The accuracy of carbon-dating

[Simon21]

i do realize that the implications of this are indeed dramatic to the dating of the archaeological sites that are dated only by the organic material found, but it definetely doesn't give us the right to ignore the problem just in order to preserve the widely accepted archaeological view.

Slightly bizarre statement, is it seriously being said that trained archaeologists do not realise organic material degrades? And haven't realised this for at least 100 years and more.

Archaeological sites are usually dated by a wide variety of methods.

Passing over the non-definition of organic material - which seems to include stone tools

[Skiessa]

from what i read the taphonomy researches the degradation of the organic matter, which is not equal to the amount of material lost to environmental factors.

From an earlier post on this , "The same approach can also also applied to non organic degradation , as in the case of rock art , but is less well known ."
and " "Taphonomic logic does take into account material that has disappeared for any number of reasons and therefore can't be taken into account ."[/quote]

"Taphonomic logic does take into account material that has disappeared for any number of reasons and therefore can't be taken into account" do you have any information about this that would define the way it's being taken into account? this statement in itself can mean anything from "yea, yea we know" to actual deep statistical analysis of the material lost and it's application on the dating of archaeological sites.

[circumspice]

"a duplicate of the Great Pyramid COULD indeed be built today & in a similar time frame, if not an even shorter one" calculate the amount of minutes in 20 years and divide it with the amount of stones used - this gives us less than 5 minutes to work with with each stone, from quarry to the placement - less than 5 minutes if we work 24 hours in a day. we could not do this even with all the modern technology. if we assume the modern technology to be the best technology the man has ever invented and even with it we could not build the pyramids in the time given, then it's only logical to assume that the people who worked with a fraction of the technology we have now could not do it either.

You are still operating under the assumption that only one stone can be worked with at a time. Recalculate... Try 10 stones, then 25 stones, then 50 stones. Factor in maybe 10 hours of daylight. And that's only for placing the stones during the inundation when corvee labor was used & it was possible to bring in supplies by boat via the canal that was built specifically for that purpose. Remember that the quarries could be worked year round by skilled masons. Remember that there was a village built nearby specifically to house both a temporary workforce & a semi-permanent workforce. People lived & worked there year round. People died there & were buried there. That village was occupied continuously until all the pyramids on the Giza Plateau were completed or abandoned, then the village itself was abandoned. These are all demonstrable facts, supported by archaeological evidence found during recent excavations. Why do you contend that it was impossible for the ancient Egyptians to plan the project, set up the infrastructure, implement a supply chain, levy a tax for the number of corvee laborers needed for the project & then commence with the project? Also,
who is to say that Khufu didn't begin preparations for his pyramid before he ascended the throne? He wasn't the crown prince. He had one or more brothers in line for the throne ahead of him. When it became obvious that he would be next in line, he could very well have begun the planning phase while his father, the current ruler, still lived.

And again, I ask you, why wouldn't the quarries be operating on a year round basis? It just doesn't make sense to cut, shape, transport & then place one stone at a time. That edifice is huge. I think it would have looked like a gigantic ant hill with hundreds of workers swarming all over it doing their various jobs simultaneously. A 2 ton stone isn't huge. The base of the Great Pyramid is 756 feet on all sides. That's roughly 11 acres or 4.5 hectares. There would be plenty of room for numerous worker gangs to be going about the business of setting each stone in their designated work area into place on the course for that level.

Note: Houdin has a theory about internal ramps being used to bring the stones up to the current level. He speculates that if modern people followed that theory they would be able to build an exact duplicate of the Great Pyramid in 4 years, at a cost of USD $4 billion.

[Tiompan]

"Taphonomic logic does take into account material that has disappeared for any number of reasons and therefore can't be taken into account"
do you have any information about this that would define the way it's being taken into account? this statement in itself can mean anything from "yea, yea we know" to actual deep statistical analysis of the material lost and it's application on the dating of archaeological sites.

If you thought the comment meant "yea, yea we know" , that might be a good excuse for not bothering to do a search .But it clearly didn't .
See http://www.ifrao.com/wp-content/uploads ... ummies.pdf

Your original question was " does the archaeologists take the environmental factors into account when dating the ancient sites, and how much of evidence they estimate to be lost to these factors? "
You ignored the answer "Understanding the processes that cause degradation of organic materials in general and at a site should be taken into consideration and usually is . See Taphonomy .
The same approach can also also applied to non organic degradation , as in the case of rock art , but is less well known ." i.e. Taphonomy and Taphonomic logic .

[Skiessa]

"a duplicate of the Great Pyramid COULD indeed be built today & in a similar time frame, if not an even shorter one" calculate the amount of minutes in 20 years and divide it with the amount of stones used - this gives us less than 5 minutes to work with with each stone, from quarry to the placement - less than 5 minutes if we work 24 hours in a day. we could not do this even with all the modern technology. if we assume the modern technology to be the best technology the man has ever invented and even with it we could not build the pyramids in the time given, then it's only logical to assume that the people who worked with a fraction of the technology we have now could not do it either.

You are still operating under the assumption that only one stone can be worked with at a time. Recalculate... Try 10 stones, then 25 stones, then 50 stones. Factor in maybe 10 hours of daylight. And that's only for placing the stones during the inundation when corvee labor was used & it was possible to bring in supplies by boat via the canal that was built specifically for that purpose. Remember that the quarries could be worked year round by skilled masons. Remember that there was a village built nearby specifically to house both a temporary workforce & a semi-permanent workforce. People lived & worked there year round. People died there & were buried there. That village was occupied continuously until all the pyramids on the Giza Plateau were completed or abandoned, then the village itself was abandoned. These are all demonstrable facts, supported by archaeological evidence found during recent excavations. Why do you contend that it was impossible for the ancient Egyptians to plan the project, set up the infrastructure, implement a supply chain, levy a tax for the number of corvee laborers needed for the project & then commence with the project? Also,
who is to say that Khufu didn't begin preparations for his pyramid before he ascended the throne? He wasn't the crown prince. He had one or more brothers in line for the throne ahead of him. When it became obvious that he would be next in line, he could very well have begun the planning phase while his father, the current ruler, still lived.

And again, I ask you, why wouldn't the quarries be operating on a year round basis? It just doesn't make sense to cut, shape, transport & then place one stone at a time. That edifice is huge. I think it would have looked like a gigantic ant hill with hundreds of workers swarming all over it doing their various jobs simultaneously. A 2 ton stone isn't huge. The base of the Great Pyramid is 756 feet on all sides. That's roughly 11 acres or 4.5 hectares. There would be plenty of room for numerous worker gangs to be going about the business of setting each stone in their designated work area into place on the course for that level.

Note: Houdin has a theory about internal ramps being used to bring the stones up to the current level. He speculates that if modern people followed that theory they would be able to build an exact duplicate of the Great Pyramid in 4 years, at a cost of USD $4 billion.

When have i assumed that only one stone could be worked at once? the 1 stone in 4 minutes is the required average speed of construction - it sets no limits of how many stones could be worked at once. i have described the various problems that slow down the building process, and as also have been mentioned here the actual building process itself sets a great limit to the amount of stones worked simultaneously, and limits the amount of workspace for each individual stone, since every single stone has to be built in relation to the existing building in order to achieve the perfect geometrical pyramid shape with 8 sides. the use of granite and the accuracy it has been used has also been mentioned here, but not answered by anyone.

as far as i know the maximum rate of which we could work one stone with our modern technology, along with the maximum work rate of one stone with the ancient methods have never been tested. without this data its impossible to prove that the work cannot be completed with certain tech in certain time, but i would bet my arms to assume that the bottleneck mentioned would make the construction of the pyramid with the ancient technology impossible.

"And again, I ask you, why wouldn't the quarries be operating on a year round basis?" what? when have i... what?

"Houdin has a theory" who is he and what is his theory? in which field of science he is specified in?

[Tiompan]

the use of granite and the accuracy it has been used has also been mentioned here, but not answered by anyone.

You commented " nothing of what i know from the ancient human history can explain the astounding accuracy towards the true north, ."
Someone did answer .btw the link works .

We don't know for sure how they did it but it wasn't that difficult using the tech of the time . See Glenn dash , Kate Spence etc .
https://www.academia.edu/4035001/How_th ... True_North

[Skiessa]

the use of granite and the accuracy it has been used has also been mentioned here, but not answered by anyone.

You commented " nothing of what i know from the ancient human history can explain the astounding accuracy towards the true north, ."
Someone did answer .btw the link works .

We don't know for sure how they did it but it wasn't that difficult using the tech of the time . See Glenn dash , Kate Spence etc .
https://www.academia.edu/4035001/How_th ... True_North

the sad thing when looking in to archaeology is that it's very hard to tell who's trolling and who is just really too stupid to see the obvious holes in the story he believes in. reminds me of the flat earth theory actually, lol. andnope, still doesn't let me download, feel free to quote anything from the link that suggests of how the accuracy towards the true north was achieved.

[Tiompan]

[quote="Skiessa"
the sad thing when looking in to archaeology is that it's very hard to tell who's trolling and who is just really too stupid to see the obvious holes in the story he believes in "

I thought of you when I read that ,and "nothing of what i know from the ancient human history can explain the astounding accuracy towards the true north, "

I tried the link again and it worked again .I also mentioned a couple of names in relation to demonstrating that it wasn't as difficult as you might believe .
Try searching Glenn Dash true north pyramid and Kate Spence .

[circumspice]

Jean-Pierre Houdin & his internal ramp theory... Look it up. Until a theory is proven, there are several theories that may help explain how the Great Pyramid was built.

By the way, you haven't yet posted a link that supports your negative opinion of all the various theories that have been linked for you... You just say 'no, not possible' & give vague statements that 'many experts say'... say this or say that... Please post links that support your negative statements.

[Minimalist]

You are still operating under the assumption that only one stone can be worked with at a time.

No, you don't have the foggiest idea of what is being said. The quarrying and shaping was going on at the same time but each stone had to be recovered from the quarry, carted to an area where it could be shaped and cut to size. Do you understand how that was done? Some poor schmuck stood there in the hot sun with either a copper chisel ( we have recovered thousands of them ) or pounding on the softer limestone with a dolerite pounding stone. Both techniques worked. Both methods took quite a while.

The prevailing theory is that a core group of 8,000 or so including a high percentage of skilled masonry workers would work at the site all year round quarrying stone and shaping them for the time when the unskilled workers arrived to haul the sleds up to the pyramid. But even this latter group numbered about 12,000 or so and they worked only during the flood season and only in daylight, and they still had to be fed, watered (remember this is EGYPT!) and given days off ( they were not slaves.) Construction accidents must have happened. Sandstorms would blow in. Illness epidemics would break out. Oh, and don't forget that some portion of the workforce had to be employed extending whatever they were using for a ramp.

NO ONE ever suggested that they did one stone at a time. I wonder where you people get these ideas sometimes. The final calculation of 1 stone every 4 minutes 24/7, 365 for 20 years is meant to show the utter impossibility of the calculations.

[circumspice]

@min: What I'm saying is that once they leveled the platform to above the level of the bedrock mound that is an integral, documented part of the pyramid, it is a vast flat expanse of rock that is measured in acres... That would have given them room for many work gangs to labor on the pyramid within their designated work areas. The base of the pyramid measures out to roughly 11 acres. They could have built a town there. It wouldn't have gotten crowded until roughly at the 2/3 level.

All I'm saying is that with intelligent planning, a decent supply chain, ample supplies, a very large workforce, vast sums of money to throw at it, a shit-ton of luck & a resolve to get it done, it could be done in the 20+ year time frame. Khufu had a minimum of 23 years in which to get it built to completion. Judging by some of the graffiti left behind by the workers, they seem to have taken a great deal of pride in their part of such a monumental effort. It's not like the pyramids on the Giza Plateau were built in a vacuum. There were people there that left records of their part in the building of those pyramids. Why is that so hard to believe?

[circumspice]

The ball shaped stone hammers were made from a stone called diorite, not dolerite.

[Skiessa]

Jean-Pierre Houdin & his internal ramp theory... Look it up. Until a theory is proven, there are several theories that may help explain how the Great Pyramid was built.

By the way, you haven't yet posted a link that supports your negative opinion of all the various theories that have been linked for you... You just say 'no, not possible' & give vague statements that 'many experts say'... say this or say that... Please post links that support your negative statements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiQ8l7Vbgic check out this video for a starter. (try to get over of the retarded headline and focus on the data given in the video). don't just buy in to some interesting youtube-video - pause the video and try to verify the information you are being presented if you are in doubt.

"iYou just say 'no, not possible' & give vague statements that 'many experts say'" i've provided the math here which proves that the rate of construction must have been something beyond the bronze chisels and hammers. i honestly thought that you would understand the math to the extent to see the problem with the schedule it suggests. all i get in a response is a complete ignorance of any problems i've presented, and links to theories that neither answer any of them even remotely. the bottom line in any mainstream theory given is to say that the egyptians can build fast - none of them even tries to answer of how the egyptians could build in rate of 1 stone in every 4 minutes, or with the accuracy and mathematics that by any logical means requires modern science. they completely ignore the physical impossibility of cutting and shaping granite to that extent, nor even try to look in to the overwhelming problem of placing the granite blocks with suck insane accuracy.

[Skiessa]

@min: What I'm saying is that once they leveled the platform to above the level of the bedrock mound that is an integral, documented part of the pyramid, it is a vast flat expanse of rock that is measured in acres... That would have given them room for many work gangs to labor on the pyramid within their designated work areas. The base of the pyramid measures out to roughly 11 acres. They could have built a town there. It wouldn't have gotten crowded until roughly at the 2/3 level.

All I'm saying is that with intelligent planning, a decent supply chain, ample supplies, a very large workforce, vast sums of money to throw at it, a shit-ton of luck & a resolve to get it done, it could be done in the 20+ year time frame. Khufu had a minimum of 23 years in which to get it built to completion. Judging by some of the graffiti left behind by the workers, they seem to have taken a great deal of pride in their part of such a monumental effort. It's not like the pyramids on the Giza Plateau were built in a vacuum. There were people there that left records of their part in the building of those pyramids. Why is that so hard to believe?

the mistake in this assumption you make here is that in order to build a 150 meters high, geometrically perfect 8-sided pyramid even smallest error in the flatness of the base will grow in ratio to the stones build on it, meaning that any error you make will spoil the geometrical perfection of the finished pyramid. worst part in this is that the smallest errors can be so small that a naked eye wouldn't see them, and yet unnoticed they will multiply themselves ruining the final product. they couldn't just build a base that looks flat and start to build the pyramid there - in order to be able to build without building in relation to the existing construction of the pyramid you would have to have perfectly flat surface and use stones perfectly identical, and know the exact locations of where you can start to build from. even though it's the slowest way, building the pyramid onwards from one location is the only way imaginable that wouldn't necessarily require laser technology.

[Skiessa]

[quote="Skiessa"
the sad thing when looking in to archaeology is that it's very hard to tell who's trolling and who is just really too stupid to see the obvious holes in the story he believes in "

I thought of you when I read that ,and "nothing of what i know from the ancient human history can explain the astounding accuracy towards the true north, "

I tried the link again and it worked again .I also mentioned a couple of names in relation to demonstrating that it wasn't as difficult as you might believe .
Try searching Glenn Dash true north pyramid and Kate Spence .

i don't think that these folks realize how accurate 3 60th of a degree is. as the article itself states, the egyptians didn't have any way to know exactly where the true north lies - only a star that circles the point within 2 degrees of error, and we are supposed to believe that the egyptians hit the true north with 3 60th of error? i'm waiting for these folks to test the accuracy of this method and show the results.

what really shook me is that when i counted of how many times the 3 60th of a degree would fit in a full circle, i got 7200. 72 - the magical number of years that it takes for the earth to progress one degree in the axial precession. you are aware that the number 72 and it's multipliers appear in the both ancient megalithic structures and the ancient literature all over the world? just what if the 3 60th of a degree wasn't an error at all?