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Ancient Pyramids and other structures, astronomical alignment & similarity.

swskeptic

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Okay, I'll try to make this short.

Last night was my 211 Religions class. We talked about Native American spiritual beliefs, which he somehow managed to turn into talking about ancient structures and their astronomical alignment and similarities to each other.

Basically he was dumbfounded by the fact that most ancient structures are cocked just right so as to align perfectly with the solstices and whatnot. He was also apparently awestruck how similar ziggurats were all around the world.

I, along with some other classmates tried to explain to him that it's not like these were all made one Saturday thousands of years ago but rather over thousands of years. One way we tried to explain it to him was that it's not like these ancient people had much else to do but stare up at the sky. They developed these buildings and mathematical alignments over what I'm willing to bet is hundreds of years. The fact that these ziggurats were so similar on one side of the earth to the other was that they were simply the easiest sort of structure to build.

Here are some examples of what he was showing:

Serpent Mound, Google search for Ziggurat, Stonehenge

Now, here lies the problem. I know what I said to him wasn't obviously a great explanation and I'd like to hear an explanation for this myself. If anyone here knows anything about this or can find something I'd appreciate it. All I can really find is woowoo mumbojumbo. Thanks!
 
The Pyramids of Egypt were likely built to align with certain stars, but the stars used were somewhat a matter of Pharaoh's whim, and that's why they don't all line up.

There's no pole star in Egypt, but the helical rising of Sirius (Sothis in Greek) was a popular celestial marker, and many believe that the Pyramids at Giza are aligned with Orion's belt. (not the MIB one, the starry one)

I would have thought it a no-brainer though, that things built in sight of Polaris would show a great similarity of alignment. It seems such an obvious idea to use the one thing in the whole sky that doesn't move about all the time.


As to the shape. I reckon that's pretty obvious too. If you want to build a big bloody pile of rocks, you're going to end up with a Pyramid, more-or-less, whether it's in Mesoamerica or the Lower Land. Same thing for ziggurats, I guess, which are just like giant mastabas themselves, and the most logical shape to build that sort of thing.

Menhirs and henges, I don't know about, but Marduk does.
 
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For shape, as Akenaten pointed out, a properly built pyramid is a pretty stable structure. (The Broken Pyramid in Egypt is broken because the angle was too steep and I believe, 1/2 through, they decided to change the angle.)

I also think another common reason for the similar shape of these monuments around the world (Egyptian pyramids, Mayan/Aztec pyramids, ziggurats, the towers at Angkor Wat, and for that mater, church steeples) is that many of the gods were thought to live in the sky, or on top of sacred mountains. So the shape of these structures pointed towards the sky or mimicked the shape of a mountain.

As for the gods that lived under ground, there were many sacred caves or chasms where the local people left votive offerings.
 
swskeptic said:
Basically he was dumbfounded by the fact that most ancient structures are cocked just right so as to align perfectly with the solstices and whatnot. He was also apparently awestruck how similar ziggurats were all around the world.
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You might want to point out that termite mounds around the world Gondwana are all nicely lined up with True North and ask about the religious significance of that.
 
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I wonder exactly what alignments with sky stuff they really do and don't have. I often see claims that celestial alignments are extremely common in ancient buildings (often more than one in the same structure), but I don't see many examples specific enough to be confirmed or refuted. And some of the few that I have seen specified are not exactly precise, so finding what lines up to what else is a bit like matching real events to a vague prophecy. For example, I've seen it asserted that the Sphinx faces the point on the horizon where Leo rose back when the Sphinx was built, but a constellation is a section of the sky, not a single point. And although one documentary I saw about Stonehenge claimed it had a long list of different ways that it lined up to celestial things or events, to such an extent that it could be considered a cross between an observatory and a calendar, another specified just one particular alignment and explicitly stated that that's the ONLY one it's actually known to have. These things do not give me great confidence that there's actually a general trend here at all.

The similar shapes among pyramids are easier to explain by saying that they're really just not so similar. Some have straight edges, some have steps, and some have a combination, with a distinct border element added between sections on each face. Among those with steps, they can be of various sizes, and sometimes more than one size for different sections of the same pyramid. Some have a pointy top, and some have a flat one or some arrangement of walls or pillars and a roof as if a whole separate building were mounted on a flat top surface. Some have openings only at ground level or somewhere up along one or more of the sides, and some have openings at the top under a roofed temple or such. Some were sealed and cursed because nobody was supposed to use them, and others were not because they were meant to have people routinely going up, down, around, and into & out of them and holding important events on and around them. They came in various colors or combinations of colors and had different figures, text, or patterns drawn/carved both inside and outside. Their interiors were decorated with different themes and filled with different kinds of contents. Some were built from ground level up and some were cut down from natural hills or mountains like large sculptures. They came in a variety of sizes and weren't necessarily always even the biggest thing that the local people were capable of building. The only thing they reliably have in common is that their walls lean inward instead of being vertical.
 
Delvo said:
For example, I've seen it asserted that the Sphinx faces the point on the horizon where Leo rose back when the Sphinx was built, but a constellation is a section of the sky, not a single point.
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And when any part of it is at any point on the horizon depends on what day of the year you look.

My favorite bogus factoid is any one that is based on the precise length of a side of the Great Pyramid. As the facing stone on the base was stripped millenia ago one would need the aid of another person to pull out the precise length with a forceps as you bent with your head facing the point on the horizon where the Sun rises on the morning of the Spring Equinox.
 
I think your answer to him was along the right lines. People several thousand years ago who were building these buildings were exactly as smart as we are today, they just had limited technological knowledge (although they knew some things we've forgotten for the most part - see theforgottentechnology.com).

Pyramids are, as noted above, stable structures and fairly obvious in form as long as the angles of the sides are correct, which Egyptians had to figure out through experimentation.

Aligning buildings or anything else generally with the stars, which must have been overwhelming in the night sky of pre-all-night-lights civilization, would be pretty easy and not hard to figure out.

Basically there's no reason multiple ancient civilizations shouldn't have done it.
 
A point to note about the Sphynx is that it's basically an enhancement to a pre-existing natural rock outcrop. That's why it's so disproportionately long.

It points, as it happens, in the most convenient direction for the Masons.
 
dropzone said:
And when any part of it is at any point on the horizon depends on what day of the year you look.

My favorite bogus factoid is any one that is based on the precise length of a side of the Great Pyramid. As the facing stone on the base was stripped millenia ago one would need the aid of another person to pull out the precise length with a forceps as you bent with your head facing the point on the horizon where the Sun rises on the morning of the Spring Equinox.
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Pherhaps they used a pheriscope,
And measured things in miles.
And phudged the phacts to phit the Phates.
Those craphty-waphty builders on the Nile.
 
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Ancient people around the world independently used caves as shelters. I doubt they had to learn that from aliens.

There are so many similarities between far-flung civilizations that we accept as natural, but for some reason, similarities in architecture need aliens, or ancient Egyptians sailing to the Americas to teach pyramid-building.
 
Tumblehome said:
Ancient people around the world independently used caves as shelters. I doubt they had to learn that from aliens.

There are so many similarities between far-flung civilizations that we accept as natural, but for some reason, similarities in architecture need aliens, or ancient Egyptians sailing to the Americas to teach pyramid-building.
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Totally.

Haven't these people ever heard of Ziggurats for Dummies or The Pyramid Professor?
 
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Um, star gazer here. At about 43˚ north the movement of the sun is very noticible as are the nodes of the moon. The sun rises everyday and sets every evening, shock , people who live in nature notive where it rises and sets.

The guy is not very well versed, there are also the four bright stars that most cultures seem to notice as well. Sirius, Canopus, Rigel, Arcturus

(Ten brightest stars)
 
Dancing David said:
Um, star gazer here. At about 43˚ north the movement of the sun is very noticible as are the nodes of the moon. The sun rises everyday and sets every evening, shock , people who live in nature notive where it rises and sets.

The guy is not very well versed, there are also the four bright stars that most cultures seem to notice as well. Sirius, Canopus, Rigel, Arcturus

(Ten brightest stars)
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Meh. If you're not using Crux, you're all out of line, silly top-halfers.




SouthernCross.gif


ETA: And Achernar, of course.
 
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Lothian said:
Bad Science in the guardian last weekend

Did aliens help to line up Woolworths stores?
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Yeah, I read that too and it was great. I thought I might do something similar with Australian pubs arranged in the shape of the Rainbow Serpent. Should be pretty easy.


King of the Americas said:
Does the Temple of the Sun have the 'same' base dimensions as the Great Pyramid?
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No. Or Yes.

Which Temple of the Sun?


King of the Americas said:
(*How old is the Sphinx, really?)
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Yes, really.
 
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