So, I would like to ask some questions. While this doesn't
seem like an abnormal request, it is when you consider the people that I am
asking:
I am asking the conspiracy theory crowd.
I am asking the pseudo-science crowd.
I am asking people like Graham Hancock, Randall Carlson, the
ancient aliens guy, and all of these other individuals who seem to
be more than happy dismissing the profession of archaeology, but fully rely on
archaeological evidence and archaeological sites as evidence for their cases.
The reason I am asking is that, naturally, more
pseudoscientific content is flying around social media. I regularly get tagged in
conspiracy theory and fake history and pseudo-scientific proclamations on
TikTok, and yet no one ever seems to be able to show evidence that I ask for.
I get told that I don't know what I'm talking about, or that
I am a tool of a conspiratorial government agenda, that, coincidentally no one
can explain the why or who of this accusation.
So I figured I would just ask some straight questions: here,
as simply as I can ask them, and I would like honest answers (assuming I get
any).
Now, seeing as that it is indicative of one of the more
popular conspiracy theory and pseudo-scientific hypotheses, my questions are going
to be directed towards the notion of Egyptians having been in the Grand Canyon
in Arizona.
These will not be difficult, and I am serious in that I
would like some answers.
As to the Egyptians having a civilization in the Grand
Canyon:
1. Can you explain
why the government would hide such a discovery?
2. Can you explain
why the Egyptians would go to the Grand Canyon?
3. Can you explain
how the Egyptians even knew where to go?
Naturally, the questions are going to get a little more detailed
now. But I will do my best to keep them simple.
4. There is a claim
that Cleopatra and Marc Anthony, when thrown from power and nearing defeat, set
their son along with 50,000 of their most loyal citizens “west”. How
and where would Cleopatra and Marc Anthony find the resources to embark on such
an expedition?
5. Has anyone ever
calculated the number of ships needed to transport 50,000 people?
6. Has anyone asked
or figured out their route to the Americas?
7. How did a fleet large
enough to transport 50,000 people, all of their livestock and supplies, plus
provisions for the journey itself escape detection by every culture living
along their route of travel?
8. How many of
these people were Egyptian, Roman, Greco-Egyptian in their origin?
9. Does anyone have
an idea or an estimation as to the amount of material culture would be left by
a single individual on this expedition, let alone 50,000 of them?
10. Have the logistics of moving 50,000
people, the ships to carry them, the supplies and provisions to last them the
entire voyage, and then the resources needed to March across an unknown
continent ever been calculated or considered?
11. Can anyone answer as to why Julius
Caesar, probably one of the most recorded individuals in ancient Europe and the
Mediterranean, did not try to stop them?
These same questions can apply to an Egyptian expedition
that has nothing to do with Mark Antony and Cleopatra. But let's continue.
12. Upon reaching the Americas, how did the
Egyptians know where to go?
13. Why have no Egyptian archaeological
sites showing their encampments along this expedition been discovered from the
eastern coast of the United states westward to Arizona?
14. along those same lines, what did the
Egyptians do when they encountered the indigenous civilizations of the
Americas?
15. Some of the largest sedentary cultures
in the Americas lie along the route the Egyptians would have taken to Arizona,
as well as actually occupied what we know as Arizona. Can you explain why there
is no cultural exchange?
16. Where is the influence of Egyptian
culture, technology, DNA, agriculture, religion, clothing, etc. On the
indigenous peoples in the Americas along their route of travel?
17. Where is the influence of indigenous
culture, DNA, agriculture, religion, clothing etcetera on the Egyptians.
QUICK SIDE NOTE: Marc Anthony was Roman. When the
Romans took over Egypt, it was the Hellenistic or Ptolemaic period,
when the Greeks were in charge of Egypt, and therefore blended the two cultures
together. Where are the Greco-Egyptian cultural identifiers? Where are the
Romano-Egyptian cultural identifiers?
18. Can anyone explain why the indigenous
peoples of North America have no record or history or influence in their
cultural practices from the Egyptians?
19. Smallpox was first recorded in Africa,
in 400 BCE: how did 50,000 people traveling from the Mediterranean not infect
the indigenous population with this incredibly fatal disease.
These 19 questions pertain only to the Egyptians getting to
the Americas. Let's actually look at where they ended up.
20. When the Egyptians arrived in the Grand
Canyon, they would have had to build a shelter and infrastructure system to support
a population of 50,000 people. where is the evidence of this occupation area?.
21. All over the world, dating back to our
earliest ancestors, there is archaeological evidence of where they lived, the
tools they used, the food they ate. how could a population of 50,000 people not
leave evidence?
22. Has anyone actually considered what the
Egyptians would have brought with them? Why are there no descendants, feral or
still domesticated, of their livestock animals?
23. Where is the agricultural infrastructure
to support a population of 50,000 people?
24. Where are the developed water sources?
25. Honestly, I think I'm going to waste some
time here by asking a question for each individual thing. Can anyone explain
the lack of archaeological evidence for the following:
o Burials, bodies, grave goods
o intact pottery
o broken pottery sherds
o tools made of metal stone and
wood.
o broken and discarded tools.
o processed food remains.
o butchered animal bone
o trash pits and middens
o fire pits hearths charcoal
o worked bone shell and stone
debitage.
o privies/toilets/human waste
o water
systems/channels/canals/ditches wells
o stone quarries and cut stone.
o tailing piles associated with
excavation of silver/gold/copper/tin.
o Evidence of smelting/making
Bronze
o Fuel harvesting for smelting/food
prep.
o Lumber resources for
shelter/construction
o Roads/trails/trade networks
o land clearing for construction and
farming practices.
o remains of domesticated animals
& the keeping of them
o marketplaces/forges/tool makers
o buildings foundations walls
o rock art inscriptions
26. Can anyone explain why evidence and an
archaeological footprint exists for the indigenous people dating back well over
10,000 years in that area, and yet no influence of a population of Egyptians
affected it?
27. Can anyone explain why the “temples” that were
supposedly built have no cut stone?
28. Can someone explain why there are “temples
built by Egyptians” Named after Shiva, Buddha, “the
Battleship”, and so on? Why are they mixing the
pantheons? Why is one of the temples named after an iron hulled warship that
was not developed until nearly 2000 years later?
Lastly, because as you can see my ”few questions” has turned
into 30-ish, I should probably finish up.
29. Can anyone verify the discovery of GE
Kincaid? Or that GE Kincaid was real? Can anyone explain why the news article
only ran in one newspaper?
30. Can anyone explain why the Smithsonian or
archaeologists around the world would hide one of the most significant and
history altering discoveries in the entirety of modern humanity?
31. In the 1880s, geologist Clarence Dutton
of the US Geological Survey started mapping Utah, the Colorado plateau, and the
Grand Canyon district. He is the one who named the land forms with Egyptian
names like Isis Temple. Considering that Egyptian history was well
recorded by the Victorian era, and aspects of it were known worldwide, is it
possible that Dutton simply named the landforms based on what he knew of
Egyptian mythology?
32. Why is that more unlikely then the entire
hypothesis of Egyptians being in the Grand Canyon?
For the pseudoscience people that claim the US government
cleaned up all of the artifacts and all of the cultural materials pertaining to
the Egyptians in the Grand Canyon:
33. Can you explain
why the indigenous archaeology doesn’t show any signs of being disturbed?
34. Can you explain how the US government in the 1920s or
30s managed to not confuse indigenous artifacts with the Egyptian artifacts and
vice versa?
35. How was all the martial culture and landscape disturbance
from the Clean and Cover Up efforts cleaned up?
36. How is it the US government mounted such an effort to
completely clean X square miles of archaeological evidence, and managed to keep
the entire region in the dark about it? Keep all of their troops quiet?
37. Has anyone taken into account how much, logistically,
you would have to explain in resources used to conduct an operation such as
this hypothetical one here?
You know what, I could keep going. I could keep asking simple and
frankly nitpicking questions about this hypothesis, anyone of which would be a
nail in the coffin of this conspiracy and pseudoscientific theory. These are the kinds of questions that we,
the professional archaeologists in the field, ask. Contrary to what people like
Graham Hancock say that “we don't consider” new information, we actually go so
in depth into detail of evidence In an effort to find it.
It's almost like that's our job.
in the end, please, feel free to answer any of the questions I
have asked above. If you have an answer, naturally I will want to see the
source so please have it available.
And please keep in mind that many of these questions can be
applied to all sorts of other conspiracy and seudo scientific hypotheses, lest
it be Scythians in Virginia, Egyptian temples in Tennessee, Atlantis, “the
Mother Culture”, and so on.
That took a while.
