The Great Pyramids: Engineering AND Civic marvels?

me ^ | 02/25/01 | BradyLS

[BradyLS]

Moderators: Pure fluff, I suppose, remove if you really think it necessary.

But I'd like to ask FReepers what sort of society it was that built the Great Pyramids. Were the workers really slaves? Paid laborers? What sort of technology did they have to create them? Could such lasting monuments on a massive scale be built today? Should they be? Could we build a better one faster?

One resource I have states that it took 100,000 builders working on average 3-4 months each 30 years to build Cheop's Pyramid alone. Some suggest there may still be hidden chambers.

And there is no (or is there?) common agreement on what the Pyramid(s) were for. One of the most compelling I've read is that, whatever else, an added benefit was their use as permanent surveyor's reference points that towered above all the surrounding buildings and monuments and could be used to quickly resurvey boundary lines eliminated by the annual Nile floods.

But how sophisticated was the culture that built it? How "free" were the people in that time? What would compel them to partake in such a difficult underaking when the physical and mechanical hurdles were so much more daunting than they are today with our modern engineering methods and equipment.

What started me on this jag was watching CHARLETON HESTON play Ancient Egyptian Architect and supervise the placement of one of Ramses monuments in The Ten Commandments. I'd seen the scene repeated many times when I realized that, even if they had an army of willing slaves, erecting such monuments in those times required immense skill as an architect, engineer, leader, and motivator.

[BradyLS]

Good books to read and current theories welcome, too.

[hole_n_one]

Careful there...........

You're coming dangerously close to giving the term vanity post a good name.

[SamAdams76]

I read that they paid the workers in beer.

When do I start?

[hole_n_one]

Last thing I read was that their failure to take into account the earth's rotation forver ruined was is supposed to be quite a light show.

[Russell Scott]

Read the books by Adam Rutherford titled Pyramidology. He is considered the foremost authority on the subject. The Great Pyramid is often referred to as "the Bible in Stone". That is why the capstone is missing, along with the 144,000 casing stones. Here is a great web site for more information.

Great Pyramid Site

[Doctor Stochastic]

Most of this is well known. Paid workers. Any good encyclopædia will explain things.

Time laughs at all things, except the pyramids.

[razorback-bert]

Are you copying _Jim's sentence structure?

[hole_n_one]

That was quite ugly, wasn't it?

[hole_n_one]

Joe E.....you're a riot!

[MississippiMan]

I recently saw the most plausible theory I've ever heard concerning how the pyramids were built, and I'm amazed that it hasn't been thought of far, far sooner. Much ado has always been made over the incredible precision of the stones, so perfectly mated that a razor blade won't fit between them, etc. Seems all but impossible that such stones could have cut with the available technology, then moved into place precisely.

What if they were never cut? What if they were POURED? It would explain dang near everything, the fit, how the stones got to those heights, etc., etc., etc. Some researcher is claiming that the stones are actually a type of mortar mix that was poured into molds that sat right on top of the next lower layer, which would certainly explain the precise fit of one stone to another. It also erases the mammoth task of moving huge stones to those heights. It's a very interesting theory and I think quite possibly the right one.

MM

[Gladwin]

Wasn't conscript labor used in ancient times also? I.e., the king goes to a village and drafts 100 laborers for a fixed period of time in exchange for that village not having to pay taxes.

On the history channel, there was a program that stated that the pyramids were the stars in a constellation.

[FreeLibertarian]

Do you have a link to info on the theory? I remember reading about the theory about 25 years ago.

[MississippiMan]

Do you have a link to info on the theory? I remember reading about the theory about 25 years ago.

No, sorry. And here I sit now LOL at myself for thinking this was a recently hatched theory. Oh well...

MM

[VERITAS25]

The most plausible theory is that the blocks were cast in molds. This argument is fully develdoped in a book by a Dr. Joseph Davidovits entitled "The Pyramids," Dorset Press, 1988. ISBN 0-88029-555-4. He cites that "lift lines" show in the blocks that were caused by their being filled in two successive pours. What the Egyptians had was not the magic of levitating huge blocks, but the discovery of concrete.

[zeugma]

I saw that show you mentioned on the history channel. The constellation mentioned was Orion. The line-up of the major pyramids is uncanny. It still doesn't explain all the reasonings behind building the darn things at all, but does explain placement.

[Mortimer Snavely]

I imagine that the pyramid would have taken far fewer than the thousands and thousands of people to build commonly imagined, and the time involved would have been much shorter than the 20 years bandied about. Since the top narrows as it gets taller, the building surface gets smaller as the structure gets bigger.

As for moving megaliths up the slope, a large counter weight system would haul them up rather quickly. No aliens, no New Age ancient Egyptian mystical cosmic silliness, and most importantly, no expensive wars or press gangs to seize the slaves commonly supposed. It would have been much cheaper to hire a bunch of folks, and then keep firing more and more of them as the thing got taller and taller.

[droid]

Graham Hancock, author of "Fingerprints of the Gods" and "The Message of the Sphinx," has a web site with an interesting and active message board. Both Hancock and his co-author on a couple of books, Robert Bauval, often post there. Enjoy.

http://www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/list.php?f=1