Erich von Daniken claims that Egyptians did not have the technology or Term Paper

Erich von Daniken claims that Egyptians did not have the technology or manpower to build the great pyramids of Egypt. Is this an - Term Paper Example 1) Arguments in Support Erich von Daniken hypothesized that the monuments left behind by ancient civilizations show a level of technology and cultural and political organization of which those cultures were not by themselves capable of. He concluded that in these monuments, we can see the signs of extraterrestrial influence, with ancient astronauts making contact with these people, and being welcomed by them as divinities. He sees the physical presence of such unique artifacts as the pyramids of Egypt, the major stone circles of northern Europe, and the Maoi of Easter Island, as firm evidence for such theories. He even sees some patterns and signs on the world’s surface as evidence of runways and landing strips. Furthermore, von Daniken claims that we can see the enduring influence of these other worldly visitors in the artwork and customs of these peoples. For example, he suggested in more than one book that the practice of mummification in Egypt was developed so that the bod ies of notables could be preserved, awaiting resurrection by the extraterrestrial visitors when they next came to call. Likewise, he saw in ancient Egyptian visual representations some sign of these visitors being immortalized in the local pantheon. Von Daniken, on looking over the immense achievement represented by the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, could not believe that the Egyptians, with the primitive technologies of the time, would have been capable of moving the huge blocks of stone into place. He wrote of the ‘heave-ho’ proposed by ‘people with lively imaginations’ (1971: 114) and stated his belief that some technology not indigenous to Egypt must have been used, choosing to entitle his chapter on the subject, ‘Ancient Marvels or Space Travel Centres?’. Furthermore, given that von Daniken believed that each of the large blocks of masonry weighed a staggering 12 tons, he could not conceive that any method known to the Egyptians of the t ime would have been sufficient to move them up into the air and then place them atop each other (1971: 101). As he looked around the local environment, with the desert on one side and the alluvial flood plain of the Nile on the other, von Daniken was struck by the scarce presence of wood in the region, and the large quantities of wood that would have been needed in building the pyramids. He stated that the palms that did exist in the area were much too valuable to fell because of their importance in providing shade, and dates for nutrition. Therefore, having established that large quantities of wood would have needed to be imported from abroad in order to build these structures, von Daniken believed that Egypt at the time of the pyramids had not sufficient tonnage of shipping to bring in the required quantities. He therefore saw the hand of an external power with more advanced technologies in completing the pyramids. Von Daniken also found what he considered to be some intriguing ma thematical aspects to the construction of the Great Pyramid. He asked, for example, ‘Is it really a coincidence that the height of the Pyramid of Cheops [Khufu] multiplied by 1,000 million corresponds approximately to the distance between the earth and the sun? That is to say, 93 million miles’ (1971: 99). Such arguments are interesting, but we will consider below the arbitrary nature of such arguments, which make it