Architect Claims to Solve Pyramid Secret

Alreadybutnotyet writes "A French architect claimed Friday to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid of Khufu was built — with use of a spiral ramp to hoist huge stone blocks into place. The construction of the Great Pyramid 4,500 years ago by Khufu, a ruler also known as Cheops, has long befuddled scientists as to how its 3 million stone blocks weighing 2.5 tons each were lifted into place. 'The most widespread theory had been that an outer ramp had been used by the Egyptians, who left few traces to help archeologists and other scientists decode the secret to the construction. Houdin said he had taken into account the copper and stone tools available at the time, the granite and limestone blocks, the location of the pyramid and the strength and knowledge of the workers.'"

No shortage of sand in Egypt

[flyingfsck]

The sphynx was covered to its neck in blown in sand not so long ago. Some other buildings bear evidence of using sand to cover the site as they built up with rough stone, then as they dug it out again, the stones were dressed nicely from the top down. Egyptians are used to sand - it is everywhere - there is no shortage of it. This architect clearly could not see the forest for all the sand...

Simple calculation -- one block every 100 seconds

[Jeff1946]

Let's see 3,000,000 blocks / (365*20)days = 420 blocks/day. Assuming an average of 12hrs of daylight we get 35 blocks an hour which is about 100 seconds / block. Just the cutting and shaping this many blocks with simple tools is amazing, not to mention transporting then raising them. A truly astounding feat.

Re:Feasible...

[Michael Woodhams]

It looks like a gimick to get people to download their 3D viewing software (but I'm not sure, as I'm on Linux/Firefox, so all I know is that the required plugin is not available for me.) At least, that is the interest of the hosting company - the architect story may be legitimate.

Re:History Channel

[ravenshrike]

And none of this explains the many anomalies within the pyramid. Or the fact that the only stones that have been dated from the pyramid have been from the sheathing, which may or may not be the same age as the rest of the pyramid itself. Or why when the anomalies were to be fully explored the egyptian government shut down outside exploration of the pyramid.

Geopolymer Concrete

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a better explanation that this, and its been around for about ten years. (another) French theorist, Joseph Davidovitz, has shown how the Kufu pyramid could have been made of a limestone polymer: a kind of concrete. His theory has the blocks being cast in reusable molds, in situ, rather than carved or moved.

All the mineral materials were nearby and easily mined. Given enough skilled teams, blocks could have easily been cast in place at what we now consider an astonishing rate. It also explains why the joints between the blocks are perfectly fitted. Transportation costs could have been kept low, because only small batches of material needed to be moved at a time: in relay chains rather than massive hauling projects.

http://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids/are -pyramids-made-out-of-concrete-1 [geopolymer.org]

Incidentally, It's no surprise that the French are always coming out with theories on the Pyramids. They invented Egyptology during the Napoleonic era.

Re:History Channel

[Spy Hunter]

If they built the ramp inside the pyramid, it is probably still there. So if we find it, we can in fact claim to have "solved" the mystery. And if we look for it thoroughly without finding any traces, we can probably rule out the idea. This theory is better than the average pyramid construction theory because it *is* actually falsifiable.

Re:History Channel

[stonecypher]

Yeah, or you could just watch the history channel special where a bunch of modern people did it using no modern tools, in order to show that it was in fact quite possible.

I wonder which part of piling sand onto the side of rocks in the desert you think couldn't be handled by tens of thousands of slaves over the course of decades. Is it the finding the sand? The moving it? I mean, is it also difficult for ancient people to get saltwater at the coast? Wood in the forest, perhaps?

For every person that remembers how much work it is to move a bunch of sand, I'll show you a person who forgets just how many slave-years were put towards shit like this back then. The pyramids were how Egypt showed social, technological, religious and cultural superiority. They weren't just about kings' egos; they were important tools in establishing position during trade, in scaring slaves into not rebelling, and so on. In the age where a two story house seems unlikely, man-made mountains are no joke.

When you hear ten thousand slaves for 25 years, it's not an exaggeration. Do you really think that this is more than 250,000 slave-hours? There are entire support towns excavated around the base of most of the pyramids; these things were obviously engineered from the perspective of city planners. It's no simple matter to coordinate, feed and home 10k people today, let alone when rocks still seem like a good thing to make weapons from.

They weren't just sitting around playing hackeysack, y'know.

Re:History Channel

[stonecypher]

250,000 slave years, not hours. Sigh. Much more impressive that way. If you lay the slaves end to end like one of those M&Ms from Los Angeles to New York things, you'd get a line of unbroken work stretching back to the seperation between H. heidelbergensis (barely apes) and H. rhodesiensis (barely human.) That's almost exactly the time where neanderthals and homo sapiens split apart.

So yeah, much more impressive that way.

A great theory...if crushing workers isnt an issue

[Anonymous Coward]

now who wants to test the theory out by chipping away under a 2.5 ton block until its just balanced on its corner just right to rotate it.. perfectly balanced... up the stairway...

personally if i was a rich arrogant king Id just cover each level in salt and then wash it away. Damn that would be expensive though...

Re:No shortage of sand in Egypt

[ceeam]

Note that when Pyramids were being built the climate in northern Africa was much different to what it is today. There was no such a huge desert. There was an awful lot of people living in Egypt. And in fact, I read somewhere, that agriculture in northern africa basically fed the whole Roman Empire. Some, BTW, claim that deforestation from this agriculture was the main cause of desertification. Same thing in Iraq, BTW - Babylonians were not leaving in the sand.

Re:History Channel

[Peyna]

I'm curious if this "recent research" is based off of writings that were found? Imagine how the story of how the U.S. got rich would look if the right person wrote it? Slaves from Africa? Nah. How about "professional immigrant craftsmen" working those fields instead?

Re:History Channel

[Peyna]

It sounds as if you want to believe the pyramids were built with slave labor.

No. My point was that we should be careful to rely upon what they wrote down in determining what they did. If this "recent research" is based off of other archeological findings, such as, for example, finding workers' living quarters where they found evidence of them eating food which slaves would not have been permitted to eat, then that might be considered better proof.

My point had nothing to do with whether they were slaves or not---that was just a convenient anology---, but whether we should believe what a particular civilization wrote down as far as what that civilization did. People tend to cast theimselves in a little better light than is warranted.

Re:History Channel

[Blain]

They were never there. The kings they were built for died before they could be completed, so they weren't completed. The kings were buried elsewhere.