Or, seen as ancestors by enough white people who are happy to believe that they were thus white enough to have done impressive things. It’s only other civilisations whose monuments need supernatural explanation.
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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It's particularly funny as the Romans quite explicitly admired the skill involved in making the Pyramids, and regarded the people of modern day Africa as unusually clever (the Romans blamed the heat).
The trilithon stones supposedly far too heavy to lift, and also apparently part of just a giant landing/launching pad for spaceships, were placed at Baalbek during its renovation and expansion into a massive temple complex by the Romans.
Baalbek had been inhabited as a minor settlement since prehistoric times, being under the control of Phoenician, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian and Greek civilizations as history progressed.
At some point during Greek control of the area, a Greek style temple was built there, of different architectural style and smaller than the Roman temple complex that came later.
Eventually the Romans conquered the area and decided to significantly renovate and expand this Greek temple to build their temples to Jupiter and Bacchus, with construction nearing completion around 60 CE/AD, basically eminent domaining the existing settlement's population into the surrounding area.
The trilithon, and most of the remains that can be easily seen today, were put there by Romans.
Ancient Aliens does spend much more time attributing sites built by civilizations or peoples that are not today viewed as direct antecedents to white/western civilization, but Baalbek is a notable exception, one that, at least in the earlier days of Ancient Aliens, was quite a big deal to them.
Also Stonehenge is attributed to Ancient Aliens.
That was one of the foundational myths of Erik von Daniken, who basically (along with Zecharia Sitchin) is the granddad of Ancient Aliens and is featured in many of its episodes.
I almost don't blame ancient alien loons for Baalbek. Those stones are something else.
They are truly massive, but what's are missed or often falsely contradicted are a few important points:
They were quarried about half a mile away.
We know that because there are even larger blocks that cracked and were abandoned from being fully excavated, in said quarry, dated to the same time period.
Also, the quarry was uphill of the Temple site, meaning they had to move them downhill, not uphill as Ancient Aliens claims.
Yes, it would have been a serious accomplishment in engineering, but not impossible given the Roman's understanding of construction technology.
I remember when the History Channel used to cover actual history.
Bit about ancient aliens from Devin Field
The important part starts at 1:30 if you don't want to listen to the lead-in