dr. schoch and his contribution to archaeology

[Minimalist]

Luckily for you it's Beagle's.....if it was one of mine you'd have a lot more searching to do!

[Guest]

Luckily for you it's Beagle's

it gets tiring be jumped on for quoting a book and being accused of believing something i haven't said i believed. then get a flood of quotes to prove me wrong when all that needed to be said was 'he may have changed his mind'.

i quoted the book verbatim, so why make it my problem when it is schoch's own words in his own published book.

on the other note, there is the link with your own words, what is your side of the argument and why would you say 'accepted journals'?

[Harte]

Archaeologist, the Sphinx is definitely limestone

take it up with schoch, i just quoted from what he said in the book.

Hmmm. Why didn't you answer my question? Are you under the impression that the Sphinx is not a piece of carved limestone? And what difference would that make anyway?

I note that you conveniently leave out any mention of limestone by Schoch in the article you quoted from. Are you averse to limestone? Why?

I'm not getting it. Is it because I said that one stone could be carved with another, harder stone? Limestone is not talc, but there are other harder stones.

I suggest that everybody at this board (and anyone else that reads this) should immediately get themselves to that informative and eye-opening website

another hall of maat user who thinks highly of the site. been there, done that, not interested. now we at least know what your position is and fromwhich angle you come from and you probably have answered all of beagle's questions with that post.

Look high and low, you won't find me posting at the Hall of Ma'at. I'm intimidated by some of those people's credentials.

I found Doug's site myself, on my own, through Google, several years ago. I've been consulting the info at Doug's site since then, whenever it was needed anyway.

I was originally directed to articles at the Hall of Ma'at by links at another website: The antiquity of Man website:
http://www.antiquityofman.com/pseudoscience.html.

And yes, I found that one on my own too.

I guess I'm slow, but I didn't make the connection between Doug and the Hall of Ma'at until just a few months ago, when I used the guestbook at Doug's Archaeology site to ask Doug about a usenet page I'd found with his name on it discussing a Pre-Platonic literary work titled "Atlantis" (by Hellanikos of Lesbos - man, I'd like to be "of Lesbos"!) Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? It's true, too. At the time, I didn't realize that I could have gone to Ma'at and asked him there. I'm fairly new at this internet forum stuff. Didn't realize how intertwined it is.

Anyway, that was when I realized that Doug was connected to Ma'at (he emailed me and a link to Ma'at was in his sig,) and that was when I registered at Ma'at. But I haven't posted there yet.

My "angle" is to look at all the evidence I can find about whatever subject I'm interested in. Of course, that would include the "orthodox" evidence as well as the "unorthodox," wouldn't it? Or would you even understand what I'm talking about? At the very least, you have to admit that somehow, someway, I've come to learn what the Giza Plateau is composed of. Apparently, your adoration of pseudoscientific marvels has not yet led you to the same level of edification.

Your leaping to some weird conclusion about me has by the way, answered all of my questions about you. Not that there were that many. I did read here before I registered and posted, after all. I hadn't realized, though, that you were so quick to compartmentalize, and thus marginalize, other posters and their opinions.

Harte

[Guest]

i have couple challenges to harte's assertionsw. first harte keeps mentioning limestonebut schoch in his book, Pyramid Quest, on pg.2 spcefically states:

"Still, there was a key fact all this evidence ignored: the sphynx is made of stone. Like any stone, it offers evidence of the weather it has endured. Weather, in turn, can tell us a great deal about history."

there is my original post and i checked, i did answer your question. theni asked, 'why would schoch make such a distinction if they were the same material? (or something like that). at no time did i say i agreed with schoch or that iwas under some impression.

i merely brought to light a contradiction that has appeared in this discussion.

[Guest]

There is nothing to take up with Schoch, nowhere does he say that the Sphinx isn't made up of limestone

obviously you haven't read the quote i posted directly from his book. he takes special care to emphasize that it is made of stone. he does not say limestone, but only stone.

what he is refering to with that statement , i do not know but nowhere in that chapter does he qualify it to mean 'limestone' . so it has evverything to do with him because he made the statement.

[Harte]

i have couple challenges to harte's assertionsw. first harte keeps mentioning limestonebut schoch in his book, Pyramid Quest, on pg.2 spcefically states:

"Still, there was a key fact all this evidence ignored: the sphynx is made of stone. Like any stone, it offers evidence of the weather it has endured. Weather, in turn, can tell us a great deal about history."

there is my original post and i checked, i did answer your question. theni asked, 'why would schoch make such a distinction if they were the same material? (or something like that). at no time did i say i agreed with schoch or that iwas under some impression.

i merely brought to light a contradiction that has appeared in this discussion.

And where exactly is the contradiction? Schoch refers here to "stone." Limestone is the "stone" from which the Sphinx is carved. The subsurface weathering I was talking about, as well as the surface erosion patterns, is the "...weather(ing) it has endured" which "...can tell us a great deal about history."

Where's the contradiction there? Because Schoch didn't specifically say the syllable "lime" before the word "stone" in these couple of sentences?

Harte

[Beagle]

Whew - I see my name being mentioned here. Hope I haven't done anything too terrible.

I imagine that, against the background of history, Schoch will be credited with having been a geologist who brought attention to the weathering on the Sphinx and the enclosure.

Other scientists will now contribute more to the picture as time goes by. Schoch has paved the way and he has taken a lot of criticism. Colin Reader has included the mortuary temple and the causeway.

The dating, which we would all really like to know will probably not be settled for quite some time. The door is opened just by deciding that the Sphinx predates the 4th Dynasty.

Regarding Schoch - I enjoy reading his articles and letters, but I haven't yet read any of his books. And finally, his theory about the Sphinx is still not widely accepted.

Welcome aboard Harte - if you have any questions, just ask one of us.

[marduk]

Schoch has paved the way and he has taken a lot of criticism.

hes still in a minority of one
Hitler paved the way for Nazisim but it didnt catch on

in fifty years time he'll either be portrayed as a visionary or a crackpot
considering hes now dating someone who believes that crop circles are made by aliens its not difficult to see which is more likely

[Beagle]

[img][img]http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h298/LL3850/th_Figure7.jpg[/img]
[/img]


Click to enlarge.


This pic is from the above article by Colin Reader. The Sphinx, Sphinx Temple, and Khafre causeway are clearly seen.

Hello Harte, I posted this pic a while back. It may be the one you're thinking of.

[Beagle]

The Causeway is a problem for Schoch's theory, unless you posit that the Causeway itself also predates the other monuments at Giza by 3 to 5 thousand years, or at least, predates Khafre's Pyramid by 3-5 K years. Or, I guess, you could posit that Kaphre's Pyramid is also thousands of years older than the early dynastic period.

I think the causeway is more of a problem for Reader than Schoch, but indeed if one is going to accept that the causeway and the Sphinx both predate the 4th dynasty, it presents some pretty large questions.

About the dating - I don't have an opinion on the actual age. Schoch originally based his dating on the known paleoclimatology of the area. I feel pretty certain that dates will be continually revised for some time.

[DougWeller]

I've no idea what this was. I guess I didn't see it

now i have to go find it and i don't remember which topic it was posted in.

here it is-- http://listserv.tamu.edu/cgi/wa?A2=ind9 ... =0&P=23846

Ah yes. That is about the charter for the moderated newsgroup sci.archaeology.moderated. I didn't write it, it was a group effort, and oddly enough the paragraph on hyperdiffusionism was written by a diffusionist.

I probably need to explain that to start a new newsgroup like that you need to get people together to write a proposal which then has to go through a voting procedure -- in this case we had well over 400 people vote in favour of it, and 30 or 4p aganst.

The newsgroup was set up as a forum in which people who didn't want to debate whether aliens built the pyramids, and who didn't want to put up with insults, could have a place to chat among themselves (publicly, newsgroups aren't private). There already is sci. archaeology where anything goes, so this didn't deprive anyone of anything. In other words, it was to establish a community where people could discuss things that were discussed in the standard journals, etc. Nothing wrong with that is there? It doesn't deprive anyone of anything.

This contrasts say with The Hall of Ma'at where I am a director and moderator, which does allow people to discuss any ideas about history and archaeology, including aliens, whatever sources are used.

A bit like this forum in fact. But Ma'at also has a large collection of articles associated with it, and a yearly celebration with quizzes, book prizes, etc.

[Guest]

let's just say that when someone emphasizes a word , they do it for a reason. by referring to just 'stone' and not limestone means he is either lazy or he had a reason for not saying limestone and removing any possibility of contradiction.

in america there is a trend going on right now, especially in sports, to shorten every word down to one syllable, thwarting the purpose of communicating to another person clearly one's intended message.

drives me crazy as english speakers do that here and are just perverting the language as they destroy it with these fads of convenience. one reason i stopped watching ESPN as they try to be cool. a 100 years of telling women the correct sports terms destroyed by ESPN's stupidity.

thanks doug, just wanted to hear your side of things so we could get a better picture.

[Beagle]

It's probably a good idea to put everything in context here. The "letter" being referred to here was posted by me.

At that time, Marduk had been on a rant about Hancocks' website not allowing him to express his views as much as he wanted. I explained to Marduk that many websites have restrictions on them.

At about the same time Frank had a question as to what hyperdiffusion is.
I posted that letter as an example to both members.

The fact that Dougs name was on it had nothing to do with my reason for posting it.

[Beagle]

Regarding the limestone discussion. If you read the many articles that Schoch has written about this subject you will see that his dating is very tenuous. He is not bound to a date for certain but the paleoclimatology of the area dictates that the weathering had to happen during a period of extended heavy rainfall.

Who cares about the limestone?

[Guest]

Who cares about the limestone?

sorry, i don't i was just pointing out a contradiction.

He is not bound to a date for certain

do you think he is hedging his bets?