21
" No machines have been found in the archaeological record to support these assertions, but there is an abundance of circumstantial evidence that leads to such conclusions. Are the machines still intact and lying under the desert sand? Or were they removed completely from the areas? Or could it be that all this evidence points to an earlier civilization that suffered a cataclysm of such magnitude that much of what existed was destroyed, and what remained was susceptible to erosion, decay, and corrosion, and slowly disappeared over a long period of time? This brings us back to Robert Schoch's evaluation of the erosion pattern on the Sphinx and the Sphinx enclosure. He claimed that the period of time when sufficient rain fell in Egypt to cause this erosion was seven to nine thousand years ago. Is this sufficient time for ancient machines to turn to dust and blow away? It seems incredible to imagine, but there is reason to suspect that this could have happened.
[...]
If we follow the idea of an older civilization, therefore, the pyramids would have already been there before the first dynasty of the ancient Egyptians. The Great Pyramid was, most likely, the zenith of construction on the plateau, and the other pyramids were likely built before it was. Yet something happened to the culture that built the pyramids, and when Khufu came on the scene, he naturally chose the most impressive structure--the Great Pyramid--as his own, and his heirs took turns in claiming the rest. What event could have brought death and destruction to this ancient civilization that is referred to in Egyptian lore as being inhabited by gods of the First Time? "
― Christopher Dunn , Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs
24
" There are, however, explicit engineering qualities associated with the pyramids that do not support the theory that it was a temple, a tomb, or a mausoleum. The redundancy of masonry in these structures is only one good argument against the tomb theory. More persuasive is the fact that Egyptologists woefully lack the material evidence to support it—there are no bodies! It is a widely held popular belief that Egyptian pyramids contained mummies, and that these mummies were actually discovered inside the pyramids. This is simply not true. These beliefs are only inferences that are reinforced by inaccurate documentaries that link the pyramids closely with the Valley of the Kings, where there are no pyramids, but where the mummies actually were found. In reality, the Giza Plateau and the Valley of the Kings are two vastly different sites, separated by hundreds of miles of desert. It is now becoming widely recognized by people who research the pyramid issue that of all the pyramids excavated in Egypt, there was not one that contained an original burial. Considering that more than eighty pyramids have been discovered in Egypt, this fact alone practically negates the tomb theory. "
― Christopher Dunn , The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt
25
" Rudolph Gantenbrink's important discovery [of a door with metallic handles found with a robot inside a shaft in the Great Pyramid] has forced many Egyptologists to finally accept that their theories are flawed. This is an interesting development. Academic mores normally dictate that when a theory contains flaws, or unsubstantiated data that supports critical elements on which the theory is built, the entire theory must either be thrown out or revised. Instead of the tomb theory being dismissed, however, Gantenbrink himself was dismissed from the project. He discovered the "door" on March 22, 1993. A week later, he was told to pack up his robot and leave Egypt. Gantenbrink has the technology to go beyond the so-called door but, presumably because of political reasons, has been refused permission to resume his research in Egypt. Gantenbrink, with an engineer's typical pragmatism, stated, 'I take an absolute neutral position. It is a scientific process, and there is no need whatsoever to answer questions with speculation when these questions could be answered much more easily by continuing the research. Yet because of a stupid feud between what I call believers and non-believers, I am condemned as someone who is speculating. But I am not. I am just stating the facts. We have a device [ultrasonic] that would discover if there is a cavity behind the slab. It is nonsensical to make theories when we have the tools to discover the facts. "
― Christopher Dunn , The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt
26
" This chamber held a mystery for the early explorers who entered its confines, a mystery that has baffled people for decades. The chamber was coated with a layer of black dust, which, upon analysis, turned out to be exuviae, or the cast-off shells and skins of insects. There were no living insects found in the Great Pyramid, which made this discovery even more mysterious. What prompted hordes of insects to single out this one sealed chamber and shed their skins? It is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily explained. In fact, there has not been any attempt to explain it, and because there is no logical answer that fits in with any previously proposed theory, no one has given it much attention. "
― Christopher Dunn , The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt
28
" if we were to build a Great Pyramid today, we would need a lot of patience. In preparation for his book "5/5/2000 Ice: The Ultimate Disaster", Richard Noone asked Merle Booker, technical director of the Indiana Limestone Institute of America, to prepare a time study of what it would take to quarry, fabricate, and ship enough limestone to duplicate the Great Pyramid. Using the most modern quarrying equipment available for cutting, lifting, and transporting the stone, Booker estimated that the present-day Indiana limestone industry would need to triple its output, and it would take the entire industry, which as I have said includes thirty-three quarries, twenty-seven years to fill the order for 131,467,940 cubic feet of stone.
These estimates were based on the assumption that production would proceed without problems. Then we would be faced with the task of putting the limestone blocks in place. The level of accuracy in the base of the Great Pyramid is astounding, and is not demanded, or even expected, by building codes today. Civil engineer Roland Dove, of Roland P. Dove & Associates, explained that .02 inch per foot variance was acceptable in modern building foundations. When I informed him of the minute variation in the foundation of the Great Pyramid, he expressed disbelief and agreed with me that in this particular phase of construction, the builders of the pyramid exhibited a state of the art that would be considered advanced by modern standards. "
― Christopher Dunn , The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt
32
" The precision in these artifacts is irrefutable. Even if we ignore the question of how they were produced, we are still faced with the question of why such precision was needed. Revelation of new data invariably raises new questions. In this case it is understandable for skeptics to ask, "Where are the machines?" But machines are tools, and the question should be applied universally and can be asked of anyone who believes other methods may have been used. The truth is that no tools have been found to explain any theory on how the pyramids were built or the granite boxes were cut. More than eighty pyramids have been discovered in Egypt, and the tools that built them have never been found. Even if we accepted the notion that copper tools are capable of producing these incredible artifacts, the few copper implements that have been uncovered do not represent the number of such tools that would have been used if every stonemason who is supposed to have worked on the pyramids at just the Giza site owned one or two. In the Great Pyramid alone there are an estimated 2,300,000 blocks of stone, both limestone and granite, weighing between two-and-one-half tons and seventy tons each. That is a mountain of evidence, and there are no tools surviving to explain even this one pyramid's creation. "
― Christopher Dunn , The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt
34
" Modern electrical power distribution technology is largely the fruit of the labors of two men—Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. Compared with Edison, Tesla is relatively unknown, yet he invented the alternating electric current generation and distribution system that supplanted Edison's direct current technology and that is the system currently in use today. Tesla also had a vision of delivering electricity to the world that was revolutionary and unique. If his research had come to fruition, the technological landscape would be entirely different than it is today. Power lines and the insulated towers that carry them over thousands of country and city miles would not distract our view. Tesla believed that by using the electrical potential of the Earth, it would be possible to transmit electricity through the Earth and the atmosphere without using wires. With suitable receiving devices, the electricity could be used in remote parts of the planet. Along with the transmission of electricity, Tesla proposed a system of global communication, following an inspired realization that, to electricity, the Earth was nothing more than a small, round metal ball.
[...]
With $150,000 in financial support from J. Pierpont Morgan and other backers, Tesla built a radio transmission tower at Wardenclyffe, Long Island, that promised—along with other less widely popular benefits—to provide communication to people in the far corners of the world who needed no more than a handheld receiver to utilize it.
In 1900, Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi successfully transmitted the letter "S" from Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland and precluded Tesla's dream of commercial success for transatlantic communication. Because Marconi's equipment was less costly than Tesla's Wardenclyffe tower facility, J. P. Morgan withdrew his support. Moreover, Morgan was not impressed with Tesla's pleas for continuing the research on the wireless transmission of electrical power. Perhaps he and other investors withdrew their support because they were already reaping financial returns from those power systems both in place and under development. After all, it would not have been possible to put a meter on Tesla's technology—so any investor could not charge for the electricity! "
― Christopher Dunn , The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt
35
" When we study the past seeking evidence of a highly advanced culture, we should not expect to find objects that we associate with our own culture. Different cultures develop along different paths. This process occurs even over relatively short periods of time, especially when one society is isolated from others. For example, when the Allies went into Germany after Hitler's defeat, they found that after only twelve years of isolation German technology was being developed along lines vastly different from our own. Pauwels and Bergier wrote:
'When the War in Europe ended on May 8th, 1945, missions of investigation were immediately sent out to visit Germany after her defeat. Their reports have been published; the catalogue alone has 300 pages. Germany had only been separated from the world since 1933. In twelve years the technical evolution of the Reich developed along strangely divergent lines. Although the Germans were behindhand as regards the atomic bomb, they had perfected giant rockets unmatched by any in America or Russia. They may not have had radar, but they had perfected a system of infra-red ray detectors which were quite as effective. Though they did not invent silicones, they had developed an entirely new organic chemistry, based on the eight-ring carbon chain. [...] They had rejected the theory of relativity and tended to neglect the quantum theory. [...] They believed in the existence of eternal ice and that the planets and the stars were blocks of ice floating in space. If it has been possible for such wide divergencies to develop in the space of twelve years in our modern world, in spite of the exchange of ideas and mass communications, what view must one take of the civilizations of the past? To what extent are our archaeologists qualified to judge the state of the sciences, techniques, philosophy and knowledge that distinguished, say, the Maya or Khmer civilizations? "
― Christopher Dunn , The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt
36
" Ultrasonic drilling fully explains how the holes and cores found in the Valley Temple at Giza could have been cut, and it is capable of creating all the details that Petrie and I puzzled over. Unfortunately for Petrie, ultrasonic drilling was unknown at the time he made his studies, so it is not surprising that he could not find satisfactory answers to his queries. In my opinion, the application of ultrasonic machining is the only method that completely satisfies logic, from a technical viewpoint, and explains all noted phenomena.
[...]
The most significant detail of the drilled holes and cores studied by Petrie was that the groove was cut deeper through the quartz than through the feldspar. Quartz crystals are employed in the production of ultrasonic sound and, conversely, are responsive to the influence of vibration in the ultrasonic ranges and can be induced to vibrate at high frequency. When machining granite using ultrasonics, the harder material (quartz) would not necessarily offer more resistance, as it would during conventional machining practices. An ultrasonically vibrating tool bit would find numerous sympathetic partners, while cutting through granite, embedded right in the granite itself. Instead of resisting the cutting action, the quartz would be induced to respond and vibrate in sympathy with the high-frequency waves and amplify the abrasive action as the tool cut through it. "
― Christopher Dunn , The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt
37
" When Willard F. Libby first discovered radiocarbon dating in 1947, archaeologists, and especially Egyptologists, ignored it. They questioned its reliability, as it did not coincide with the "known" historical dates of the artifacts being tested. David Wilson, author of The New Archaeology, wrote, "Some archaeologists refused to accept radiocarbon dating. The attitude of the majority, probably, in the early days of the new technique was summed up by Professor Jo Brew, Director of the Peabody Museum at Harvard. 'If a C14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely out-of-date we just drop it. "
― Christopher Dunn , The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt
38
" What we have been taught is that the ancient Egyptians were in posession of only simple hand tools, and that the only metals available to the Egyptians of the fourth dynasty, when the Giza Pyramids were built, were copper, gold, and silver. What is inferred, therefore, is that absent the tools made from these materials, the simple abrasive experiments actually demonstrate the stone-working methods of ancient Egypt. We are told that the ancient Egyptians had not yet developed the knowledge to extract the raw materials necessary to produce iron and steel. It has been suggested that they may have used meteoric iron, because they found it lying on the ground, but they did not mine the ore and smelt it in a foundry. Support for this view is the lack of evidence that they used tools made of any material other than copper, stone, and wood. Yet absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Although sophisticated tools made of iron or steel may not yet have been discovered in the archaeological record, what has been found is not adequate enough to explain how the artifacts were created. "
― Christopher Dunn , Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs