Pyramids purpose?

Im fairly sure that records of a powerful state that existed before the greeks would have been circulated before the Libraries destruction, and it would have been noted by otehr scohlars.

You could argue it did spread since we even have a account of Atlantis.

Alot of the works that burned in Library of Alexandria were not even that lucky

We only have Platos records of Atlantis.

Which seems to take us in a complete circle

Originally posted by Uncle Joe
We only have Platos records of Atlantis.

and read's Plato's story. Nowhere in the story is Atlantis referred to as a powerful, technologically advanced civilization. Contemporary yarn spinners have the Atlanteans flying around in UFO's with unlimited energy sources and other ludicrous inventions. Plato's version paints Atlantis as a middling culture, not particularly noteworthy or powerful. All the 'advanced' concoctions are a twentieth century embellishment, usually by someone trying to sell his latest book on the subject.

Why does every discussion involving ancient science always end up placed inside a giant box labeled "Atlantis" filled with UFOs and fantasy-technology? You'll note that the debunkers are at least as responsible for invoking these concepts in the discussion, and its being utilized to lump together anyone who speculates into the antecedents of the ancient world as irrational crackpots. It is the height of ethnocentrism to assume that an advance culture needs to mirror our own in order to be validated. There are no apparent remains of skyscrapers, credit cards, nuclear reactors, or jumbo jets. We assume the lack of these things indicate a culture less advanced then ours but that's just an assumption and it could be argued that it indicates that they were wiser. The simple fact remains that we do not know many things about the history of the world and if we're afraid to make leaps of intuition we'll never learn anything at all. It's boring and crowded swimming in the shallow side of the pool. Personally I'd rather dive into the deep end.

Obviously the ancient Egyptians were an advanced society. They had complex astronomy, mathematics, architectural and anatomical knowledge and many other profound accomplishments. Here's some interesting information about the Great Pyramid:

Great Pyramid Facts and Statistics

Here's what I had to say about this Plato business not so long ago:

originally posted by Cicada

The idea of any one generating a story of any nature wholly separate and unique from their language, customs and culture is completely naive.

In most of Plato's dialogs it is difficult to distinguish which ideas are Socrates' and which are Plato's, but the Atlantis account is clearly attributed. In "Critias" Plato's friend Critias tells the tale to Socrates. Critias states he learned the story from his grandfather. His grandfather is said to have heard it from Solon the Athenian, one of Greece's Seven Sages. Solon claimed to have heard the story from the Egyptian priest Sonchis of Sais. The dialogue itself presents a clear lineage. Plato insists the story is true four times. In "Timaeus" he states, "The fact that it is not invented fable but a genuine history is all important," It's certainly reasonable to consider Solon gave an accurate account of what his sources told him. This suggests the tale of Atlantis to be a genuine Egyptian tradition rather than a philosophical fable. Aristotle stated his opinion that Plato's story of Atlantis was fictional. That does not mean, however, that Plato derived the story unconnected to any cultural influences.

Many cultures around the world had a belief in a cyclical course of human history in which a catastrophe marks the end of each great age. A Golden Age is described by Hesiod c. 700 BCE (Plato was born nearly three hundred years later). Of course the most familiar catastrophe account comes from the Bible (Genesis 6-9), the story of Noah and his Ark. The theme appeared earlier in the Sumerian Gilgamesh epic when the hero met the survivor Ziusudra (also called Utnapishtim) on the island Dilmun. In India the first incarnation of Vishnu, in the form of a fish, saves Manu, the earliest ancestor of humanity, from a great flood by bringing him to safety in the peaks of the Himalayas. The Greek survivors of the great flood are Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, the daughter of Pandora and thus the first woman to be mortally born (and not forged by Hephaestus). In Mexico the notion of a cyclical pattern of creation is described as a series of successive "suns". The age called the "water sun" ends in a great flood.

The Incas told a story of the cultural hero Viracocha. According to accounts presented by Father Molina in his "Relacion de las fabulas ritos de los Yngas", Viracocha was the survivor of a great catastrophe. Molina's account states: "in it [the catastrophe] perished all races of men and created things insomuch that the waters rose above the highest mountain peaks in the world". The city Viracocha is credited with founding was called Tiahuanaco, the ruins of which exist to this day. By all accounts the site is awe-inspiring. Mid-sixteenth century visitor Garcilasco de la Vega's description includes: "We must now say something about the large and almost incredible buildings of Tiahuanaco. There is an artificial hill, of great height, built on stone foundations so that the earth will not slide. There are gigantic figures carved in stone...these are much worn which shows great antiquity. There are walls, the stones of which are so enormous it is difficult to imagine what human force could have put them into place. And there are remains of strange buildings, the most remarkable being stone portals, hewn out of solid rock; these stand on bases up to thirty feet long, fifteen feet wide and six feet thick. How, and with the use of what tools or implements, massive works of such size could be achieved are questions we are unable to answer". These are just a few examples. There are tales of cataclysmic floods from within the interior of Asia and the Americas told by people who had never seen the sea, lakes or great rivers.

Returning to Plato's account we find in the description of the fabled continent's location that Atlantis "was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent, which surrounds the true Ocean". Whatever your stance on Plato's account this is a startling description of the Earth's true geography than anyone living in that era would be supposed to possess by modern popular tradition.

I love that the ancient American cultures have been invoked in this conversation.
Here's a fun thing to do. Find a polar projection map such as the one used in the UN logo, a so-called flat earth map. Locate the Strait of Gibraltar, the Pillars of Hercules, and draw a straight line until you hit a large landmass in the center of an ocean. The results are intriguing to say the least.

I invoked American cultures to provide an example.

Peopel were claiming that Egyptian pyramids were built using advanced technology. I simply asked if the the same applied to the Aztec pyramids, and if not, why not?

And I reinvoked the American cultures to present an intriguing and observable point relating to the whole matter.

Indeed you did


But you did not elaborate on it, or in any way explain why you beleived that a transmission of technology had taken place, especially when Mesoamerican pyramids are far younger than those in Egypt.

Or provide any evidence for what you were saying beyond myths and legends.

It is just as easy to beleive that every culture has a flood myth as a result of the loss of civilisations at the end of the ice age, when the waters rose and destoryed cities. Over time these stories changed and became more dramatic wioth each telling. Allowing for independant generation of similar myths.

Originally posted by Uncle Joe
Indeed you did

But you did not elaborate on it, or in any way explain why you beleived that a transmission of technology had taken place, especially when Mesoamerican pyramids are far younger than those in Egypt.

Or provide any evidence for what you were saying beyond myths and legends.

It is just as easy to beleive that every culture has a flood myth as a result of the loss of civilisations at the end of the ice age, when the waters rose and destoryed cities. Over time these stories changed and became more dramatic wioth each telling. Allowing for independant generation of similar myths.

"But...EVERYBODY has a flood myth!"

I hear this all the time on this site, and of course it's true. But if EVERYBODY has a flood myth, isn't that proof the flood happened?

Re read the end of my last post. I said that a flood happened, but it wasnt quite as dramatic as claimed.

The flood at the end of the ice age would have covered every costal settlement on earth under like 200 feet of water that pretty dramatic IMHO.

It wouldnt happen overnight but I dont think many flood myths claim that

go here:

There are a number of Native American flood legends.

www.ilhawaii.net...

Heres a good site that list alot of the different flood stories

www.talkorigins.org...

Its really amazing how many you can find from all over the world

Of course, a large number of legends from around the world dealing with a flood theme does not necessarily 'prove' there ever was a global flood. The story is a cultural universal for a number of reasons.

Localized flooding did occur on a regular basis. It is easy to understand how many different cultures could experience the same disaster at different times in their past and incorporate the story into folklore.

Flooding (water) is symbolic of cleansing. Many flood legends touch on the cleansing of the earth by the drowning of evil people. Only the righteous survived. This reinforces each culture's moral code and the need to live harmoniously with your neighbors (good advice anyway, regardless of one's religious values). In the Biblical flood, the water was a symbolic baptism of the earth with the human race being reborn in a more purified state; with the subtheme that God punishes wickedness implying that even if you escape the consequences of your misdeeds in this life, you must answer for them in the next life.

So the many flood legends easily could have risen independently and the stories all evolved to a common morality tale. Sort of a folkloric convergent evolution.

Originally posted by Uncle Joe
Indeed you did

But you did not elaborate on it, or in any way explain why you beleived that a transmission of technology had taken place, especially when Mesoamerican pyramids are far younger than those in Egypt.

Or provide any evidence for what you were saying beyond myths and legends.

It is just as easy to beleive that every culture has a flood myth as a result of the loss of civilisations at the end of the ice age, when the waters rose and destoryed cities. Over time these stories changed and became more dramatic wioth each telling. Allowing for independant generation of similar myths.

Please don't misread me. My main point on these boards at almost all times is that people have a hard time dealing with the allegorical and metaphorical nature of myths and that it causes much confusion. As is almost always the case the key component of understanding is astronomy. Personally, I'd rather people did their own research and drew their own conclusions. It's too bad that you have such a disrespect for myth and legend that you categorically deny it as a source of information in one sentance. That's your loss, I suppose. Mythology, as distorted as it may be, is one of the few surviving communications from the prehistoric world, and if we can study it with at least some of our cultural biases in check we could actually learn something profound. It's interesting that you mention the end of the Ice Age as a possible origin for the world's proliferate flood legends as the end of the Ice Age actually coincides pretty well to Plato's dates for the destruction of Atlantis.

It's not included in my above self quote regarding Plato's sources, but when I originally posted it I quoted my sources, "The Mysteries of the Great Cross of Hendaye" by Jay Weidner and Vincent Bridges, "The Lost Language of Symbolism" vol 2 by Harold Bayley, "Hamlet's Mill" by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, and "Dictionary of Symbolism" by Hans Biedermann, whom I largely paraphrased. Weidner and Bridges compellingly argue the possibility of an Andean Alantis and I urge those interested in the topic to read their book and decide for themselves. I don't agree with all of their conclusions, but they make their argument well and quite strongly.

I dont deny it as a soure, i just dont accept them to be the only source, as some here claim. Its bad history to say 'ancient legends tell us this, this and this' without having a single piece of physical or written evidence to support it. Myths help explain a cuture far more effectively than they do a history.

And the end of the Ice Age saw gradual innundation of the coasts rather than a rapid rise in sea level, but it did lead to th destruction of a geat many coastal settlements, giving a reason for many cultures to have flood myths.

I also think that if there is any substance behind Plato's Atlantis story then it could come from any number of submerged communities who's tale were told to him, and naturally these stories were enhanced over time to make them more exciting.

wow got off subject a tad but i like it, cicada you have some very good things to say and i agree with your analasis of our "cultural bias" . personally i think that atlantis is not a single island but rather a reference to the entire culture that exsisted befor the flood. i am a great follower of the work of people like Robert Bauval and Graham hancock, so i do believe that this culture existed and that they were destroyed by a flood, or whatever . personally the crustal displacement theory is holding allot of weight with me at the moment with what is happening around the world.
i do not think the egyptions biuld the pyramids but found them left from the atlantians or whatever you wish to call them. sorry if that affends anyone but most of the evidance i can see points to that conclusion. you just have to look at the way in which the great pyramids where built compare them to the ones biult befor and after them and you realise you cant. the great pyramids are technically more ambistious, more accurate and reqiure greater manpower to lift the heavier blocks found within them. why would a culture biuld prety rubbishy pyramids then biuld probably a colection of the greatest biggest complext structure mankind has ever seen then go back to biulding rubbishy ones again. the egyptions pyramids have decorations, hyraglyphs not found in the great, why, they just dont look like the egyptions biult them.
so why were they biult, if they were biult by a society of people (from what i can see not far behind our own technology) on the verge of destruction what could they be but a warning , servival of ones self is probably one of the greatest driving insticts of man but, given that you know you are going to die sucureing the survival of ones speicies more importantly your offspring is better than nothing. this sounds like perfect motivation for the construction of the pyramids to act as a warning so that we can prepare shoud it happen again.
it just seems we can learn so much from then if we open our minds. i dont hold ANY romantic ideas of ufos and high technologies but who is to say they still cant teach us someting about our selves .

I'm not an expert on the pyramids but it's curious to me when people say it's racist or idiotic to think an advanced race/extraterrestrials had a hand in the pyramids. For three main reasons.

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1)That's how the ancient Egyptians themselves said they acquired their technology. I have to seriously doubt the Egyptians were racist against their own race. I also doubt they were idiotic since they were further ahead than nearly every other civilization known.

2)The pyramid's precision and craftsmanship belies the proposed methods of construction with the proposed set of tools conventionally offered. And some of these methods are difficult to read with any degree of seriousness.

3)The first pyramids' construction outdo the latter ones when it should logically be the other way around if the methodology was born purely without aid. But if aid was given,then the logical path would be decline once that resource of knowledge disappeared just like has happened. The knowledge of pyramid building not only declined but seems to have disappeared altogether until fairly recently when modern science linearly caught up to the Giza architecture. This would support the idea that this knowledge came from elsewhere as the Egyptians said it did.

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It seems almost like talking out of both sides of your mouth to say on the one hand the Egyptians were advanced enough to create architectural marvels,but on the other were too primitive and stupid to understand and record their own history. To my knowledge no one knows how the pyramids were built unless you count the ancient Egyptians which we're taught not to. If we did know how we would have long since replicated it to prove it instead of failing every time we've tried. The idea that an advanced race imparted this technology to them is as a good a theory as any in this mystery in my opinion. Even better I would say than the idea that they cut,lifted,and set to perfection numerous 70 ton stones with simple copper blades,wooden stakes,and a little rope.




[edit on 15-10-2005 by Loungerist]

It was probably built as a tourist trap.

Bimini has got to be the location of Atlantis. This is just a test.