Path: typhoon.sonic.net!feed.news.sonic.net!sfo2-feed1.news.digex.net!dca6-feed2.news.digex.net!intermedia!newsfeed1.cidera.com!netnews.com!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!fu-berlin.de!newsfeed.iinet.net.au!news.per.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.can.connect.com.au!nenosed From: nenosed@news.apex.met.au (Ned Latham) Newsgroups: alt.archaeology,sci.anthropology,soc.history.ancient,alt.history.ancient-egypt Subject: Re: Kites used to build the pyramids? Date: 30 Jul 2001 14:59:51 GMT Organization: Apex Internet (www.apex.net.au/news) Lines: 36 Message-ID: References: <7p897.20790$Fk7.200416@news.indigo.ie> Reply-To: ned@apex.net.au NNTP-Posting-Host: draal.apex.net.au X-Trace: auwa.connect.com.au 996505191 5812 210.9.66.12 (30 Jul 2001 14:59:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@connect.com.au NNTP-Posting-Date: 30 Jul 2001 14:59:51 GMT User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.3 (Linux) Cache-Post-Path: draal.apex.net.au!ned@ppp5-188.apex.net.au X-Cache: nntpcache 2.3.3 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.archaeology:59075 sci.anthropology:80192 soc.history.ancient:77121 alt.history.ancient-egypt:7053 Colum wrote in <7p897.20790$Fk7.200416@news.indigo.ie>: > > Read on a little and.. > > "Theory dismissed > > Most scholars consider the idea laughable and cite archaeological > evidence showing that thousands of workers constructed earthen > ramps to haul the 5,000-pound blocks for the pyramids, built as > tombs for the ancient Pharaohs. The most wondrous thing here is that there are people who fall for crackpot notions like that one. > ``Just because something can be done that way, doesn't mean it was. > We'd know if they were built like that,'' said Lisa Schwappach, > curator of the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose. Although > Schwappach acknowledges that one known Egyptian artifact resembles > a kite, she says evidence for the theory doesn't mesh with the > technologies surrounding the 4,000-year-old monuments. Egyptians > were expert sailors, but they never developed the wheel and used > only looped ropes as pulleys. " Moreover, they didn't have the materials from which to build a kite large enough to lift the blocks of stone they used, or strong enough to withstand the strain. No steel, no nylon, no revolving pulleys: they wouldn't even have *conceived* the idea of lifting huge weights with kites. ----snip---- Ned -- * Democracy means "the people rule". * * Fight for the power of assent. *