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Re: you bickerers about pyramids, your Bible theories disgusts God
Doug Bailey (aessedai@ix.netcom.com)
Tue, 07 Jan 1997 15:45:24 -0500
fmurray@pobox, frank murray wrote:
>
> On Tue, 07 Jan 1997 11:00:06 -0500, Doug Bailey
> <aessedai@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >................... Scholarly consensus holds that the Great Pyramid
> >was built by the Fourth Dynasty Pharoah Khufu in the period of 2551 BC
> >to 2528 BC. It should be noted that carbon dating of organic material
> >within the mortar (from several areas of the Great Pyramid has yielded
> >dates 3809 BC and 2869 BC (there is a modest range with these
> >measurement methods but they illustrate that the mortar was laid into
> >position no later than the 26th millenium BC).
>
> i've difficulty following your reasoning here...the carbon dating
> indicates that the mortar was laid no earlier than 3809 BC, but how do
> you establish from this carbon dating that it was laid no later than
> the 26th millennium BC...could we not mix and lay mortar today that
> contained organic materials from 3809 BC??...
>
> frank
You bring up a very good point. The carbon-dating was performed by the
Radiocarbon Laboratory of Southern Methodist University and also by
laboratories in Zurich. It is my understanding that the samples were
carefully selected based the nature of organic material contained in the
different mortar samples. The frequency distribution of organic
material was skewed towards the more recent ages (that is the 29th
millenium BC). This makes sense given that their would be a
predominance of organic material from more recent periods in relation to
when the mortar was actually mixed and laid in place. However the
preponderance of what is dated as 29th mil BC material and the complete
absence of any material later than that establishes an extremely
reliable line of demarcation in time for when the mortar was used.
Given the limitations of carbon-dating and the relative paucity of the
samples, the researchers stated that there was a margin of error large
enough to reasonably believe the mortar could have been used as late as
the 26th millenium BC.
If we did use mortar now there is a possibility (though very rare due to
organic material decay and sedimentation) that 1000 year old organic
material would find its way into our mortar. However, if would be very
rare and would be overshadowed by the large amount of fairly young
organic material from the surrounding environment.
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