Writing my post from last week got me thinking about human endeavors and how far we have come as a species. While I was lost in this reverie something got caught in my craw. Humans built the pyramids of Giza. These things are marvels of engineering. Unfortunately, there is a group of people who disagree for various reasons.
The bulk of these people believe that humans couldn't have built them because they are aligned with stars, are made of massive stones that couldn't have been moved easily, and are such a massive undertaking that it is impossible to conceive of how they did it. So, I am going to try to point out a few things that try to refute these worries. This list will not be exhaustive, it will just cover a list of things that I found in my googling.
On the first point, the astronomical exactitude of the pyramids. Egyptian astronomy dates back to the 3000's BCE, when they were making star charts on circular stones, more than 400 years prior to the building of the earliest pyramid. This means that all you would need to do is plan where to put stuff prior to building, something that anyone who has run a city does because they don't want shit to get out of control. Its called urban planning and its been around since people needed to use space efficiently. In fact, Egyptian cities are famous for it.
Second, moving large rocks isn't hard. Here is a guy moving a stone henge sized rock by himself. Just a dude in his backyard. Archeologists found large sled-like machines in Egypt that move very heavy weights around easily if you wet the sand in front of them. All it takes is a little bit of knowledge and experience to make hard tasks far simpler.
And finally on the third point, if only the things you can conceive of as you are now are possible, then humanity is doomed. Just because a person doesn't understand how something happened, doesn't mean it didn't.
The bulk of these and other arguments against ancient peoples building massive structures is based on the idea that people from back then must have been stupid. Ancient people didn't have cranes, so they couldn't have built tall things. These arguments ignore evidence and make assumptions. Yes, they had less tools to work with, but that doesn't mean that had none. All our tools today are just improved tools from long ago. People have always been about as intelligent as they are today, we just have access to more information. All we are is slightly less ignorant than back then.
And lastly I want to talk about a conspiracy theory: Aliens built the pyramids. I am not going to say it didn't happen. I might have happened. Show me proof. If you can come up with proof that doesn't rely wholly on what you just think might have happened, then I will consider it an actual possibility. Yes, archeologists don't know 100% how the pyramids were built, but their arguments are based on evidence not just spastic speculation and occasional doses of crazy.
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