Could the pyramids of Giza in Egypt have been built by bronze-age people?
Conventional wisdom and mainstream science indicate the first human civilization began in Sumer (modern Iraq) or perhaps the Indus valley about 4000 B.C.E. This currently accepted theory describes humans living as hunter-gathers for hundreds of thousands of years then suddenly (and nearly simultaneously) developing agriculture, written language, metallurgy, religion, architecture and labor specialization – the hallmarks of what is known as civilization.
For most people who were educated in modern Western countries, this development is presented as a natural, almost inevitable evolution of mankind. However, some scholars suggest that humankind had a little help in the rapid progression towards civilization from beings that came from the stars, thousands of years ago.
Erich von Daniken first posited the “Ancient Astronauts” theory in 1968 in the best-selling (and now somewhat disputed) book Chariots of the Gods. Von Daniken explores the connections between the physical evidence left behind by ancient civilizations – most notably the massive pyramids of Egyptian and Mesoamerican cultures. Enormous controversy surrounds von Daniken’s supposition that the bronze-age cultures could not have built such precise and enduring monuments. Modern efforts to duplicate the task using the technology of the time have either failed outright or succeeded only in marginal areas.
While not casting a vote for or against ancient astronauts, Graham Hancock explores the intricacies of particularly the Giza pyramids in Fingerprints of the Gods. His conclusion is that the technology and resources available to these ancient civilizations are woefully inadequate to account for the awesome geologic and astronomical precision of the pyramids. The equipment required to build the flat and orthagonal facing on the stones and align the 2.3 million blocks (weighing from 3-70 tons) did not exist prior to the Industrial Revolution.
In The Genesis Race, author Will Hart states that the written record of many of these ancient cultures leaves no room for interpretation of the source of the marvelous achievements of these primitive societies: it was information given by beings who ‘descended from heaven’. Other authors such as Joe Lewels, Ph.D. suggest in The God Hypothesis that every culture and civilization on Earth has its legends of visitations from extraterrestrials. Both authors note the similarities in creation myths between cultures dispersed across the ancient world that presumably could not have communicated with each other.
The heated debate rages on between mainstream and alternative with historians, theologians and anthropologists joining the fray. Is it possible that the gods (as distinguished from God) of antiquity: Enlil, Isis, Osirus, Zeus, etc., who reportedly gave humans the tools needed for civilization, were in fact extraterrestrials?
Comments
Not all what is thinkable belongs neccessarly to the realms of reality. Pseudo-archeology is used jump on quick conclusions, whenever their exponents believe, they couldn't explain something by their very own perception of 'conventional means'. This is however an insult against all real archeologists, who do a hard job looking into every sensible hypothesis and searching for tangible proofs. I agree, most primitive and uneducated people can't live with the term 'unknown' - so they tend to fill in their gaps of missing knowledge with beliefs - up to obsession. The steadily growing ET/UFO-cult of the measses is an excellent example, how religious beliefs and exosexual hopes put science out of the market over time. Since UFOlogy, astrology, numerology and scientology are alltogether things, that have nothing to do with science, no serious scientist will ever go into these things - except he wanted tu ruin his carreer and changed into this people-fooling snake-oil business.
It would make sense to ask NASA publicly how at primitive man could know cosmology/the astrological alignment of the pyramids or the Mayan Calendar without modern telescopes.
@Kurt: As already mentioned in my most recent post, if *YOU* (and pseudo-archeologist and other wannabe-scientists, not familiar with even most basic concepts of celestial mechanics) can not explain something, does *NOT* mean automatically, nobody else could explain that as well. Most ordinary people today have far not the level of education of ancient engineers, who were involved into design and construction of these famous buildings. Beside that, astrology is *NOT* a field of science (it is based on the spiritual belief planetary positions would influence humans future) e.g. the West-East alignment can be easily done by observation of sun's trajectory during a year and no telescopes are required to recognize star constellations and their relative movements.
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