Megan Fox visits Stonehenge in episode 2 of Legends of the Lost

Stonehenge from above. Screenshot from Travel Channel.

I’ll start by saying my prediction last month looks pretty close to spot on. 

Megan Fox stands in the circle of Stonehenge. Screenshot from Travel Channel.

I essentially predicted (and you can read it here for yourself) that Fox would interview some token “mainstream” archaeologists about the technical aspects of Stonehenge (when built, phases of construction, etc.). Then she would probably visit with Tim Darvill and explore the “healing” aspect of the site.

And that’s pretty much how it went.

In about the first half of this episode, Fox spent time with Si Cleggett and Jackie McKinley of Wessex Archaeology. Even though Fox began the segment with saying she, herself, is “someone drawn into fantasy and magic” and described the stones at Stonehenge with the usual fringe hyperbole of being “placed with laser-like precision,” I quite liked this first half.

I liked it because Cleggett and McKinley got the chance to really speak and show some aspects of the archaeology at Stonehenge not typically represented. McKinley, for instance, discussed the bioarchaeological ramifications of several burials in and around Stonehenge.

I actually recommend watching that portion of the episode. Once you get about half way, right around the time Fox and her guide reach the Preseli quarry in Wales, go ahead and feel free to switch over to NCIS or Black Lightning. You’re not missing much at that point.

Down hill at the quarry

But if you stick with Legends, you will see Fox fulfill another of my predictions. She meets with Tim Darvill, who shows her the quarry at Preseli Hills in Wales, its freshwater springs, and explains Geoffrey of Mammoth‘s assumption that the healing stones of Stonehenge were “healing stones.” 

Tim Darvell discusses his idea that the blue stones of Preseli quarry are “healing stones.” Screenshot from Travel Channel.

I really couldn’t tell if Darvill truly believed they have healing properties or if he thinks this was just something that the people responsible for Stonehenge believed at the time. I suspect there was some careful editing by the show’s producers to bias Darvill’s position somewhat and that he doesn’t actually believe it in the way Megan clearly does.

Bashing a rock against a blue stone at Preseli quarry in Wales. Screenshot from Travel Channel.

They go so far as to record the sound of a rock bashing on a blue stone after Darvill demonstrates its peculiar auditory nature. They take this recording to Ullrich Bartsch of the University of Bristol where Fox dons an EEG net used to monitor her brainwaves as several sounds, including the blue stone bashing.

Megan Fox wears an EEG net as she has her brain waves measured while listening to a rock being bashed against a blue stone of the Preseli quarry in Wales. Screenshot from Travel Channel.

Before knowing the result, Fox said if she was “affected in a positive way, it must be too much of a coincidence.” Of course, Bartsch concluded that the stones had a beneficial affect on the alpha waves. To this Fox was elated and said she “thought science was going to come in and crush my dreams.”

Oh, and in this study of brainwaves, you would be right in guessing that n=1. The sample size was Megan Fox. Some other sounds were used, but it wasn’t clear to me if these were klaxons or rainwater. The sound of a rock pounding against the dolerite of the blue stone isn’t unpleasant. Unless maybe you had to listen to it more than a couple minutes.

But it’s in this episode that we truly to see see what Fox thinks of science in general. In the beginning of this episode, she remarks that Si Cleggett “doesn’t look like what you would expect a mainstream archaeologist to look like.” And, in the last third of the episode, she talks about seeking some “alternative theories” and “alternative knowledge.” 

Science?

It’s fairly clear that Fox doesn’t really have an understanding of what science or archaeology is. Or how either works to explain the world around us. I really like the way Steven Novella once put it: science is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that does Megan Fox disagree with? Is it being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?

I suspect she would hesitate to admit not using any of these aspects of investigating the world around us with science. But I take issue with her usage of he word “mainstream” when it comes to describing archaeology. There is no mainstream since this implies some alternative to archaeology. Archaeology is done using science. One is either doing archaeology or one isn’t. 

She closes this episode with two people who aren’t. 

Self-identified “druid,” Maria Wheatley, demonstrates the ideomotor effect to imaginary “bands” of “energy” on a stone at Avebury. Screenshot from Travel Channel.

First, Fox interviews Maria Wheatley, a self-described “druid.” Wheatley describes the nonsensical notion of ley lines (you can read about these and why they’re a silly notion in one of my previous articles) and how there are “energy bands” in the stones of Avebury, which she points out using a “dowsing rod.” Another nonsensical notion that has long been debunked (read here, here, and here) but, because of the ideomotor effect, it has the appearance of being real.

Finally, Fox travels to Bath, not terribly far from Stonehenge, where she visits the home of Graham Hancock, an author who writes about fantastic ideas of the human past that often have little to no supporting evidence. In particular, Hancock is peddling an idea sure to be in his next book for the gullible.

Graham Hancock
Graham Hancock explaining his far-fetched fantasies of ancient unknown civilizations. Screenshot from Travel Channel.

This is the notion that there was once a ancient civilization that is now completely lost to us, but had “high technology” (whatever that means), but was wiped out by a comet around 12,000 years ago. This civilization, even though they were completely lost to us, somehow managed to transmit how to make “megalithic architecture” to the far reaches of the globe. 

To close this review

Megan Fox didn’t surprise me. Not one bit. Given her previous comments in the media about science and her gullibility and intentional lack of education, I fully expected the crazy to escalate from one episode to the next. There are two episodes left. I expect episode 3 to be at least as far-fetched as this one with the final episode being the absolute worst. 

About Carl Feagans 396 Articles
Professional archaeologist that currently works for the United States Forest Service at the Land Between the Lakes Recreation Area in Kentucky and Tennessee. I'm also a 12-year veteran of the U.S. Army and spent another 10 years doing adventure programming with at-risk teens before earning my master's degree at the University of Texas at Arlington.

10 Comments

  1. Main stream archaeology is getting closer to being seen as complete lies in many areas.
    You still think the Pyramids are Tombs? YOU are wrong.
    Graham Hancock’s research and evidence is far from unsupported.
    I bet your dreading the release of AMERICA BEFORE. Randell Carlson id not a liar.
    Why cant you admit that theories derived a hundred years ago no longer hold water?
    It’s only a matter of time until your PHD’s will become worthless.

  2. Thank you so much for the time you took to comment here, Richard. I honestly appreciate it. I can understand how much of the so-called fringe in archaeology found on social media like Facebook, YouTube, and elsewhere on the internet can be appealing, particularly when the real answers behind some of the things that seem mysterious aren’t readily in front of you, easily explained, or simply challenging some preconceived notions of how the world around us works.

    And, since it seems you posted your comment with carriage returns, let me take them as bullet points and address each in turn.

    **Main stream archaeology is getting closer to being seen as complete lies in many areas.

    Let me first say that there is no “mainstream” when it comes to archaeology. It’s fine to talk about, say, “mainstream media” because there are traditional media outlets like major broadcast networks, associated press, and the like along side alternative sources of news like social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.).

    But when it comes to science, there really is no “mainstream” since this implies that there is an alternative. There isn’t. But before you get upset, let me try to explain:

    “Science” is just a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. To suggest that there is an alternative way of observing nature to arrive at answers implies that you disagree with the initial premise. So I would ask, which part of that exactly would you disagree with? Being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic? If I had to guess, I’d be willing to bet you might hesitate to give up any of these qualities of good scientific method.

    Archaeology is done using science. There are different theoretical frameworks, but essentially they all boil down to using the above method. So one is either doing archaeology; or one is not. There is no “mainstream.”

    However, there is always room for revision, improvement, or the complete replacement of assumptions when faced with new evidence. Archaeological conclusions are always provisional and subject to change, but arrived at using the best available evidence. While it’s true that many conclusions are inferential and based upon subjective interpretations, these are interpretations of hard data which is, in many cases, testable, repeatable, or statistical on some level. This approach allows for competing hypotheses to be argued and defended where appropriate. And for rigid, more stringent conclusions where fitting. An example of the first might be what causes variation in toolkits for a hunter-gatherer culture: is it limitations in resources for the tools or the resources being hunted-gathered? An example for the second might be a date range for a set of skeletal remains recovered from a burial in a Natufian village.

    Where there are lies told to support an archaeological conclusion, this is called pseudoarchaeology.

    **You still think the Pyramids are Tombs? YOU are wrong.

    The review of the television show you’re commenting on was about Stonehenge. I made no comment about any pyramids. But, even though there are pyramids and pyramid-like structures all over the world, I assume you are referring to the pyramids of Egypt.

    And, here, you’ve made a testable claim. So let’s examine it. Assuming that I think the pyramids found in Egypt are tombs, you then say “YOU are wrong.” Even though this is a strawman argument, I think it’s worth paying some attention to. Let’s assume I do, in fact, take the position that the pyramids found in Egypt were constructed at funerary monuments–tombs if you will. Why would you object?

    Is it because pyramids built between 2375 and 2160 BCE have funerary inscriptions written inside? These inscriptions actually tell the pharaoh’s soul how to cross over to the after life.
    Is it because of the burial goods like sarcophagi, jewelry, and so forth found within actual burial chambers inside the pyramids?
    Is it because of the actual mummies and mummy parts (“parts” because of looting in antiquity) found within the pyramids?
    Is it because all the pyramids are on the west bank of the Nile? The west is the direction of the setting sun and considered, in ancient Egyptian lore, to be the direction of the after-world and the dead.
    Is it because Egyptian texts refer to pyramids as tombs?
    Is it because cemeteries often surround royal pyramids?
    Is it because of the distinct and clear evolution of the mastaba to the pyramid found in the archaeological record?

    **Graham Hancock’s research and evidence is far from unsupported.

    The problem with Hancock is his tendency to cherry-pick data to fit his preconceived conclusions. This isn’t how science works. It is, however, precisely one of the ways that pseudoscience works. Take for instance his Fingerprints of the Gods book. In his first few “exhibits” in Chapter 51, Hancock makes some claims about massive “crustal displacement” on the Earth and an “ice-free Antarctica” (it’s been quite some time since I read this poorly written text, so forgive me if I get some details wrong). But he doesn’t really provide any data. I think he claims Antarctica was “ice free” between 12,000 – 15,000 years ago. But shows no evidence. He does, cite a really old text (relative to the publication of Fingerprints in 1995) by Charles Hapgood. This was the fact that there was no evidence of glaciation in Antarctica prior to the Eocene.

    I use this as but one example of the Hancock’s bias. He has a conclusion. He will pick out many facts that are true, and omit the many, many that are unfavorable to his conclusion. And this is what he did with the Hapgood citation on page 454 (I pulled my copy from the shelf from the first time in many years just now). Hancock writes, “geologists have found no evidence of any glaciation having been present anywhere on the Antarctic continent prior to the Eocene (about 60 million years ago.) Hancock includes a small, superscript number “4” to indicate the citation to Charles Hapgood’s The Path of the Pole, written in 1970. Perhaps this was a true statement in 1970. However–and this is a big however–many, many papers were written in the 1970s through the 1990s showing that the Antarctic continent was glaciated many times prior to the Eocene.

    Like I said, this is but a single, glaring example of the sort of poor scholarship Hancock is known for. And, it’s a prime reason why he’s so discredited and out-right ignored by those who take science seriously. He’s a joke. The punch line at cocktail parties. And yet I take his influence on the lay-person eager to soak up a good mystery and fantastic claim about the human past very serious.

    **I bet your dreading the release of AMERICA BEFORE. Randell Carlson id not a liar.

    On the contrary, I’m looking forward to it. I’d even consider pulling a fingernail for an advance copy so I can review it. I’m already gathering sources based on some of his comments that hint at what’s in store. As far as this Carlson guy, I have not idea who he is, so I’m unable to comment on the veracity of his statements.

    **Why cant you admit that theories derived a hundred years ago no longer hold water?

    I can think of many hypotheses and theories arrived at a hundred years ago that are no longer valid. Hell, I can give some examples of both that are at least greatly revised from just a few decades ago! You’re going to have to be more specific. But see my description of science above again first. Revision and provisional conclusions are the key. Always.

    **It’s only a matter of time until your PHD’s will become worthless.

    I don’t have a PhD. I do have a master’s in anthropology with a focus on archaeology and, so far, it’s kept me well-employed as a professional archaeologist.

  3. Hi Carl.

    Thank you for the reply, to be honest I never really expected one, and certainly not of the length and detail you devoted to such a small comment.
    Firstly, I apologise for the arrogant fashion of my own comment, I merely emulated the same style that is used in this article to describe Mr Hancock.

    Let’s have a look at the following text from the article above…

    “Graham Hancock, an author who writes about fantastic ideas of the human past that often have little to no supporting evidence. In particular, Hancock is peddling an idea sure to be in his next book for the gullible.”

    True, Graham Hancock does write about alternative theories concerning periods of our ancient past, but maybe “fantastic” is not the correct word here, intriguing or thought-provoking may be more suitable. He is not one of the conspiracy guys who claim that Aliens built the pyramids Etc. Just as the orthodox theories of the archaeologists, Hancock’s alternative conclusions are also reached by years of research in the field, and they do hold merit. The supporting evidence is usually in plain sight but rarely re-considered or debated by the archaeological community.

    This I will pursue later.

    Quote – “his next book for the gullible.” – Well, I’m not sure if the author of this article has read, at length, any of Mr Hancock’s work, but it defiantly is not “the gullible” who have, it is “the gullible who read this kind of comment and decide not to. Let’s use Hancock’s ‘Fingerprints of the Gods’ as an example, a book that contains fifty-two chapters and directly addresses over two hundred and twenty areas of study. ‘Fingerprints’ not only contains hundreds of completely honest and completely accepted archaeological and historical facts, but also explains them in great detail. It thoroughly analyses the findings of many hundreds of years of archaeology and explains clearly and logically the obvious difficulties with some of the conclusions based on them. “Facts” that we are teaching in schools and universities today that are themselves based on “no solid evidence” and are very possibly completely incorrect.
    Mr Hancock always insists that the reader should draw his or her own conclusions from the information he brings to the table, he never insists he is totally correct, and over the decades has himself changed some of his own views in respect to his subject, for instance; In the sequel to “Fingerprints of the Gods, ‘Magicians of the Gods’ He has moved away from earth crust displacement being the main cause for the abrupt ending of the ice age and concluded that an impact of extra-terrestrial origin was most probably the cause. He was looking for a smoking gun and funnily enough in November 2018 a huge impact crater was discovered under a half-mile-thick Greenland ice sheet. In a quote from The Guardian, scientists state… “The enormous bowl-shaped dent appears to be the result of a mile-wide iron meteorite slamming into the island at a speed of 12 miles per second as recently as 12,000 years ago.”

    …So are Graham Hancock’s readers “Gullible” or quite simply looking for alternative explanations after being miss informed by orthodox scholars? If the scientific data from this crater produces a date of 12,000 BC, then history as we have been led to believe would become highly questionable, and Mr Hancock will have been bang on the money. We will see.

    In reality “Fingerprints of the Gods” is a huge work of great research and devotion, a labour of love by a highly intelligent and rational individual.

    So let’s move on…

    Quote: “little or no supporting evidence”

    For this we will go back to the Giza necropolis and the three main pyramids, Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure – if you like to refer them as.

    I have noted your reasons for the pyramids of Egypt being Tombs, but other facts and observations concerning the monuments bring this assumption into some question.
    I’m fully aware of certain scripts and artefacts found inside some of the Pyramids in Egypt, but here I concentrate on the Giza site.

    Here is not a place to hold a debate but let’s continue in laymen’s terms:

    You state that why the Pyramids have to be tombs “Is because of the burial goods like sarcophagi, jewelry, and so forth found within actual burial chambers inside the pyramids”

    Well No, The Giza Pyramids contained none of the above that can be attributed to their proposed builders.
    On entering the Pyramid of Menkaure in 1837 Capt. Richard Howard Vyse discovered the remains of a wooden anthropoid coffin and a sarcophagus containing the bones of a women, the later were lost at sea as the boat transporting them sunk during its voyage back to Britain.
    The Bones from the wooden coffin are certainly from a later intrusive burial, likely in the Saite period. As for the sarcophagus, we will never know, but it’s highly unlikely to be Menkaure’s. Radiocarbon dating of the bones in the coffin has shown them to be less than 2,000 years old.
    No other inscriptions, bones, burial goods or jewellery have ever been found inside the three main pyramids of Giza.
    Certain “quarry marks” and a cartouche said to be Khufu’s were discovered in Campbell’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid by Vyse in 1837, but this it’s self was more likely penned by Vyse rather than Khufu’s work force. So it shows only of the desperation to prove the pyramid a tomb by Vyse and credit himself with the discovery (which he desperately needed).
    Except for this the Khufu Pyramid was empty, no inscriptions, no treasure, no body – Nothing! Even the Granite “sarcophagus” reveals nothing of its intended use. If the pyramid was plundered by grave robbers in ancient times did they really clear every item out of the monument using the 3’ x 3.5’ foot passages?
    Did they completely erase any scripts or hieroglyphics from the walls of the monument?
    Did they remove the granite plugs, plunder the monument and the afterwards remove any evidence of their crime, sweep it out and re-plug the passages?
    Before the Arab caliph Abdullah al-Mamun entered the pyramid around AD 820 searching for treasure the pyramid had never been entered since it was first sealed. There is no sign of any other attempt of forced entry on the exposed core of the pyramid, nor any signs of repair of such goings on. Entry from the underground areas is possible but unlikely as yet again there are no signs of invaders gaining access to the main passages and chambers until al-Mamun explored.
    Also where is the proof that Khufu built the pyramid? If it was for his burial, it was a daring decision to presume it could be built in only twenty years, which it almost certainly could not!
    The only artefact recording an image and attributed to Khufu is a small ivory statue, not found in the pyramid I should mention.
    Is it possible that Khufu ordered the internal rooms and passages of his pyramid to be completely void and anonymous? Well, it’s possible but not likely.
    The second pyramid ascribed to Khafre was found in the same condition.
    The Inventory Stela states that the Valley Temple and the Sphinx, already existed during the reign of Khufu, who ruled more than 30 years before Khafre, although most Egyptologists regard this as little proof, basically because it causes an unfortunate, irritating obstacle.
    Furthermore, John Anthony west and Geologist Dr Robert Schott P.H.D of Boston university have proved without reasonable doubt that the Great Sphinx is far older than it’s accepted date, possibly thousands of years, this is agreed by a huge amount of professional Geologist’s worldwide, for these reasons Khafre was not the builder of the Sphinx.
    Just because The mortuary complex of Khafre is in the vicinity of the pyramid does not mean the pyramid was conceived by him or built to be his tomb.
    If we travelled forward 4500 years into the future and excavated a ruined central London, would we consider the remains of an underground station a tomb just because it was surrounded by grave yards, cathedrals, mosques and churches? I can imagine the archaeologists stating that “A Short staircase was used to enter the underground mortuary chamber, past this are two further metal staircases divided by a polished ramp to allow the coffin to be easily slid alongside by its bearers. These descended for 200 feet to the burial chamber, this chamber, as was customary, consisted of a platform area overlooking the main ditch that would have housed the coffin and the ruler’s possessions. At each end of this ditch was a tunnel leading to the afterlife. The left tunnel would take you to hell the right to heaven, only after judgment would you be allowed to enter the appropriate tunnel. Similar tombs in the area are much deeper and have multiple burial chambers, presumably for family members”.

    Next you state:
    “clear evolution of the mastaba to the pyramid found in the archaeological record?”

    Well, yes maybe the pyramids are built on old, sacred burial sites and possibly the subterranean chamber of the Khufu pyramid is in fact one of these. But there is no evidence that the subterranean chamber was part of an ancient Mastaba, and the theory that Khufu changed his mind on the position of his tomb in the pyramid is purely speculative and unconvincing. The Mastaba theories also require a certain amount of re-thinking in regards to pyramidal structures, not just in Egypt, but worldwide. It seems logical that, for one reason or another, their layout may have prompted the construction of a pyramid above, but this does not make the pyramid a tomb. Also why would the pyramid shaped structures always need to be tombs? Maybe later pyramids just emulated what was thought to be a sacred form?
    It seems logical to assume that the layout of the Giza pyramid complex far predates 2500 BC.
    The astrological alignment of the three pyramids undoubtedly reflects the sky at around 10,000 BC. There is evidence of a large construction project at Giza around the time of 2500BC but may very well not have been the total construction of the pyramid(s).
    The ancient papyrus found in 2013 by a French and Egyptian team in the caves at the port of Wadi El-Jarf. Conclusions that it was actually written by ‘a pyramid builder’ and certainly that of the three main monuments can only be theorised as any translation from such an ancient text is open to huge amounts of interpretation.

    Ancient Greek historians and notably Herodotus pretty much decided who built the Giza pyramids.

    Herodotus wrote –

    “Till the death of Rhampsinitus, the priests said, Egypt was excellently governed, and flourished greatly; but after him Cheops succeeded to the throne, and plunged into all manner of wickedness. He closed the temples, and forbade the Egyptians to offer sacrifice, compelling them instead to labour, one and all, in his service. Some were required to drag blocks of stone down to the Nile from the quarries in the Arabian range of hills; others received the blocks after they had been conveyed in boats across the river, and drew them to the range of hills called the Libyan. A hundred thousand men laboured constantly, and were relieved every three months by a fresh lot.
    It took ten years’ oppression of the people to make the causeway for the conveyance of the stones, a work not much inferior, in my judgement, to the pyramid itself. This causeway is five furlongs in length, ten fathoms wide, and in height, at the highest part, eight fathoms. It is built of polished stone, and is covered with carvings of animals. To make it took ten years, as I said – or rather to make the causeway, the works on the mound where the pyramid stands, and the underground chambers, which Cheops intended as vaults for his own use: these last were built on a sort of island, surrounded by water introduced from the Nile by a canal. The pyramid itself was twenty years in building. It is a square, eight hundred feet each way, and the height the same, built entirely of polished stone, fitted together with the utmost care. The stones of which it is composed are none of them less than thirty feet in length.”

    This has been gospel for the archaeological world ever since and never questioned my mainstream scholars.

    Herodotus also wrote this a very long time after the construction of the Great Pyramid, which was apparently completed approx. 2560BC. Also remember there wasn’t an abundance of available research materials for him to cross reference, he was simply reporting or recording information gathered from verbal conversations, which he claims he had with some Egyptian priests. Herodotus is basically repeating second hand information regarding an event that happened in a time as distant to Herodotus as is the birth of Jesus Christ to you and me, approximately 2000 years!

    Hancock’s “far out” assumption that the builders of the pyramids and other temples, monuments and so forth may have been used a technology that has been lost to us, a technology that was passed down by a much older civilization that is regarded by scholars as myth or legend.
    But maybe this assumption is not so “fantastic” as we are led to believe.
    For hundreds of years’ people have speculated over how the pyramids could have been built by people who were meant to be so primitive and basic.
    Even today we have no real idea. Engineers have proved the impossibility of ramps and levers and have marvelled over what appears to be a simply impossible feat, regardless of how much brute force you bring to the party. Architects have studied the plans in complete bewilderment and envy. Builders have accessed the sheer size and weight of the materials used and the accuracy of the manner they were installed and shaken their heads in disbelief. Mathematicians
    have gasped at the calculations that were used in the construction and the almost dead on accuracy that the builders were able to accomplish with such a huge project, the use of Pi and other calculus appear again and again, in fact it would be impossible to build without this knowledge. (Not bad for a primitive race). Scientists and astronomers marvel at the precise orientation of the monuments.
    Yet we are told that these are merely coincidences, lucky guess work and hard physical labour.
    We are also told that the tools used were almost certainly, and only, basic copper chisels, pounding stones, primitive hammers, wooden sledges and reed ropes Etc.
    To cut granite to the accuracy of the slabs found in the Great pyramid would not be possible using any of the above, even if certain substances were used to achieve higher efficiency.
    Blocks of this size and weight could not have been slid on wooden sledges. They would have snapped within seconds, if by a miracle they did bear the weight, they would have sunk within feet of being pulled – try it on the beach yourself.
    Ramps would have continuously buckled and subsided due to the sheer weight and amount of traffic, also many would require more mass of materials than the pyramid itself!
    We also have to understand that the pyramid was not just “stacked up willy nilly”
    Firstly 13 square acres of the Plateau had to be levelled and paved very precisely with huge slabs, some 30 x 20 foot and six feet in depth. Second the monument had to be set out very accurately from the first course with the sockets not deviating more than inches, if this was not accomplished the end result would not be a pyramid. But it was, the builders got it right within a fraction of a degree.
    Work of this scale, even today, would take years to complete.
    Thirdly 2.3 million blocks weighing between 2 and 7 tons had to be raised to giddying heights and laid with precise precision, a feat that NASA has described as “Ridiculously un-accomplishable if it wasn’t in plain sight”.
    Forth, the inner passages and chambers were bored, cut and constructed to an accuracy that bewilders most professionals who become acquainted with the monument.
    So how? We are told any forms of Wheels, pulleys, cranes and alike were not in the ancient Egyptian builders yards, so we have to believe they achieved the work using the tools available.
    The simple truth has to be the builders of these monuments were by far not as simple and basic as portrait by Egyptologists. They were without a doubt masters of masonry, genius mathematicians, highly skilled engineers and educated astronomers – Contractors for pyramids !
    However dedicated the workers on a site may be, they are no use without the tools for the job.
    The Ancient Egyptians must have been pretty confident about completing the job from day one.Telling them that copper chisels where the tools at hand would have been absolutely ridicules, the pyramid would have remained in the quarry.
    The simple truth has to be that the builders of these monuments were by far not as simple and basic as portrayed by Egyptologists.
    They were without a doubt masters of masonry, genius mathematicians, highly skilled engineers and vastly knowledgeable astronomers. And they were backed up a skilled labour force with access to the required tools.

    These days if our own Queen assembled a massive workforce and requested the building of a super accurate, precisely aligned, 400-foot stone and granite monument in central London, it would already pose a daunting task. But if the work force were told the only tools allowed on site were steel cutlery, skateboards and tow ropes, the job quite simply would be impossible no matter what. The work force would leave and that would be that.

    So if we decide that it was impossible to build the pyramid with the tools of the time we do have to reconsider what tools were used. It is pointed out that no “Hi-Tech” tools (and I’m not insinuating the power tools of today) have been found scattered around any monument in Egypt. But would we expect the builders of our own time to disregard their tools on completion of a project, leave them on the job, and nobody think about moving them off site or stealing them for hundreds or thousands of years?
    If I was to speculate over the tools required, I would at least suggest pulleys, the wheel, diamond edged saws, forms of disc cutters and harder metals for a start.
    Even these would not entertain the manufacture of other artefacts, such as the granite box in the Kings chamber or the granite and other hard stone bowls and vases found in and around the step pyramid at Saqqarra for example.
    Nor would it even begin to explain the complex of the Serapeum of Saqqara and it’s 24 granite boxes? Most scholars have not even bothered to seriously consider how it was built and how the boxes were cut and moved so long ago, there are no plausible explanations available, even using today’s technology. It is thought that their purpose was for the burial of mummified bodies of sacred Apis bulls, but this it’s self is of great question. The only bull reportedly found and later displayed has apparently disappeared from the museum, as nobody can remember seeing it in the first place, the fact is it probably didn’t exist in the first place. The Louvre in Paris has a 1.26m limestone statue of an Apis bull on display, apparently from the Serapeum. This is probably the reason for the burial assumption, but as the statue is dated to 30th Dynasty it’s of no real relevance to the boxes which are obviously far older.
    So without the transfer of technology or a “lost technology”, was the construction of the pyramids and other structures even possible? The answer is – probably not. It’s not just the Giza Pyramids that provide examples of “impossible feats of construction” for the Ancient Egyptians it seems it was easier to work with huge monoliths rather than cutting them up into much more agreeable sizes. The Giza Plateau exhibits quite different building techniques that are incorporated into the same structures. For instance, the Sphinx temple was dressed with granite, and apparently much later. Probably a refurbishment due to erosion of the original blocks. This work may well have been carried out along with other repairs and refurbishment at the time of Khufu, including work on the Pyramids and the Sphinx, the Head of which was certainly re-carved, otherwise there would be no recognisable features left due to erosion. The head is also totally out of proportion with the rest of the body, these facts also bolster the reasoning that the Sphinx was old when Khafre was ruler.
    Other questions can be raised over building techniques like those used to apply the granite casing stones to the Menkaure pyramid, which look much more at home in Machu Picchu (Peru) rather than Giza, is there a connection?
    We can talk for hours if not days and months of the anomalies that can be clearly seen by a trained eye on the Giza Plateau and apparently ignored by Egyptologists. But unless this is researched, investigated and explored further, we may never know the real truth and always have to fall back on the current explanations.
    Of course, this kind of research demands funding and it’s highly unlikely that somebody like Mr Hancock would ever be considered worthy by the “Mainstream”.
    It’s a real shame that with the technology we have today, we may be able to unearth a chapter of our past that may very well change are future. But instead we have to keep on the same narrow line, moving ever further from the possible alternative truth of our ancient past.

    Just for the record, I’m not one of the “Gullible”. I have read all of Mr Hancock’s works and listened to many of his talks and debates, and my opinion is that he is really onto something that we have either missed of deliberately ignored.
    By the way, it’s not just Hancock that I read. I have an exhaustive collection of “factual” books and information on ancient history written by countless different authors, scholars and alike.

    Lastly I would like to go back to Mr Randall Carlson. Randall is an American architect, geological expert and anthropological expert. He is a proponent of the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, and has theorised about the clearly possible extinction of historical advanced human civilizations.
    He has also become a researcher and mentor for Hancock’s new book ‘America Before’.
    If you want to become acquainted with his work, then Joe Rogan Experience #501 on YouTube is as better place than any to start.

    I apologise again for the initial curt comment but it really annoys me when somebody like Graham Hancock, who has devoted a large percent of his life to research and report on a subject he truly believes is important, can be summed up in three lines using such a dis-ingenuous manner.

    For the record I am a qualified electronics engineer now working in advanced data recovery and a part time researcher of our ancient past. I have a very good eye for spotting problems, not only when it comes to the nature of my own work…
    …And there are plenty of problems regarding the accepted model of our ancient origins.

    Richard

  4. Here’s a thought for New Year.
    If we consider that the Pyramids were not build as tombs and they were actually instruments designed to turn dead people into gods, then maybe the following is either fantastic nonsense or slightly chilling. After all, even these days, we have some very strong religious beliefs that may well we considered the utterings of a drooling mad man if they weren’t so powerfully forced upon us from birth. They become a belief, no matter the religious persuasion, that we seem to require to find our way in life.
    So let’s look at the facts…
    NO corpses or mummies dating from their proposed construction has EVER been found in ANY of the Pyramids. There were NO artefacts, hieroglyphs or any other clues as to their purpose EVER found in any of the Pyramids of Giza (except the very dubious graffiti in the top three reliving chambers of GP1). Other Pyramids nearby contained sarcophagi that had NEVER been opened before modern times. All were empty!
    Why would the ancient Egyptians, if they were in fact the builders of these multi-million-ton stone structures, go to so much trouble for no apparent reason? Or maybe, just maybe they had a very good reason. Is it the case that every sarcophagus did in fact once contain the body of a king? And could it be the case that the bodies completely vanished without a trace, without the help of any form of grave robbers and in fact without the sarcophagus lid even being raised at all?
    Could it be that with some form of ancient knowledge the builders of the pyramids accomplished something that we seek every day in our own religious believes – Immortality!

    Happy New Year!!

  5. Hello Richard … Interesting coincidence you posted Dec. 13, 2018 and I met Graham Hancock in Toronto Dec. 13 2015 … and I only went to his lecture to get him to sign two books which would I knew would indite him as a ignorant researcher/storyteller who suffers from a cognitive bias resulting in wild theories, thus taking his loyal readership for a ride these past 25 years … Now would you like to see the evidence which suggest Graham Hancock has been ‘cherry picking’ through the evidence pile since his first best seller The Sign And The Seal suggesting only one thing … his flock have afforded their sheeple herder a rather envious life spewing nonsense.

  6. The ‘mainstream’ accepted history of old kingdom Egypt is entirely cherry picked from various sources by Egyptologists and alike. I’m not saying that makes it all incorrect though.

    • What’s currently known and accepted as the closest approximation of the truth known so far is based largely on scientific data. The material assemblages themselves have produced dates from radiocarbon, dendrochronology, thermoluminescence, and several other direct dating techniques. Many artifact types found at meticulously documented strata lend themselves well to seriation and the successful translation of several languages and scripts used by ancient Egyptians and their contemporaries have provided many details. To describe these data as “cherry-picked” is to grossly misunderstand both the methods of science used in the data collection as well as the enormous size of that body of data.

      Not to mention that there is no “mainstream” in archaeology. One is either doing archaeology or one isn’t. 🙂

  7. There is no “Our History” before the mass invasion of Europeans of the Americas, and all other non-White continents, Islands and countries. No other indigenous people fantasize and obsess over other peoples civilizations and accomplishments, attribe them to ” Brown Skinned Gods” or ” Superior Brown Skinned Aliens”. Ive also noticed that the people who have this self-esteem defect are mostly Northern Europeans and their North American, Australian, and New Zealand descendants. They even have these Nordic fantasies for the only European civilizations that WERE created by Southern Europeans, but for these people it isnt Aliens that did it, nope, it was the Nordic Supermen from the North who created the only great Euro-Civilizations of Rome and Greece! These Nordic supermen traveled the world seeding the Americas great civilizations, Egypt, the great civilizations of China, India, Thailand, and Africas great Zimbabwe, Timbuktu, and the Middle East Sumeria, Mesopotamia, and countless others. All the while ignoring the fact that There is a huge bald spot smack in the middle of the ancestral homelands of these Mythological Nordic Supermen , where there has never even been a trace of a great ancient civilization in Northern Europe. Why is this!? Dont tell me, was it a great Tsunami? A volcano? A earthquake? A meteor? What was it!? No, we never Shared a history, just because the Europeans have colonized Non-White continent and countries in the past 500 years, but before that time, the indigenous civilizations, the monumental architecture, their Calenders, their Art, their institutions, their Agriculture, their Tool Kits, their ancestors, the remains of those ancestors, their identity, Their ancestral homelands And THEIR History belongs only to them!! Colonizers are not entitled to inclusion in that history just to feel better about themselves!! Sorry, but get over it!!

Leave a Reply