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Chapter 1: Why do people believe aliens built the pyramids?
Keep listening to The Last Show with David Cooper. Because the alien invasion can wait. The Last Show with David Cooper. Here's a mystery. Humans build mind-blowing monuments like the pyramids. And for some people, their first instinct is to look at them and think, that must be aliens. So here's what I want to discuss.
Why do ancient extraterrestrials get the credit for building ancient human monuments when the real fascinating stories teach us about history and are just great to learn about and dive into? I am here with Stefan Bowman. an Egyptology professor at KU Leuven and a researcher at the Art and History Museum in Brussels.
Chapter 2: What evidence supports human achievements in ancient construction?
To discuss this, Stefan, welcome to the show.
Hi, thank you for having me.
So the big question, I kind of already mentioned it, every few months someone on TV says the pyramids are too perfect. It must have been built by aliens. And for someone who actually studies these sites, what kind of stories do we miss when we jump to these, you know, fantastical, almost unbelievable conclusions?
Well, yeah, you miss basically... the human achievements behind all these amazing monuments, as you say. Like the pyramids is a major example. All the conspiracy theories at one time talk about the pyramids because they're so unbelievable, huge, and they seem to be perfect. So too perfect to be made by humans.
Chapter 3: How do archaeologists reconstruct the history of the pyramids?
But humans achieved this, and that's important to know.
Now, when you actually look at the history of, let's say, the pyramids, you look at, what, bits of pottery, tools, layers of dirt, layers of water, sediment in the water. How can you take these scattered clues and reconstruct something, such a big question, like how are the pyramids built?
Yeah, it is about looking at the small details about all the evidence. always keep in mind the whole cultural background. When you want to explain one monument or one image in tombs or temples or so, you can't just look at it from your modern perspective. You always have to keep in mind the time and the period and the cultural background.
So archaeology is about taking all the small bits of evidence together and then have an analysis, come to a conclusion, what happened back then.
So let's talk about this giant construction project, evidence of worker settlements, bakeries, food systems, all the little things you would need for many, many workers working very hard.
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Chapter 4: What discoveries have been made about the worker settlements near the pyramids?
And that sounds less sci-fi and more like an ancient giant construction project. Tell me a bit about the project and some things that we've learned.
Yeah, so one major discovery was, of course, the workmen village next to the pyramids, what you mentioned, the bakeries and stuff like that, everything that is needed to support such a monument, the construction of such a monument. And yeah, you mentioned also that we look at the pyramids and say, well, they're so perfect.
But we also, as archaeologists look at the traces of human work, human people at work leave traces that are not perfect. And the pyramids are actually not that perfect as it is always pictured. For instance, one, the sides are not all the same length. I mean, they're
Chapter 5: How does the perception of ancient intelligence affect our understanding?
pretty much the same length, but there's small variations and these variations tell us something about the the workflow back then.
Now, when we talk about ancient aliens, I feel like it kind of falls into this trap of assuming that ancient humans weren't kind of as smart as us. They didn't have the technology, they didn't have the mathematics, they didn't have some of our discoveries, but they had the same kind of brains as us, and they were capable, obviously, of incredible things.
There's almost something insulting about saying that ancient peoples couldn't have built this. It kind of underestimates the ingenuity of ancient civilization. Talk to me more about that. Where do we go wrong when we just assume it was aliens and not our ancestors?
Yeah. Basically, it's a wrong assumption about the human being itself that we differ so much from the people who lived 5,000 years ago.
Chapter 6: What psychological biases lead us to attribute ancient achievements to aliens?
Actually, our brain, our whole body is the same. And people are very inventive, so they creative and they always find solutions with the means they have and it doesn't take anything from outer space to explain how these things were constructed.
Is there any sort of psychological reason why we fall into this trap? Any sort of psychological reason why, okay, we don't necessarily understand how an ancient civilization did it, so we think it was maybe not an ancient civilization, or some sort of bias that exists when we look at ancient artifacts or buildings and just assume it couldn't have been done?
Well, first of all, it's, of course, a very fascinating idea that we are not alone in the universe. There is intelligent life out there. And if you look at the surveys conducted in the recent years, it shows that about half of the world population thinks that there's intelligent life in outer space.
From there, it doesn't take much to assume that aliens visited Earth or have already visited Earth.
Chapter 7: How can we tell the human story of ancient civilizations more effectively?
Basically, it's an interesting thought, of course. If you look at the pyramids, for some people, with this background, it seems more logic that These pyramids were built for a greater reason than just to be a tomb for a pharaoh. That's this so-called proportional bias, which basically says that great events, such as the construction of such a massive pyramid, needs to have a great cause.
And being a tomb is not a great cause.
I'm curious about the storytelling side. Like, if aliens, for some people, are winning the narrative battle, how can people like you, an Egyptologist, archaeologist, tell the human story in a way that is just as exciting as the sort of science fiction one?
That's the challenging part, right? And if you look at the publications, for instance, by Erich von Dänik and the Swiss author, who just a couple of months ago...
passed away he sold millions of books I think more than 30 million books and that's impossible for an archaeologist to reach we don't have this fascinating storytelling we have to look at the small evidence and we also have to be honest and we come to a point where we only can offer an explanation, but sometimes we're not sure. And that's the main difference to such authors.
They sell you a bigger story, a bigger picture.
It's sort of a shame that people believe things past as certainty that have no evidence for them versus believing experts who say, okay, we just don't know yet. And there's something about the unknown that we're unwilling to accept, which to me is maybe a little sad, but so be it. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the show, Stefan. I appreciate talking to you about all of this.
It's been a pleasure. Stefan Bowman is an Egyptology professor at KU Leuven and a researcher at the Art and History Museum in Brussels.
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