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[Psycho]

Psycho

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  posted 08-20-2004 08:23 AM                       
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Catastrophe,
Having just read through some of your latest posts, you really have an axe to grind with some of this. Settle down, my friend! Our names aren't Bob Sarmast or Zia Abbas!

Concerning the potential decomposition of a binder used in conjunction with iron oxide...far be it from me to argue with your credentials, my friend! You're the chemist, not I. I know nothing about the typical decomposition of such organic binders!

They did find the presence of iron oxide in the Shroud of Turin, though, which is pretty dang old, too:


quote:
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found red ochre(iron oxide, hematite) and vermilion (mercuric sulphide) The same teams electron microprobe analyser found iron, mercury, and sulphur on a dozen of the "blood-image" area samples.Carbon-dating results from three different internationally known laboratories agreed well with his date: 1355 by microscopy and 1325 by C-14 dating.
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http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ukatheist/articles/turinshroud.htm
As you see, we have a date for that, controversial though it may still be! Perhaps the chemical composition is different on fibers as opposed to stone!

Now before you rip off yet another "cutting" reply, be nice! I don't want to hear "Ooops!" anymore! Lest I turn the discussion around into one about comic books, and I remind you, there, I'm the expert!

I ask again, shouldn't the Egyptologists at least try to carbon date the ochre paint, if only to get rid of people like me with our "wild assumptions"..?





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Posts: 1269 | Registered: Jun 2004   

[Psycho]

 
Psycho

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  posted 08-20-2004 08:51 AM                       
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quote:
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What I find really difficult to understand is how anyone is supposed to be credible.
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Am I missing something here? As I can see it, you can't carbon date a block of stone![/B] All you can do is find whatever "organic" material that may still be present in and around the stone, or mortar, and carbon date that! Even Egyptology is, at best, making a guess based on circumstantial evidence! This not only goes for the Great Pyramid, but ALL pyramids, provided they are made of, you betcha...stone!

Don't take it personally!
 
 


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Posts: 1269 | Registered: Jun 2004   
 

[Psycho]

Psycho

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  posted 08-20-2004 09:41 AM                       
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quote:
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Well, if Khufu's name were hidden it wouldn't help anyone, would it?
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Catastrophe, how does it help Egyptology's case if the part of the inscriptions with the names on it is still visible.?? Then again, I still haven't seen the pictures, I have been busy! Unlike you and that quite famous Egyptologist Graham Han****, I haven't ruled that out yet.



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Posts: 1269 | Registered: Jun 2004   

[Psycho]

Psycho

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Member # 2035

  posted 08-20-2004 10:01 AM                       
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Well, at least this is still a substantive post. There's so much blood being shed in the Atlantis forum that I am hesitant about going there anymore! Sure glad Georgeos and Maria never got interested in Egypt!
 
[This message has been edited by Psycho (edited 08-20-2004).]


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[Psycho]

Catastrophe
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Rate Member   posted 08-20-2004 04:08 PM                       
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Psycho
I have no quarrel with you. I have always found you able to discuss and debate without the ignorance shown by some sarmast supporter(s).

About carbon dating. You need something organic (containing carbon and hydrogen). The Turin shroud was made of cotton or similar (cellulosic). Iron oxide is not organic.

As I said, if you leave butter in a pyramid for 1000 years or one week it will probably decompose. Then you can carbon date the bacteria. But what will that tell you? The carbon cycle is still active.



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Posts: 3324 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002   

[Psycho]

Catastrophe
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Rate Member   posted 08-20-2004 04:15 PM                       
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"I ask again, shouldn't the Egyptologists at least try to carbon date the ochre paint, if only to get rid of people like me with our "wild assumptions"..? "
You can't carbon date iron oxide because there is no carbon in it. The binder was probably something like linseed oil. You can't tell because it would have decomposed within a short time. Take a typical oil or fat like butter or olive oil. How long does that last? Not very long. So there is nothing organic to carbon date. Wish there were!



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Posts: 3324 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002   

[Psycho]

cleasterwood

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   posted 08-21-2004 01:08 PM                       
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Wow Cat,
The similarities are pretty astounding there and could explain a lot! Interesting, something new to ponder and explore.   
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Posts: 653 | From: FL US | Registered: Aug 2003   

[Psycho]

Psycho

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  posted 08-24-2004 07:45 AM                       
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Catastrophe,
Is there any scientific method besides carbon dating that might serve us better in this case then? Frankly, I can't see any way to prove or disprove things one way or another...part of the problem with all this!



 

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Posts: 1269 | Registered: Jun 2004   

[Psycho]

 
Psycho

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  posted 08-26-2004 12:48 PM                       
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quote:
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Carbon clock could show the wrong time
10 May 2001
Carbon dating is a mainstay of geology and archaeology - but an enormous peak discovered in the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere between 45 thousand and 11 thousand years ago casts doubt on the biological carbon cycle that underpins the technique. The study led by physicist Warren Beck of the University of Arizona, US, could also affect estimates of how quickly the Earth can re-absorb the excess carbon dioxide generated by fossil fuels (J W Beck et al 2001 Science to appear).



Stalagmite stopwatch

Living organisms and some geological features absorb stable carbon-12 and radioactive carbon-14, which are present in the air in a well-known ratio. This is part of the carbon cycle - the recirculation of carbon through the oceans, atmosphere, plants and animals. Scientists use carbon dating to determine when objects ceased to absorb carbon by measuring how much of the carbon-14 - which has a half-life of 5730 years - has decayed. But Beck and colleagues believe that the ratio of stable and radioactive carbon in the atmosphere may have changed considerably over the last 50 thousand years. This raises questions about the accuracy of carbon dating for very old objects.

Beck and colleagues tested slices of a half-metre long stalagmite that grew between 45 000 and 11 000 years ago in a cave in the Bahamas. Stalagmites are calcium carbonate deposits left behind when carbon dioxide evaporates out of cave seepage water. They found that carbon-14 concentrations were twice their modern level during that period. Current records of the levels of carbon-14 in the atmosphere only cover the last 16 thousand years, and this discovery extends those records a further 30 thousand years.

Galactic cosmic rays create most of the carbon-14 in our atmosphere, while solar cosmic rays generate a smaller fraction. The Earth is partially shielded from galactic cosmic rays by its own magnetic field and the solar magnetic field, which fluctuates as the solar cycle proceeds. But these effects are predictable and are thought to have changed little in the last million years - which means they cannot explain the glut of carbon-14. Evidence from North Atlantic sediments suggests that the Earth's magnetic field may have dipped around 40 thousand years ago, but this would still only account for - at best - half of the observed peak in carbon-14 concentrations.

Beck's team concludes that either a jump in the cosmic ray flux or a fundamental change in the carbon cycle must have produced the sudden increase of carbon-14. The team speculates that a supernova shock wave could have produced a flurry of cosmic rays. "Weaker circulation of the oceans - which are the biggest reservoirs of carbon on Earth - would explain the excess of carbon-14", David Richards, joint team leader, told PhysicsWeb. If carbon-14 is carried more slowly from the surface to the depths of the ocean, he explains, the carbon-14 content of the atmosphere will rise.

The discovery also has implications for our understanding of the environment as a whole. "We should take this as a warning that climate change may affect the carbon cycle in previously unexpected way", says Beck.

Author
Katie Pennicott is Editor of PhysicsWeb


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http://physicsweb.org/article/news/5/5/7

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Posts: 1269 | Registered: Jun 2004   
 

[Psycho]

Catastrophe
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Rate Member   posted 08-27-2004 12:31 AM                       
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"Carbon dating is a mainstay of geology and archaeology - but an enormous peak discovered in the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere between 45 thousand and 11 thousand years ago casts doubt on the biological carbon cycle that underpins the technique."
Interesting. If the levels can be established, corrections could be made. At least they do not throw doubt on the last 11000 years. 40000 years is around the accuracy limit anyway.

I don't know of a better method for younger dates but one will doubtless be found in due course. Dendrochronology can be used as a check.


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Posts: 3324 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002   

[Psycho]

 
Psycho

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  posted 08-27-2004 12:20 PM                       
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And here is how that may correspond with the Great Pyramid:

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Pyramid Radiocarbon Dating Project

In 1986, Edgar Cayce's organization, the Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE) funded a study to be directed by Mark Lehner, to radiocarbon date organic material that was used in the mortar of the core masonry blocks of the Great Pyramid. While the results weren't what ARE had hoped for (namely in the 10,500BC era) they were still significantly earlier than conventional Egyptology had dated them. The dates for the Great Pyramid range from 3809BC to 2869BC. The older date being some 1300 years before Khufu. This begs the question how could cartouches with the name Khufu exist in the Pyramid 1300 years before he existed? Even the "average" date of the samples is some 400 years older than conventional thinking. How can Khufu's name exist 400 years before the pharoah exists? Either the chronology is wrong or the cartouches are not authentic or the cartouche means something other than the name for a 4th Dynasty Pharaoh. Egyptologist's dismiss these older dates with the explanation that the Egyptians must have used "old wood". Of course when the dates agree with conventional theories, the wood seems fine.


I'm also still not clear as to how "bits of wood and reed can be found embedded in the core work"? If a fire was built to heat the gypsum how did the "bits of wood and reed" (not ashes) travel above the fire and end up in the gypsum? Meanwhile certain aspects of radiocarbon's dating accuracy is being called into question.


The Mir Cubit


While the Edgar Cayce construction date cannot be scientifically proven yet, at least Robert Schoch's conclusions about the Sphinx may have put Cayce in the same ballpark. We can test other points in his readings on ancient Egypt to at least see if they are accurate. In one of his readings (281-25) he describes a "Temple Beautiful" that was built in Egypt shortly before the Great Pyramid. Cayce, in describing the dimensions of this temple, uses the term:


...cubits (twenty seven and one-half inches was a cubit then, or a mir then)


He doesn't say this unit of measure was used in the Great Pyramid but implies that it was a general measure of length in usage at that time. Since we don't know with what level of precision Cayce was talking about when he said "27 and 1/2 inches" equals a mir cubit we can assume this was a close approximation or rounding off of an exact distance. If you make a mir cubit 27.483 inches instead of 27.5 inches some very interesting numbers start to appear within the Great Pyramid dimensions. For instance, the numbers 1,2 and 3 start appearing all over the place. The average length of a base side becomes 330 mir cubits (Cole survey13). The perimeter of the base is 1320 mir cubits. The original height of the pyramid is 210 mir cubits. This is the only height measurement where the number of probable original courses (210 courses) equals the original height . This length also precisely fits the King's Chamber dimensions at 7.5 x 15 cubits. The Grand Gallery length to the Big Step is 66 cubits long. From the Big Step to the opening to the King's Chamber is 12 cubits. The length of the Descending Passage is 150 cubits. The height from the base of the Big Step to the apex is also 150 cubits. All these numbers will be discussed in deeper detail in the 1:43200 article. One can conclude, however that Cayce's historically unknown "mir cubit" has an astounding degree of accuracy when measuring the Great Pyramid. Whether this translates into accuracy for other aspects of ancient Egypt he gave readings on, remains to be seen.


Highway to the Infinite

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1 Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, The Holy Science, (Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1974), p. xiv.

2 William Fix, Pyramid Odyssey, (Urbanna, Virginia: Mercury Media, 1978), p.112-113.

3 Robert M. Schoch, Ph.D., Voyages of the Pyramid Builders, (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2003), p. 18-19.

4 Ola Olsson, "The Rise of Neolithic Agriculture", Department of Economics, Goteborg University; 9/25/2001.

5 Ibid.

6 Swami Vivekananda, Vivekananda: The Yogas and Other Works; Revised Edition, (New York: Ramakrishna- Vivekananda Center, Third Printing, 1984) p.592

7 Fix, op.cit. p. 112.

8 ibid. p.120.

9 ibid. p. 75-76.

10 ibid. p. 81

11 ibid. p. 83

12 ibid. p. 85

13Cole reported the following data for the length of the sides:

North
East
South
West
Average

230.253m= 329.8421 mir 230.391m= 330.0397 mir 230.454m= 330.1300 mir 230.357m= 329.9911 230.36325m= 330.000mir



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Illustrations


The Second Pyramid, p. 15

The Casing Stones, p. 13

King's Chamber Ceiling, p. 41

The Great Pyramid, p.35


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!tzalist Science Directory


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http://cycle-of-time.net/construction_date_of_the_great_p.htm

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[Psycho]

Psycho

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  posted 08-27-2004 12:21 PM                       
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Of course, we also know that the mortar from the pyramids was carbon-dated again during the mid-1990', but I'm still searching for a thorough report on them!~
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[Psycho]

 
Catastrophe
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Rate Member   posted 08-29-2004 04:46 AM                       
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Psycho
"Radiocarbon dates of Pharaoh Khufu's second funerary boat (The Fourth Dynasty, Old Kingdom, Ancient Egypt)
The chronologies of ancient dynastic civilization have been regarded as well-established and have therefore been used as a chronological basis. Especially in the middle of 1960s, many ancient Egyptian samples were used for the critical analysis to check the accuracy of radiocarbon dating giving good agreements with those of pharaonic chronologies. In this study radiocarbon dates of wood samples, which were collected from the second funerary boat of Pharaoh Khufu, were measured. Khufu was the second successor of the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, Ancient Egypt. His estimated reigning period is ca. 2551-2558 B.C. In consequence, the 14C date of the boat was 4590+/-90 yBP showing good agreement with his estimated reign."

I would rather trust dates from wood.

Google: khufu dendrochronology


[This message has been edited by Catastrophe (edited 08-29-2004).]


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[Psycho]

 
Catastrophe
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Rate Member   posted 08-29-2004 05:00 AM                       
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Here is an interview with Lehner:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/explore/howold2.html


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Posts: 3324 | From: UK | Registered: May 2002   
 

[Psycho]

Psycho

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  posted 08-30-2004 07:38 AM                       
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Thank you, Catastrophe, I've stumbled on this interview before myself. Here is the most telling part of it for me:

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NOVA: What does the radiocarbon dating tell us about the date of the pyramids?
LEHNER: Well, we did a first run in 1984, actually, funded by the Edgar Cayce Foundation because they had definite ideas that the pyramids were much older than Egyptologists believed. That they date as early as 10,500 B.C. Well, obviously for them it was a good test case because radio carbon dating does not give you pinpoint accuracy. If you have a plus or minus factor, but I say it's kind of like shooting at a fly on a barn with a shotgun. Well, you're not going to hit the fly exactly, you're going to know which side of the barn, which end of the barn, you know, the buckshot is scattering. And it wasn't scattering at 10,500 B.C. on that first run of some 70 samples from a whole selection of pyramids of the Old Kingdom. But it was significantly older than Egyptologists believed. We were getting dates from the 1984 study that were on the average 374 years too old for the Cambridge Ancient History, (the Cambridge Ancient History is a reference) dates for the kings who built these monuments. So just recently we took some 300 samples, and in collaboration with our Egyptian colleagues, we are now in the process of dating these samples. The outcome we are going to announce jointly in tandem with our Egyptian colleagues, and maybe we can pick up the subject of the results when we're over there in Egypt together with Dr. Zahi Hawass (during the February excavation of the bakeries at Giza).

NOVA: Is there any evidence at all that an ancient civilization predating the civilization of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure was there?

LEHNER: It's a good question. If they were there, you see -- civilizations don't disappear without a trace. If archaeologists can go out and dig up a campsite of hunters and gatherers that was occupied 15,000 years ago, there's no way there could have been a complex civilization at a place like Giza or anywhere in the Nile Valley and they didn't leave a trace, because people eat, people poop, people leave their garbage around, and they leave their traces, they leave the traces of humanity.

Now at Giza, I should tell people how this has come down to me personally. Because I actually went over there with my own notions of lost civilizations, older civilizations from Edgar Cayce. When I worked at the Sphinx over a five-year period we were mapping every nook and cranny, every block and stone, and actually every fissure and crack as well. And I, on a couple of different occasions was able to excavate natural solution cavities in the limestone from which the Sphinx is made. Natural solution cavities are like holes in Swiss cheese. When the limestone formed from sea sediments 50 million years ago there were bubbles and holes and so on, and fissures later developed from tectonic forces **** the limestone. So for example, right at the hind paw of the Great Sphinx on the north side, this main fissure that cuts through the whole body of the Sphinx and then through the floor opens up to about 30 centimeters wide and about a meter or more in length. And in tandem with Zahi Hawass in 1979-'80, we were clearing out this fissure, which now is totally filled with debris again. But we actually reached down to our armpits, lying on our sides on the floor, scooping out this clay. And in the clay was embedded, not only charcoal, but bits of pottery that were very characteristic of the pottery that was used during the time of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, the 4th Dynasty.

We did that again on the floor of the Sphinx temple which is built on a lower terrace directly below the paws of the Sphinx. Directly in front of the Sphinx, we found a solution cavity in 1978, during what's called the SRI Project, which has been written about. We actually cleared out this cavity. We found dolomite pounders, these round balls of hard dolomite that are characteristic hammerstones of the age of the pyramids that they used for roughing out work in stone. Beyond that, Zahi and I excavated deposits on the floor of the Sphinx, even more substantial, deposits that were sealed by an 18th Dynasty temple, built by Tutankamen's great grandfather when the Sphinx was already 1,200 years old. But it was built by a pharaoh named Amenhotep II and his son, Thelmos IV. They put the foundation of this temple right over deposits of the Old Kingdom, and sealed it, so that they were left there and were not cleared away by earlier excavators in our era in the 1930s.

Zahi and I sort of did a stratographic dissection of these ancient deposits. That is we did very careful trenches, recorded the layers and the different kinds of material. The bottom material sealed by a temple built by Tutankamen's great or great great grandfather, was Old Kingdom construction debris. They stopped work cutting the outlines of the Sphinx ditch -- the Sphinx sits down in this ditch or sanctuary. We were able to show exactly where they stopped work. They didn't quite finish that. We found tools, we found pottery, characteristic of the Old Kingdom time of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure.

Now the point is this. That it's not just this crevice or that nook and cranny or that deposit underneath this temple, but all over Giza, you find this kind of material. And as I say in looking for our carbon-14 samples, climbing in the pyramids you find the same material embedded in the very fabric of the pyramids, in the mortar bonding the stones together. So back to the question, is there an earlier civilization? Well, as I say to New Age critics, show me one pot shard of that earlier civilization. Because the only way they could have existed is if they actually got out with whisk brooms, scoop shovels and little spoons and cleared out every single trace of their daily lives, their utensils, their pottery, their wood, their tools and so on, and that's just totally improbable. Well, it's not impossible, but it has a very, very low level of probability, that there was an older civilization there.


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I would like to stress once again here that one cannot carbon date stone. Yes, the wooden boats found buried near the pyramids can legitimately dated to 2600 b.c., but you'll agree that that in itself cannot prove the date of the pyramid itself. The boats could have been placed there later. The Egyptians who built them would have naturally been attracted to this large monument they found out in the desert.

Incidentally, do you believe these boats were functional or merely ceremonial..?

Concerning the carbon dating they do have from the pyramids, I'd like Mr. Lehner to be more specific about just exactly what material he used to get the dates and just where they were found in the pyramids! 'Cause, from this viewpoint any dates they got from them could have derived from the idea that the pharoahs were doing repair work on them and still not there at the time of their actual building..!


[This message has been edited by Psycho (edited 08-30-2004).]


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