A few days ago I watched this video by wired about the pyramids in Egypt
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enMPLaB1oEo), and something interesting that the expert talks about is that they know exactly where the stones come from- not only is there clear evidence of quarrying in the immediate vicinity, but the dimensions match and they even have contemporary records describing the movement of stone blocks from quarries across the river to the construction site. (2 day round trip.)
Granted it's a Wired video so she didn't go into an overly extraordinary level of detail, but in any case it reminded me of a lecture I attended about 15 years ago when I went a prospective students/parents night at a prestigious university that I was looking to attend.
As part of the presentation, they had this guy give a lecture on his groundbreaking new theory that the pyramids were actually cast in place, rather than quarried. I thought it was interesting at the time, so when I heard about this quarry stuff in the Wired video, I assumed it must be a relatively recent discovery.
Nope! People have literally known about these quarries since ancient times, and they were confirmed by modern methods in the 1980s. This 'prestigious university' literally just had some crackpot give us his pet theory as an example of the kind of fine, high caliber academics that we could look forward to as part of our education at this institution. π
(Btw I did end up attending that university for Computer Science, and the lead professor there taught us that we should try to avoid using if statements.) Anyway there's no point or anything just thought I'd share.
