Colossal stone monuments. Advanced civil engineering.
Lost civilizations … No, it’s not the plot for an adventure
movie! But peeking into our ancient past reveals a true
story far more interesting …
DID visitors from space help build the great pyramids of Egypt and Central America?
Is advanced technology from an alien civilization needed to explain how
ancient man could move huge
stones, build monumental structures, create intricate artwork and organize
complex cultures? Some
think so, because of their evolutionary belief that ancient man was ‘primitive’.
If evolution were true, the further back into history we look, evidence
should show a gradual decline
in man’s intelligence, moving closer to the ape’s. Biblical creation would
indicate otherwise. Man,
created in God’s image, has always been intelligent. People make discoveries
and invent things, and
this knowledge is passed on and built upon. In this way, technology can
increase within a society, but
this is not because people become more intelligent.
True history
A short time after creation, people were already inventing things such
as musical instruments, and
metal-working (Genesis 4:21–22). By the time of the Flood, mankind would
have reached a high level of
technical ‘know-how’. We don’t know exactly how high,1 but there are some
clues.
First, it was sufficient for Noah and his helpers to be able to build a
huge ocean-going vessel. The Ark
measured approximately 135 metres (450 feet) long, 23 metres (75 feet)
wide and 13 metres (45 feet) tall
(Genesis 6:15). We know that these proportions were ideal for stability.2
This colossal task would
have required advanced knowledge in engineering, not to mention timber-working
techniques.
Second, we can get some indication from the level of technology in those
civilizations which sprang up
rapidly after the Flood. Noah and his family would have tried to carry
with them as much know-how as
they could, to survive, and restart civilization in the ‘new world’ for
which they were headed.
The Bible records that soon after the Flood, mankind built a huge city.
This was in the fertile river
valley of Mesopotamia, around present-day Iraq. Even evolutionists can’t
ignore the evidence here,
and generally refer to this area as the ‘cradle of civilization’. Which
it was — but only for the
post-Flood world.
The tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9) was probably a ziggurat, or the first
type of pyramid, like
others still standing in the area (around present-day Babylon). Similar
styles of pyramids are found in
ancient civilizations all around the world. Evolutionary historians believe
that each culture devised the
same style of building independently. But it seems more sensible to suggest
that they are similar
because they all came from the same origin — Babel.
As with any group of people in society today, those that existed at the
time of the Tower of Babel
would have had a diverse range of skills. Some were builders, some artists,
and others farmers.
However, when God divided the groups by language, the broad pool of knowledge
was divided also.
The original groups that became, for example, the civilizations of the
Egyptians and Mayans obviously
included people skilled in civil engineering, building, and so on, as evidenced
by the rapid
establishment of their cultures. Other groups would have lacked such knowledge.
Imagine if you and your extended family were suddenly forced to migrate
rapidly into an unpopulated
wilderness. Even though you come from a society with great technology,
it is likely that your family
group would not carry all of the necessary knowledge with you to, for example,
be able to find
ore-bodies, and smelt and work metals. So you might choose to use stone
tools to survive.
Cave Men
After the Flood, some groups chose to shelter in caves. In harsher climates,
these would have
provided more protection than artificial dwellings. However, this does
not make their inhabitants
‘primitive’ or unintelligent. Some people today choose an alternate lifestyle
away from cities, in
surroundings that could be considered ‘primitive’, without being any less
intelligent than others.
The typical ‘cave-man’ is portrayed as a hairy, dim-witted, brutish creature.
However, many cave
paintings reveal a skill equivalent to that of some of the greatest artists
of modern times.
Recently, surprised scientists have even found ‘stone-age’ musical instruments,
revealing a high level
of understanding and musical ability.3
It is easy to see how many skills would be lost if people were broken into
isolated small groups
today. For example, one such group may have farmers and architects, but
no mechanics, geologists,
or blacksmiths. That group would know of the mechanic’s skill but not how
to apply it. Similarly
after Babel, those groups fortunate enough to carry the broadest range
of skills would be able to
transplant their previous culture rapidly. It would look as if it had sprung
up ‘overnight’.
There seems to be no evidence showing how the knowledge to build pyramids
was developed. Note
the following two quotes by evolutionist researchers:
|
‘There is no evidence whatever of any technological
breakthrough in the methods of quarrying
or cutting stone which might account for the onset of pyramid building. All the tools and techniques used by the pyramid builders were in existence well before their time.’4 |
‘The archaeological evidence suggested that rather than developing slowly
and painfully, as is normal
with human societies, the civilization of Ancient Egypt, like that of the
Olmecs, emerged all at once
and fully formed. Indeed, the period of transition from primitive to advanced
society appears to
have been so short that it makes no kind of historical sense.
‘Technological skills that should have taken
hundreds or even thousands of years to evolve
were brought into use almost overnight — and with no apparent antecedents
whatever.’5
Some of those groups which found themselves forced to use stone technology
would have gained
other knowledge in time, while we see cultures today which are still quite
content to use stone tools.
They are, however, fully human and intelligent. There is also evidence
that cultures can lose
technology. In ancient Egypt, the early pyramids were the best, with the
quality declining until they
were no longer built. As one secular researcher observed:
‘The pyramid age had come to an end, having lasted for a little more than
a century. Pyramids
were still being erected for about a thousand years, but they rapidly became
smaller and
shoddier, and it is quite clear that with the third Giza pyramid the zest
had gone out of pyramid
building forever.’6
Massive buildings and ingenious solutions
On a windswept plateau, 3,900 metres (13,000 feet) high near the Bolivian
shore of Lake Titicaca in
South America lies the ancient city of Tiahuanaco. It was a majestic ruin
even when the ancient Incas
arrived there. Sixteenth century Spanish treasure-hunters didn’t believe
the local Indian tradition that
Tiahuanaco sprang up very rapidly, after a great Flood, built by unknown
giants. Today the remains
of immense statues and stones lie strewn over the landscape. A Reader’s
Digest author commented,
‘… the best engineers of today still ask themselves whether they could
cut and move huge masses of
rock such as those used to build the city. The giant blocks look almost
as though a die were used to
cut them — a task achieved with none of the resources of modern technology’7
and ‘… the
architects who designed and built them were men of genius.’8
(Courtesy of Survive 2012)
Many of the structures from the ancient world have stood for thousands
of years in relatively good
condition — would our 20th century buildings still be standing in thousands
of years?
In the ancient city of Sacsahuamán, near the city of Cuzco, Peru,
there is a magnificent wall built by
the Incas, deliberately using irregularly shaped blocks of stone. Some
of the blocks weigh as much as
100 tonnes and are so accurately fitted together that still today it is
not possible to insert a piece of
paper in the joints between the blocks. Even more incredible, however,
is a larger stone block in the
area. The size of a five-storey house and weighing an estimated 20,000
tonnes, the builders of
Sacsahuamán could, and somehow did, move this block! The feat of
moving such a staggering weight
has never been attempted, let alone duplicated, with modern machinery.
Even the largest crane in the
world today is capable of lifting only about 3,000 tonnes.9
One stone block is 28 ft. high and weighs 361 tons (est.), amongst dozens of over 100 tons. (Courtesy of Wilkin's site) |
Not even a playing card can fit in between the blocks, they fit together so tightly. (Courtesy of Survive 2012) |
No wonder New Age authors who accept evolution believe that ancient man
must have had help
from some technologically advanced race!10
(Image courtesy of Survive 2010) |
Consider two examples of ancient man’s ingenuity in building the pyramids.
The pyramids required an absolutely level base for their foundations. This
was achieved by using an
ingenious spirit level. The Egyptians first cut channels into the underlying
rock and filled them with
water. Then, they inserted rods into the channels and marked off the water
line, thereby establishing a
true level. And read what one author says regarding one burial chamber
construction:
‘The ceiling consists of nine blocks with
a total weight of 400 tonnes. To minimize the danger
of the great weight of the masonry above bringing down the ceiling, five
superimposed open
spaces were provided above the chamber to spread the load; these constitute
a masterpiece of
engineering.’11
(Photo courtesy of Mark
Millmore)
Levelling? Loads? Building for stresses? Accounting for these types of
things reveals a high level of
knowledge beforehand. Architects and civil engineers spend years at university
learning these kinds of
advanced skills. The ancient world displays numerous other examples of
man’s ingenuity.
Archaeologists studying ancient civilizations often report being ‘amazed’
or ‘surprised’ at the level of
man’s skill in the distant past. Actually they’re surprised only because
their evolutionary beliefs lead
them to expect to find evidence of ‘primitive’ men, not intelligent ones.
Amazing story
The truly astonishing feats of the ancient world, requiring a high degree
of intelligence, knowledge and
skill, were not only in architecture and civil engineering. The ancient
Mayans were meticulous time
keepers. Without computers or sophisticated measuring equipment they knew
the length of the solar
year to be 365.2420 days long. Only recently have astronomers calculated
it to be 365.2422 days
long.
The Mayans worked out that 405 full moons occurred in a period of 11,960
days; modern research
shows it to be 11,959.888 days. They calculated the synodic period of Venus
at 584 days; current
science shows it to be 583.92 days [the synodic period is the phase cycle
as observed on
Earth—the time between successive appearances of a given phase, e.g., crescent.
The Mayans of
course were not familiar with Galileo’s explanation that the phases of
Venus could be explained by its
orbit around the Sun (224.7 Earth days—called the siderial period, i.e.
relative to the stellar
background]. These minute margins of error, confirmed only with the use
of modern technology,
reveal an amazing degree of accuracy on the part of these ancient cultures.
The temple of the sun - 63 meters high.
(Two images above courtesy of Mayans
at Teotihuacan)
Interestingly, considering the Mayans’ obsession with accurate timekeeping,
the Mayan calendar
apparently began from a creation date about 3114 BC. The Mayans also excelled
at mathematics,
using a positional system, similar to today’s, that was less clumsy than
that used by the Romans in
Europe.
Ancient ingenuity
Facing an extremely difficult (even by today’s standards) task, the civilizations
that erected the giant
statues on Easter Island, and the colossal figures of the Pharaoh Ramesses
in Egypt, used
human ingenuity in construction. An Incan wall of irregular stone blocks,
fitted together so precisely
that even after centuries of earthquakes it is not possible to fit a piece
of paper between the joints.
Many stone blocks weighs well over an estimated 100 tonnes!
Did you know?
In 1900, off the island of Antikythera, Greek divers discovered the wreck
of an ancient ship
sunk about 65 BC. Recovered from the wreck was a device with an extremely
complex system
of precision mechanical metal gears and engraved scale calibrations. Thought
to be some kind
of navigation computational device, it reveals the inventors to be extremely
intelligent.
The ancient city of Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus valley, believed to be one
of the earliest
civilizations known, had a system of sanitation exceeding that of many
European cities
thousands of years later.
The ruins of Roman temple columns at Baalbek in Lebanon stand on a single
foundation stone
(placed by an earlier civilization) weighing an estimated 2,000 tonnes.
Carved from a single block of volcanic rock, the ‘gateway of the sun’ at
Tiahuanaco weighs an
estimated 100 tonnes. How it was transported and erected is a mystery.
Conclusion
The known history of mankind does not suggest evolution from a primitive
‘ape-man’ creature
through to today’s intelligent human. Rather, the evidence from the past
shows that people have
always been intelligent, using their ingenuity to make the best out of
the various situations in which
they found themselves.
1.Technological and scientific progress this
millennium has been prominent where the Bible was
honoured. The widespread rebelliousness of the pre-Flood world would have
likely hindered
such blessings. Return to text.
2.S.W. Hong et al., Safety investigation of Noah’s Ark in a Seaway, CEN
Technical Journal
8(1):26–36, 1994. All the co-authors are on the staff of the Korea Research
Institute of Ships
and Ocean Engineering, Taijon. Return to text.
3.New Scientist 151(2048):12, Sep. 21, 1996. Return to text.
4.Kurt Mendelssohn, ‘A Scientist Looks at the Pyramids’, American Scientist,
p. 210,
March–April, 1971. Return to text.
5.Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods, pp. 135–136, New York Crown
Trade
Paperbacks, 1995. Return to text.
6.Ref. 4, p. 212. Return to text.
7.Simone Waisbard, in The World’s Last Mysteries, (2nd edition) p. 138,
Reader’s Digest,
1978. Return to text.
8.Ref. 7, p. 135. Return to text.
9.Rene Noorbergen, Secrets of the Lost Races: New Discoveries of Advanced
Technology
in Ancient Civilizations, Norcom Pub. Co, TN 1977, cited in Donald Chittick,
The Puzzle
of Ancient Man, Creation Compass, 1997. Return to text.
10.An alien super-race is not only unnecessary, it is contradicted by evidence.
A number of false
starts and collapses in pyramid-building show fallible, though intelligent
humans. Return to text.
11.Christopher Angell, reference 7, p. 192.
Article by Steve Cardno