Pyramids???? How were they built?

[Mantis747 1]

The Pyramids..........One of the worlds greatest wonders, if not the worlds greatest wonder.  Standing in the plains of Egypt.  But there is one big question surrounding these great structures.....how ere they built?

Many experienced professianals have tried to re-build the pryamids how the egyptians built them, but unfortunatley they can't get it right.

what info have you got on these great structures?

I am totally fascinated by them!

[Learnin' The Hard Way 0]

Slaves... Lots of Slaves.

[Praetorian Cohort 0]

The aliens helped them.

[Duke87 1,070]

There are lots of theoreies out thee, some more accepted than others.

Generally, we can say:

-they would buid upward just with the main structural blocks. They would use earthen ramps and roll the blocks up them on logs. After topping out, they would then start applying the limestone casing rom the top down (most of this limestone casing is long gone now).

There are troubles here, though. Documents have been found stating that straight ramps were used facing the river. However, if straight ramps were used with a managable grade, the ramps would have exceeded the banks of the nearby Nile. Due to this, some have speculated that the ramps spiraled up around the pyramid. Logically, this would make more sense.

-it is a common misconception that slave labor was used in the construction. All of the "slaves" were in fact men from all over the kingdom, required to anually perform some work for the state as a sort of tax. This was done during the dry season, after the crops were harvested, but before and during the Nile's annual flood. The rest of the year, ythey were all home working on their farms.

-most sources will place the construction of the pyramids at about 2500 BC. However, there is evidence that they may date as far back as 6500 BC: the star shafts. The shafts out of the pyramids were a mystery for a while. It had been hypothesized that they pointed toward some significant point in the sky, but there was nothing where they pointed. Then, someone did a study and found that in about 6500 BC, the shafts would have pointed directly at Polaris (the North Star) and another significant star in the sky (I forget which) on the Summer Solstice. The trouble here is that the kings which the pyramids are commonly attributed to were rulers around 2500 BC. Not only that, but in 6500 BC, little is known about what would have been going on in that part of the world besides the fact that Nile Valley Agriculture had not yet developed (that would start around 5000 BC). Given that, it is unlikely that there would have been an estabished civilization in the area. This, however, has only fueled the theory of a "Lost Society of Egypt", existing from about 10000 to 5000BC in the Nile Valley, who were surprisingly technologically advanced for their time, but who inexplicably vanished without a trace about 5000BC.

-The faces of the pyramids are almost perfectly aligned with the cardinal directions, to a degree of precision hard to reproduce even today. Given that the ancient Egyptians (as far as we know) lacked any understanding of algebra or trigonometry, this is absolutely stunning. What they did know, however, was the factg that in a right triangle  x2+y2=z2. Today we call this the Pythagorean Theorem. However, Pythagoras was a greek philosopher would not be born for another 2000 years (assuming the 2500BC construction date)

-the great pyramind would have been the tallest building in the world for at least 4400 years. The first building to surpass its height would be the Woolworth Building in New York City, completed in 1913.

-The pyramids were one of the  famed "Seven Wonders of the World", now more commonly refered to as the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World". The others were The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (who some historians claim never actually existed but was merely a grand plan of legend), The Statue of Zeus (in the Temple of Zeus, feature in the movie Hercules), the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (designed by an architect named Mausolus, the first ever 'Mausolem'), the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Pharos of Alexandria (a great lighthouse which could claim to be the worlds seccond talest building until it collapsed into the harbor in an earthquake ca. 1500 AD), and the Colossos of Rhodes (a 100 foot tall bonze statue of the sun god Helios which adorned Rhodes Harbor). Of them all, only the Pyramids still exist.

[Micah 16]

Uhhh... well, let's just say it involves 'Stargate SG-1'.

[M-SIL 2]

The use of (ancient) physics, slaves, ramps, rock-carrying boats and a bunch of other stuff.

[smirkazor 1]

exactly what i was gona say micah, SG-1 pyramids being huge spaceship landing pads!!!!!!! the most logical explanation of them all

[Micah 16]

^ Yup. Didn't SG-1 blow up the pyramids? haha. Anyways.

[sendarrow 3]

I was watching the TV the other day, I think it was The History Channel or Discovey Channel...they said that they were not any slaves working because it was a privilege for the citizens to please their kings... and build such spectaculars tumbs.

[obliq 0]

I have a problem with the ramp concept.

As dirt is piled on the weight of successive layers would hold the lower layers in place, but the angle of the pyramids is too steep for a dirt ramp spiraled around the pyramid to hold. It would slough at the edges of the ramps and down to the ground (watch a dump truck dump its load sometime). They could have applied water to the faces of the ramps and let it bake in the sun, but I doubt that would've held.

Twenty-ton blocks of limestone or seventy-ton blocks of red granite would sink into the dirt ramp as they are dragged along. Also one block would have to be dragged to the top of the ramp by the end of the day or left on a level landing. Otherwise it would settle overnight into the dirt or slide off the ramp. Who wants to come out the next day and find a twenty-ton block at the bottom of the pyramid only to have to drag it back up two-hundred feet of ramp?

The site at Giza was prepared for the pyramids. All the top soil down to the bedrock was removed and the site was leveled. This prevents settling in the structure by placing it on something solid and immobile.

My hypothesis is that ramps were not used in the construction of the pyramids. I would say the concept of levers or leverage was used. Not actual levers, but the concept.

A placed block might have been used as a fulcrum to a moving block as a lever. The moving block might have been pulled up each successive level of placed blocks and then nudged into place, all using nothing more than ropes possibly.

Another possiblity I came up with was something I saw a couple of movers do when they were moving my four-hundred pound washer and dryer. Straps were threaded under the machine. The straps had loops at the end which the movers put their arms through. Using their legs with the weight of the machine distributed between four shoulders, they lifted the machine with little effort. It would be possible to drag a block into a staging area positiioned over ruts in the ground so that rope could be threaded underneath it. Two equal teams of men on either side of the block would take the rope over their shoulders and stand up possibly lifting the block. Drivers would be needed to coordinate and direct the teams.

It's all really difficult to say because there is no written record of how the Great Pyramids were built. We can only guess.

[mayormommy 8]

Right, there was that reality tv meets science tv series a few years ago where a group of historians and engineers tried to reproduce various ancient structures - the pyramids, Easter Island moais, an Inca temple, Stonehenge, the colliseum's wooden roof, and most interestingly, a working trebuchet (catapult).  I think only the trebuchet and the Inca temple efforts were truly successful. The bickering between the historians and the engineers was amusing, but occasionally some perceptive ideas came out from both sides.

I went to the pyramids in 1984 and I assure you that no photograph can do justice to their size. The individual blocks are at least as tall as me. I would not go inside for fear of claustrophobia - too much apparent weight pushing down on me.

EDIT: Oh, I replied the same time as obliq. Anyway, the conclusion from that show was that ramps were used for the lower levels, and then levers were used higher up as ramps became impractical. But that is still just a theory based on a small reproduction. I think perhaps the show's participants sometimes lacked the willpower (or overseers with whips) that the original builders had.

[jackel.22 3]

Slaves... Lots of Slaves.

actually this has been proven to be incorrect. the mass use of slaves would only have led to bad workmanship and escape attempts. which would mean there would have to be a load of other guards present ramming up costs.

most experts now conclude that ordinary farmers when there were no crops to harvest would work half a year on the pyramids, then for the other half attend the farmland.

ofcourse  there were professionals employed that  didnt work on farms, but im just saying that the old theory of slaves is incorrect.

[jackel.22 3]

ramps could have worked..... the thing you have to remember is that the blocks were on rollers and if they were kept on the move with little time just standing still they could have made it up there without the blocks sinking into the ramp.

also remember that the ramps would have been built on the blocks on the level below so they wouldnt be completely earth, they would have had teh previous layer of blocks as a base.

[Constantina 5]

Well, I heard that the pyramids were made with a help of some experts, and not all workers were slaves. I am aware that wheels were rarely used in egypt, but the did use an early form of it, in a form of logs.