And there’s the rub. What evidence? There are assumptions based on circumstance but no actual evidence to support those assumptions.
Unfortunately for that point of view, that’s not actually how science works. ideas are not accepted based on circumstantial evidence. The theorist must provide verifiable evidence to support any claim. An astronomer could say that a black hole 84 million light years away calls itself Bob and no one can produce evidence to the contrary even though there is no evidence to prove the assertion. We could say that since the astronomer is an expert then the idea amounts to evidence but that’s a fallacy and it doesn’t make what they have done science or the position correct. It means there is no evidence to the contrary and that’s it. It’s a mistake to read more in to it than that.
Further, if this astronomer gets his students to repeat the idea for the next 1900 years it will eventually become the accepted expert consensus yet it will still not be science and should not be repeated as fact. In my view this is exactly what has happened to the pyramids. Here’s a theory for you - rulers are often vain and some of them want large things built in their name to feed their ego. Is that true? Who knows?
I know, right! Studying culture from within a culture, expanding human knowledge, etc. Why do they want us to better understand other human beings. Bunch of fascists, I say!
There is enough circumstantial evidence to posit the credible idea that these were indeed tombs.
No, that’s not how science works at all. That’s Russel’s teapot. Your astronomer would be asked to show whatever evidence he had, circumstantial or otherwise to back his claim, and both he and his students would be considered idiots in the scientific world if they repeated this ad infinitum based only on his guess. In fact we have no direct evidence of black holes at all, only circumstantial, but enough to guess that we’re on the right track until something else may show us otherwise, kinda like pyramids.
As I’ve asked in regard to the tomb theory. I still think you are arguing for an appeal to ignorance. This is an attempt to shift the burden of proof whereby the claim is put forward that since no evidence to disprove the tomb theory exists then the tomb theory must stand. This is a false dichotomy which ignores other possibilities and does not service or reveal the truth which exists always and outside the effects of theory.
You are 100% percent right about ol’ Bob the Black Hole.
But regarding the Pyramids: they’re there, for all to see. Nobody made them up. Now what’s their most likely origin and purpose? Holy grain aliens? Ears of a gigantic subterranean cat? Or maybe monuments to important, dead personalities, as seems to quite common throughout humanity’s history?
Perhaps we’re wrong, but until someone thinks of a more plausible reason, the “mummified pharaoh storage” theory stands as the best we have.
Another appeal to ignorance fallacy. I do like your monument theory. Many examples of this can be found throughout the world so the supposition stands as an equally likely answer as them being a tomb. Evidence of the vanity of kings is in no short supply. I’d say this is the best theory we have since it fits all the known variables. Then again, it could have been a public works project for the glory of the empire. Asking what the pyramids were for may be the same as asking what the purpose of the Washington monument is. Will future archaeologists suggest we entombed Washington within those walls but the body has been lost?
Consider that we have actually found the real tombs of Eqyption Pharaohs and leaders. They are all in what we call the Valley of the Kings. Each of these known tombs are covered in hieroglyphics and are all very similar. They in no way resemble what has been found at the pyramids. So, if the pyramids are tombs, why are they different and why are these Pharaohs tombs so far away from all of the other resting places of the kings and queens of Egypt? The tomb theory seems full of holes which contradict the assertion.
Of course, it’s not smoking gun evidence, but it’s evidence that needs to be taken into account, not discarded.
Wrong. The tomb theory stands credibly on its own merit with the little evidence we have, it’s not just based on an idea. Historians would absolutely love it if something new came along and challenged this idea, historians like to change their minds in the face of new evidence, like most scientists.
This is very compelling evidence in support of the accepted theory, but still circumstantial, not direct. Many giant stars collapse to form highly dense, yet not infinite density (as is posited for black holes) remnants.
Black holes will remain hotly debated until we reconcile the four fundamental forces.
Let’s definitely not discard this evidence which shows that the tombs of the kings where covered in very specific hieroglyphs conspicuously missing from the great pyramids. This may be more evidence that the great pyramids were not tombs.
My experience is that eminent egyptologists like Zahi Hawass are more concerned with an almost religious devotion to a dogma which presents a very particular view of ancient Egypt
Yes, it would seem perhaps the eminent Egyptologist is not quite so eminent after all. Strange person to use as an example. Here’s an excellent article about who first broke into the great pyramid. It’s pretty sketchy. Here’s another link, although specifically debunking the grain-silo theory, it has a lot of interesting linked points.
And I found this 3d model of the Great Pyramid and chambers.
I’m no Egyptologist, so who knows?
Others more learned than I.
@smut_clyde, Brilliant. “…getting the icy mitt in return”. Hilarious.
He had total control over which egyptologist did what, when, and where for a very long time so he seemed a good example of the kind of shenanigans they get up to.
The grain theory probably hasn’t needed debunking in a long time. I can say I don’t support the idea as much as I want but it seems people are still going to keep replying to me with more links, information, and thoughts on why it’s a silly idea. Meh.
I’ve read a few stories about the pyramids being re-used to to bury the dead thousands of years later and they all seem to focus on the much smaller pyramids that included the funerary inscriptions. That point interests me. In the end, I’m open to the theory that they may have been tombs. Certainly, there are cases where a small pyramid was later built over an existing tomb. But the idea that 2500 years after they were built, the locals had any idea whatsoever what the purpose of the great pyramids was and that we have repeated their stories as fact for another 2000 years will always bother me. It may be unknowable and I really would like to see archaeology move from speculation to the admission that they really don’t know what they are and label them unknown like any other field of science would have done long ago.
Their existence yes. Some still argue that they do not exist. Google is your friend here. I’m not so sure about a debate over the possibility since the math had been solved a very long time ago. I think perhaps the mathematical possibility might be less of a debate.
Edit to add: In my life, black holes went from an interesting possibility which inspired fiction writers, to a serious possibility rather than an odd consequence of general relativity science, to being accepted as real.
I remember the debate on one specific candidate for black-hole status, which was settled in 1990.
Cygnus X-1 was the subject of a friendly scientific wager between physicists Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne in 1975, with Hawking betting that it was not a black hole. He conceded the bet in 1990 after observational data had strengthened the case that there was indeed a black hole in the system
