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Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
slaves
Khufu
Khufu was the ruler of Egypt (2589-2566 BC) during the Fourth Dynasty and was also known as Cheops. He is generally credited with the commissioning of the building of the Great Pyramid at Giza. Herodotus accused Khufu of using slaves to build the Great Pyramid, but recent discoveries suggest that not slaves, but conscripted labourers were used. However, Khufu’s role in the building of the Great Pyramid has been disputed. Andrew Gough published a lengthy paper on the life of Khufu(b).
In 2021 Marco M. Vigato involved himself in the long-running debate regarding whether Khufu was responsible for the building of Giza’s Great Pyramid. Following a ten-point argument supporting Khufu as the builder of the GP by Matt Sibson, whom we’ve met before in these pages, Vigato responded by producing a list of fifteen reasons why Khufu was NOT the builder of the GP(a).
Zecharia Sitchin, the controversial ‘alternative’ historian, entered the fray in 1980, with the claim that the only concrete evidence that the Great Pyramid had been built by Khufu, was a cartouche forged by Colonel Richard Howard-Vyse(c). In 2016 Scott Creighton published The Great Pyramid Hoax [2088] endorsing Sitchin’s forgery claim. Jason Colavito has written a two-part review of Creighton’s book(d)(e).
(a) https://www.academia.edu/45014007/15_Reasons_why_Khufu_did_NOT_build_the_Great_Pyramid
(b) https://andrewgough.co.uk/articles_khufu/
(c) https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-2494/
(d) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-scott-creightons-the-great-pyramid-hoax-part-1
(e) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-scott-creightons-the-great-pyramid-hoax-part-two
Mining *
Mining as a human activity dates back many thousands of years in various parts of the world Recently, the earliest example of mining in the Americas was an iron oxide mine in Chile dating back to around 10,000 BC(a). However, metals, such as gold, silver, copper and tin were not the only material extracted in this way, pigments, flint and salt were also mined in ancient times. The silver mines of Lavrio in Greece employed 29,000 slaves at its peak.
In the Mediterranean itself, Cyprus was an important source of copper, giving the island its name. However, the most important mineral source was probably Sardinia, which for the Romans was one of the three most important sources of metals, along with Spain and Brittany. Although there was a limited amount of tin mined in the Mediterranean region, most came from Spain, Brittany as well as Devon and Cornwall.
Mining in Atlantis is recorded by Plato in Critias 114e where he states that there were many mines producing orichalcum as well as other metals. Mrs. Whishaw contended that the pre-Roman copper mines of Southern Spain was the source of the Atlantean orichalcum.
However, the most extensive ancient mines were probably those of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where copper mining was carried on between 3000 and 1200 BC. It has been guesstimated that up to 1.5 billion pounds of the metal was extracted. It is further speculated that much of this was used to feed the Bronze Age needs of Europe and the Mediterranean(b)(c). This is hotly disputed by local archaeologists(d).
(a) Archaeologists uncover oldest mine in the Ame | EurekAlert! (archive.org)
(b) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/WakefieldJS1.php
(c) Ancient Copper History (archive.org) *
(d) https://www.ramtops.co.uk/copper.html (offline Sept. 2017) (see Archive 2102)