Wednesday, January 18, 2023

QUESTIONS FOR THE CONSPIRACY CROWD FROM AN ARCHAEOLOGIST

  

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.

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