The Great Pyramids: Engineering AND Civic marvels?

One of the most interesting sites I've visited regarding Cheops Pyramid is one dedicated to the Upuaut Project, which was a semi private exploration venture adminisistered by a German engineering firm and the Egyptian agency in charge of the the Pyramids. Anyway, in exchange for setting up a low-maintenance ventalating system to reduce the humiduty within Cheop's Pryamid, the Egyptians allowed a handful of German engineers to use a serious of remote-controlled robots to investigate the "air-shafts leading out of the King's and Queen's chambers. You can read all about it here:

http://www.cheops.org/

SOme of the major discoveries:

• The airshafts leading from the Queen's chamber do not, it appears, lead to the surface of the pyramid. One shaft is closed off with fully dressed and finished block that is wider and taller than the shaft and contains what appears to be two copper fittings. Speculation is that the fittings join to form a handle on the opposite side, leading to further speculation that a chamber may exist on the far side of the block. We may never know.

• Another shaft from the Queen's chamber turns sharply west and continues in that direction for many meters. The robots were unable to continue in this direction. Detritus from previous expeditons were found here.

• Both shafts leading from the King's chamber lead to open air beyond the surface of the pyramid.

• Similar shafts in Khephren's Pyramid only extend a few inches into the mass of thhat pyramid.

The site also marvels at what a terrific pain the abckside it was for the engineers to put those "airshafts" into Cheop's Pyramid. Each segment within each shaft is composed of two blocks: One to serve as the floor of the shaft, the other resting on top with the shaft perfectly grooved into the block and adjoining the next segment. All these segments start from deep inside the Pyramid to points outside or other points deep within the Pyramid. This means that the Masonry that composes the mass of the Pyramid had to be cut and dressed with other stones to accomadate the shafts.

It's stuff like that that make me wonder what would drive these builders to solve such complex problems.

One interesting thought that occurred to me about the pyramids is that they might me massive public works projects that kept a large population in the heart of the empire highly skilled in engineering, transportation, victualing, administration, training, management, physical labor, logistics... You see where I'm going: It allowed the Egyptians to have a reserve army skilled in the many needed talents of a professional standing army without the need of actually having one. VIPs from neighboring lands would see the well drilled, skilled, disciplined, and led Egyptian citizenry and understand that every single person working on the Pyramids could be called into the Pharoah's Army. After learning trades while working on the Pyramids, workers could then employ their talents in private business endeavors. All in all, working on the Pyramids may have served the function of volunteering (or being drafted) for the Army, learning a skill, and getting gainful employment/starting a business with your newfound skills. (Well, why not?)

I heard it as, "Time laughs at all things, except the Pyramids. The Pyramids laugh at time."

Another great Pyramid truism, "It's not so much how the ancient Egyptians built the Pyramids, as how the Pyramids built ancient Egypt."

"You must learn to conquer your fears, or..."

"Or.. what? What? 'Your fears will conquer you?' Is that what you were going to say?"

(Shamefacedly) "Not...necessarily..." -- (scene from) Mystery Men :-D

Great theory! That sure sounds like the way to do it to me! I would think that making concrete blocks would solve a lot of problems. But can't they examine the blocks that are exposed and answer that definitively? I seem to recall reading that quarries were found that matched the kind of limestone and granite found at the Pyramids. Still, I would think they would understand the concept behind making concrete if they can cut and haul megaliths. Then again, one wonders if someone didn't set down and do the math and figured it was easier (in time and energy and the available tools and technology) to cut and pull the stones around than it was to grind them down and reconstitute the same mass someplace else.

Then every one of the thousands of civil engineers who have made a pilgrimage to them would have shouted "they're made of cement!"

That's exactly what several are now saying, that the "rock" is an early form of concrete that wasn't seen as such because it's very different from today's concrete.

I'm no engineer, mind you, just passing along a theory I heard that happened to make good common sense from a layman's perspective.

MM

The book has been out of print for years but is well worth hunting down. Oriental Despotism by Karl August Wittfogel, who was a history professor at Columbia during the 50's.

The thesis he created is called Hydraulic Despotism. Ancient societies that were based on huge irrigation systems like Egypt, China, the Fertile Crescent, the Indus River, etc. developed a kind of proto-totalitarian structure. You see, a society that developed wet agriculture could grow more grain, raise more taxes, grow a larger population than neighboring rainfall agriculture societies. So with better organization, more people, more soldiers, more grain, etc it could simply muscle its way until it controlled a huge area. To administer the water, to maintain dikes and canals and bridges and sluice gates, it had a privileged mandarin class of bureaucrat engineers. It had the kind of bureaucratic reach to plan and organize on a colossal scale. After all, a state which could plan and organize the conscription of peasant forced labor to maintain irrigation systems could also use that labor for roads, fortresses, palaces, Great Walls, Hanging Gardens, Pyramids, etc. So all that engineering and administrative expertise didn't just spring up from nowhere. It had been honed for centuries on water control.