As for rope... I know a few things about rope.

The first summer out of high school I worked for a marine and sporting goods store (think of an REI that also sells boats of all kinds, waterskiis, and related accessories). I was "the rope guy," both for my marine experience as well as for the fact that no one else who worked there had half a clue about the do's, don'ts, and gotchas of the 38 varieties of rope we sold. By mid-summer, I was conducting weekly seminars on ropes, splicing, and knots to 20-30 person crowds of retired lawyers, doctors, military turned day-sailors.

I couldn't believe how much they were willing to pay for this stuff, nor how little of a cut I got from the owner of the place.

I'm a licensed ship's captain (by the US Navy, no less) for sailing vessels up to 30'. I didn't go for a larger LOA or displacement simply because I had no intention of renting a larger vessel. But my license allows me to rent sailboats in well over a hundred countries, no questions asked (thank you Navy!).

I've also toured the USS Guam (an LPH, retired in 1998). The tour was conducted by her ship's Captain. It was a private tour, consisting of her Captain, myself, and my girlfriend at the time, who was the daughter of a retired Marine Colonel. We spent well over three hours (possibly four) going over the tech specs of just about every compartment from the hawse to the bilge to the engine room to ship's quarters to (Big Don's probably saying, "Hey! This guy knows a bit of Navyspeak!" by now) to the mini 7-Eleven store the had slightly forward of amidships (now BD is sweating), and to port (now BD is swearing) to intel to the bridge to... We toured the entire ship. I don't think there is a compartment we missed, unless merely entering that compartment rendered it classified.

With the 3D mind that I have, I'm quite certain that we did indeed tour the whole ship, including being served lunch in the Captain's cabin. It wasn't big, but the lunch was huge! Don't ask me details, for there aren't any. Just a spread of cuts of beef, some vegetables, rolls, and fish that are available in every city throughout the world. It was merely very well selected and compiled, and incredibly delicious.

Back to ropes...

The HSS Titanic (40,000+ tons) was both towed and moored with natural fiber ropes.

The USS Guam was, at the very least, moored to it's bollards (BD is really sweating, now) with natural fiber rope (I checked during my "tour"). The Captain of the USS Guam even gave me the "chance" to secure an additional mooring line after we disembarked. A deckhand tossed me a monkyball to the stern breast line point, after which I pulled the heaving line, then the mooring line (that was incredibly heavy) and I affixed a second mooring line to that point on the pier. It was only afterwards that the captain told me he usually has three hands pull in the mooring line.

Thanks.

The strange thing is that it wasn't nylon, which is what I expected due to it's elasticity. Typically, mooring lines are chosen for their stretch, to help distribute loads during various events, mostly (for an ) like high winds. However, since we pulled the Guam in tight to the pier on all moorings, I can only assume that the extra stretch wasn't needed (Norfolk's tides are minimal, and the natural fibers they used are well suited to handle what they do experience without excess strain).

And Polypropylene has minimal stretch and floats on water, which is why it's used for water ski rope.

Yeah. I know one or two things about rope.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that.

I am human. Fully human.

The Egyptians didn't have hemp.

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Acolyte, how do you think the Pyramids were built? you must have some ideas, you seem very certainthat the mainstream is wrong, why don't you enlighten us?

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'The eye can only see what the mind is prepared to accept'

Disinfo Agent: There's a little matter of Time - living a life & ensuring food enters 2 mouths at regular intervals doesn't leave a lot of time for unpaid research.

captain swoop: Firstly, finding holes in the mainstream ideas of Egypt (& other early civilisations) isn't particularly hard to do. vis-a-vis the Sphinx rain issue. Although I do find it surprising that people who otherwise accept the principles of science remain steadfastly accepting of the Egyptology view against the expert word of a whole swag of Geologists.

It's also interesting how Tiahuanaco somehow doesn't (in those same eyes) invalidate the whole 'Man started becoming civilised about 5000BC in the Fertile Crescent' idea, even though the most conservative estimates place it somewhere over 10,000 years old.

It takes a determined view that orthodoxy is right to avoid the conclusion that the submerged ruins off Japan and other places are somehow 'natural' phenomena.

So coming to a conclusion that mainstream isn't telling us all isn't difficult. Finding the truth is surprisingly difficult. Schock & West were basically kicked out of Egypt on a pretext as soon as it was realised what they were proving. Rudolf Gantenbrink also had his permit rather suddenly revoked when he found the doors in the Pyramid shaft.

the more one investigates what has been going on with Egypt, the stranger it gets.

However, I've mentioned Ed Leedskalnin a couple of times; strangely it seems to have been missed. He spent his life moving rocks around to make a stone garden. He was attacked on the streets of Miami & moved the entire thing out of town. He died leaving behind some wire mesh, some chains with a breaking strength of maybe 1 tonne, a couple of lightweight pulleys & a donkey engine. Professional engineers have no explanation for how he used that collection to move multi-ton rocks around.

I think maybe he knew something we don't & that maybe the pre-Egyptian builders did.

To keep this on topic, I think also there are links that bring together the sites from ancient times. A lot of people don't know there are pyramids in China as well.

I don't think the same culture necessarily built them all, but I think it's possible the cultures that did build them had a common ancestral society.

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* Never doubt there is Truth; just doubt that you have it!

I think it is likely that the Yonaguni formation is actually a natural formation. I think that Robert Schoch (the one who claims the Sphinx was weathered by pouring rains) concluded that it is probably natural. I've seen lots of pictures (I have a book about it at home, by Kimura) and although they do seem striking, I also am a bit skeptical.

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As above, so below

In the same way perhaps as the Sphinx is a natural formation?

It's surprising how many people know that part but don't recall Schock followed that statement with "We should also consider the possibility that the Yonaguni Monument is fundamentally a natural structure that was utilized, enhanced, and modified by humans in ancient times."

And there is now much more to view than just the Monument.

I also have looked at the Yonaguni photos & it is hard to think of a process that can carve, shape & inscribe rock in such fashion.

If you find one rock that shows straight edges & smooth surface, you can think of it as similar to the sandstone strata seen to be eroded out in other areas. Seeing multiple structures with a wide variety of such angles, some of which are on opposite sides of rocks (making it unlikely in the extreme that wave action could be responsible) plus channels with steps, with an overhead bridge, tunnels that seem to be shaped artificially & with symbols carved into the rock makes it hard to find a natural cause.

Getting back to the topic, another point with Egypt & South America is that there is no evidence of the large society needed to support such major construction works nor the essential development of the science & technology needed to perform the work. Such societies had to have the ability to free up thousands of highly trained people, over an extended period, with no expectation they will be contributing to the needs of society.

As an example, the Army will tell you it takes 10 people in the background to support one guy with a gun.

The knowledge they used appears to have come from nowhere. The underwater buildings give us a possible source from where the knowledge may have come. Interestingly, the progenitor civilisation would solve another issue with our ancient cities - they appear almost full-fledged from very few antecedents.

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Actually, for Egypt, there were a number of people who were free a large portion of the year to work on the pyramids. These people were the farmers. While the Nile was flooding in its annual cycle, the farmers were free to work on other projects. Like pyramids.

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Dead And Alive

I always thought that was true, as well. I don't now.

The Sumerians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Mittani, Elamites, Egyptians - most of these people had little to do with the sea. The Egyptians in particular avoided the Mediterranean like it was the plague.

The cities they built were not on the sea - Thebes, Memphis, Ur, Babylon, Hattusas, Susa, etc.

Moreover, the ancient civilizations in China and India were nowhere near the sea.

Other civilizations, sure. But the ones I mentioned above cover quite a large portion of ancient humanity.

To be honest, I am not committed one way or the other on this. I'm very willing to entertain the possibility that it is human-made. My recollection is that geologists have said that the steps and things could have been made through geologic processes. But if it does turn out that it's artificial, I'll be happy to learn about it.

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As above, so below

I doubt the thing about the sea as well. I think a better way to put would be, "near bodies of water." Because many civilizations were set up along rivers or lakes. Think of the Aztecs or the Shang civilization in China, or the Indus Valley civilization in India/Pakistan.

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As above, so below

Here's a 'what if...' for you.

What if West, Schock, Bauval, Dunn, Hancock & others are correct & there was a progenitor civilisation, accustomed to working in stone, that spread across the Earth (& so had the knowledge needed to produce the maps from which those like Piri Reis got his data) that got destroyed by the sea.

And there is evidence that there were 2 & possibly 3 episodes of catastrophic rise in the sea levels. One when the mass of ice (estimated at at least a 1/3 of what was there) let go from Antarctica & again when the Agassiz Lake in Canada let go as the ice dam gave way all at once. There was possibly another (or it may have been part of the Agassiz event) when the ice mass floated at Hudson Bay.

Recently there has also been the realisation that the land masses are not unaffected by the presence of ice. When ice releases from land, or when it melts, the land under it will rise & there can be a seesaw effect where nearby land, forced up by the weight of ice elsewhere, will sink as the pressure is released from nearby.

For example, I think it's the west island in Antartica is currently lower than sea level because of ice but would rise back above sea level if or when the ice goes.

So, if the catastrophic end of the previous civilisation was caused in such a way, there would seem to be two possibilities -

one is the survivors ensured they moved as far as possible from the sea before planting new roots &, using the knowledge from the past, kick-started new civilisations.
In one fell swoop we'd have answers to a lot of the mysteries from the past - how the cities appeared with hardly any evidence of development, where we got wheat, rice & corn from, (you do know they are not like their relatives?) why the flood myth is so prevalent (along with stories of how each 'tribe' had someone come from the sea to bring them knowledge & civilisation) & out-of-time knowledge like number systems & astronomical information.

Another is only the sites far from the seas escaped total overwhelm & so they became the focus of the new growth.

It would also explain why the early civilisations we know of all built pyramids
& monolithic structures, how come they had the fascination with the stars to the point of laying things out for observation, & even why we have societies that appear with a swag of new ideas & processes then don't change or change for the worse over hundreds of years.

If the knowledge was inherited, there wouldn't be the creative background needed to ensure it kept on being renewed. They'd use what they're taught & over time lose the detail & skills as those who knew, or were taught directly by those who knew die off.

So in Mexico, China & Egypt, the child-societies would inherit knowledge & maybe try to emulate or reproduce the older 'Golden Age' but as time passed, they would lapse & stagnate until they reproduce the foundations of knowledge needed to understand the higher level they vaguely understood long ago.

Just a 'what if...'

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You keep throwing out ATM ideas here with no documentation.

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T. Anderson

Not very recently. Geologists have known of isostasy for quite some time.

I am not so sure this is accurate - the ideas that we have been taught in school history classes are being shown to be the ATM ideas. I've been to Egypt, Greece, Italy & a number of other places. I asked in Egypt if they'd ever found or heard of a mummy being found in one of the major pyramids.

The writing question brought only Vyse evidence. Petrie found the level of technology involved in the artefacts he found to be anachronistic. Rudolf Gantenbrink made world headlines with Upaut. The underwater discoveries around the world have been receiving publicity for the last decade & a half.

One should instead be asking those who hold the orthodox views just what evidence they can provide to counteract the questions being asked.

I think I give plenty of checkable detail...
eg.
Some references already quoted -
West, Schock, Bauval, Dunn, Hancock, Yonaguni, Tiahuanaco, Ed Leedskalnin, Coral Castle, ‘…aligned to the cardinal points to an accuracy that even the Greenwich Meridian building…’ http://www.morien-institute.org/yonaguni.html http://www.teamatlantis.com/yucatan_...storation.html ‘We have a record of entry into the pyramid by Caliph al Mamoun & there seems not to have been a lid or a body in the granite box’

And for the most recent post...

Some references for a not-so-gradual sea level rise…
Lake Agassiz - http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/agassiz.htm
Effects of draining - http://www.spacedaily.com/news/climate-04zzzy.html
From Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Agassiz
Lake Missoula - http://www.glaciallakemissoula.org/
Sudden change in sea level - http://www.mbari.org/news/homepage/2...s-webster.html
More sudden changes - http://www.physicsforums.com/archive.../t-113807.html

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* Never doubt there is Truth; just doubt that you have it!

I wasn't disputing your notion of sea-level rise, only that isostasy is something 'recently realized'.

That's OK, I wasn't replying to your comment.

But you'd be surprised how recently I was talking to a Geology student from Melbourne Uni who thought I had to be talking crap when I talked about land rising or sinking because of weight.

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* Never doubt there is Truth; just doubt that you have it!

If ythis civilization spanned the globe isn't it a bit of a stretch to think that they were completely wiped out by sea level change? didn't they think it would be a good idea to move uphill? Surely they cxan't have all lived in areas that got drowned by the end of the Ice Age.

I don't doubt that there were people displace3d by the melting of the ice. In fact, I just watched a 'Time Team Special' on channel 4 (UK) looking at finds from what is now the middle of the North Sea but I don't buy all these huge underwater drowned cities that you are trumpeting.

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'The eye can only see what the mind is prepared to accept'