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A recent show on the History channel had a guy who is an engineer that was called in to help fix detioriration of one of the pyramids (step?)

His theory was that the quarrying of the stone near the pyramids would have left huge amounts of rubble—and where did it go? His idea is that the pyramids were faced on the outside and the interior filled with sand and rubble from the nearby quarrys. It makes sense from an engineering POV compared to hauling in millions of stones weighing over a ton and placing them at the rate of one every 20 seconds to get the job done in the time alloted. He says the Egyptians were very smart and this is the way they would have done it.

Not saying that’s the way it was done, but it is an intriguing theory. I know some tunnels have been dug into pyramids and found rock, but how far, how deep? Enough to make this theory a “no-go” from the git-go?

I’ve seen something like that around here somewhere... and it might be stiff enough to not sag that much, assuming there were some experience with the technique, and they knew enough to round the mound such that the settling from its own weight would bring the shape into some precision as a pyramid. A look at this very pyramid, the “bent” pyramid (so named because Sneferu’s architect was once told to “get bent”, I dunno, maybe there’s a class in joke writing somewhere) could suggest that approach was actually tried. The problem is, this one merely had its angle changed because of the catastrophic collapse of Sneferu’s first attempt. The third one, the Red Pyramid, is in very good shape today.

A problem of course is, the “Robbers’ Hole”, a shaft that was chewed up through the Khufu pyramid during antiquity, makes a nice angled cross-section through the structure and, you guessed it, no rubble.

rubble:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3113134/posts

humor:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1541448/posts?page=7#7