Monthly Archives: May 2006

Egyptian experts back pyramid theory?

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Latest news seems to suggest we have a pyramid!

“Leading geologists from Egypt have confirmed that the pyramidal structure discovered near the town of Visocica is indeed a pyramid. Dr Aly Abd Barakat (an expert on Egyptian pyramids) visited two areas of excavation – the north and east faces – at the structure, which is now known as the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun. His conclusions about the blocks on the eastern face is that they are of a similar construction to those found in Egyption pyramids – the blocks are handmade and polished; in Egypt, stones were polished to reflect the sunlight. Barakat also believes that the blocks, 4m x 1.5m in size, were brought here from a different location. Some of the blocks in the eastern face of the pyramid have been laid on top of each other, to a depth of four blocks.

“This gives some indication of the massive size of the ancient construction. After studying excavations on the north side of the pyramid, Barakat concludes that the blocks here are handmade and have been created using a mould to form the blocks, which consist of an ancient ‘concrete’-like mix. He also noticed a white line some 0.5cm thick between the blocks, indicating a cement-like substance has been used to adhere the blocks together. A similar method has been seen in the construction of the Egyptian pyramids. Barakat went on to visit another excavation site located at the base of Pljesevica Hill, which is named the Bosnian Pyramid of the Moon.

“He concludes that the ‘steps’ that form the sides of this pyramid are made by human hands. Some 20m above this part of the excavations, he noticed a large number of blocks placed symetrically, proving they too are man-made.”

Education platform/s & wikis

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Was sent this by a Queen’s Award winning education software vendor today (thanks Andy). In case it’s of value to others I have reproduced the introduced to this study by Futurelab below on wikis in schools. It’s obviously a growing market:

“Wikis have been heralded as one of a number of new and powerful forms of software capable of supporting a range of collaborative ventures and learning activities. This paper addresses the potential uses of wikis – online editable websites – as learning tools in schools. It places wikis in the context of current relevant literature about collaborative learning, summarising major theories of learning in communities and knowledge-building in networked groups. It also looks briefly at the trends in the wider area of ‘social software’, of which wikis are just one example. Using wikis in school is explored further through a short-term ‘case study’ in a UK secondary school. The literature and research background is used to analyse some of the emerging issues surrounding using wikis in the classroom highlighted through this case study. This paper looks both at the affordances of the technology itself and the wider context of the classroom, and offers some provisional conclusions about the potential of using wikis to support collaborative learning in schools.”