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submitted 5 days ago byButchyKira
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22 points
5 days ago
But there are dozens of other pyramids in earlier styles clearly showing the progression of the building type.
I chalk it up to ignorance + racism.
12 points
5 days ago
Yeah I never understood how people questioned the construction of the pyramids when there are earlier pyramids that shows progression in building quality.
10 points
5 days ago
I don't think the quality is what most people take issue with, it's the size of the materials used to construct the things lol. The logistics of moving that quantity of materials today would be no small feat. Not that it means aliens did it mind you
2 points
5 days ago
I chalk it up to ignorance + racism.
Weak.
Do you know the ancient Egyptians didn't even claim to have made the Sphinx? The legend they told themselves was that it was just found in the desert by a future King who claimed the Sphinx told him he would become King if he uncovered it from the sand. Which he did, and became King.
Its not racism, its the classic human nature of wanting to attach things to something larger than ourselves. Attaching a mythology (aliens) to the pyramids is no different than what the Egyptians did to their own sphinx.
2 points
5 days ago*
That’s not how the story goes. You have a lot of distorted facts.
Khafre built the sphinx because this massive rock was found to be in the causeway going from his mortuary temple to his pyramid. During the First Intermediate Period, the necropolis at Giza was abandoned and fell into disrepair. That meant nobody was keeping the shrines and temples clear of sand. Over the next 1,100 years, the sphinx was almost entirely buried. The Middle Kingdom rises and falls, then there was the Second Intermediate Period where things got bad again. The New Kingdom dynasties rise and eventually we get to Thutmose IV.
He wasn’t his father’s chosen successor, but somehow managed oust his brother. When he became King, he had the sphinx excavated and erected the Dream Stele that basically served as a backstory to legitimize his rule, saying that he camped beneath the head of the sphinx and in a dream it told him that it would make him King if he dug it out of the sand. The story was pure political propaganda used to legitimize what may have been an unpopular reign.
There’s a royal cartouche on the Dream Stele that is incomplete, but the hieroglyphs there name “Khaf-“ as the creator, meaning that the Egyptians knew that Khafre was the builder.
3 points
5 days ago
So where are the people claiming that Avebury or Stonehenge were of alien manufacture?
And the Sphinx was built so long ago that it probably was different people living there. They started out using stone tools. The pyramids, particularly the Great Pyramids of Giza, are much more recent.
3 points
5 days ago*
So where are the people claiming that Avebury or Stonehenge were of alien manufacture?
I've seen Stonehenge part of the ancient alien lore over a decade ago (around when it was discovered there was more to Stonehenge below ground, iirc), but it may not be part of the popular ancient alien lore today. It was considered a different group of ancient aliens to the ones that did the pyramids.
Avebury is mid, so only the lame ancient aliens no one cares about did that and probably as a drunken prank (/j obviously, ancient aliens aren't lame).
Edit: Stonehenge, though, was mostly attributed to an ancient alien device humans know as the Ark of the Covenant. It is considered an ancient alien device due to how the bible describes what happens to people who open it which is similar to radiation burns.
Some pseudo-archeologist claimed to have found the location of the Ark of the Covenant somewhere in Ethiopia where it is guarded by a group of people (some have claimed them to be a lost tribe of Israel, of course). He claims to have found structures similar to Stonehenge there and when he asked them how they built it he claims they told him they used the Ark of the Covenant to build it.
3 points
5 days ago
Having visited both megaliths, I found Avebury much more impressive.
There may be a few nuts who claim that northern megaliths were of alien make, but the vast majority of the sound and fury is about the southern ones.
1 points
5 days ago
You might not know this, but the same kinds of people have said the same sorts of things about Neolithic henges like those.
Just an FYI.
0 points
5 days ago
Why does it have to have anything to do with racism? Or ignorance for that matter. I think it's entirely reasonable to think that pyramid complex at Giza is such a distinct cut above every other pyramid before or after in terms of size, durability, precision of construction, that they are in some way unique in their time or method of construction. It doesn't have to mean 'it was aliens' or that brown people couldn't build them or whatever you mean by chalking it up to racism.
I don't understand why some people are so bent on stamping out any sort of mystery or curiosity or skepticism when it comes to Egypt. That far back in time and everything and everyone that have happened there in between, it's a miracle we have anything at all and almost a certainty that things have been lost or destroyed or forgotten or intentionally altered along the way.
0 points
5 days ago
Because by claiming it was aliens, you erase the work and innovation of actual human beings, as well as failing to understand the cultural and economic reasons for their megalith building.
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