It’s Only A Number Take 2

October 2023 was an innocent time in America. A surprised Kevin McCarthy was booted from his job as Speaker of the House, and Jim Jordan, believing he would do much better, was elated to get the nomination. That same month, People Magazine reported that, while Taylor Swift and Kelce sure seemed like an item, an insider source said that they were “still just getting to know each other” and that “it’s nothing too serious.” The insider added that “the pair hadn’t yet defined their relationship” and that “He is a charming guy.” While Mike Pence ended his campaign for the Republican nomination, approximately 123 others were still in the mix.

It would have been totally understandable then, if most sentient people completely missed a paper published in the Archaeological Prospection during that same month. Its central claim was that a pyramid lying beneath the prehistoric site of Gunung Padang in West Java, Indonesia, might have been constructed as far back as 27,000 years ago.

If you don’t know much about pyramids, other than that they are pointy and mostly in Egypt, you wouldn’t know that the absolute oldest verified pyramids in the world, the Djoser Step Pyramid of Saqqara, Egypt, and the Caral Pyramids of Caral, Peru, are only 2800 and 2900 years old. Exact dating of pyramids is possible, but a bit complicated. Life in the Boomer Lane actually started to research pyramid dating techniques, but was distracted by the next question in the list, titled “How to Fly First Class for the Price of Economy.” One can understand why she never got back to pyramid dating.

But, If its supposed age is true, this newly discovered pyramid would be 20 times as ancient as the current record holders. Vlad Putin, sole owner of Russia and allegedly the wealtiest man on the planet, has been estimated to have approximately $200 billion dollars. That’s like saying that some random person was suddenly discovered to have $4000 billion dollars, and owned at least two entire galaxies.

Needless to say, much of the scientific community has been a wee bit skeptical about the 4700 number. And numbers, in spite of mathematical theory, as we all know now, can pesky little critters to pin down. When mathematical theory is out of the house, it’s Party Time for the the little numbers. They go wild, inflating and deflating themselves, based on whatever their little friends want the result to be.

About the only person happy about this number buhaha is Biden, who has been relieved that someone other than himself has been the topic of age. As an answer to the skeptics, the authors of the paper wrote that they had “compelling evidence of a complex and sophisticated megalithic site.” Using seismic tomography, the researchers have come to believe that hidden cavities or chambers exist, showing the “presence of multi-layer constructions.”

This brings us to February 2024, in which Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have made it very clear that they are well beyond the “Getting to know You” stage of relationship development. We have yet another Speaker of the House, and there remain only two GOP hopefuls. In addition, some of the cavites or chambers of the pyramid have begun to be excavated. While nothing concrete has been found yet (no pun intended), LBL understands that a growing number of unnamed parties of interest have demanded to be present at the dig.

A spokesperson for the PAC “Trump Won in 2020 and You Didn’t” has said “We will finally get the vindication we have been after. By our calculation, there are approximately 132 million ballots for Trump being hidden in the pyramid in that place called Java or Something.” When it was pointed out to him that the total number of people who voted in 2020 was about 159 million, he responded, “Exactly. That’s exactly what we are talking about. Case closed.”