There’s heavy rain at Giza a couple days a year. Over 4500 years of that.
Comment on Archaeology Problems
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Shocke: The Sphinx is much older than originally estimated because the water erosion around the figure must have come from the time when Egypt was very temperate and rainy, sometime before 3500-3200BCE, which is much earlier than we originally thought.
Egyptologists: But we have no artifacts from that era! No pottery, no barns! There’s no way to prove that!
Shocke: I mean, that’s just what the rocks
Egyptologists: LIES!!
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 2 months ago
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Furthermore, various structures securely dated to the Old Kingdom show only erosion that was caused by wind and sand (very distinct from the water erosion).
So where’s their water erosion then?
Just to save the downvoters some trouble, I’m only suggesting that theories which are not supported by direct anthropological evidence are worth considering. I’m not saying aliens - or Atlanteans or whomever - carved the Sphinx. The erosion theory was just the first thing I thought of as an example.
Back in the early 1990s, when I first suggested that the Great Sphinx was much older than generally believed at the time, I was challenged by Egyptologists who asked, “Where is the evidence of that earlier civilization?” that could have built the Sphinx.
They were sure that sophisticated culture, what we call civilization, did not exist prior to about 3000 or 4000 BCE. Now, however, there is evidence of high culture dating back to approximately 12,000 years ago, at a site in Turkey known as Göbekli Tepe. A major mystery has been why these early glimmerings of civilization and high culture disappeared, only to reemerge thousands of years later.
Uruanna@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m only suggesting that theories which are not supported by direct anthropological evidence are worth considering
You can consider an idea and build a theory around it, but once your basic idea is disproven, your whole theory disappears. And the idea that the Sphinx erosion doesn’t match the agreed upon age has already been proven wrong - as in, it has been explained that the observed erosion is perfectly compatible with what rock types are there and with the data that we know since the actual period it was built in, the mid third millenium BCE. So you don’t have your premise that the erosion doesn’t match the official age, and that means there is nothing left to consider here until you actually have something new, anything else is fanfiction.
Considering new idea is perfectly fine, no one disagrees with that, but you are not considering new ideas, you are considering old ideas that were proven wrong and not listening when someone tells you why it’s wrong. Get new material.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 months ago
it has been explained that the observed erosion is perfectly compatible with what rock types are there and with the data that we know since the actual period it was built in, the mid third millenium BCE
Is it the case then that we should see similar erosion in contemporary local structures? My understanding was that we didn’t, is that not right?
fossilesque@mander.xyz 2 months ago
You can date rock like that with luminescene dating… My dude, it’s great to wonder about the past. It’s a beautiful thing but this guy isn’t who you should be fixating on.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Artifacts which can be dated using these methods include ceramics, burned lithics, burned bricks and soil from hearths (TL), and unburned stone surfaces that were exposed to light and then buried (OSL).
Is it not the case that the stone around the Sphinx was in situ or not “exposed to light (then re-buried)”? I’m assuming OSL is the technique since afaik the Sphinx structure wasn’t burned (TL)?
thoughtco.com/luminescence-dating-cosmic-method-1…
I see articles that OSL confirms established dates, just not sure how the exposed-to-light-then-reburied works. We know the Sphinx was buried in the late 18th century, but obviously had been uncovered at some point before that in order to be built - what effect would that have on the OSL dating?
fossilesque@mander.xyz 2 months ago
…wikipedia.org/…/Sphinx_water_erosion_hypothesis
You can test the water idea with a simple core. It doesn’t fit the data.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 months ago
(Italics added, because - what? I’ve never seen that)
Here’s another example of this type of argument from the larger article:
(Italics added) Whether it is or is not; the countervailing argument is “no, because we have no proof it is”. Well no proof is just that - no proof either way. Isn’t it? This theory of astronomical alignment is based on solid empirical facts, though it is just a theory. Saying, “no it can’t be because we haven’t found a book from the time period” is a weird argument to say it disproves it. At best it says it can’t prove it.
That’s not to say a core sample test isn’t a good indicator, or some of the other causes-for-erosion aren’t as-or-more likely in the case of dating the Sphinx structure. It’s just that the particular argument that “we haven’t dug up definitive proof” is - not a great argument to base an unchallengeable assertion on. At best one has to allow alternate theories which have not been empirically disproven are possible.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 2 months ago
A borehole is pretty empirical, my dude. This is how I hunt rivers and other watercourses in other parts of the world.
Image
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 months ago
What’s the borehole analysis of Gobekle Tepe?
Speaking of, since that site was recently uncovered, how does OSL work for it? Are there any qualifications to dating it with OSL or is it the same whether it was covered for thousands of years or not?
psud@aussie.zone 2 months ago
Just a theory? A theory is a pretty well supported thing
Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com 2 months ago
I think the counterveiling argument is that there is a lot of evidence of large stone construction and similar cultural activities at much later dates.
And 10,000BC would be an impossibly ancient thing. You’d need a smidgen of proof to get anyone to think that was likely compared to all the circumstantial evidence we have for conventional estimations.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yet, Gobekle Tepe?