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Abu Simbel, ancient Egypt, ancient Near East, archaeology, art history, colossal, giants, hierarchical scaling, Karnak, kings, Mediterranean, monuments, Nefertari, queens, Ramesses II, Rekhmire, Small Temple, statues, stelae, TT100, Tutankhamun, Unknown Man E

Archival photo from the New York Times, 1936. Note the giant skeleton nestled against the ruined wall.
Recent research led to a goldmine. A friend of mine who works in the archival department of the New York Times was looking for some information for an article on the history of archaeology in Egypt, when he came across the above image and the scanned article at right. The article dates to 1936 but does not mention the name of the staff writer. My friend prefers to remain anonymous (I’ll call him “Jonas”) because these items were in an old folder marked CONFIDENTIAL, and he doesn’t wish to get into trouble. A memo paper-clipped to the folder, Jonas explained in the email to which these items were attached, had words to the effect that this was deemed to be of a highly sensitive nature and was never meant for public consumption.
It’s possible whatever archaeological team was conducting the dig when the giant skeleton was unearthed, felt it better to keep everything secret. Probably the academic institution to which this team was attached was the impetus for the secrecy—academia does not like to upset its applecart. The article mentions a photographer named Henry Leichter who was working at the time for the University of Chicago (Oriental Institute), but neither Jonas nor I have been able to determine if it is this university which wished to bury the shocking discovery of 1936.
But due to my friend’s plucky spirit, it need be buried no more. He and I have brought the truth to light. I’m glad Jonas remembered my love of all things ancient Egyptian, and that I write this blog, so here we have found a way to publish what had been hidden from the public eye.
What’s more, everything in the above paragraphs is a steaming load of bullcrap. I made it up. All of it. I Photoshopped the photograph, as well as typed the “article” and used Photoshop to give it an aged look. It was quite fun. Oh, and I don’t have a friend who works for the New York Times. I don’t think I even know anyone who works for the New York Times.
You readers who are familiar with my blog either knew straight away that I was pulling your leg or must have quickly begun to wonder if I had fallen off the edge of sanity. But the above photo as well as the fake article are of the type you see all over the internet, on half-baked web pages professing to offer “proof” that the ancient world was populated by giant humans.
After all, giants are mentioned several times in the Old Testament (see Genesis 6:4 as an example). The Bible wouldn’t mislead us, would it? The original word in ancient Hebrew is Nephilim, which is most likely a loan word from the Aramaic naphil, which does in fact mean “giant” (see Heiser, sitchiniswrong.com). So it must be true, then, right?
Perhaps not. The day ancient religious texts are the sole means by which we analyze and study ancient civilizations, is the day on which we must concede that we’ve abandoned the greater amount of our common sense. I am not demeaning the Bible, mind you. It is rightfully the greatest book ever written, but it’s not a history book.
I’m sure many of you have seen the Photoshopped images I mentioned. Just Google “ancient giants” in Images and you come up with all sorts of hits. The following photo is a good example:
Some of these fake images are very well done, and I must admit many of them are better than the one I slapped together at the top of this article. This one here is quite realistic, except for the fact that the shadow of the skeleton in its pit and the shadow of the squatting man are extending in opposite directions. Quite a few of the fake photos out there have obvious mistakes. But many do not, and they look quite convincing.
That doesn’t make them authentic, of course. Anyone who has Photoshop, as well as most any sort of word-processing program to type out a “newspaper article” can put together real-looking images. Common sense alone is what should be the determining factor. Most of us will see such images and chuckle, but certain people out there will see such an image and think it’s rock-hard proof. That’s unfortunate.
Ancient Egypt is a favorite for the folks who want to believe in giants roaming the world of millennia ago. Certain things about the great pharaonic culture make it simple for the hoaxers to use Egypt, as well as for the gullible to fall for it.
For example, look at wall depictions of the great pharaohs. Here’s one of Ramesses II charing forth on his chariot into battle at Kadesh in Syria:
This was an actual battle which took place in 1274 BCE, early in Ramesses’ reign. The Egyptians faced the Hittites at Kadesh, and although no clear winner was determined, Ramesses covered the walls of several temples with such battle scenes not only to make it seem as though the Egyptians had won but, of course, to show his own great prowess and courage.
Look below the figures of the rearing horses pulling Ramesses’ chariot. You will notice itty-bitty Hittite soldiers. They’re fleeing in the face of the great Egyptian pharaoh, who is clearly a literal giant because he is shown in the scene as towering above them.
The same sort of depiction is seen in countless Egyptian tombs and on funeral stelae and other monuments, such as this one dating to Dynasty 11 (2160-1781 BCE):
It’s beautifully cut and inscribed. At right are seated a husband and wife in the act of receiving offerings. Chances are, both of them were deceased when this monument was made. But look to the left and you’ll see who’s presenting the offerings: tiny little servants. Clearly, then, it was not only the royals who were giants, but also many of the people in the ranks of the elite.
Many of you may be aware of why the ancient Egyptians produced art this way, but even so, if some of you readers do not know why this was done, I’m willing to bet you’re not going to chalk it up to giants. It’s that common sense thing, again.
For those who would like to know the explanation, it’s due to a principle modern art historians call hierarchical scaling. Whether the ancient Egyptians even had a word for it is not of importance, because it was simply part of their artistic traditions and practices from the very dawn of their kingdom at the end of the fourth millennium BCE. Basically, in any scene where more than one person was shown, the figure of most importance and greatest status in that scene was usually depicted as physically larger than the other people (Robins 2008: 21). The bigger the better, in other words. Kings are usually shown the largest in any given scene, of course, with the exception of deities appearing in the same scene; in such cases the king is often shown at the same scale as deities, but any other human figure usually will look diminutive. Where a male and female are shown together, often the male is shown larger, including depictions of kings and queens. This was not a universal practice, of course, as you can see in the stela of the husband and wife above. And on occasion kings and queens when shown together were sometimes of equal size, which is evident in the artwork of several pharaohs such as Amunhotep III and Queen Tiye, Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti, and Ramesses II and Queen Nefertari.
But the pro-giants crowd will find exceptions to the rule. The following scene is often used to show ancient giants:
I’ve seen this scene used to show that even regular workmen could be giants. A handy thing to have around for all of those huge buildings the Egyptians erected. The giants crowd would have you believe this is a depiction of workmen cutting blocks of masonry, and carrying them with ease, for the building of the Great Pyramid. (I’ve also seen this depiction used by the crowd which believes the Great Pyramid was composed of blocks made from a poured synthetic stone, which is being produced here—an idea with little scientific corroboration and perhaps the subject of a future article for me.)
The scene comes from the tomb of Rekhmire, a powerful nobleman who served as a vizier under both Tuthmosis III and Amunhotep II, in Dynasty 18. He lived around 1420 BCE. His tomb (TT100) is in western Thebes, the most popular burial ground through most of the New Kingdom. TT100 is particularly famous for its rich depictions of all manner of workmen and craftsmen performing their labors, under the steady supervision of the great vizier himself.
What we have here is a good example of people in the fringe camp seeing an image but not knowing how to interpret it, nor decipher what it meant to the ancient Egyptians. I rather doubt the ancients would care how someone living over 3,000 years later would understand such scenes, other than to be offended by extremes in misdirection.
The Great Pyramid was built around 2500 BCE, in Dynasty 4. Again, Rekhmire was a nobleman of Dynasty 18, over a thousand years after the time of the Great Pyramid. By Rekhmire’s time, in fact, pyramids were no longer even part of royal burials. The religion of the state had changed considerably since the days of the Old Kingdom.
As is the case with so many ancient tomb depictions, the figures in TT100 are accompanied by hieroglyphic captions which explain what they’re doing. In the case of the scene shown above, the caption for these workers states that they’re “Molding bricks to build a magazine anew [for the Temple] of Karnak” (Hodel-Hoenes 2000: 162). It’s notable that the Karnak temple is explicitly mentioned, which alone discounts any connection with the Great Pyramid or any other monument far to the north at Giza. A “magazine” is a modern term used to describe the ancient Egyptian word for storehouse. These ancient storehouses were often made from small mud bricks, which the men are shown making and carrying. The men themselves comprise a group of Syrian and Nubian prisoners of war (ibid); such men were often bought back to Egypt as labor-slaves. So, no, they’re not giants.
Even animals are singled out as “giants.” You might have noticed this with the horses pulling Ramesses’ chariot in the earlier photo—even the horses are much larger than the Hittite enemies over whom they are rearing. But you will see many images in which animals appear to be gigantic, sometimes even towering over royals:
Here a pharaoh is shown drinking from the utters of an enormous cow—certain proof that giant animals once roamed the Nile Valley? No, probably not. Inscriptions are not evident in this scene and it’s not like I have all of them memorized, but based on the iconography of the cow (e.g., sun disk and diminutive king) I think I’m safe in identifying it as the common bovine manifestation of the goddess Hathor. As with other important deities Hathor had a very busy job description and performed a number of roles, and one of the most important was as the divine mother-figure to the king; she is the nurturing bovine (Wilkinson 2003: 141). Here, the king is as a child gaining nourishment from his mother’s breast. In other such depictions the king is shown standing in front of the divine bovine, whose head extends protectively over and beyond the king.
There are also those monuments where kings and queens are depicted along with their royal children. This is a common motif in the Amarna Period during the reign of Akhenaten. But a good example for our purposes here is the Small Temple of Abu Simbel, which Ramesses II commissioned for his queen Nefertari. The facade of this magnificent temple is illustrative:
The colossal statues represent Ramesses II and Nefertari. They are indeed gigantic. Look to the sides of their legs and you will see small statues of their children; included here are princes Meryatum, Meryre, Rahirwenemef and Amun-her-khepeshef; and princesses Meritamun and Henuttawy. It would seem, if Ramesses II and Nefertari were actually literal giants, they were giving birth to runts. No wonder the giants died out.
I jest.
What might the archaeological record show? After so many years of people excavating the land of Egypt, where are the remains of giant humans? We are obligated to dismiss cleverly Photoshopped internet images, so what we’re left with is rather disappointing to the pro-giants crowd. No giant skeleton has ever been found. Anywhere. Historians and scientists have been studying the human remains of ancient Egyptians for many years now, and what we learn is that the ancient Egyptians were of the same physical stature and size of pretty much everyone else in the ancient Mediterranean world. Men averaged 5’3″ and women 4’10” (Nunn 1996: 20). These were not gigantic people, of course.
Some of them were pretty damn tall, however. Their height in life can be determined forensically in several different ways, but a well-preserved mummy certainly helps. Such is the case with Ramesses II, who is one of the best preserved of them all:
In life Ramesses II was probably around 5’8,” which is almost as unusual as the fact that he probably died at around 90 years of age (in a time when the average lifespan was around 35 years). Also pretty tall for his time was the boy-king, Tutankhamun:
Tut’s is not the best-looking mummy on record, but in life this young man stood at about 5’6″, a good three inches taller than most adult men in the Bronze Age.
In my own years of research, the tallest ancient Egyptian of whom I’m aware is a man whose name no one even knows. He goes by the designation of Unknown Man E:
Unknown Man E is rather infamous for his particularly ghoulish appearance. Early historians first thought he had been violently killed or mummified alive, but there is no evidence to prove either. The prominent researcher Bob Brier has argued that this is the body of a prince of Dynasty 20 named Pentaweret, who was involved with the harem conspiracy of Ramesses III and was forced to commit suicide by ingesting poison. It is an attractive theory but not proven. Unknown Man E was not mummified but seems to have been naturally preserved inside the uninscribed coffin in which he’d been interred. Consensus is that he lived in the New Kingdom.
Unknown Man E is quite well preserved for someone who was not mummified, but that’s sometimes how it worked out when people were buried in the arid environment of the desert. Most unusual, however, is that in life this man was around 5’9″ tall.
Quite a tall man, in other words. But not a giant.
Considering this, I often think of David and Goliath. If there is any truth to this biblical tale, David was probably a man of ordinary height (around 5’3″) while Goliath could’ve been something like a towering 6’2″. Now, to the average man of the ancient Near East, that would’ve been a giant.
We can think of modern people who’ve suffered from disorders like gigantism. Such people can grow to between seven and nine feet. These are indeed giants among us. But as is well understood, gigantism is a disorder caused by the over-production of growth hormones, and folks afflicted with it suffer from all manner of complications. Human beings are not meant to grow to such heights.
The archaeological record is silent on the subject of a race of giants. Ancient man was, indeed, considerably shorter than the average modern man. Depictions of colossal figures must be understood in the context in which they were created in wall paintings and other monuments. Perhaps most important, no one should fall for cleverly devised Photoshopped images and fake newspaper articles. When we dig deeper and evaluate things from the right perspective, we find the real answers.
This brings me to my concluding point, and I had some fun with it in the fake 1936 newspaper article I concocted at the top of the page. People of the pro-giants crowd well understand, I think, how silent real-world evidence is for giants, so they frequently turn to the one desperate measure left to them: they claim the world of academia is conspiring to hide “the truth” from all of us. I wrote about this in my recent article Tactics of the Fringe. Not only is such a claim desperate, it is quite divorced from reality. Such folks would have us believe that all archaeologists and Egyptologists and historians and other specialists who’ve been at work in Egypt for the past two centuries, have worked in concert to conceal ancient giant humans from us. All this reveals is the pro-giants crowd has no real understanding of the world of academia. If they possessed an understanding, they would know such a grand and all-encompassing conspiracy could not survive a few years, much less 200 of them.
Giants are a myth.
As always, I thank you for reading my article, and I welcome comments and questions.
——————————————————–
Heiser, Michael S. Sitchin Is Wrong.
Hodel-Hoenes, Sigrid. Life and Death in Ancient Egypt. 2000.
Nunn, John F. Ancient Egyptian Medicine. 1996.
Robins, Gay. The Art of Ancient Egypt. 2008.
Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. 2003.
The giants are truth and its the archaeologists’s hypocrisy that kills it untill todays, the truth is known now….No need to go against this theory
on the future, more truth will appear
Thank you for your comment, nonesense. However, I think you missed the meat of my article. Of all of the archaeologists digging all over the world for a couple of centuries now, not one bit of real-world evidence has surfaced for giants. My article is mostly about Egyptian archaeologically, but imagine the same corroborative void everywhere else. We cannot accept faked internet photos as evidence (at least, logical people do not), and the oft-imagined conspiracy of academia is utterly unrealistic, so where’s the evidence?
because there is a conspiracy run, So this truth of giants will remain hidden, its forbidden archaeology, they are hypocrite, Actually the aim lies in Saving the old biology sciences from denial and collapse…
>>Comment trimmed<<
See the following link for nonesense's full comment and my response to it:
https://ancientneareast.org/2012/10/07/a-response-to-nonesense-on-giants/
So every single one of the thousands of photos and every single one of the thousands of newspaper article from 1800 to 2013 are hoaxes? And the mention of giant humans in thousands of ancient manuscripts, documents and wall paintings (not to mention the Bible) are all hoaxes? All you proved was that at least one of the articles was a hoax, hardly a burden of proof to your thesis. It’s thinking like yours that has helped distort truth from many. Think of it like this. If only ONE of the articles or pictures is true, your whole belief system would crumble – maybe that is why you have to defend it so much. Either way, I hope you wake up some day.
Hello, David. Thanks for the comment.
The article I “proved” as a hoax was my own invention, to show how simple it is. It doesn’t take much effort to concoct such a thing but, as one can see, lots of people quickly fall for the contrived. The thousands of photos are all over the internet, and unless you’ve really fallen for the cute girl on the State Farm commercials, you know the internet is far from a reliable means to pursue legitimate historical inquiry. Same goes for the articles, many if not most of which are modern inventions. There are cases where reporters a century ago commented on “giants” found in some recent antiquarian adventure, but to the last such reports are gross exaggerations of the truth.
Aside from a healthy does of critical thinking, one needs the benefit of legitimate historical investigations. The ancient Near East is my forte, and I’ve spent over twenty years researching its civilizations—reading books, articles, periodicals, peer-reviewed papers, archaeological reports, and attending lectures and symposiums. The ancient Near East is where most “giants” seem to be placed by modern folks who believe in them. Yet in no legitimate historical paper or report is a single thing about giants reported: not just authentic human remains but the material culture that would be associated with them. Not a thing. The closest one comes is unusually tall individuals, which is a known phenomenon in all populations from all points in time, throughout the world.
As for ancient manuscripts and texts like the Bible, it is generally the case where fringe authors and talking heads freely misinterpret the source evidence to sell their books or to boost ratings (one thinks of half-baked nonsense like Ancient Aliens and similar drivel).
Thanks, but I’ll stick with real-world evidence: what the archaeological record actually reveals. That’s all that matters at the end of the day.
Not so true, RE: “The ancient Near East is where most “giants” seem to be placed by modern folks who believe in them.”
Note: Regardless of your “Near East Research” there are more than “many” accounts of “giants” in North America, as well.
MANY if not most of the original Native American tribes have accounts of “giants” but since they all mostly have “stories” of giant ravens and (wooo-wooo) “Big-Feets” (lol) then they MUST be “myth.” Right?
Just trying to keep my mind open. Not “set” in any direction. I mean the Manhattan Project was kept a “secret” for HOW LONG??? And how MANY people were involved with THAT project? …Just sayin’… ; ) -EB
I’m sure there are plenty of myths and legends about giants in other world cultures. You’re right to point out my stated limitation: I research the ancient Near East, so that’s my sphere of knowledge. I used to research the Plains Indians and especially the Lakota, and they have a rich and wonderful repertoire of myths and legends; I don’t recall many tales of giants. But myths and legends are not history, and wishing otherwise won’t change reality. It would be the same as insisting that all of the lore in the Bible is accurate, when of course we know it isn’t.
The Manhattan Project is an interesting analogy. I live in Chicago, where a lot of the original research took place (University of Chicago). The problem with this analogy is, there is plentiful evidence for what took place with these scientists. There is no equivalent evidence for races of ancient giant humans. Archaeologically and biologically, nothing supports it. What we instead see is the occasional very old newspaper article misinterpreting physical evidence, mountains of fake reports and hoaxes on the internet, and the frequent amateur misunderstanding and misrepresentation of cultural evidence (e.g., depictions on ancient tomb walls). And of course a lot of very bad, deliberately misleading fringe literature.
“I’ve seen this scene used to show that even regular workmen could be giants. A handy thing to have around for all of those huge buildings the Egyptians erected. The giants crowd would have you believe this is a depiction of workmen cutting blocks of masonry, and carrying them with ease, for the building of the Great Pyramid. (I’ve also seen this depiction used by the crowd which believes the Great Pyramid was composed of blocks made from a poured synthetic stone, which is being produced here—an idea with little scientific corroboration and perhaps the subject of a future article for me.)”
Good luck !
KMTSESH
Either you are not as intelligent as you think you are or you are attemting to intentionally hide the truth. You say Ramesses II and Nefertari gave birth to runts. Please allow me to inlighten you. When children are born they are SMALL and over time they GROW!
If giants did not build the pyramids then who did and how?????
You claim to have over 20 years experience researching this civilization, so Answer the question.
Hello, inconvenientTruth. Thanks for your comment, as misguided as it seems. You might want to return to the Giants article and read it more carefully. You seem to have missed the implication I was making about Ramesses II, his queen, and their children in the hierarchical scaling of the monuments at Abu Simbel. My reference to “runts” was a jest, but there’s a context for it.
As for the Great Pyramid, it’s perfectly obvious who built it: the people living in the Nile Valley of the third millennium BCE. No, not giants, but people. From the tool marks on the masonry, to the tools found in archaeological contexts at Giza, to the workmen’s village still under excavation by the Giza Plateau Mapping Project, and to the very graves where many pyramid builders were interred 4,500 years ago at Giza, it’s obvious that ordinary human beings achieved this wonder.
I will always turn to my own experience in researching this civilization, and will always avoid chronic astonishment and the written materials of poorly informed fringe authors. No proof for giants…period.
You might want to try again, but thanks for playing.
Interesting with 20 years of experience, you reference this tool discovery without any details or proven science to support your cliams. We both know why. No tool has been discovered, that we know of, which explains how a 70 ton granite slab was hoisted halfway up the pyramid.
The largest crane in the world today could not accomplish this task.
A distinguished professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University, Michel Barsoum, conducted a year and a half of extensive scanning electron microscope observations and other testing on the Great Pyramid.
The sample chemistries the researchers found DO NOT EXIST ANYWHERE IN NATURE. “Therefore,” Barsoum said, “it’s very improbable that the outer and inner casing stones that we examined were chiseled from a natural limestone block.”
More startlingly, Barsoum and another of his graduate students, Aaron Sakulich, recently discovered the presence of silicon dioxide nanoscale spheres (with diameters only billionths of a meter across) in one of the samples. This discovery further confirms that these blocks are not natural limestone.
GENERATIONS MISLED
At the end of their most recent paper reporting these findings, the researchers reflect that it is “ironic, sublime and truly humbling” that this 4,500-year-old limestone is so true to the original that it has misled generations of Egyptologists and geologists and, “because the ancient EGYPTIANS were the original — albeit unknowing — NANOTECHNOLOGIST.”
Why do the results of Barsoum’s research matter most today? Two words: earth cements.
“Ironically,” Barsoum said, “this study of 4,500 year old rocks is not about the past, but about the future.”
Egyptology is the only science specifically for the study of one culture or group of people. There is no Greekology, Romanology, Europeology. Why? Because ancient Egyptians were much more than “ORDINARY HUMAN BEINGS”
YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
and the discussion stops…………
John,
Let me start off by saying I enjoyed reading your blog. I myself specialized in Ancient Near Eastern History (mostly Mesopotamian) en route to a Master’s in archaeology of the same field. Obviously these similarities in interest that we share are what brought me here in the first place. Yes, this is how i spend my Friday nights-history. Haha but I digress…
Ever since the rise in the popularity of shows such as Ancient Aliens I have found myself consistently being approached by friends and students on the many theories they present. In fact it takes up the majority of my time these days. I’m almost positive you must have noticed the increase in questions yourself relating to this during your time at the museums. I just want to say that I feel your pain. I never anticipated the day where hard facts and objective discerning of evidence would be consistently bypassed for the “aliens did it” explanation, or in your case giants.
At any rate I just wanted to tip my hat to your thoughtful and dignified responses to such claims. I found this blog entertaining on many levels but maybe most importantly I have picked up a few new tricks from you on handling fringe theories. Thank you and good work. I too live in Chicago and will be sure to say hello if I ever see a John working at either of my two favorite museums.
Powerskr, it is certainly a pleasure to meet you. I’m pleased you found my blog and have enjoyed it. I do not hold a Master’s, but my enthusiasm for the ancient Near East knows no end. In fact, your Friday nights (as well as many other nights, on my part) sound very familiar, to say the least. I wish there were more educated folks such as you commenting on such blogs, as well as more such folks as you interacting with the public.
I also have an article called “Tactics of the Fringe” which you may enjoy. I mention it because your experience with friends sounds very similar to my experience at the museum. My two articles on giants were inspired by a spirited discussion on an online forum, and I honestly don’t encounter the topic that much. Still, it’s another example of how adults increasingly seem to lack critical-thinking skills. It’s quite disconcerting, isn’t it? At the museum I much more often encounter people who’ve watched Ancient Aliens and want my opinion on it. I try to remain “diplomatic,” as it were, but I openly warn people against wasting their time with this regrettable TV show. It’s symptomatic of how far the History Channel (and similar cable venues) have plummeted in quality and usefulness.
I’m always happy to meet a fellow Chicagoan. By all means, if you happen to be at the Field or the O.I., feel free to search me out. At either institution you’re likely to find me in the Egyptian exhibit, naturally.
There have been cases in Greece & Rome of burial of “giant bones” (actually fossilized bones) however the bones in question were actually dinosaur bones.They created the bones as belonging to the Titans (who were basically demi-gods).
When most of the folks finding these bones, and examining these bones were illiterate bumpkins it’s easy to see how they might be confused. It is pretty sad that in the 20th and 21st century that people can be conned into thinking that giants roamed the earth. It’s in part due to scientific and cultural ignorance and in part due to brain washing by religion.
Just because people don;t live to be 900 years old anymore it’s because of sin. Talking donkeys still roam the holy land. Being swallowed by a whale will not kill you, you can live it’s belly for a while.
Actually more along your alley is that there is no record of a mass slave escape from Egypt by the Jews. And the Egyptians (like the Romans) tended to like keeping records of such events. They are still coming across 2000+ year old Bedouin camps in the desert but no signs of the biblical exodus.
Along your line in your last response. I was at Fort Mifflinin Philadelphia. The place has “ghost tours”. Well sure enough in one of the rooms I got some orbs. I blew the dust off the camera lens, and that was an end to the pictures of ghosts in the room.
Hi, Joe. Thanks for your comment. It’s a sad fact that many adults seem to lack critical-thinking skills and suffer from a prodigious lack of common sense. This is abundantly evident in the growing crowd of fans of the regrettable television show Ancient Aliens. More than once I’ve met adults at the museum who profess a sincere belief in such things. It’s troubling to me. But among the weak points of the modern information age, there is the advantage of sharing all sorts of information and this includes a desire shared by many lovers of history to refute and disprove the nonsense of fringe beliefs and junk science. It’s an uphill battle, but for the sake of common sense and reason it must be fought.
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You said conspiracies could not survive a few years. This is the most ridiculous argument I’ve ever heard. Conspiracies last forever as long as there are ignorant people like you. The media plays a major role in this. The 9/11 conspiracy, the biggest mass manipulation in the last century is still standing after 13 years. I bet it will last forever. But not in the heads of the few people who started thinking with their own brain, not with the brain of the media and science.
I was just going to delete your comment, marreboy, but it might serve as a warning and reminder to other readers. And to other readers, marreboy is reacting to something I explained in the final paragraph of this article. Now, back to you, marreboy. Do you understand the context of the quote you’re pulling from my article, and the actual position I am taking? I don’t think so. Please do not try to use my blog as a pulpit from which to shout your opinions. If you wish to comment on one or more of my articles, that’s great, but your comment must be relevant to the topic of the article. I am not here to entertain the tinfoil-hat-wearing “9/11 conspiracy” crowd. Unless further comments from you are relevant to the subject matter, they will be deleted.
I read the whole article, there is indeed something like “scaling hierarchy”. You do not talk about the earlier Egyptian farao’s. I guess those were Giants. What about the big farao finger, the giant coffins found in Egypt and dozens of articles about giant skeletons found? : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhkcSisF8mY
A lot of conspiracy journalists in the New York Times.
I just stumbled across your blog for the first time (I realize this post is now several years old), so I didn’t realize your story was satire at first – I was so glad to see that it was! At first I thought, “darn, this blog looked promising, but it turns out this guy is crazy.” I appreciate the depth of analysis you bring to the topic. Some of the comments above show that this is still plenty of crazy out there for people that want it.
Hi, Jason. Thanks for reading. The intro is indeed satire—and a reminder of how so much out there on the internet is pure bullflop. Hoaxes are easy to set up and perpetuate. It goes to show how gullible many people are, that they would believe such material to be true simply because they’re seeing it in some printed form. And, yes, as you can see from numerous comments to this article, as painful as it is to see, there are plenty of people who believe this stuff. It makes one wonder what’s become of critical thinking.
Wow, seriously? It seems like you have no knowledge of science, majority of what you wrote is just wishful thinking.
Organisms in the past were giants, in the sense that trees were also tall and huge. This is due to oxygen availability.
For example meganeura( giant dragon fly)
Titanoboa , Acherontisuchus guajiraensis. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9kzorrSbaUA
I’ve never doubted there were enormous species in past epochs. No sense in denying that because there is abundant evidence for them. But giant Homo sapiens sapeins? No, there is no real archaeological evidence for such a thing. You seem to lack a basic understand of bioarchaeology and human biology. It is physiologically impossible for there to be a race of giant Homo sapiens sapeins. Even the rare people who suffer from gigantism can tell you how tough their lives are because the human body simply is not built for that sort of size. My article speaks for itself. People who lack proper training often misunderstand and misinterpret ancient art, but the fact remains, aside from weak attempts at internet hoaxes, there is no evidence for a race of giant humans. Period.
You are an arrogant SOB that assumes you know it all!!! You are part of the problem with the way children and uninformed adults think about things. You speak as though you know things that anyone with a tiny piece of a brain knows firva fact that know one knows with 100% certainty. I disagree with your assumptions but at the same time I don’t claim to know anything with certainty unless I’ve experienced it myself. Some people think everything came out of Nothing. And somehow an explosion from nowhere set everything flying around, bumping into whatever came out the explosion until all that we see is the way it is. That makes sense to some people and that’s ok. To me, that philosophy is like a hurricane blowing over an airplane junkyard and after it’s blown over it for a few billion years then one day you end up with a brand new 737 passenger jet, perfectly put together, painted, all the wires, etc….. in place and ready to fly! I personally believe that is the most redicilous theory I’ve ever heard. Santa Claise is way more plausible! I don’t believe in Santa but I do believe in a Creator that has just always been and always will be. It makes more sense than pinball from nothing!
Wow, that was an angry rant. Feel better now? It seems at least 90% of the commenters who disagree with me like to scream a lot but never seem to get around to addressing any of the points I make or the evidence I present. What’s the point, just in a bad mood and need to vent? Okay, then, I don’t mind too much. But you realize, do you not, that you haven’t done anything to affect my argument? It stands as is. Are you saying you believe in ancient giants? If so, just say it. I can’t say much more because you haven’t addressed the argument, but I’ll close with two final points. First, I’m not an atheist myself, although I don’t know why that would even be relevant. And second, Santa Claus is absolutely real!