The aliens didn't build the pyramids, they merely advised the human architects by, e.g., imparting knowledge of geometry and metallurgy.
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So aliens turned up, gave some advice about things people already knew how to do, didn't help with the actual work, received worship, then scarpered before anyone could realise they'd been scammed?
They are still here among us - they just call themselves consultants.
We see evidence of increasing ability to build larger and larger pyramids over time in Egypt.
The construction method is pretty well known by now, big ramps of gravel to roll/push stones up. Gravel spread around, contruction times vs. number of people on site, well known.
Another example a group of university students hauled a Stonehenge sized rock from a likely quarry to Stonehenge site in a couple of weeks.
We forget what human labor can do.
>We see evidence of increasing ability to build larger and larger pyramids over time in Egypt.
That's not totally true, is it? The first pyramid was Djoser's pyramid in saqqara in about 2650BC. The first true pyramid was build around 2590BC (around 60 years later). The largest and greatest of the pyramids was built around 2570BC (only about 80 years after the first pyramid). Things really went downhill from there, but the Egyptian civilization lasted for another 3000 years.
The point is they clearly perfected their techniques over time. We have evidence of failures and mistakes too.
There is nothing about the ancient pyramids that lies beyond human capability. There are plenty of videos on youtube of 1-4 people moving 15-ton stone blocks around.
Occam's razor: the simplest explanation is humans built the pyramids and no aliens were involved.
OT, but more and more I wonder how prevalent fossil fuels are. We wonder at just how frequent life occurs. But fossil fuels have basically catapulted us in energy production over a very short time.
Well before pyramids, they built "mastabas". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastaba
And before that, they "buried their dead in pit graves dug out from the sand" (same article)
That _does_ indicate an increase in sophistication over time, from pit graves, to mastabas, to pyramids.
I don't know if it was really an increase in sophistication. It was more evolution than revolution. You can see that the mastabas were just more elaborate pit graves. The first pyramid (the step pyramid) was originally a mastaba which was enlarged, then had a smaller mastaba added above it, then a smaller mastaba above that. The true pyramid was basically filling in the voids on the sides of the step pyramid.
When travelling, I often stop past termite nests to explain to them how to make reinforced cement
Interesting how nobody ever claims that the Romans were advised by aliens.
The Ancient weren't aliens, they were ancestors of humans, and the first Road Builders.
Pyramids were built by human labour under direction of aliens, as landing pads for starships.
OK, I'll say it plainly: Ancient Aliens theories are quite racist, as they implicitly assume that brown people can't build big monuments without external help.
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/01/02/close-encount...
https://hyperallergic.com/470795/pseudoarchaeology-and-the-r...
> It is notable that many (though not all) extraterrestrial theories focus on archaeological structures at sites within Egypt, Africa, South America, and North America — a fact that has led some academics to see beliefs in ancient alien engineers as a stalking horse for racism. In a piece for the online journal The Conversation rather frankly titled “Racism is Behind Outlandish Theories about Africa’s Ancient Architecture,” Julien Benoit, a postdoctoral researcher in vertebrate paleontology at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), addressed the continued harm of these theories:
>> Firstly, these people try to prove their theories by travelling the world and desecrating ancient artefacts. Secondly, they perpetuate and give air to the racist notion that only Europeans – white people – ever were and ever will be capable of such architectural feats.
I'm sorry, but... what?!
> It is notable that many (though not all) extraterrestrial theories focus on archaeological structures at sites within Egypt, Africa, South America, and North America — a fact that has led some academics to see beliefs in ancient alien engineers as a stalking horse for racism.
How about, they focus on those sites because that's where human civilization started in the first place? They'd happily focus on London, if London existed in 10000 B.C.
Ancient Aliens people are crackpots[0], but are mostly harmless ones. But taking that and viewing it as "stalking horse for racism" is just trying to score cheap virtue points. It's worse than crackpottery in my book.
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[0] - I'm not one of them; to be clear, I was just making a drive-by StarGate joke, as I always do in such topics if I see that no one has made it before, because it's a notable scifi franchise that took the "ancient aliens" concept and went wild with it.
> It's worse than crackpottery in my book.
No, denying that racism has a role to play here is worse than crackpottery.
There's a lot of crackpot theories about stonehenge too and you don't get much more pasty white than the people there. I'm sure there'd be more if there were more more big monuments in Europe.
As for "brown people", depending on who and when you ask those people can be considered "white people", North African and the Middle east have usually been considered Caucasian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race), historically Mediterranean is a better designation for different cultures than European/African/Black/White/etc. Even today East Asians and North Americans will be considered "white people", depending on who has a bone to pick with who.
They are quite openly racist against the reptilian species secretly running the world however. Often very anti-semetic too.
> There's a lot of crackpot theories about stonehenge too and you don't get much more pasty white than the people there.
Ah, but they were "uncivilized" Whites, and there's much more interest in the idea that African and Mesoamerican civilizations didn't build their monuments. It's quite obvious once you take off the "They're harmless!" blinders and look at what they're saying.
I have trouble understanding how pyramids would be good landing pads. They seem a little too pointy.
Obviously alien starships have matching pyramid shaped depression in the bottom. The bigger pyramid you can build the bigger ship can land on it and more cargo will be bestowed on you.
It’s got to be a reference to the first Star Gate movie. The aliens land their ships on pyramids.
The StarGate documentary movie and follow-up series, yes :).
Goa'uld - the aliens - care less for practicality, and more for showing off. The ship indeed had a matching hole at the bottom.
Here's photo evidence of a pyramid used as a landing pad: https://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Ra%27s_mothership.
The same group of people appear to think they also needed runways: https://www.ancient-code.com/meet-nazca-runways-flat-mountai...