Ben Carson: Egyptian pyramids were used to store grain, not Pharaohs' tombs

[Dave Lane]

Egypt’s pyramids were built by the biblical Joseph to store grain and were not, as archaeologists believe, tombs for pharaohs, Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson has said.

The retired neurosurgeon, who is seeking his party’s nomination for the White House, made these remarks in a 1998 address at Andrews University, a Michigan school associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, to which he belongs, in a video posted on Buzzfeed on Wednesday.

The church is a conservative evangelical Christian one.

“My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,” Carson – who last week overtook Republican rival Donald Trump for the first time in a national poll – told graduates in his address.

“Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it.

“And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.”

Asked on Wednesday if he still held these views, Carson told CBS News: “It’s still my belief, yes.”

Speaking to MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday, rival Republican Trump said: “He’s informed me about the pyramids. I think I’ll have to put that in my repertoire about Ben. That was a strange deal.”

In his 1998 address, Carson said: “And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons.

“And various of scientists have said, ‘Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how, you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you’.”

In the old testament book of Genesis, Joseph, one of the 12 sons of Jacob, was said to have “stored up grain in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring it, for it was beyond measure”.

After seven years of plenty, the story in Genesis says, Egypt suffered seven years of famine, during which Joseph was able to feed the people with the grain he had stored.

Carson has spoken often about his faith, saying recently of his critics: “They say, ‘Carson, you know, how can you be a surgeon, a neurosurgeon, and believe that God created the Earth, and not believe in evolution, which is the basis of all knowledge and all science?’ …

“But I do believe God created us, and I did just fine … And in fact, the more you know about God, and the deeper your relationship with God, I think the more intricate becomes your knowledge of the way things work, including the human body.”

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...pharoahs-tombs

[ILChief]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

I've been on at least 6 archaeology digs in Egypt and Israel. On one I was cleaning out a side room and discovered a mosaic floor that turned out to be another room. I was the first person to see this in 2000 years. Really cool.

Was it full of wheat or oats?

[srvy]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

Well he is a retired doctor, but like one that believes in, well, science.

Well thats special. When I want to know about the mysteries of the Great Pyramids of Egypt I look up an old sawbones from Kansas.

[Pitt Gorilla]

Originally Posted by srvy

Well thats special. When I want to know about the mysteries of the Great Pyramids of Egypt I look up an old sawbones from Kansas.

Sort of wish Hamas Jenkins was here:

[Fish]

[Pitt Gorilla]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

Well being I've been to Egypt multiple times, actually talked to actual archeologists (as a child I wanted nothing more than to be an Egyptologist) and the Egyptian military has asked me to come shoot Milky Way images above Egyptian monuments I'm going to hazard a guess that I'm possibly more well rounded on this subject than you. Of course thats me discounting your extensive and diligent PBS and Discovery work whilst throwing back a few PBRs.

I can translate hieroglyphics, there are like books on how to do it and at this point Google may have a hieroglyphic translator as an add-on to its Chrome browser. The Ancient Egyptian language is extremely well known and documented. The Book of the Dead, the Pyramid Texts and the walls of all the royal tombs in Saqqara, the Valley of the Kings all the way to Abu Simbel are wholly translated. I have here a section of the Ramesseum with hieroglyphics on it.

As I said earlier and other peoples responses obviously show they concur it would be best for you to either take some time to read, or respond with sorry I didn't know that and disengage.

Underrated comment in thread. Literally laughed out loud at this point.

[Saul Good]

Ben's got a theory. Srvy's got a theory.

[srvy]

Originally Posted by Saul Good

Ben's got a theory. Srvy's got a theory.

I have not made any theory on anything in here. And I can't say anything about Carsons claim of ancient grain silo's. I suppose its as good as anyone else theory about something that is still a mystery and for anyone to say differently is a flat out lie. And to say we know the meaning of what was scribed on walls and scrolls is also bunk. Because if we did we would know why they were built. How they were built and by whom they were built.

[GloucesterChief]

Originally Posted by srvy

I have not made any theory on anything in here. And I can't say anything about Carsons claim of ancient grain silo's. I suppose its as good as anyone else theory about something that is still a mystery and for anyone to say differently is a flat out lie. And to say we know the meaning of what was scribed on walls and scrolls is also bunk. Because if we did we would know why they were built. How they were built and by whom they were built.

We do know all of that actually. We have found contracts for workers to work on the Pyramids. The ramp and pull system would work just fine and would require less workers than most people think.

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by srvy

I have not made any theory on anything in here. And I can't say anything about Carsons claim of ancient grain silo's. I suppose its as good as anyone else theory about something that is still a mystery and for anyone to say differently is a flat out lie. And to say we know the meaning of what was scribed on walls and scrolls is also bunk. Because if we did we would know why they were built. How they were built and by whom they were built.

You seem to have a theory on hieroglyphics that is about as sound as Ben's theory on grain storage.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by GloucesterChief

We do know all of that actually. We have found contracts for workers to work on the Pyramids. The ramp and pull system would work just fine and would require less workers than most people think.

We have? I've been to the Great Pyramids, and the guides said they were not built by slaves as some think but paid labor. Didn't see any of those contracts anywhere nor mention of them.

[eDave]

Originally Posted by srvy

I have not made any theory on anything in here. And I can't say anything about Carsons claim of ancient grain silo's. I suppose its as good as anyone else theory about something that is still a mystery and for anyone to say differently is a flat out lie. And to say we know the meaning of what was scribed on walls and scrolls is also bunk. Because if we did we would know why they were built. How they were built and by whom they were built.

I worked for a guy who thought they were actually large batteries. Kept us late one night sketching it out on a whiteboard. It was pretty fascinating.

I guess he wasn't the only one:

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...+are+batteries

[NinerDoug]

Originally Posted by srvy

I have not made any theory on anything in here. And I can't say anything about Carsons claim of ancient grain silo's. I suppose its as good as anyone else theory about something that is still a mystery and for anyone to say differently is a flat out lie. And to say we know the meaning of what was scribed on walls and scrolls is also bunk. Because if we did we would know why they were built. How they were built and by whom they were built.

Holy shit.

[srvy]

Originally Posted by GloucesterChief

We do know all of that actually. We have found contracts for workers to work on the Pyramids. The ramp and pull system would work just fine and would require less workers than most people think.

Yes the Theory of the ramps that we have not found any diagrams relating to these from a people so advance that they surely had plans and diagrams of how to construct.

I remember watching a show where engineers tried to construct scaled skids and ramps to lift these stones and place them. They were able to move some on a very lesser scale and weight. Still it left more unanswered questions than answered.

I have herd of the digs going on in the skilled workers encampment. And it goes without saying labor had to be performed by master stone masons but the heavy lifting must have been done by incredible amounts of slave labor. How were they house fed provided drinking water in the desert?

[srvy]

Originally Posted by Pitt Gorilla

Underrated comment in thread. Literally laughed out loud at this point.

Google the progressives God.

My wife is Filipino and her best friend from work is Thai. Ask them how well goolgle translate does with english to Tagalog and vice versa. Same for Thai. Yeah I am sure Google is on it.

[srvy]

DAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2014
The Great Pyramid Mystery


Today there are hundreds of pyramids still standing all over the world from India to Peru. Cultures separated by the Atlantic, who supposedly never discovered each other’s existence, built these giant triangular structures, aligned them to cardinal directions, encoded within them sacred geometry/math, and used them as a sepulture.

“As Keel says in Disneyland of the Gods: We know that pyramid building was once a universal practice throughout the world. Over six thousand years ago unknown peoples were assembling great pyramids in Mexico. Gigantic man-made mounds were constructed in China, Great Britain, North America, and on remote Pacific islands while the Egyptians were still living in mud huts along the Nile. During World War II pilots flying ‘the hump’ reported seeing one or more massive pyramids standing silently in isolated Himalaya valleys. Of the ubiquitousness and similarity of pyramids, David Hatcher Childress states: Mayan pyramids are found from Central America to as far away as the Indonesian island of Java. The pyramid of Sukuh, on the slopes of Mount Lawu near Surakarta in central Java is an amazing temple with stone stelae and a step pyramid that would match any in the jungles of Central America. The pyramid is in fact virtually identical to the pyramids found at the ancient Mayan site at Uaxactun, near Tikal. In speaking of the global civilization, Keel elucidates the weaknesses of the current archaeological paradigm: All these things seem to be interrelated, as if they were once part of some great civilization—a common culture that spread throughout the world and then died …We have a reasonably complete history of the past two thousand years, and a half-baked archaeological reconstruction of the past five thousand years. But there are so many gaps in our knowledge that most the popular archaeological theories really have very little merit. Indeed, we can’t even be sure that the Egyptians built the Great Pyramid … In fact, the Great Pyramid is admittedly much more ancient than the Egyptians of history, as Hotema relates: When the most ancient Egyptians first saw the mysterious Sphinx and the great Pyramid of Gizeh, only their tops projected above the wind-blown sand of the desert. They knew no more about the purpose of these structures, their builders, or when they were built, than we do” -Acharya S., “The Christ Conspiracy” (279)

The Great Pyramids at Giza, even by today’s standards, are absolute miracles in architecture, masonry / construction, mathematics, and astronomy. The dimensions of the pyramids are extremely accurate and the site was leveled to within a fraction of an inch over the entire base. This is comparable to the accuracy possible with modern construction/surveying methods and laser leveling.

“Beneath the now-removed outer layer, the Pyramid’s construction consists of approximately 2,500,000 dressed stones, mostly yellow limestone, but with harder granite for certain interior features. The total mass of the Great Pyramid is estimated at around 90 million cubic feet, which would weigh between 6-7 million tons. To put this into proper perspective, the highest cathedral nave in Europe would fit three times into its height, and its mass exceeds that of all the cathedrals, churches and chapels built in England since the beginning of Christianity! The Great Pyramid is often cited as the largest building on Earth, with twice the volume and thirty times the mass of New York’s famous Empire State Building. The Pyramid rests on an artificially leveled platform, which is less than 22 inches thick, yet is still almost perfectly level, with errors of less than an inch across its entire area, despite supporting such an enormous weight for thousands of years. The base of the Pyramid is set out perfectly square - no mean feat of engineering in itself.” -Alan F. Alford, “Gods of the New Millennium – The Shattering Truth of Human Origins” (41)

Up until the last millennium the pyramids were covered completely with smooth polished limestone casing blocks. In other words, the pyramids were not an irregular looking series of steps with a missing capstone like they are now. They were covered with 115,000 10-ton casing sheets of polished limestone fitted so perfectly that a razor’s edge couldn’t get between casings, less than 1/50th of an inch. The Egyptians wrote how it reflected the sun like a mirror on all sides. Today there are still a few polished casings leftover at the base of one side.

“Our first example of twentieth century engineering in the Giza pyramids is the six sided limestone casing blocks, which were polished and precision, carved to fit perfectly with each other and the core stones, with joints measuring less than one fiftieth of an inch. As if this was not incredible enough, all of these stones were found to be joined together with an extremely fine but strong cement, which had been applied evenly on semi-vertical faces across a surface expanse covering 21 acres on the Great pyramid alone! … The second example is the internal passages of the Great Pyramid. These passages have been measured countless times and found to be perfectly straight, with a deviation, in the case of the Descending Passage, of less than one fiftieth of an inch along its masonry part. Over a length of 150 feet that is incredible. If one includes the further 200 feet of passage bored through the solid rock, the error is less than one quarter of an inch. Now this is engineering of the highest precision, comparable with twentieth century technology, but supposedly achieved 4,500 years ago: Our third example is the machining of granite within the pyramids. One of the first archaeologists to carry out a thorough survey of the Pyramid was Petrie, who was particularly struck by the granite coffer in the King’s Chamber. The precision with which the coffer had been carved out of a single block of extremely hard granite struck him as quite remarkable. Petrie estimated that diamond-tipped drills would need to have been applied with a pressure of two tons, in order to hollow out the granite box. It was not a serious suggestion as to the method actually used. but simply his way of expressing the impossibility of creating that artifact using nineteenth century technology. It is still a difficult challenge, even with twentieth century technology. And yet we are supposed to believe that Khufu achieved this at a time when the Egyptians possessed only the most basic copper hand tools.” -Alan F. Alford, “Gods of the New Millennium – The Shattering Truth of Human Origins”
(43-4)

Under the pyramids are large tunnels hundreds of meters deep drilled into limestone bedrock with almost perfect 90 degree angles. This kind of drilling technology has only existed (in our current paradigm) for under a century, so how were they drilling, chiseling and lifting all these megalithic structures? In a famous meeting with a panel of Egyptologists, author of “Giza Power Plant” Christopher Dunn brought a slab of granite, a hammer and a copper chisel and asked for a demonstration of how Egyptians were supposed to have chiseled out thousand-ton granite obelisks using simple hand tools. After a few whacks at it, the copper chisel had a deep indent and not a chip of granite was displaced.

“Chris Dunn found that many artifacts bore the same marks as conventional twentieth century machining methods - sawing, lathe and milling practices. He was particularly interested, however, in the evidence of a modern processing technique known as trepanning. This process is used to excavate a hollow in a block of hard stone by first drilling, and then breaking out, the remaining “core” Petrie had studied both the hollows and the cores, and been astonished to find spiral grooves on the core which indicated a drill feed rate of 0.100 inch per revolution of the drill. This initially seemed to be impossible. In 1983, Dunn had ascertained that industrial diamond drills could cut granite with a drill rotation speed of 900 revolutions per minute and a feed rate of 0.0002 inch per revolution. What these technicalities actually mean is that the ancient Egyptians were cutting their granite with a feed rate 500 times greater than 1983 technology!” -Alan F. Alford, “Gods of the New Millennium – The Shattering Truth of Human Origins” (44)

“On the granite core the spiral of the cut sinks 1 inch in the circumference of 6 inches, a rate of ploughing out which is astonishing … These rapid spiral grooves cannot be ascribed to anything but the descent of the drill into the granite under enormous pressure.” -W.M. Flinders Petrie, “The Pyramids and Temples at Gizeh”

“Wasn’t it peculiar that at the supposed dawn of human civilization, more than 4500 years ago, the ancient Egyptians had acquired what sounded like industrial-age drills packing a ton or more of punch and capable of slicking through hard stones like hot knives through butter?” -Graham Hancock, “Fingerprints of the Gods”

“In the first and second pyramids at Giza there are granite portcullises in the lower passages which still baffle experts today. Firstly their complex designs suggest a use much more advanced than deterring robbers (the Egyptologist explanation). It would take about 50 men to lift the portcullis slabs into place, yet the narrow corridors they’re positioned into could have only been occupied by a few men at a time.” -W.M. Flinders Petrie, “The Pyramids and Temples at Gizeh,” (36)

The pyramids also encode high mathematics supposedly unknown to the simple ancient Egyptians. To begin with the pyramids are located precisely on the 30th degree latitude and aligned to within 3 arc minutes of true north. These are beyond coincidence so it can be assumed that they could very accurately measure both latitude and longitude. The ratio of the great pyramid’s height to its base perimeter is exactly Pi (3.14). The “Kings Chamber” and other rooms are perfect “golden rectangles” expressing the mystical number Phi 1.618. The ratio between successive numbers in the Fibonacci sequence increasingly approach Phi as you go on from 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34… the resulting graph is known as the fractal “golden spiral” and looks like a conch shell. Establishment Egyptologists say these mathematical considerations are all coincidence maintaining that ancient Egyptians didn’t possess these concepts. But the reality is, the ancient Egyptians did possess higher math and they purposely encoded it into their construction.

“Some routine mathematical games were built into the dimensions of the sarcophagus. For example, it had an internal volume of 1166.4 liters and an external volume of exactly twice that, 2332.8 liters. Such a precise coincidence could not have been arrived at accidentally: the walls of the coffer had been cut to machine-age tolerances by craftsmen of enormous skill and experience.” -Graham Hancock, “Fingerprints of the Gods”

In the Kings Chamber the floor diagonal is precisely twice the room’s height. W.M. Flinders Petrie says they managed to place the Kings Chamber perfectly “where the vertical section of the Pyramid was halved, where the area of the horizontal section was half that of the base, where the diagonal from corner to corner was equal to the length of the base, and where the width of the face was equal to half the diagonal of the base.” Do you suppose these mathematics were accidental?

Egyptologists say that the Giza pyramids were built for three pharaohs over the course of a hundred years. There are over 2.5 million stones, so if you built 24 hours a day for 100 years that means fitting one (average 3.5 ton) stone into place every 8.5 minutes. Using current technology, multiple cranes and work crews, we still couldn’t make that kind of time, nor could we match the craftsmanship.

Six million tons of stone, underground tunnels, chambers, corridors, 45/90 degree shafts, pi and phi ratios, golden rectangles and other mathematical inclusions, perfect cardinal alignments, right-angles, astrological considerations and flawless masonry. How did ancient man the whole world over build these huge magnificent pyramids? They stacked stones so heavy, many of which cannot be lifted into place with the technology and machinery available today. They quarried these stones from miles away and fitted them together so seamlessly that you can’t fit a blade between them.

Also in Egypt tens of thousands of diorite bowls have been found with hieroglyphs engraved. Diorite is one of the hardest stones on the planet, harder than iron, yet intricate inscriptions have been made, not through the use of chisels or scraping but some unknown ancient technology. Whatever it was, was capable of etching lines 1/150th of an inch wide, often in sets of parallel lines separated by a mere 1/30th of an inch. The same kind of workmanship has been found in vases, urns, and other pottery unearthed at the Pyramid of Zoser. Graham Hancock says: “There was no technology known to have been available to the Ancient Egyptians capable of achieving such results. Nor, for that matter, would any stone-carver today be able to match them, even if he were working with the best tungsten-carbide tools. The implication, therefore, is that an unknown or secret technology had been put to use in Ancient Egypt.”

The Sphinx, which Egyptologists say is less than 5,000 years old, is actually at least 10,000 years old based on its weathering alone. Geologists confirm that it has been eroded by massive amounts of water which hasn’t been present in the Sahara for about 10,000 years. Egyptologists claim this weathering is just wind/sand erosion, but Geologists like Robert Schoch find that hard to swallow. “In October 1991, Dr Robert Schoch, a geologist at Boston University, presented detailed evidence that the Sphinx was thousands of years older than the commonly accepted date of 2500 BC.-’ His conclusion was based on the weathering profile of the limestone rock, out of which the Sphinx had been carved. Visitors to the Sphinx today can clearly see the vertical weathering profile in the limestone trench surrounding the Sphinx. This erosion, according to the science of geology, could only be the result of prolonged rainfall, in contrast to the dry weather experienced in Egypt since 2500 BC. Based on the climatic evidence, Schoch estimated that the Sphinx had to be between 9,000 and 12,000 years old, when the climate in Egypt was much wetter.” -Alan F. Alford, “Gods of the New Millennium – The Shattering Truth of Human Origins” (93-4)

“In fact, although Egypt is often given the honor of being the originator of much human culture, the Egyptians themselves recorded that they were the inheritors of a great civilization that came from elsewhere. Indeed, the Egyptian culture seemingly appeared out of nowhere at a high level of development, as did the Sumero-Mesopotamian and South American. This fact is explainable if the civilizers were advanced groups coming from elsewhere, from lands that had been destroyed by climatic change, war or other Cataclysm.” -Acharya S., “The Christ Conspiracy” (280)

Tlahchiualtepetl, the “man-made mountain” in Mexico is a ziggurat three times the size of the great pyramid. The base length of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacán is almost identical in length to the base of the Great Pyramid at Giza. Where are those odds? Teotihuacán means “the place where men become Gods.” They claim their pyramids and temples were instruments for transforming the soul after death, exactly as the Egyptians did. This theme is all over the ancient world. Ancient Tibetans, the Egyptians and native Americans all had complex systems, multi-stage challenges for recently deceased souls to overcome in the afterlife. Specific stages of the different cultures afterlife journeys even match-up. The Mayans and the Egyptians both believed in stellar rebirth where Kings, Pharaohs, and Heroes die and are reborn as stars.

“Archaeologists all over the world have realized that much of prehistory as written in the existing textbooks, is inadequate, some of it quite simply wrong…It has been suggested…that the changes now at work in prehistory herald the shift to a ‘new paradigm,’…made necessary by the collapse of the first paradigm.” -Colin Renfrew, “Before Civilization”