Posted on 01/18/2014 11:21:03 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Peter James believes ancient Egyptians formed the huge tombs by piling up rubble and small rocks on the inside and attaching the large bricks on the outside later rather than using giant blocks carried up ramps.
There's much debate over how the pyramids were buil AN engineer dubbed Indiana James has stunned archaeologists by rubbishing their theories on how the pyramids were built.
Peter James believes ancient Egyptians formed the huge tombs by piling up rubble and small rocks on the inside and attaching the large bricks on the outside later.
His claim challenges hundreds of years of accepted belief that the pyramids were built with giant blocks carried up huge ramps.
The structural engineer, who has spent the past 20 years studying the pyramids, reckons that would be impossible.
He explained: “Under the current theories, to lay the two million stone blocks required the Egyptians would have to have laid a large block once every three minutes on long ramps.
“The pyramids are also so tall that the ramps for the stones would have had to have been at least a quarter of a mile long.
“If that happened, there would still be signs that the ramps had been there, and there aren’t any.”
Peter, who has been an engineer for 54 years, admitted his theory would be controversial.
He said: “I’m going to have a war with archaeologists.
“They will say, ‘How would you know? You’re not an archaeologist.’
“But if you wanted a house built, would you use me or an archaeologist?
“They have never had the engineering experience.”
Peter and his team at Cintec International, based in south Wales, are world leaders in restoring ancient structures and have worked deep inside two pyramids to stop them from collapsing.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyrecord.co.uk ...
I thought it was Al Gore.
There are many secrets...bull doze one and you'll find out how the hell they did it...........for real.
Someone also wrote that the stones are not stones at all but are really concrete blocks that were poured in place.
Joe...I knew it had to be you!!
>>Gravel alone would settle over centuries, and the pyramid would fall inward, or otherwise sag, <<
I know nothing about how pyramids are constructed but is it possible that the exterior stones work similar to the ice blocks of an igloo? The lower stones bear the strain of the constantly inward sloping upper ones?
Your tag line is to close to the truth. It seems to me that the real danger was well camouflaged for a long time. I am just hoping it isn’t to late but I must admit to being somewhat pessimistic about our chances. I will work to change the outcome regardless.
isn’t it true that the pyramids used to be covered in smooth white granite with the very top capstone covered in gold?
That musta been awesome to see
Didn't the ancient grave-robbers who looted the pyramids do exactly that?
A friend of mine was a Dutch Engineer building a sugar mill in Java after WW2. His problem was to get a 60 ton Steam Engine 85 feet into the air to they could slide it on a platform built on a ledge, no crane.
Solution: a log crib, levers, and a lot of people. After seeing photos of the lift I have never doubted what can be done if you throw a lot of people at a job with crude tools.
Cribbing is still used alot in today’s world too. I’ve seen wood cribbing and twenty ton jacks lift some humongous houses off of their foundations.
Yes it is sad to say that I think you are right about my tagline.
However at some point something will happen that no one can control and when it starts it will be like a mighty wave sweeping away all who oppose it’s movement for liberty. We have seen this time and again in recent history. Something will happen and millions of people will just take to the streets, it will almost be as if everyone is hearing an inner voice calling them to freedom.
Or as I wrote several years ago here on FR, “A people unwilling to use extreme violent force to preserve or obtain their liberty deserves the tyrants that rule them.”
Indeed. However there are many who remember and live by the original quote established by the NRA. The one that informs the tyrants what it will take to remove our weapons from us.
I assure you, John Anthony West is not ‘goofy’. He is a credentialed scientist.
I don’t think that they ever caused the kind of damage that would have revealed the inner construction. They stuck to the chambers where the treasure was.
We have two related issues here.
Firstly, the walls of a self-supporting arch (an igloo is just a revolved arch) should be somewhat parabolic, otherwise they do not survive. (In this case we have to assume that the exterior walls are self-supporting.) Flat, angled walls will fall inward. Vertical walls will fall outward. It takes some good eye, or tensor calculus, to find the solution that does not load the stones horizontally. Exterior walls of the pyramid are not capable of supporting themselves; they exert tremendous pressure inward, compressing whatever is inside. If that material inside were to be compressible, such as loose gravel (no vibration packers in Egypt!) the middle of the pyramid would fall inward. This is not observed; in fact, this is the most stable part of the pyramid.
Secondly, let's assume that the walls are self-supporting. You can see them in every medieval arch that there is. However there is a big catch. The arch is carefully balanced to counter forces that push on each side of each block. Normally, like in a castle, those forces are known to the architect, and they are not changing. But if the pyramid has loose material inside, over time it will create more dense and less dense areas, and that will unbalance the walls of the arch. Some stones would be pushed out, and other stones would be tilting and falling in. This is not observed.
There is a related thought. If you assume that the pyramid is filled with gravel, at that scale the gravel acts like a fluid. The law of pressure at depth will then apply: pressure = weight_density * depth. This immediately tells us that the lower layers of pyramid's walls would burst out from the pressure at the ground level, as all that gravel would be squirted out. At the same time, the pressure at the upper layers would be negligible. This is why a gravel-filled wall has to be self-supporting. Modern filled walls only need to contain vertical columns of light artificial ceramic, and the CMUs are designed for that.
It's even possible that as you fill the gravel up, in a column, at some point the weight of the gravel above will crush the gravel below, compacting it into a fine dust, and later into solid stone. This will result in significant reduction of volume - and then you get voids and cave-ins. Worse still, it may take decades and centuries to fully settle, so there is no chance of invoking the warranty.
The Central American pyramids are built this way, rubble covered with a facing. You want to enlarge it, more rubble and more facing.
Thanks for posting an explanation that was simple to comprehend.
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