Dom

Yeah I saw a similar program before deciding to make this thread. It focuesed a lot on how precise all the anicient monuments were, for example how the Great Pyramid has an average error of about 2mm and is directly aligned with the Summer and Winter solstice (or something to do with Summer and Winter anyway).

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Guybrush

I would be a bit sceptical to such facts and how they are interpreted. At such minute details, it would seem likely that any change in the earth's axis would be important and 4-5000 years ago when the pyramid was built, the axis wasn't the exact same as it is today. That could give bias either way, making the pyramid's construction look either more correct (correcting a slight mistake) or less (worsening an error). What about erosion and the pyramid sinking into the sand? This must also have taken place during it's 4-5000 years lifetime.

Also important is that in such programs, they usually interview some kind of experts. These people are typically presented as authorities on whatever their field is, but often they are not completely worthy of that title. Instead, I think they are often chosen because their work is interesting and/or fits the program rather than because their assumptions and hypotheses are so "good". I don't know what the 2 millimetres are, but how on earth do you even get to that number? To me, it sounds a bit too much like a misuse of statistics .. or like a number the producers wanted to include in the program because it so strongly illustrates either the egyptians prowess at pyramid building or the impossibility that they could have done it. If you start thinking about stuff like axis changing, erosion and pyramids sinking, then the possibility of a number like 2 millimetres of anything should seem less and less likely.

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Something Completely Different

Dom

On the program they said that taking everything into account the pyramid aligned with those things at the time. They don't algin now. But yes I see where you're coming from. And I think the 2mm accuracy came from calculations of what the perfect pyramid would have looked like, as in geometrically perfect, but I'm not sure. It was an interesting program and it was good that it showed both sides of the argument.

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Neapolitan

As far as accuracy, you can do amazing things with strings, like make a plum.

Eerily enough the Great Pyramids of Giza are supposed to match the belt of Orion. Both the the way they layed out, as they appear from an aerial veiw and the hieght of each of the three pyramids correspond to the magnitude of each of the stars. I don't know if the GPG aligned with the solstice (they might) I know both the Myan pyramids of South America and Hengestone in England do align with the solstices. The is also the Great White Pyramid in China, but that hardly, if ever gets mentioned.

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Dom

That is a very interesting article, and I suppose you're right: I wasn't sure about the solstice, but I knew it aligned with certain things. I was probably thinking of Stonehenge.

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Guybrush

^Wow, that creature on the left there looks really like an elongated E.T.

Do you know of any plausible interpretation of that thing? I guess it could just be a fantasy creature?

In a sense, anthropology sometimes sounds like trying to figure out what people were thinking based on some pottery here, some imagery here. I mean, you have a very few pieces of a puzzle and the rest you have to fill in on your own as best you can. It sounds pretty hard!

Depending on how you fill in the pieces, I'm sure you could use such art to draw all sorts of conclusions, for example about alien visitors. I'm sure noise agrees, at least to some extent, that such interpretations is not the right thing to do. Coming from biology, I would say it's the wrong thing to do based on principles of parsimony. If you make the assumption that the image is an illustration of an alien who visited these peoples, then you have to assume that aliens exist and visited earth and these people at some point(s) in time. If you assume that it's an illustration of a figment of imagination, you don't have to make any "new" assumptions about our universe. We already know people are capable of art and fantasy.

edit :

Parsimony is sorta about making as few wrong assumptions as possible. For example we know people are smart and can build things. If we assume people made the pyramids, we have a hypothesis which is broadly congruent with this knowledge. If we assume aliens guided the builders or even built the pyramids, then we have to make a whole new set of assumptions to accomodate that hypothesis.

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Something Completely Different

noise

regarding the image i posted - judging by the rest of the imagery in that tradition, and the sorts of places in which the art was produced, it is very probable that the cultural group responsible for the images were shamanistic.

shamans were (are) spiritual leaders who make use of altered states of consciousness to establish and maintain contact with the spirit world.

altered states are biochemical phenomena, and the sorts of visual and somatic hallucinations they produce are often quite predictable.

in this image, we see floating human-like figures which is likely related to the sensation of an out-of-body experience, or of flying. the large eyes could indicate expanded visual powers. the flying objects around them may be what are called entropic phenomena - basically, the weird spots and shapes you see when you're on drugs. even the elongation of the figures is a well-documented somatic hallucination referred to as 'attenuation'.

the snakes and birds are common in this tradition - they probably had metaphorical significance.

it's hard to 'interpret' ancient art in this way, since it really consists of layer upon layer of metaphor, most of which we no longer have access to. there are clues to help us interpret, but in a sense you're right, it's all a giant guessing game

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my flac collection

duga

Tore, I'm with you on the parsimony, especially being a biologist myself. However, I don't like to be trapped by it. I use it appropriately when thinking about designing a very specific experiment, but I have a firm belief that sometimes wild leaps need to be made to make real discoveries. Being very parsimonious gets you the tiny details, like which protein out of millions of proteins belong to which intracellular compartment, but that is about as far as it goes. For example, when Fleming discovered penicillin, he did so knowing full well most of the scientists in the world thought he was nuts.

Basically I guess I'm saying stay logical, but keep an open mind. It is one thing to believe the hypothesis with the least assumptions and another to flat out deny the other possibilities. When that happens, it is harder recognize evidence that proves the wilder theory even if it shows up. At this point, I like to give our ancient ancestors credit for their accomplishments. They built the pyramids. They were bored and came up with fantasy creatures and stories to go with them. But who knows, maybe it was all aliens...

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Confusion will be my epitaph...

Darkest Hour

Anyone who has seen this show can't logically deny the evidence.

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Freebase Dali

^ Heh.. totally accidentally deleted your post as spam and banned you.

My bad...