for generations in front of God and everyone. The controversy over how the Great Pyramid was constructed is one example. It could be easily settled if Egyptologists wanted to resolve the dispute. A simple test could be designed and arranged by impartial engineers that would either prove or disprove their longstanding disputed theory--that it was built using the primitive tools and methods of the day, circa 2500 BC.
Why hasn't this been done? The answer is so obvious, it seems impossible: they know that the theory is bogus. Could a trained, highly educated scientist really believe that 2.3 million tons of stone, some blocks weighing 70 tons, could have been transported and lifted by primitive methods? That seems improbable, though they have no compunction against lying to the public, writing textbooks and defending this theory against alternative theories. However, we must note that they will not subject themselves to the bottom-line test.
We think it is incumbent upon any scientist to bear the burden of proof of his/her thesis; however, the social scientists who make these claims have never stood up to that kind of scrutiny. That is why we must suspect a conspiracy. No other scientific discipline would get away with bending the rules of science. All that Egyptologists have ever done is bat down alternative theories using underhanded tactics. It is time to insist that they prove their own proposals.
Why would scientists try to hide the truth and avoid any test of their hypothesis? Their motivations are equally transparent. If it can be proved that the Egyptians did not build the Great Pyramid in 2500 BC using primitive methods, or if the Sphinx can be dated to 9000 BC, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. Orthodox views of cultural evolution are based upon a chronology of civilisation having started in Sumeria no earlier than 4000 BC. The theory does not permit an advanced civilisation to have existed prior to that time. End of discussion. Archaeology and history lose their meaning without a fixed timeline as a point of reference.
Since the theory of "cultural evolution" has been tied to Darwin's general theory of evolution, even more is at stake. Does this explain why facts, anomalies and enigmas are denied, suppressed and/or ignored? Yes, it does. The biological sciences today are based on Darwinism.
Pressure Tactics: The Ica Stones of Peru
Now we turn to another, very different case. In 1966, Dr Javier Cabrera received a stone as a gift from a poor local farmer in his native Ica, Peru. A fish was carved on the stone, which would not have meant much to the average villager but it did mean a lot to the educated Dr Cabrera. He recognised it as a long-extinct species. This aroused his curiosity. He purchased more stones from the farmer, who said he had collected them near the river after a flood.
Dr Cabrera accumulated more and more stones, and word of their existence and potential import reached the archaeological community. Soon, the doctor had amassed thousands of "Ica stones". The sophisticated carvings were as enigmatic as they were fascinating. Someone had carved men fighting with dinosaurs, men with telescopes and men performing operations with surgical equipment. They also contained drawings of lost continents.
Several of the stones were sent to Germany and the etchings were dated to remote antiquity. But we all know that men could not have lived at the time of dinosaurs; Homo sapiens has only existed for about 100,000 years.
The BBC got wind of this discovery and swooped down to produce a documentary about the Ica stones. The media exposure ignited a storm of controversy. Archaeologists criticised the Peruvian government for being lax about enforcing antiquities laws (but that was not their real concern). Pressure was applied to government officials.
The farmer who had been selling the stones to Cabrera was arrested; he claimed to have found them in a cave but refused to disclose the exact location to authorities, or so they claimed.
This case was disposed of so artfully that it would do any corrupt politician proud. The Peruvian government threatened to prosecute and imprison the farmer. He was offered and accepted a plea bargain; he then recanted his story and "admitted" to having carved the stones himself. That seems highly implausible, since he was uneducated and unskilled and there were 11,000 stones in all. Some were fairly large and intricately carved with animals and scenes that the farmer would not have had knowledge of without being a palaeontologist. He would have needed to work every day for several decades to produce that volume of stones. However, the underlying facts were neither here nor there. The Ica stones were labelled "hoax" and forgotten.
The case did not require a head-to-head confrontation or public discrediting of non-scientists by scientists; it was taken care of with invisible pressure tactics. Since it was filed under "hoax", the enigmatic evidence never had to be dealt with, as it did in the next example.
Censorship of "Forbidden" Thinking: Evidence for Mankind's Great Antiquity
The case of author Michael Cremo is well documented, and it also demonstrates how the scientific establishment openly uses pressure tactics on the media and government. His book Forbidden Archeology examines many previously ignored examples of artifacts that prove modern man's antiquity far exceeds the age given in accepted chronologies.
The examples which he and his co-author present are controversial, but the book became far more controversial than the contents when it was used in a documentary.
In 1996, NBC broadcast a special called The Mysterious Origins of Man, which featured material from Cremo's book. The reaction from the scientific community went off the Richter scale. NBC was deluged with letters from irate scientists who called the producer "a fraud" and the whole program "a hoax".
But the scientists went further than this--a lot further. In an extremely unconscionable sequence of bizarre moves, they tried to force NBC not to rebroadcast the popular program, but that effort failed. Then they took the most radical step of all: they presented their case to the federal government and requested the Federal Communications Commission to step in and bar NBC from airing the program again.
This was not only an apparent infringement of free speech and a blatant attempt to thwart commerce, it was an unprecedented effort to censor intellectual discourse. If the public or any government agency made an attempt to handcuff the scientific establishment, the public would never hear the end of it.
The letter to the FCC written by Dr Allison Palmer, President of the Institute for Cambrian Studies, is revealing:
At the very least, NBC should be required to make substantial prime-time apologies to their viewing audience for a sufficient period of time so that the audience clearly gets the message that they were duped. In addition, NBC should perhaps be fined sufficiently so that a major fund for public science education can be established.
I think we have some good leads on who "the Brain Police" are. And I really do not think "conspiracy" is too strong a word--because for every case of this kind of attempted suppression that is exposed, 10 others are going on successfully. We have no idea how many enigmatic artifacts or dates have been labelled "error" and tucked away in storage warehouses or circular files, never to see the light of day.
Data Rejection: Inconvenient Dating in Mexico
Then there is the high-profile case of Dr Virginia Steen-McIntyre, a geologist working for the US Geological Survey (USGS), who was dispatched to an archaeological site in Mexico to date a group of artifacts in the 1970s. This travesty also illustrates how far established scientists will go to guard orthodox tenets.
McIntyre used state-of-the-art equipment and backed up her results by using four different methods, but her results were off the chart. The lead archaeologist expected a date of 25,000 years or less, and the geologist's finding was 250,000 years or more.
The figure of 25,000 years or less was critical to the Bering Strait "crossing" theory, and it was the motivation behind the head archaeologist's tossing Steen-McIntyre's results in the circular file and asking for a new series of dating tests. This sort of reaction does not occur when dates match the expected chronological model that supports accepted theories.
Steen-McIntyre was given a chance to retract her conclusions, but she refused. She found it hard thereafter to get her papers published and she lost a teaching job at an American university.
Government Suppression and Ethnocentrism:
Avoiding Anomalous Evidence in NZ, China and Mexico
In New Zealand, the government actually stepped in and enacted a law forbidding the public from entering a controversial archaeological zone. This story appeared in the book, Ancient Celtic New Zealand, by Mark Doutré.
However, as we will find (and as I promised at the beginning of the article), this is a complicated conspiracy. Scientists trying to protect their "hallowed" theories while furthering their careers are not the only ones who want artifacts and data suppressed. This is where the situation gets sticky.
The Waipoua Forest became a controversial site in New Zealand because an archaeological dig apparently showed evidence of a non-Polynesian culture that preceded the Maori--a fact that the tribe was not happy with. They learned of the results of the excavations before the general public did and complained to the government. According to Doutré, the outcome was "an official archival document, which clearly showed an intention by New Zealand government departments to withhold archaeological information from public scrutiny for 75 years".
The public got wind of this fiasco but the government denied the claim. However, official documents show that an embargo had been placed on the site. Doutré is a student of New Zealand history and archaeology. He is concerned because he says that artifacts proving that there was an earlier culture which preceded the Maori are missing from museums. He asks what happened to several anomalous remains:
Where are the ancient Indo-European hair samples (wavy red brown hair), originally obtained from a rock shelter near Watakere, that were on display at the Auckland War Memorial Museum for many years? Where is the giant skeleton found near Mitimati?
Unfortunately this is not the only such incident. Ethnocentrism has become a factor in the conspiracy to hide mankind's true history. Author Graham Hancock has been attacked by various ethnic groups for reporting similar enigmatic findings.
The problem for researchers concerned with establishing humanity's true history is that the goals of nationalists or ethnic groups who want to lay claim to having been in a particular place first, often dovetail with the goals of cultural evolutionists.
Archaeologists are quick to go along with suppressing these kinds of anomalous finds. One reason Egyptologists so jealously guard the Great Pyramid's construction date has to do with the issue of national pride.
The case of the Takla Makan Desert mummies in western China is another example of this phenomenon. In the 1970s and 1980s, an unaccounted-for Caucasian culture was suddenly unearthed in China. The arid environment preserved the remains of a blond-haired, blue-eyed people who lived in pre-dynastic China. They wore colourful robes, boots, stockings and hats. The Chinese were not happy about this revelation and they have downplayed the enigmatic find, even though Asians were found buried alongside the Caucasian mummies.
National Geographic writer Thomas B. Allen mused in a 1996 article about his finding a potsherd bearing a fingerprint of the potter. When he inquired if he could take the fragment to a forensic anthropologist, the Chinese scientist asked whether he "would be able to tell if the potter was a white man". Allen said he was not sure, and the official pocketed the fragment and quietly walked away. It appears that many things get in the way of scientific discovery and disclosure.
The existence of the Olmec culture in Old Mexico has always posed a problem. Where did the Negroid people depicted on the colossal heads come from? Why are there Caucasians carved on the stele in what is Mexico's seed civilisation? What is worse, why aren't the indigenous Mexican people found on the Olmec artifacts? Recently a Mexican archaeologist solved the problem by making a fantastic claim: that the Olmec heads--which generations of people of all ethnic groups have agreed bear a striking resemblance to Africans--were really representations of the local tribe.
STORMTROOPERS FOR DARWINISM
The public does not seem at all aware of the fact that the scientific establishment has a double standard when it comes to the free flow of information. In essence, it goes like this... Scientists are highly educated, well trained and intellectually capable of processing all types of information, and they can make the correct critical distinctions between fact and fiction, reality and fantasy. The unwashed public is simply incapable of functioning on this high mental plane.
The noble ideal of the scientist as a highly trained, impartial, apolitical observer and assembler of established facts into a useful body of knowledge seems to have been shredded under the pressures and demands of the real world. Science has produced many positive benefits for society; but we should know by now that science has a dark, negative side. Didn't those meek fellows in the clean lab coats give us nuclear bombs and biological weapons? The age of innocence ended in World War II.
That the scientific community has an attitude of intellectual superiority is thinly veiled under a carefully orchestrated public relations guise. We always see Science and Progress walking hand in hand. Science as an institution in a democratic society has to function in the same way as the society at large; it should be open to debate, argument and counter-argument. There is no place for unquestioned authoritarianism. Is modern science meeting these standards?
In the Fall of 2001, PBS aired a seven-part series, titled Evolution. Taken at face value, that seems harmless enough. However, while the program was presented as pure, objective, investigative science journalism, it completely failed to meet even minimum standards of impartial reporting. The series was heavily weighted towards the view that the theory of evolution is "a science fact" that is accepted by "virtually all reputable scientists in the world", and not a theory that has weaknesses and strong scientific critics.
The series did not even bother to interview scientists who have criticisms of Darwinism: not "creationists" but bona fide scientists. To correct this deficiency, a group of 100 dissenting scientists felt compelled to issue a press release, "A Scientific Dissent on Darwinism", on the day the first program was scheduled to go to air. Nobel nominee Henry "Fritz" Schaefer was among them. He encouraged open public debate of Darwin's theory:
Some defenders of Darwinism embrace standards of evidence for evolution that as scientists they would never accept in other circumstances.
We have seen this same "unscientific" approach applied to archaeology and anthropology, where "scientists" simply refuse to prove their theories yet appoint themselves as the final arbiters of "the facts". It would be naive to think that the scientists who cooperated in the production of the series were unaware that there would be no counter-balancing presentation by critics of Darwin's theory.
Richard Milton is a science journalist. He had been an ardent true believer in Darwinian doctrine until his investigative instincts kicked in one day. After 20 years of studying and writing about evolution, he suddenly realised that there were many disconcerting holes in the theory. He decided to try to allay his doubts and prove the theory to himself by using the standard methods of investigative journalism.
Milton became a regular visitor to London's famed Natural History Museum. He painstakingly put every main tenet and classic proof of Darwinism to the test. The results shocked him. He found that the theory could not even stand up to the rigours of routine investigative journalism.
The veteran science writer took a bold step and published a book titled The Facts of Life: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism. It is clear that the Darwinian myth had been shattered for him, but many more myths about science would also be crushed after his book came out. Milton says:
I experienced the witch-hunting activity of the Darwinist police at first handÉit was deeply disappointing to find myself being described by a prominent Oxford zoologist [Richard Dawkins] as "loony", "stupid" and "in need of psychiatric help" in response to purely scientific reporting.
(Does this sound like stories that came out of the Soviet Union 20 years ago when dissident scientists there started speaking out?)
Dawkins launched a letter-writing campaign to newspaper editors, implying that Milton was a "mole" creationist whose work should be dismissed. Anyone at all familiar with politics will recognise this as a standard Machiavellian by-the-book "character assassination" tactic. Dawkins is a highly respected scientist, whose reputation and standing in the scientific community carry a great deal of weight.
According to Milton, the process came to a head when the London Times Higher Education Supplement commissioned him to write a critique of Darwinism. The publication foreshadowed his coming piece: "Next Week: Darwinism - Richard Milton goes on the attack". Dawkins caught wind of this and wasted no time in nipping this heresy in the bud. He contacted the editor, Auriol Stevens, and accused Milton of being a "creationist", and prevailed upon Stevens to pull the plug on the article. Milton learned of this behind-the-scenes backstabbing and wrote a letter of appeal to Stevens. In the end, she caved in to Dawkins and scratched the piece.
Imagine what would happen if a politician or bureaucrat used such pressure tactics to kill a story in the mass media. It would ignite a huge scandal. Not so with scientists, who seem to be regarded as "sacred cows" and beyond reproach. There are many disturbing facts related to these cases. Darwin's theory of evolution is the only theory routinely taught in our public school system that has never been subjected to rigorous scrutiny; nor have any of the criticisms been allowed into the curriculum.
This is an interesting fact, because a recent poll showed that the American public wants the theory of evolution taught to their children; however, "71 per cent of the respondents say biology teachers should teach both Darwinism and scientific evidence against Darwinian theory". Nevertheless, there are no plans to implement this balanced approach.
It is ironic that Richard Dawkins has been appointed to the position of Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. He is a classic "Brain Police" stormtrooper, patrolling the neurological front lines. The Western scientific establishment and mass media pride themselves on being open public forums devoid of prejudice or censorship. However, no television program examining the flaws and weaknesses of Darwinism has ever been aired in Darwin's home country or in America. A scientist who opposes the theory cannot get a paper published.
The Mysterious Origins of Man was not a frontal attack on Darwinism; it merely presented evidence that is considered anomalous by the precepts of his theory of evolution.
Returning to our bastions of intellectual integrity, Forest Mims was a solid and skilled science journalist. He had never been the centre of any controversy and so he was invited to write the most-read column in the prestigious Scientific American, "The Amateur Scientist", a task he gladly accepted. According to Mims, the magazine's editor Jonathan Piel then learned that he also wrote articles for a number of Christian magazines. The editor called Mims into his office and confronted him.
"Do you believe in the theory of evolution?" Piel asked.
Mims replied, "No, and neither does Stephen Jay Gould."
His response did not affect Piel's decision to bump Mims off the popular column after just three articles.
This has the unpleasant odour of a witch-hunt. The writer never publicly broadcast his private views or beliefs, so it would appear that the "stormtroopers" now believe they have orders to make sure "unapproved" thoughts are never publicly disclosed.
TABOO OR NOT TABOO?
So, the monitors of "good thinking" are not just the elite of the scientific community, as we have seen in several cases; they are television producers and magazine editors as well. It seems clear that they are all driven by the singular imperative of furthering "public science education", as the president of the Cambrian Institute so aptly phrased it.
However, there is a second item on the agenda, and that is to protect the public from "unscientific" thoughts and ideas that might infect the mass mind. We outlined some of those taboo subjects at the beginning of the article; now we should add that it is also "unwholesome" and "unacceptable" to engage in any of the following research pursuits: paranormal phenomena, UFOs, cold fusion, free energy and all the rest of the "pseudo-sciences". Does this have a familiar ring to it? Are we hearing the faint echoes of religious zealotry?
Who ever gave science the mission of engineering and directing the inquisitive pursuits of the citizenry of the free world? It is all but impossible for any scientific paper that has anti-Darwinian ramifications to be published in a mainstream scientific journal. It is also just as impossible to get the "taboo" subjects even to the review table, and you can forget about finding your name under the title of any article in Nature unless you are a credentialled scientist, even if you are the next Albert Einstein.
To restate how this conspiracy begins, it is with two filters: credentials and peer review. Modern science is now a maze of such filters set up to promote certain orthodox theories and at the same time filter out that data already prejudged to be unacceptable. Evidence and merit are not the guiding principles; conformity and position within the established community have replaced objectivity, access and openness.
Scientists do not hesitate to launch the most outrageous personal attacks against those they perceive to be the enemy. Eminent palaeontologist Louis Leakey penned this acid one-liner about Forbidden Archeology: "Your book is pure humbug and does not deserve to be taken seriously by anyone but a fool." Once again, we see the thrust of a personal attack; the merits of the evidence presented in the book are not examined or debated. It is a blunt, authoritarian pronouncement.
In a forthcoming instalment, we will examine some more documented cases and delve deeper into the subtler dimensions of the conspiracy.
© 2002 by Will Hart
Email: Wrtsearch1@aol.com
The Ancient Enigma - Moving the Megaliths
by Will Hart
Generations of explorers, archaeologists, historians, engineers and tourists have puzzled over one the great mysteries of ancient prehistory. At its core this incredible anomaly is quite simple. How did ancient cultures move 100, 200 and even 400-ton blocks of stone using primitive tools and methods? Not only move them also accurately position them to tight tolerances. The question is simple; the problem is complex.
I think we need to look at the issues with a modern perspective in the context of what our heavy equipment is capable of today to really get a grip on what kind of challenge we are discussing. Too often I read descriptions of how the Great Pyramid was built or how the ancient builders managed the megalithic stones in Peru that gloss right over the magnitude of these accomplishments. Cutting right to the chase, a modern locomotive engine weighs 200 tons.
Take that steel leviathan off the track and give a large team of men some ropes and let's see how far they can pull it or if they can lift it up at all. The average 18-wheel tractor-
trailer is rated to about a 20-ton capacity. Our highways have a legal load-limit of 40 tons, anything over that has to get special permits. I have come to realize after doing years of study of the ancient megalithic sites and modern technological capabilities that most people that write on these topics have not done their homework.
Many archaeologists and historians either skip over these problems or they dance around the real issues and simply give some unsupported scenario of how these massive blocks of stone were transported and lifted. There is an unavoidable physical problem that engineers are very aware of and that is the density and relative compactness of stone versus the manpower needed to exert enough force to move or lift it. The two simply do not go together. Even if we scale things way down the problem does not go away.
Let's take the average 2.5-ton limestone building block that was used to construct the core of the Great Pyramid. The block would be about four-foot long three high and three feet deep. How many men can be positioned around it? I would say no more than eight. Unfortunately, eight men cannot lift up 4,500 lbs. Pulleys and hoists were unknown in the pyramid building era. This poses a very simple and practical construction problem. It only grows worse as we raise the tonnage and the vertical lift.
How did the Egyptians lift 100-ton blocks up forty feet in the air to position them in the Sphinx temple? In addition, how did the Incas so carefully lift up and position their massive polygonal blocks so that they fit like a jigsaw puzzle?
There is an equally serious difficulty that precedes the transport and lifting of megaliths that takes place in the quarry. The only tools the ancient Egyptians had were very small copper chisels and rounded hammer-stones. The inflexible and insurmountable problem that the Great Pyramid presents is the fact that 43 blocks of granite weighing from 30 to 70 tons were quarried, lifted out of the bedrock, transported 500 miles and raised 150 vertical feet to the King's Chamber.
Several years ago Egyptologist Mark Lehner spent five hours in the Aswan quarry with a hammer-stone pounding against the granite bedrock (copper is too soft to cut granite). He was trying to prove that the ancient tools could do the job. He managed to excavate a one-foot square hole one-inch deep for his efforts. The granite blocks in the King's Chamber were 17' long and the trench that had to be dug around to them was about 8' deep. No one has ever shown how these megaliths were undercut and lifted out of the quarry.
These were relatively small blocks compared to the great obelisks that were quarried, transported and then raised up thousands of years ago, many of which still stand. They weigh from 100 to 350 tons. There isn't an archaeologist or engineer that has the slightest idea how this was done. Our largest modern day, heavy-duty cranes are rated from 100 to 300 tons. We have custom cranes that can lift up to 500 tons. Anyone that believes manpower alone could have moved these monstrous blocks of stone using ropes and manpower is living in a fantasy world.
In fact, Lehner set up an experiment to see if it was possible to quarry, move and lift an obelisk weighing one-tenth of what the largest Egyptian obelisks weighed. It was filmed by NOVA and was an utter failure. The team's master stonemason could not quarry the 35-ton obelisk so a bulldozer was called in. They could not move it, a truck was called in. These failures represent a turning a point in the long-standing debate. Lehner actually confirmed what a Japanese team funded by Nissan had already learned in 1979, it is not possible to duplicate what the ancients did using primitive tools and methods.
Team Nissan was trying to prove something and they were very confident. But when they could not begin to excavate the blocks of stone they planned on using for their small scale-model of the Great Pyramid with ancient tools they turned to jackhammers. When they tried to ferry the blocks they quarried across the river on a primitive barge, the stones sank. When a boat got them across the river they discovered that the sledges sank in the sand. They called trucks in to move the blocks to the site. Once at the site they could not manipulate the blocks into place and found, to their ultimate embarrassment, that they could not bring the four walls together into an apex despite the deployment of helicopters.
This debate has matured and moved along. It is time for those that believe they have the solution and can prove that the ancients used primitive tools and methods to step up to the plate. We need to dispose of this obsolete thinking and move on to more realistic solutions!
© 2002 by Will Hart
Email: Wrtsearch1@aol.com
Will Hart is a freelance journalist, book author, nature photographer and documentary filmmaker. He lives and does much of his research in the Lake Tahoe area in the USA, and writes a column titled "The Tahoe Naturalist" for a regional publication. He has produced and directed films about wolves and wild horses.
References and Resources
- Cremo, Michael A. and Richard L. Thompson, Forbidden Archeology, Govardhan Hill, USA, 1993.
- Cremo, Michael A., "The Controversy over 'The Mysterious Origins of Man'", NEXUS 5/04, 1998; Forbidden Archeology's Impact, Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing, USA, 1998, website http://www.mcremo.com.
- Doore, Kathy, "The Nazca Spaceport & the Ica Stones of Peru", http://www.labyrinthina.com/ica.htm; see website for copy of Dr Javier Cabrera's book, The Message of the Engraved Stones.
- Doutré, Mark, Ancient Celtic New Zealand, Dé Danann, New Zealand, 1999, website http://www.celticnz.co.nz.
- Milton, Richard, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism (original edition: The Facts of Life: Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, Corgi, UK, 1993), http://www.alternativescience.com.
- Steen-McIntyre, Virginia, "Suppressed Evidence for Ancient Man in Mexico", NEXUS 5/05, 1998.
- Sunfellow, David, "The Great Pyramid & The Sphinx", November 25, 1994, at http://www.nhne.com/specialrepots/spyramid.html.
- Tampa Bay Tribune, October 12, 2001 (Darwinism/evolution quote), http://www.tampatrib.com.
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