Subject: Re: volcanic eruption mediterranean
From: souris@netcom.com (Henry Hillbrath)
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 00:29:44 GMT
rparson@spot.Colorado.EDU (Robert Parson) writes:
>In article <323CC2CE.78CA@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>,
>j&dhatch; wrote:
>>I am looking for information on the eruption of Santorini/Thera -
>>specifically dates.
> 1650 BC, +- 50 yrs, based on "corrected" radiocarbon dating (corrected
> by comparison to tree-ring dates).
And, of course, the "Tree Ring Guys" think this can be tied down, even
closer, by finding the event in the tree rings, at 1628 BC.
> Estimated tephra volume 10^10 cubic
> meters, Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 6. (VEI is a sort of
> Richter scale for volcanic eruptions. St Helens 1980 had a VEI of just
> barely 5, Krakatau 1883 and Pinatubo 1991 had VEI=6. VEI=7 events
> are extremely rare; examples are Tambora in 1815 and Mazama (Crater
> Lake in Oregon) in about 5000 B.C. Since VEI is a logarithmic
> scale, statements I have seen to the effect that Thera/Santorini
> was ~4 times as powerful as Krakatau are not inconsistent with
> the fact that both eruptions are assigned VEI=6.
> From the Smithsonian catalog, _Volcanoes of the World_, 2nd Edition,
> by Tom Simkin and Lee Siebert, Geoscience Press 1994.
There was recently a long thread on this, I will repeat the first message
of that sequence below for those that missed it.
Henry Hillbrath
*******************************************************
There has already been some discussion here on alt.archaeology about
the recent "Letter to Nature:" "Anatolian tree rings and the
absolute chronology of the eastern Mediterranean, 2220-718 BC," ( by
Peter Ian Kuniholm et al, Nature, Vol 381, 27 June 1996, page 780-
782 and the "view" of it by Colin Renfrew, "Kings, Tree Rings, and
the Old World," same issue, page 733.)
I think that this is a *very* important paper, and I have a few more
comments, for what they are worth. Not just on what Kuniholm and
Renfrew said, but, also on the background, and what was not said.
The paper by Kuniholm is one that some of us have been waiting to
see, with baited breath, for a while now. It has been well
publicized that the tree ring group at Cornell, who have been
working on Aegean dendrochronology sequences for some time, were
getting ready to reveal some important new stuff, including the
"final answer" on the eruption of Thera. Is it 1628, or isn't it?
(you don't have to wait, Kuniholm says yes, Renfrew says he wants
more evidence. No big surprise in either case.)
This is one more round in a controversy that has been going on since
the early '70s. It is not quite over yet, but, these papers seem to
be setting the stage for the "fat lady."
The new data that Kuniholm et al present is much as had been
expected. The most important stuff is that some tree ring samples
have been found, at a site named "Porsuk" which span the magic 1628
BC date. Porsuk is 840 km east of Thera. The samples from Porsuk
have been combined with other samples to form a "floating" sequence
1503 years long, which Kuniholm proposes spans the period in the
title of the paper, 2220-718 BC, a period that is of considerable
interest to a lot of people. And, in the right place, too.
Ring number 854 of the sequence is a *real* "ringer." It shows an
"event much more dramatic and clearly defined than any other growth
anomaly in 6500 years of Aegean tree-ring chronologies..."
By "wiggle matching" 18 samples from a single log from a different
part of the chronology to a C14 calibration curve, the date of ring
854 is 1641 +76/-22 BC. A "window," it will be noted, that includes
1628. For doubters, 470 years later, another ring has an anomaly
"significant but much smaller than ..." that of ring 854. If ring
854 is 1628, then this smaller anomaly is 1159 BC, which is where
Baillie has reported on an anomaly in European chronologies.
Can't ask for better than that! Almost too good. There is one small
point, the growth anomaly of ring 854 is that of enhanced growth,
250 to 739 percent of normal. (The average is 241.6 percent. I would
like to know how that happens.)
All the other anomalies that I know of that were thought to be due
to dust clouds are reduced growth, or missing rings. Kuniholm
doesn't seem bothered by this. "such and exceptional growth event
must be due to unusually high and sustained soil moisture and
content and a sharp drop in midsummer evapotranspiration, that is,
for a short time there was unusually cool and wet weather."
Although I didn't expect that, and never heard of anything similar,
it doesn't seem too surprising that a dust cloud could enhance
growth if moisture is more important than sunlight, which is
certainly could be in some locations. Whether more, or less, growth
would occur would be very sensitive to location. In the California
bristlecone pines, which are located very near the frost line
anyway, the result of a dust plume would very understandably be what
is observed. Summer frost damage. The same is true for trees in
northern Europe. Those happen to be the trees and areas which have
had the most dendro studies.
Increased rain is also an observed effect volcanic eruptions. The
Chinese, describing what is very likely the Thera eruption (and if
not, some volcanic eruption) state that floods were one of the
unusual weather conditions they observed.
In 1816, there was the "Year with No Summer," (or "Eighteen Hundred
and Froze to Death") which caused wide spread crop failures in
various parts of the world (but, contrary to some versions, had no
effect on Napoleon, who was already on St. Helena at the time.) This
is no though to have been the result of the eruption of Tambora
(Indonesia). This was one of the largest eruptions known in
historical times, VEI (discussed later) of 7.
In New England, the corn ("Indian Corn" or "Maize") crop was
seriously affected by frosts in June and August. But, the "wheat and
rye never yielded more abundantly." In Virginia, a few hundred miles
south, the effect is scarcely noticeable in records kept by Thomas
Jefferson.
New England and Virginia are a long way from Indonesia. The effects
closer to an eruption are likely to be more noticeable, and more
variable. At the very least, it doesn't make sense to start looking
for an explanation not involving the Thera eruption if the anomaly
occurs at the correct time. A bit much of a coincidence if there
were two climatic disturbances, in opposite directions, in the same
window.
My feeling is that Kuniholm has got it right, and I expect this
sequence to be much used for dating (at the very least, everyone is
going to check to see how their results compare.) and I expect many
further confirmations.
Some confirmations are already available. One immediate result of
this new chronology is that "wood found as a part of the cargo on
the Kas/Uluburun shipwreck has a last preserved ring of 1316 BC,
other finds include Mycenaean pottery from Greece (the most recent
material present is early Late Hellenic IIIB...), and a unique gold
scarab of Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten, pharaoh of Egypt. These
provide links to the chronologies of the Aegean and Egypt, and
confirm conventional 14-12 century BC chronology against recent
radical critiques [James, P. et al, "Centuries of Darkness..."]"
Confirming 12-14 century BC dates is one for the traditionalists.
But, there is some bad news for them, also. "Can't have one with out
the other." [It was not Kuniholm who said that, but some one else.
But, they must have been talking about dendro sequences, as that is
the way they work. The whole thing has to go together, not like
historical records, where on can fudge a bit here, up date a bit
there, down date some place else. The whole thing slides back and
forth and everything depends on everything else.]
Kuniholm says: "If sustained, a date of 1628 BC for the Thera
eruption will require a major revision of Aegean chronology at the
beginning of the Late Bronze Age, raising the date of the eruption,
and the associated Minoan, Mycenaean and Cycladic archaeological
phases, from ~1500 BC to 1628 BC. Sets of material and stylistic
linkages between the Aegean, Cypriot, Levantine and Egyptian
cultures mean that this revision will lead to large changes in Old
World chronology and history in the 18-15th centuries BC,
Longstanding assumptions and conventions in both Egyptian and Old
World chronology and history will need to be re-examined."
I would guess that Kuniholm doesn't have the slightest doubt about
his findings, but, those are the sort of soft words one has to use
to get past peer review, sometimes.
How does he expect his findings to be "sustained?"
"...definitive confirmation must await the identification of Thera
eruption products in a dated ice core, as has now been achieved for
several more recent eruptions [Zielinski, et al. Holocene 5, 129-
140. I haven't seen that one, but, sounds important. Zielinski is
the author of a major paper on dating volcanic eruptions from
Greenland ice core data.]
Actually, there is nothing very surprising, except for the excess
growth anomaly, in what was actually said. The paper mostly deals
with the careful, through sort of work that is necessary to confirm
a lot of things that have already been speculated on, and for which
convincing evidence has already been presented. And, it does provide
a useful new tool for dating wood in the near east, Egypt, Greece
and nearby areas. Kuniholm's comments on Thera being the origin of
the growth anomaly are slightly remarkable, as whether the 1628
event is, or is not, Thera is really not the main issue as far as
his sequence is concerned.
He could have either argued that it was the 1628 event observed in
other dendro sequences without expressing a specific preference for
an origin. Or, he could have given other evidence, which has been
around for a while, and is probably more significant for the source
of the event than the tree rings are.
Nor is the rebuttal by Renfrew very surprising, either. Not if you
are familiar with Renfrew, and you know where he is coming from. For
those that do not know him, he was formerly the "doyen" of
archaeology at Cambridge University. If he were a U. S. politician
rather than an archaeologist, he would be denouncing Newt, Pat, Rush
and the rest as "Bleeding Heart Pinko Liberals." Although he may
have made a few speculations of his own, and has stepped on a few
linguistic toes by wandering afield, Renfrew has always been a bit
tough on other peoples flights of fancy.
In particular, Renfrew is the epitome of anti-diffusion. If a thing
exists, according to Renfrew, it was invented right there, in that
spot, until proven otherwise. And, he wants a lot of proof.
Specifically, he is chiefly associated with the refutation of the
idea that the east, Minos and Egypt, ever had any effect on Europe.
(I am sure that there are exceptions, even for Renfrew.)
I am not presuming to say that Renfrew has ever been wrong. Nor, am
I saying that he has not had some progressive ideas. He has.
He was very early to recognize the importance of Thera, and has been
active in organizing the once a decade Thera conferences. And, he is
a proponent of dendrochronology, and has been for at least the last
25 years.
"The goal of constructing a precise, reliable chronology for the
eastern Mediterranean, based on tree-ring dating and supported by
radiocarbon determination, is now clearly in sight...."
"...when the Anatolian tree-ring sequence can confidently be used to
give absolute dates for the time range from 3000 BC, the entire
prehistoric and early historic chronology of Egypt and the Near East
will have to be revised, using the more secure chronological
framework that dendrochronology can offer. "
And, he says nice things about Kuniholm and his colleagues in the
best tradition of academic etiquette. "Their work offers the best
hope we have for a really sound chronology for the later
prehistory..."
Renfrew is *not* one of those with his head in the sand, who thinks
that scientific dating is going to go away, and can be ignored. He
just doesn't intend to go without a fight, not on some particular
points that he is sensitive about.
One thing that Renfrew did do which seemed out of character to me
was that at the Thera III conference, he seemed quite willing to
accept the 1628 BC dating. Some people here on s. archaeology
thought his opinion was the position adopted by the conference (he
was one of the organizers) and I got badly beaten up by those that
thought that I was opposing the "official" date.
Well, he seems to have revised his view.
"Hitherto, it has been the historical chronologies of Egypt and the
Near East...which have offered the bedrock for the absolute
chronology of the eastern Mediterranean."
...
"All this is now on the brink of being reversed ... The historical
chronologies of Egypt and the Near East will assume a secondary
status, being calibrated according to the links with what will in
the future be the primary area [Anatolia] for the master
chronology."
"But has that day been reached? The wiggle-matching, based on 18
radiocarbon determinations...looks sound enough, but not as precise
as one might wish. Kuniholm et al. claim that the chronology is
anchored by the "remarkable growth anomaly", seen in the 36 trees
from Porsuk... which they choose to equate with the major growth
anomalies at 1628/1627 BC in Europe and the United States. But
before re-structuring the entire chronology of the Near East on the
basis of the new primacy of this Anatolian chronological system, we
much ask just how compelling is this equation between the Porsuk
growth event and the widespread event of 1628 BC?"
He then questions how a dust mantel can cause growth. He continues:
"Kuniholm et al. complicate the story further by reasserting the
long-standing suggestion that the special Northern Hemisphere marker
event of 1628 BC was itself caused by the eruption of Thera,
conventionally dated more than a century later than this. The
alternative cause might be an as yet unidentified volcano, whether
in Iceland or Alaska or elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere.
Recently, the advocates of the conventional (lower) chronology have
taken great comfort from the discovery of pumice, presumably
deriving from the great eruption at Thera, in strata which follow
those of the late Hyksos palace recently unearth at Tell Dab'a in
Lower Egypt. Deposits associated with that palace contained
fragments of fresco paintings of Minoan character closely resembling
some of those found in Thera and dating from the period there
immediately before the great eruption."
"Because these pumice finds seem to link the Theran eruption
securely with a time at the beginning of the XVIIIth dynasty of
Egypt (usually set at about 1550 BC), to adopt the date of 1628 BC
proposed by Kuniholm et. al. would imply very substantial changes to
the historical chronology of Ancient Egypt. That cannot be ruled
out, but such changes would need to be based upon more than a
suppositious correlation between the Thera eruption and the 1628 BC
even seen in the Northern Hemisphere tree rings and ice cores
(although the ice cores were initially interpreted as indication a
global event at 1645 BC)."
Renfrew is one of the most prestigious archaeologists around. I am
not any sort of archaeologist, but I have no problem trusting my
judgment on measurement science as well as I trust Renfrew (or
Kuniholm). In this case, I think he is shooting blanks, and more
than that, Renfrew is "blowing smoke" too, in an effort to make his
case sound stronger than it is.
What does Renfrew want as proof?
"One grain of Theran tephra at the appropriate point in a single
Greenland ice core would be enough to establish a sound link going
beyond mere supposition. Alternatively, and unassailable causal link
between the Theran eruption and the growth anomaly in the Porsuk
trees would do very nicely." That is almost exactly what Kuniholm
said, which sounds like the editors of Nature may have brokered a
compromise acceptable to both parties.
That is a summary of most of the points in the paper, as well as
critique by Renfrew.
The most important part of any scientific debate, is, of course, the
stuff that doesn't get said but which "everyone" knows.
(Continued in another article)
(Continued from a previous article)
In a previous article, I summarized what Kuniholm and Renfrew had to
say in the June 27 issue of Nature about Anatolian tree rings.
So, now "Page 2, the rest of the story..."
In this article, I hope to give some of the background, and what is
"between the lines" in the paper and critique.
Renfrew is a really smart guy, he knows a lot more about this stuff
than he is telling us.
In the first place, he knows where the 1645 Greenland ice core date
he talks about came from (Hammer et al., Nature, 1987) and he knows
what estimate error limit (+/- 20 years) goes with it. And that
Cadogan (also in Nature, 1987) made this same argument then. (I am
not sure, but, I bet that Cadogan is one of Renfrew's Cambridge
associates.) And, Renfrew knows that Sturt Manning said that
Cadogan's arguments for a later date:
"...not correct. Only traditional pottery studies support this
view....Cadogan argues that because three independent scientific
techniques (ice core, dendrochronology and radiocarbon) produce
results which very by only 30 years over 3,600 years, they should
all be rejected. Instead, he asks us to accept a subjective
archaeological date a century later."
("Dating of the Santorini Eruption," Nature 332 31/3: 401 (1988).)
So, Renfrew's argument is old news, and has been for nearly a
decade. I think that most people familiar with this work accepted
Manning's view, not Cadogan's.
And, I suspect that Renfrew also knows that in a more recent paper
on Greenland ice cores by Zielinski et al. (Science, 13 May 1994)
found a high acid level in the 1623 BC layer, an almost perfect time
match for a 1628 Thera event. (It was a sulfate ion residual level
of 167, the seventh highest found in the last 4000 years. However,
Zielinski pointedly declined to get involved in the Thera dating can
of worms. It is Zielinski that has more recently has been
"fingerprinting" tephra samples in the Greenland ice cores. And, it
is apparently Zielinski that both Renfrew and Kuniholm have elected
to settle this thorny question for them.)
(BTW, though I haven't gotten around to digging out the Hammer
paper, and, Zielinski does not give a complete explanation of the
method used to determine the dates of the ice layers. He refers to
another, obscure, paper for fuller explanation. But, he does say
"The depth-age scale of the core was developed through the counting
of annual signals observed in physical properties, through
electrical conductivity methods (ECM), and in laser-light scattering
characteristics of the ice. The ECM signal observed in the GISP2
[The core they are reporting on] core from several large historical
volcanic eruptions, as correlated with ECM records in other ice
cored from Greenland, and the identification of volcanic glass from
some of these same eruptions established distance time lines to
calibrate the annual counting." So, there are several methods of
counting layers, and these were checked with with historical
eruptions, but, none of the methods involve C 14.)
Renfrew also knows that there are other confirmations of the link of
the 1628 date to Thera. Some of the radiocarbon dates that support
the 1628 date are those of samples from Thera, under the tephra,
there is no doubt at all which eruption those samples represent. A
recent calibration of two sets of samples from Thera (Bruins and der
Pilcht, Nature, 18 July, "the Exodus enigma", using four different
methods, give a total range of 1695 to 1539 BC. Except for one
ambiguous result, the dates are 1695 to 1603.)
Renfrew says "Already, many scholars will be content to use the
arguments [of] Kuniholm et al...." Bruins and der Pilcht are some
of those scholars.
Renfrew doesn't mention the radiocarbon dates from Thera. Probably
he feels that they have already been discredited about 25 years ago
by a couple of radiocarbon guys that cast doubt on them by proposing
an "island effect." That was a big mistake on their part. They did
it in order to accommodate views like Renfrew's. The "island effect"
has since been disavowed by most radiocarbon specialists, and by
trying to be "nice guys" these guys only muddied the water. So much
for trying to be nice guys.
There are also radiocarbon dates, from above and below the Thera
tephra layer, from sites far away from any "island effect." One such
result, from the sediment in a lake bed, is reported in "Volcanic
shards from Santorini (Upper Minoan ash) in the Nile Delta, Egypt,"
Stanley and Sheng, Nature. 24 April, 1986. They obtained a date,
admittedly not as precise as one could ask for, of 3595 BP with a
minimum of 3512 BP. That is comparable to (actually, even higher
than) the date of 3356 calibrated by Bruins and der Pilcht for
Thera. There are also similar results from Black Sea bottom cores.
(I have lost the "cite" on that one, anyone have it?)
Renfrew also doesn't mention the 1159 BC event which Baillie gives
such importance to ("A Slice Through Time," Bratsford, London,
1995). Oddly, neither does Zielinski. Nor does "Volcanoes of the
World," Simkin and Siebert, Smithsonian Institution and Geoscience
Press, ISBN 0-945005-12-1, which attempts to list all known volcanic
eruptions for the last 10,000 years. S&S; may not have them all, but
they do have 7886 of them, from 1511 volcanoes. They don't have much
to say about Thera, either. They only give a date of 1650 BC and a
Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 6, with no reference for either.
(Zielinski, and Simkin and Siebert developed their lists in
conjunction with one another.) I don't understand why everyone is
ignoring Baillie, and that bothers me a bit. If correct, the 1159
event certainly seems to be very strong support, a virtual "lock,"
for the Kuniholm results. Far stronger than the 1628 event, alone,
with or without the problem of enhanced growth.
Though there is no specific discussion of the Thera eruption, there
is some very interesting information in Simkin and Siebert on VEIs
which does indirectly bear on the question of the identity of the
volcano of the 1628 event. The VEI is a recent attempt by
volcanologists to have some sort of a scale to describe the size of
eruptions. It was deliberately chosen to resemble the Richter Scale
for earthquakes. (Like the Richter scale, it is logarithmic, and
like the Richter scale, 7 is big, and a 10 has never been observed.
A VEI of 6 is ten times as "big" as one of VEI 5 and one tenth the
"size" of one of VEI 7).
Anything with a VEI of 3 or bigger can be described as "severe,"
"violent" or "terrific." VEI 4 and bigger can also be described as
"cataclysmic," "paroxysmal," or "colossal." The vocabulary seems to
be inadequate for the larger VEIs.
For scale, the Pelee eruption, which destroyed St. Pierre in 1902
was a 4, St. Helens 1980 was VEI=5 (10 "Pelees"), Krakatau 1883 was
VEI=6 (100 "Pelees," there are 36 VEI=6 events in S&S; and 10 in
Zielinski's ice core in the last 2000 years, both world wide.) and
Tambora 1815 ("Year with no Summer. " ) and one in China in 1026 are
the only historical eruptions with VEI=7 (1000 "Pelees") that I
know of. (Those two are in the Zielinski data. There are 2 others
in S&S;, somewhere.)
The VEI is admittedly a very crude estimate. It can be derived in
several ways. The most "scientific" is from ash volume, a VEI of 6
corresponds to an ash volume of 1e10 to 1e11 cubic meters of Tephra.
Simkin and Siebert state that they have a second significant digit
for some eruptions, but, they truncated all of them to one digit.
Therefore, a 6.01 and a 6.99 are both listed as "6."
Crude as it is, Simkin and Siebert give an astounding correlation of
VEI with world wide frequency of occurrence. It seems incredibly
linear. World wide, VEIs of 4 occur once a year, VEI=5-once every 10
years, VEI=6-once per century, and VEI=7-once per millennium.
Though VEI gives a rough idea of the volume of ash (tephra) erupted,
it does not really have any thing to do with explosivity, that I can
see, as it has nothing to do with rate of release of ash. More
importantly, as Simkin and Siebert point out, it is a complete
failure as a measure of the effect on climate, which is more closely
related to the emission of sulfur. They cite the examples of El
Chichon 1982 (VEI 4+) and St. Helens 1980 (VEI 5), Even though the
VEI would indicate they are about the same, the former had 10 times
the sulfur emission, and a much larger effect on climate. The sulfur
emission from Thera has been much disputed, and there is no
agreement on how large it was. Therefore, there is no way to tell
from the sulfate residual what the source likely was, and, there is
no way to tell just how big the climatic effect was, either.
No matter what the details of VEI, sulfur emission, etc. The Thera
eruption was a very large, and rare, event. Only a few years ago, it
was entirely possible to miss an eruption the size of Thera in the
geological record. In fact, it was missed, in that until the
excavations were started by Marinatos, there was very little, if
any, awareness that such a major eruption had occurred in the Aegean
in the Bronze Age. The volcanologists are moving a lot quicker than
the archaeologists, and missing an eruption this large is rapidly
becoming like getting on an elevator and not noticing that one is
sharing it with an elephant.
Of course, give enough time, it is possible that two VEI events can
take place near to each other in space in time, but, it is not very
likely. There are no other VEI 6 in the European area that I have
found, not even in Iceland. (Zielinski gives Vesuvius, 77 AD as VEI
5, but, my notes from Simkin and Siebert say 6. If they up-sized it,
I didn't see any explanation of why.)
What Renfrew is asking us to believe in rehashing the proposal that
the 1628 event was some volcano other than Thera, which just
happened to go off at the same time, is roughly like: We got on the
elevator with an elephant, and, with out noticing it, we got off
with a completely different elephant.
As many people are aware, in addition to the dendrochronology,
radiocarbon, and ice cores, the Chinese also seem to have left
historical records of observations of the 1628 event. Kevin Prang,
who has studied these records extensively, is happy with the tree
ring date, but, I, myself, find these records to be a bit to
"suppositious" to be of any help. (Though the reverse may not be
true, 1628 may help tie down Chinese dates.)
Bottom line: The Kuniholm results look solid as a rock, the new
"Gold Standard" of chronology in the Aegean and mid east. I think
that Renfrew knows this. He has very carefully prepared his story
for when he is forced to accept the new dates. But, he isn't quite
ready to let go. (one thinks of Kelvin, the greatest physicist of
his time, single handed, by dint of personality, holding back
quantum physics back by a decade or more at the end of his life.)
When one looks at the traditional methods he is hanging onto,
pottery sequences with assumed intervals with nothing to support
them other than tradition, and historical and astronomical records
with many holes and multiple interpretations, it seems a bit sad.
The fact that both Renfrew and Kuniholm agree to a "definitive
confirmation" by the identification of Theran tephra in a Greenland
ice core suggests to me that they both expect that to happen, like
*real soon now.* Maybe they know something that I don't. It would
also seem that there are more likely places to find tephra from
Thera, in an ice core, or a varve, or a sea bottom core, than
Greenland (and, as I recall, and, as I pointed out, there are
already some such results.) Turkey, and further east, is where I
would be looking.
With or with out that "magic grain," I expect to see a lot of
workers following Bruins and der Pilcht accepting and using the
Kuniholm results, with or without confirmation. I also expect to see
Kuniholm and the Cornell group, as well as others, expanding the
floating chronology, adding more C14 and historical and
archaeological dates. At this point, the results are already
starting "moving of themselves."
I do not know much about dates in Egypt, or really care all that
much. I don't know how much of an impact this is going to have
there. Frank Yurco doesn't think it is going to be that much (I
haven't found anything that he said on Egypt yet that I didn't agree
with.) I do admit that, considering the attitude of some of the
Egypt guys earlier in the dating of Thera, that there is some
satisfaction that it is now going to be Thera dating Egypt, rather
than the other way around.
The Fat Lady is warming up. Paradigms are beginning to shift. Dates,
some of them, are going to start to move, too. Those that don't go
with the flow are going to get run over.
That is my opinion.
Are there any others?
Henry Hillbrath
>
Subject: Re: Spiral ramp on GP (was: Neolithic Stonehenge road?
From: Baron Szabo
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 1996 04:30:18 GMT
Frank Doernenburg wrote:
>
> Dear Jiri,
>
> I didn't want to call you a communist, but you bought the subject of
> occupation and communism on the table. I simlpy stated, that this discussion
> has nothing to do with communism, occupytion or Nazca - its a pyramid
> discussion, so keep politics outside, understood?
>
> What you write is, please forgive me, bloody utterly nonsense. All your mails
> are based on wrong numbers. With these, I can prove anything. Please stick to
> the correct numbers, found by egyptologists in this century, and please don't
> argue on fossiline sources.
>
> Lets start with your 70 ton blocks. Please show me where they are. They are
> not in the roof of the king's chamber. Anyone with a pocket calculator could
> prove this! I will show you.
> When you are in the king's chamber next time, please look up to the ceiling.
> What do you see? Oops, the ceiling is made up from 9 blocks, spanning it from
> north to south. The blocks are between 1.00 and 1.7 meters wide.Each block
> is about 8.50 meters long. The largest block of the lower nine (the blocks of
> the upper chambers are much smaller) is partially 2.60 meters high,but
> because he is domed you can calculate with a medium height of 2 meters. This
> *largest* block has the volume of about 17 to 20 cubic meters.
> These blocks are from Aswan granite, the so called Syenit. And this material
> has a specific weight of 2.6 g per cubic centimenter. So I get a weight of
> about 44 to 52 tons for this block. The other blocks are much smaller, a
> typicle block from the higher chambers has a volume of about 10 to 14 cubic
> meters and a weight of 26 to 36 tons.
>
> But what *if* there was one 70 ton block, so what? I showed you, that with a
> few hundred workers you could easily transport such a stone, too. Not on the
> ramp, but on the pyramid itself! One theory says, that all the heavy blocks
> were transported to the pyramid body itself at the beginning of the
> construction. They were stored somewhere on the gigantic square and when
> the most part of the first layer was finished, a short ramp was built to the
> begun next level, and all the blocks were pulled up one meter to be stored
> elsewhere. Then the lower level could be finished. After this, the second
> level was started. After a while, the heavy blocks were transported to the
> already finished parts of the next level, to be again stored somewhere. With
> each transport, the blocks hat only to me lifted one meter and pulled over a
> distance of a few meters. And so on. So what?
>
> What is typical for you people: You don't seek for solutions for a problem,
> you are only interested in anti-solutions. Its a destructive and
> pessimistic/negative behaviour. With more of you people around, seeking only
> for reasons why something couldn't work, we would still be in caves, and you
> would have thousands of reasons why the concept "fire" couldnt work unless
> some UFO gives us a plasma burner.
>
> JM>OK, put down about 4.6 million workdays just to obtain the 2.3 million
> JM>smaller, roughly hewn blocks. In other words, you would have to keep
> JM>about 500 men quarrying the small blocks every day for twenty years.
> JM>Next, of course, you have to take them a considerable distance down to
> JM>the river, but your job is eased by the slope.
>
> Yes, whats to say against 500 workers? The Opel-automobil factory nearby has
> about 25000 workers, working there day by day. Here in the "Ruhrgebiet" we
> had coalmines, where workers in the last centur worked there, breaking tons
> and tons of stones, 20 or 50 years long! So what?
> And what river? As any chemical analysis can tell you, the core blocks are all
> from around the pyramid itself! Only the casing blocks came from Tura!
>
> JM>Copper in pure form is too soft for the job. But, whether copper, or
> JM>bronze, the tools had to be highly tempered to make chisels required
> JM>for engraving of fine letters on hard granite, such as the pink-
> JM>diorite Rosetta-stone. Today, our metallurgy despite all its
> JM>advancement, still doesn't know of any such method!!!!!!!!! Hmm, there
> JM>is a serious flaw in arch. rationalisations for you! How dare we
> JM>surmise that Egyptians of 4,800 BP had SUPERIOR bronze metallurgy?
> JM>What could they have had that we didn't try yet?
>
> Again, you are mixing things up. I once had a similar discussion with a guy
> called Illig. He argued, the pyramids had to be built during the iron age.
> But you are wrong. The stone of Rosetta comes from the ptolemaeic times, when
> iron was well known. Show me one fine engraved hieroglyphe in one of the
> granite blocks of the pyramids! You will find no one, just simple, plain
> surfaces. There is a serious flaw in *your* arch. rationalism!!
> Pure copper can do the job on limestone and even marble quite easy. And, you
> must know, you can harden copper by rearranging its cristalline structure. In
> contrast to steel it is done by cold hammering.
> Limestone has the hardening grade of 2.5, copper one of 3 to 3.5 (cold
> tempered), so copper *can* do the job
>
> JM>BTW, your argument is not with Erich, but with me.. As Mokottan and
> JM>Turah and Maura quarries are some distance from the Nile, you are
> JM>ignoring a lot of necessary labor.
>
> Again, as I said, its wrong. Show me one chemical analysis which shows your
> claims!
>
> JM>Weren't you just speaking of the outer casing blocks as belonging to
> JM>the Large-category?
>
> Sorry, my mistake, I quoted from memory. Lauer wrote of 123427 *cubic meters*,
> not tons, which is about 320910 tons. But even this is cust 1/4 of what
> you are proposing. Where you get your million tons from, reminds a miracle
> for me. Please give a source.It's true, that a few of the lower casing blocks
> are pretty heavy, but look at the blocks near the top of the Chephren-
> pyramid, they weight each about 1 ton.
>
> JM>What do you think of the modern optician's precision (1/100 of an
> JM>inch), with which these stones were planed on all surfaces, and made
> JM>to conform to an exacting angle? How would we do it with Lo-Tech of
> JM>4,800 BP? Most archaeologists would have to agree that the casing
> JM>stones were prepared on the ground, therefore, one must not damage the
> JM>fine edges in transport. One cannot place these stones from the
> JM>outside, because then the fine outer edges would be frequently
> JM>damaged. Thus the stones would have to be eased in from the inside,
> JM>which thus had to be free of the core stones. How do you guarantee all
> JM>this with Lo-Tech, and how do you take the stones up, since there is
> JM>no side-ramp (which we found impossible to have in our particular
> JM>case)? And how long an eternity would you take to accomplish all these
> JM>tough, and rather impossible to accomplish tasks?
>
> Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Sorry. Where do you get your "1/100 of an inch"
> from? There are nearly no casing blocks left to measure this. You can only
> *assume* that they must have been this precise to fit into your arguments,
> but you cant prove it due to the total lack of leftover stones! So this is
> only unqualified guesswork.
> And why should the casing blocks been prepared on the ground? Its much more
> easy to fit in the block in first and then fine work it from the outside,
> until the form fits a prepared measuring triangle. When you work round the
> pyramid, you need only one plane side of a block first. For example, you
> place the new block to the right side of a prepared one. Then you plane the
> surface, until it fits the triangle and until it fits optically in line. Then
> you plane the right side of the block until its vertically, then you can
> place a new one on the right side of this ready block. Another colon can work
> to the left side. And if you work on each side seperately, 8 groups could
> prepare easily all four sides individually. Only the edge blocks needed
> greater preparation, but these you can set in much more easily then a center block. Sorry, I see absolutely no problem.
> And why no side ramp? The casing blocks might have been set from top to
> bottom, so that each level could have been surrounded by a working level and
> an attched ramp. Where's the problem?
>
> JM>Sure, I'll try again. The point is that you can't very well have the
> JM>side-ramp winding up the mirror-smooth lily-white limestone mantle. On
> JM>each level, the mantle blocks have to be placed first, so we don't
> JM>interfere with their precise positioning. Then comes the layer of
> JM>outer blocks, which we see today. If you build the core of the pyramid
> JM>first - because of the very fact you
>
> Please read my mail. Its nonsense that you need the mantle blocks first, in
> fact you need them only when the whole pyramid is almost ready.
> Again you don't look for solutions but only for evidence why it couldn't work.
> Thats not the way science works. In fact, I can guarantee you, that your pyramid thing wouldn't even work with Hi-tech.
> It's impossible to set the mantle blocks without a bearing marker, even
> today. So its nonsens to speculate about it. There is a simple way to ensure
> the precise angle and a correct outer layer, I described it in my last mail.
> But, again, for the slower people.
>
> You fill a pyramid layer with rough blocks from the inside. Precision doesn't
> matter here, so you use what you get.
> At the same time, a ring of precise outer core blocks is fabricated. They are
> used for a precise outer ring of each level. You know, of course, that the
> Egyptians had no angles? They used proportions to measure inclinations, for
> the Cheops pyramid 1 Egyptian yard to 22 fingers. If you build a big measure-
> L from wood, one arm precise 2 yards, the other one precise 44 fingers long,
> you have all you need to set such a stone with absolute precision. Drop an
> outer core block somewhere, move it to its neighbour and wiggle the thing
> around, until the leg of the measuring L rests completely on the lower level.
>
> ________ ________
> | |////| | |////|
> ___| |////| ___| |////| <- newly set outer core block
> |____|////| |____|////|
> |*********** |***********
> |*********** |*********** <- lower pyramid level
>
> Incorrect set block correct placed block
>
> Finished. A precise angle of 50deg52" is ensured this way, too (not that this
> does matter, anyway).
> At last you get a very precise step pyramid with absolutly correct outer
> edges. To these, and only to these you can set precise mantle blocks and get
> correct edges. With a pole on top and edge markers on the ground you even get
> precise bearings for the finishing work. Your suggestion with the outer shell
> of matle blocks is, forgive me, rubbish.
Excuse me sir? You seem qualified to answer these GP questions:
How did they keep the perimeter measurements so exact?
(IE: how did they accurately measure these long distances?)
How did they grade the level of the steps so well?
(wouldn't they have needed to see from corner to corner of a flat
plane and have a good levelling tool?)
Thanks in advance.
--
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