Giza

[Beagle]

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/827/hr1.htm

For more than three centuries, since historians and Egyptologists began to write the first history in modern times of the 20th dynasty of Ancient Egypt, compiled from hieroglyphic texts drawn on papyri or engraved on tombs and temple walls, the history of the dynasty has remained virtually unchanged. However, this is archaeology, and in archaeology nothing can be said to be fixed. A newly-unearthed stela in the avenue lined with ram-headed sphinxes that once connected the temples of Luxor and Karnak, along which official and religious processions passed for centuries, has thrown further light on this ancient era.

A new Stele found from the 20th Dynasty. Zahi is very happy.

[Beagle]

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/829/hr1.htm

Mathematics in Ancient Egypt
Did the Ancient Egyptians possess an ingenious skill for calculation? Assem Deif* works out an ancient problem

From a Cairo newspaper, an article about the math skills of the ancient Egyptians.

[marduk]

The Great Pyramid of Khufu was built of 2,300,000 limestone blocks each averaging 2.5 tons. Simple calculations reveal that, since it took 20 years to complete, and assuming that work lasted eight hours per day, it was possible to fit 2,300,000/20 x 365 x 8 x 60 = 0.7 blocks per minute

pseudoscience

you'd think that if someone was going to write about egyptian mathematics they'd be aware of the latest findings in this area
I can only presume that mr Deif is aware of these details but has decided to overlook them as they don't suit his purposes

[Forum Monk]

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/829/hr1.htm

Mathematics in Ancient Egypt
Did the Ancient Egyptians possess an ingenious skill for calculation? Assem Deif* works out an ancient problem

From a Cairo newspaper, an article about the math skills of the ancient Egyptians.

Beagle, this little article gives me a perfect opportunity to express my complete skeptisim on the alleged higher math skills of the ancient egyptians. First of all, the only math cited in the article is the authors own in calculating build time and other unrelated things which allows him to throw a lot of 'mathmatical' sounding facts and numbers into the article.
He further cites a complete contrivance about the astronomical alignment with Orion, which barely can work if Orion was upside down and backwards in the sky.

Let's be clear about thing. All of the amazing discoveries about ratios, and magic numbers and magic angles and on and on are modern era inventions to attribute some kind of super-knowledge to these people. There is no documentary evidence of superior math skills. Some guy takes height vs. width measure in the modern era, and 'discovers' it's within some percent of a mathmatical constant and suddenly everyone believes they designed the pyramid that way. Its junk science. You can find similar relations in any number of structures but it does not follow they were constructed based on those constants.

What is the superior skill to laying out a straight line over the course of a kilometer or building a 90 degree angle? It was done routinely by other cultures as well but they don't seem to have vocal fan clubs. The egyptian building program was marvelous to say the least, but I think its about time to start demystifying this general belief that it was 'beyond' the knowledge of the ancient world. This is the junk that leads to Atlantians, aliens, and any number of scatterbrained theories which people start to incorporate into their world views.

[Minimalist]

Astonishingly, an experiment by Japanese researchers 15 years ago to build a pyramid using new technology was abandoned after six months when their calculations showed it would take more than 1,000 years to complete their task

I saw this on Nova many years ago. The Japanese engineers were not pleased......but at least no one committed seppuku over it.


Perhaps we are not as advanced as we think we are?

[Forum Monk]

Astonishingly, an experiment by Japanese researchers 15 years ago to build a pyramid using new technology was abandoned after six months when their calculations showed it would take more than 1,000 years to complete their task

I saw this on Nova many years ago. The Japanese engineers were not pleased......but at least no one committed seppuku over it.


Perhaps we are not as advanced as we think we are?

Sorry, Min. I think this is baloney too. If you tell an archeologist or even an engineer to build it, I believe it would take 1000 years. But give the project to a guy who does construction for a living and tie an early completion bonus to it, and you'll be writing that check before the ink on your papyrus contract is dry.

[Beagle]

I almost didn't put this article up. It was the last one I took from the Daily Grail today.

This newspaper guy makes reference to the Gatenbrink shafts, stating that the workers could use them to sight certain stars to keep their work in alignment.

The Gatenbrink shafts change their angle going upward, making visibility through them impossible.

[Minimalist]

But give the project to a guy who does construction for a living and tie an early completion bonus to it, and you'll be writing that check before the ink on your papyrus contract is dry.

Private sector mythology. That must be why so many construction projects are ovedue and over budget.

[marduk]

First of all, the only math cited in the article is the authors own in calculating build time and other unrelated things which allows him to throw a lot of 'mathmatical' sounding facts and numbers into the article.

its not his own
he was using the unmuseum as a source
http://www.unmuseum.org/kpyramid.htm
he later claims "

One major disadvantage was its lack of the zero, but neither the Babylonians nor the Greeks had zero either

in this he is claiming that the egyptians who didn't have a zero were just as adavanced as the greeks and the babylonians
when in fact the Babylonians did have an integer that represented zero in their mathematics
the greeks also had a zero integre placing in their mathematics
This system was most likely adapted from Babylonian numerals by Hipparchus in the second century bce
So
hes not a great mathemetician as hes working with pseudoscientific numbers and hes not a historian
if you look beyond the facade of claimed science then the reasoning behind this article soon becomes clear

there is a big clue in the fact that the only other writet that day in the heritage section was Zahi Hawass going on about the wonders of egyptian marine archaeology without mentioning that the marine archaeologists arent actually egyptian themselves

but really Al Ahram is a nationalistic publication
go read all about how evil the israelis are
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/index.htm
maybe then you'll understand why its publishing an article that claims the egyptians were fabulous at something (far better than the greeks who stole their knowledge and incorporated it into their own)
I see no mention yet that the ancient egyptians were not Moslems
that will probably be next week

[Beagle]

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/new ... ?id=101431

Scientists at The University of Manchester have teamed up with colleagues in Egypt in a bid to discover what medicines were used by the ancient Egyptians.

This will be interesting when the results are in. From Archaeologica News.

[Forum Monk]

Private sector mythology. That must be why so many construction projects are ovedue and over budget.

Actually, in my experience, it is the project engineers who plan the jobs, often poorly because there are gantt charts and then there is the reality of weather, embedded obstacles in the construction site, and material delivery logistics. And the same engineers devised the budget in order to obtain project approval, and these rosey projections also fail to take into account the same kinds of realities aforementioned.

I was a project engineer. We had little CYA factors in our budgets and time schedules and often we still got burnt.

[Minimalist]

And the same engineers devised the budget in order to obtain project approval, and these rosey projections also fail to take into account the same kinds of realities aforementioned.

Ah..............politics!

[Digit]

The Romans didn't have a zero did they, but they seemed to have managed a lot of public building programmes?
If the Great Pyramid was built for the benefit of one individual, and not his sucessors, then logic says that the builders had expectations of compleating it within the expected life span of that individual. Either we do not understand the reason for the pyramid's construction or we must accept that it was indeed constructed within one life span. If we accept that it was built within that sort of time scale then we must look for a construction method that made that possible.
Does anybody see alternatives to my arguments?

[marduk]

yes
how about the fact that the method of the great pyramids construction has been known for about two thousand five hundred years and you like a lot of other people have been reading the wrong books

also its true that the Romans didn't have a zero
but with their style of counting they didn't need it
how did you miss that
look
X = 10
XX = 20
hehe

[Digit]

I was referring to the article above, but as you know all the answers please answer the points that I raised one at a time so that I can understand, and while you are at it would you please multiply 3042 by 18.5 using Roman numerals and let me have the answer. Many thanks.