a reply to:
Hanslune
Hello Hans,
So how does it fit in with your earlier idea of the Pyramids being 19,000 years old?
SC: Evidently it doesn't. But just like C14 dating, my interpretation and refinement of the data presented to us by the Giza Stellar Time Line (the
Lehner-Goedicke Line), is under constant review and subject to refinement (as I learn more and understand more of how it works, or at least, how I
believe it works). You will find, for example, in my forthcoming book,
The Great Pyramid Void Enigma (Bear & Co., 2021), I have pushed my 19,000 BCE dating of these monuments down to
just over 10,000 BCE. The reasons for this are explained in the book but mainly arise out of a reinterpretation of the Giza Stellar Time Line data.
My latest ca. 10,000 BCE date is, of course, still more than double the age of the cedar wood from the Queen's Chamber shaft and perhaps three times
the age of the average age given from the earlier studies in the 1980s and 90s. These earlier C14 studies didn't affect my view that the Old Kingdom
pyramids are far older than those early C14 studies suggested and this latest finding does not alter my view on that. I think it might have been you
who once said:
Radiocarbon dating is certainly not our most precise tool, and fortunately, we have others to supplement it.
And, as you know, Zahi Hawass has probably sent more ancient Egyptian artefacts to more C14 labs than anyone on the planet. He obviously didn't get
the results he was hoping for or expected when he said:
Not even in five thousand years could carbon dating help archeology. We can use other kinds of methods like geoarcheology, which is very
important, or DNA, or laser scanning, but carbon dating is useless. This science will never develop. In archeology, we consider carbon dating results
imaginary.
I certainly agree with the sentiment expressed in both quotes above. And for a number of reasons. With this latest C14 date of the Dixon Relic what we
find is that the mean C14 calibrated date takes the Great Pyramid ever so slowly farther away from the supposed time of Khufu and slightly deeper into
the past. Indeed, the long-awaited calibration curve to C14 dates, IntCal20, has just recently been published in the August edition of
Radiocarbon and it suggests that there may be many dates that will have to be adjusted backwards or forwards in time. That is all well and good
and should be done as needed. However, I fully expect, as we learn more about the atmospheric condition and dynamics of our planet (past and present
but especially its past) such reports will be carried out in another 20-30 years time, producing yet another calibration curve to further readjust the
C14 dates of artefacts. And then again in another 20-30 years after that and on and on it will go. As we learn more and more we will keep on refining
and adjusting those C14 dates and I suspect in time we will find, as Graham Hancock keeps telling us, "Stuff just keeps getting older." Put another
way - the old wood just keeps getting older.
My scepticism of the C14 dating method arises from three key areas which I will briefly outline here.
1) Rate of Production of C14
In the early days of C14 dating it was assumed that the rate of production of C14 in the Earth's atmosphere was constant. We now know that this is not
the case and have calibrated this using ice-core data, deep sea cores and tree-ring data. Scientists, however, typically interpret all of this data
with a uniformist mind set, giving scant consideration that our planet does, from time to time, go through major catastrophic convulsions; events that
punctuate the Earth's gradual processes and which, imo, can result in a false interpretation and reading of data.
2) Rate of Decay
In the past the rate of decay of radioactive isotopes was believed to be an immutable constant and, as such, could provide us with a thoroughly
reliable half-life for that particular isotope. However, scientists have recently discovered that the decay rate of radioactive isotopes can actually
vary thereby impacting on the half-life of the element. This finding, imo, has profound implications for the use of any dating method relying on a
steady decay rate of radioactive isotopes. What other factors might we learn of in future that may also be found to impact on the decay rates of these
isotopes? And was there anything in our planet's past that may have exacerbated this situation?
3) Contamination
We all know about this. And even with pre-treatment it can still be a problem. How many times over the years has someone insisted that the painted
marks in the Great Pyramid cannot be tested because of all the modern contamination in those small chambers? Well, likewise, large parts in the chain
of custody of the cedar wood from the Queen's Chamber shaft is completely unknown and unknowable - how many hands did it pass through since 1872? What
did it come into contact with in its journey from Egypt to Scotland? Ash is one of the biggest enemies of accurate C14 dating (in as far as any such
accuracy can actually be determined) and we find the wood was kept in a cigar box of all things. You would need only a microscopic amount of modern
ash to radically reduce the C14 age of this artefact.
There is much more I could add here but I'll leave it at that for the moment. I fully expect, however, that in time, the gap will close between the
date I present from the Giza Stellar Time Line and the C14 date for those monuments (when we finally get a C14 date that everyone can agree is
reliable and not likely to be readjusted by future studies).
SC
edit on 19/12/2020 by Scott Creighton because: (no reason given)