I see your point Esq but I did mean expendable, as in ancient times slaves were an investment and good ones were rarely mistreated, but valued, while cheap useless slaves were used as forced labour and gladiator prey (the gladiators being slaves also of course)

so there is a distinction between cheap expendable slaves and expensive quality slaves. that's what i implied, but yes I see your point, slaves by definition ARE expendable.

I could argue semantics all day, couldn't you?

As for expensive slaves, educated ones were very costly. They were sometimes used to assist in the education of rich familes' children which, if you thing about it, is an enormous reponsibility. At least if you were well-behaved and taught the kids Latin, you didn't end up out on the docks or planting crops.

btw the reason its nearly always Yanks and Brits that see them is cos its mainly the US thats building the evil super secret stuff, and use Britain as an forward base for them. As I'm sure you are aware there are UFO reports from all over the world, inc. a lot more recently China. i wonder why?

actually its also a sociological phenomena. Other my own experience which of course I'm 100% certain of, I nearly always doubt most UFO claims (Aliens done abduct me and put a space-baby inside me..the returned me to my trailer park near Hicksville)

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Aliens done abduct me and put a space-baby inside me..the returned me to my trailer park near Hicksville

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Classic. How about this;

"I done seen them critters out on my dirt farm. They done abducted Mary-Jane!"

It must be a social phenomenon, however the fact remains that Americans see them so much more than the people in other countries. Which societal trait could account for this? *must... resist... urge... to say... "rampant stupidity"... Damn!*

Not in front of mah Ma and Pa, Clitus! Shucks Mary Jane, theyre mah Ma and Pa too..

Ah yes, Cletus. He's a klassic kcomedy kharacter! Geddit? Unfortuanetly Taw, the quote is not word-perfect. If only everyone could quote "The Simpsons" perfectly from memory like me. Oh well, we can't all have memories as good as... uh... mine? I forget .

UFOs..... I am of an agnostic mind about them. Don't know who to believe, really. I like your idea that they're not from space but from the DoD.

Pyramids.... slaves. Well, latest digs have uncovered a well developed settlement at the foot of the Pyramids. It has not been full excavated but the size and scale of what the outer perimeter of the settlement may be indicates a permanent population of about 10,000. The burials (many graves, all untouched) reveal a class of artisans and craftsmen who clearly were at work building the Pyramids. (Large bakeries with a capacity to bake bread for much more than 10,000 are believed to have been uncovered).

The settlement is perceived to be contemporaneous with the Pyramids and definitely in the 4th Dynasty.

Current thinking also downplays the slave labor theory and replaces it with an annual conscription or tax levy where volunteers take up temporary encampments and are provided for by the townspeople who also provide the skilled labor and supervisory or professional staff for the construction.

No clues on the Sphynx though.

I've never really believed that the Pyramids were built simply on slavery and cruelty (no I'm not gonna launch into anti-grav insanity!) but that the sophistication of their design and construction plus the time it took (generations) would have required a specialist class/caste of artisans, similar to the medieval Mason's guilds. In fact Freemasons trace their ancestry back through medieval guilds to the pyramid builders and the builders of the Temple of Solomon, and claim the same spiritual heritage through Thoth-Sin/Hermes-Trismegistus.

cmon you knew Freemasons were gonna come into this somewhere. Lets have the Knights Templar too, and the Rosicrucians, and Doctor Dee, let em all in!

Well.. I don't believe that history is linear. Did China suffer a Middle-Ages-like setback? No, not until conservatives came to power. The Islamic Empire was quite advanced until the Mongols kicked down their doors.

So, there's no reason why a group (or groups) of people could get their act together and work out something. Now, their tech may not be the same as ours, but that's simply a question of who had precedence.

Atlantis could have happened. I'd say the Biblical/Middle-Eastern flood stories are also references to this. Or Atlantis could be a reference to the flood stories. Whichever. After all, the Bible says that Adam's son or grandson discovered and smelted iron, so that might be a reference to technologies.

Also: I'm taking a course on Media History now...

and there's 2 interesting things.

1. Apparently, someone found markings strangely similar to an alphabet rather than a pictograhic system dating back to 6000 BCE.

2. Clay tokens were found in Europe and the Middle East, also dating around that time, which also had alphabetical inscriptions (the alphabet in (1) consisted of sun-crosses, 90 deg swastikas, and such simple markings that show up later in pagan European art).

Now. Did the writing system develop from pictographic --> alphabetical in a linear fashion? I don't think so. The explanation for a jump from a pictographic Sumerian/Phoenician system to the alphabetical Greek system does not exist.

If this is true, then what if human technology and writing is older than we think?

Edited by - pieman3141 on 2/16/2004 1:32:00 PM

that depends upon HOW old we're talking about. if its a matter of 3 - 5 thousand years, while that means a major revision of chronologies, it doesn't beggar belief just to stretch our lineage back that much further. However, if you start talking about pre-Ice Age, then it gets a lot harder to even accept conceptually let alone try to justify. If then you extend this pre-glacial conjecture to a technologically advanced civilisation now vanished, well thats just going to be dismissed by and large.

The problem is of course that there is a body of circumstancial evidence to suggest that this is a possibility, at least; as we've discussed, there are many anomalies in the historical record and enough coincidences to make reasonable speculation on this matter, lacking other explanations that can't just be derided as fantasy. But with no hard evidence, it remains just speculation fuelled by inconsistencies and myth that just wont go away.

Myself I'm open to it as a possibility, and if ever proven i wouldn't be entirely surprised. I'm much warmer to it than rubbish involving aliens, and it elegantly combines two important major factors that have reshaped palaeo-archaeology/ anthropoplogy in recent decades, firstly, that civilsation as we recognise it in pre-history is indeed a ot more ancient than we've generally accepted, by an order of several thousand years; and secondly, that there was indeed a body of ancient scientific and philosophical knowledge that was passed down by a secret oral and initiate tradition, but we dont know what it was or where it came from. which is a pity, really.

To redirect the topic slightly, what about the Mayans and their inscriptions? It is very curious that the events that have been "foreseen" have occurred. I wonder if it is because the events are ambiguous or open to interpretation, or maybe they are too specific to be dismissed in this way. I don't know that much about it, however I would appreciate hearing from Ed and Ben. Sorry, Indy and Taw .

Ben?!? you been on the eucalyptus moonshine again, Esq?

actually I know very little about Mayan culture and can't really comment. I'm aware of various claims though (spacemen, giant winged birds etc) My own feeling is that its all ratrher fanciful and wishful thinking, esp daft ideas about Roman soldiers depicted in Mayan friezes, ffs almost every ancient army used some sort of headdress to disinguish more important soldiers.

Notions of "serial" history and "cyclical" history, imho, are different perspectives on the same events.

Classical Chinese historiography is cyclical... in the sense of Dynastic cycles. From the current count-down from the Hsia (Xia) to the Ch'ing (Qing), something like from 2000+BC to 1911AD there have been several centuries in which war and strife were endemic. The first recorded being the Warring States period (475BC to 221BC), and later, the Three Kingdoms period (220AD-280AD), and the Northern and Southern Dynasites period (420AD-588AD), etc. come to mind.

There was no "Medieval" period in China that coincides with the one in Europe but China has gone through comparably unstable times on more than one occasion.

A broad brush description of the Dynastic Cycle is simply this: In the beginning, there is strife and instability in the nation. A great leader comes forward and leads his armies to victory, re-establishing order, peace and prosperity - thus gaining the mandate of heaven to rule (divine right of kings). Either he or one of his lieutenants/sons consolidates the new order and establishes an imperial line. This line flourishes for the first half and then begins a steady decline into corruption and isorder, thus losing the mandate of heaven.

The average dynastic life span is about 200 years. The great dynasties lasted longer.... eg., the Han (400 years) and the Tang (300 yrs.).

you've been reading "Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle" haven't you?