Damn History Channel again...

[onager]

This weekend the Former Hitler Channel (currently Larry The Cable Guy Channel) is showing a pretty good 2-hr show about the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World.

"Pretty good" because when it comes to the Giza Pyramids, they just HAD to reach for the woo. The show mostly used academic talking heads, and some pretty good ones.

Then along comes one pontificating asshat - didn't catch his name/title - who claims the Egyptians couldn't have built the Giza Pyramids. Because those Egyptians had "just recently emerged from the Stone Age" and the Giza pyramids "seem to have just appeared in that desert, all of a sudden."

:wow:

No mention at all of the first "step" pyramid in Saqqara, or the Bent/Red pyramids at Dashur - all of which predate the Giza complex. And show unmistakable evidence they were built by hard-working humans and nobody else. e.g., the Bent pyramid kept falling down because the angles were wrong.

Maybe the pontificating asshat worked for the Edgar Cayce Institute...they're still trying to find the Atlantis Hall of Records under the left paw of the Sphinx, AFAIK.

Anyway, if you like ancient history and engineering, the show is still worth watching. And I can't say that about too many History Channel shows these days.

On edit - this show has inspired me to do some Home Archeology, and dig out and watch my DVD copy of that old Sergio Leone masterpiece, The Colossus of Rhodes.

In fact, I think the Colossus of Rhodes is my very favorite Ancient Wonder because it says so much about us human beings - it was basically built as a giant brag (to celebrate a military victory); it consumed enormous resources to create a useless but flashy piece of gimcrackery; and as soon as it was built, ancient engineers predicted it would fall down in the first major earthquake. Which it did, only 56 years after it was built. As a certain not-so-Good Book says: "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity..."

[laconicsax]

1. Well, of course those dumb Africans couldn't figure out how to stack bricks on their own.

They must have had help.

:sarcasm:

[Odin2005]

4. Good point. That "Egyptians couldn't make those" BS is Racist as SHIT.

Really, it's not THAT hard to make the pyramids with the technology of the time given enough manpower, which the Egyptians had. There was a very good Discovery Channel show on the construction of the Great Pyramid a few years ago and it showed them using huge earthen ramps spiraling up the pyramid.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

2. Not to go off on a tangent, but have you seen "An Idiot Abroad"?

It's a show created by Ricky Gervais (the create of the British "The Office" television series) where he sends his hapless and rather unintelligent friend, Karl Pilkington to see the 7 Wonders of the World. It's wildly funny because Karl, being a less than bright bloke, is mystified about why these are considered wonders of the world, and Ricky puts him up in the most authentic local accommodations (particularly hilarious is when he eats testicles in Cairo).

Karl's comment upon seeing the Great Wall of China is priceless. "What's the big deal, mate? It's more like the alright wall of China if you ask me". I laughed so hard that I thought I was going to puke.

Absolutely hilarious, as long as you're not watching it for any sort of educational purpose.

[onager]

3. I watched the Egypt episode.

:rofl:

Loads of fun watching Karl deal with the Cairo touts. He seemed to think they were all sincerely interested in him. Instead of his wallet.

[Deep13]

5. That network is a joke.

At least when it was the Hitler network, they were talking about something that actually happened. Now it's all "reality" shows and supernatural and other made up bullshit.