Riddle of the Pyramids: Why De Mille didn't need all those slaves

The Observer ^ | Sunday December 30, 2001 | Paul Webster in Paris

[tet68]

Yes,I had a friend visit some years ago and he said the same thing.

Will they say the same of us in 2000 years?

[savedbygrace]

This is actually an old theory, its been debunked repeatedly.

Sources, please? (I'm willing to believe you, but I want to see it first, please.)

[ruoflaw]

ROTFLOL! I will take your word about the "amazing feeling" after you climbed into the sarcaphogaus! I had a vivid picture of you looking around and jumping inside.

[RightWhale]

us who built the Sphinx?

The Sphinx was originally an outcropping of a type common in Egypt, weathered with a head. It was carved to the head of a lion, a common animal of the region at the time. Later the muzzle was chopped off so the face of the pharoah of the day could be carved in its stead, even though it destroyed the proportions of the entire sphinx. Later, the rest of the body of the lion was excavated and carved and blocked. The current face was carved probably 4000 years ago, but the Sphinx was already ancient by then.

[Merovingian]

Ken, for chrissakes what gives with your hostility toward the French.......Check your dna, it's the same....

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[blam]

Thanks for the ping. I have heard this idea before. It will be interesting if this stuff turns out to be concrete/mortar.

[Thinkin' Gal]

Psalms 118:22 The stone [which] the builders refused is become the head [stone] of the corner.

head of the corner (l'rosh pinnah) = 666

[is_is]

Here's theory for you.....God created Adam and Eve perfectly and they lived in a perfect enviroment....until Eve messed things up (that's for another discussion lol). Now we know that man, today, only uses approx. 10% of his brain capacity. Coming out of the "perfect" garden of eden Adam and his decendants would have been using close to 100% of brain capacity. Look at what modern man has done while only using 10% of his brain, now imagine what Adam and his first decendant generations could have figured out using a majority their brain.

This is predicated on my belief that once man left the garden and evil crept in we became a degenerative race, physically, as well as intellecually. The difference between perfection and imperfection in the enviroment alone is probably more than we can fathom. It would be hard to fathom intelligence in man beyond ours because we only have what we have to think with.

Building the pyramids may not have been that big a deal to them......Noah built a pretty large boat that he was give the dimensions for but to my knowledge God did not give him blueprints.....he had to be a pretty smart guy himself.....

[Yeti]

One can even make free-standing continuous-cast concrete objects with minimal forming, simply by slip-casting. Silos are made that way.

Funny you should mention "slip-cast" or, as we say in the biz, "slip-form."

Not two weeks ago I was pumping concrete at the new Holnam Cement plant near Harleyville, SC.

They are building some really BIG silos there. Slip forms--one continuous pour, no cold joints. No small task. A dedicated miniature concrete batch plant on site mixing concrete 24 hrs a day for weeks at a time.

Kinda cool, but the mining aspect of the operation is not pretty.

Yeah, the Egyptians formed the blocks of the pyramids in situ, similar to what was done on Easter Island. And how did those Incas REALLY get their stones to fit so perfectly?

Whatever they did with granite, it works better than concrete, which is much weaker than most folks suppose. If I had the patent...

[Yeti]

One can even make free-standing continuous-cast concrete objects with minimal forming, simply by slip-casting. Silos are made that way.

Funny you should mention "slip-cast" or, as we say in the biz, "slip-form."

Not two weeks ago I was pumping concrete at the new Holnam Cement plant near Harleyville, SC.

They are building some really BIG silos there. Slip forms--one continuous pour, no cold joints. No small task. A dedicated miniature concrete batch plant on site mixing concrete 24 hrs a day for weeks at a time.

Kinda cool, but the mining aspect of the operation is not pretty.

Yeah, the Egyptians formed the blocks of the pyramids in situ, similar to what was done on Easter Island. And how did those Incas REALLY get their stones to fit so perfectly?

Whatever they did with granite, it works better than concrete, which is much weaker than most folks suppose. If I had the patent...

[savedbygrace]

Though I agree with your base premise that one result of the fall was degeneracy, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

However, this "we only use 10% of our brain capacity" thing is bunk. How that was figured was on total possible nerve firings. As if there would EVER be a reason for anyone's brain to fire all nerves simultaneously, much less do it 100% of the time. It's silly on its face.

What we lost at the fall was not quantitative brain capacity, but wisdom. God's wisdom. Ironically, we never know that we're lacking wisdom. We all think we're wise. Don't you?

But without the wisdom of God, we think we're wise, all the while being foolish. You'll notice this on both sides of the evolution/creation threads here and elsewhere.

[is_is]

the great thing about theories.....their neither proven nor disproven.......

[www.corvettewave.com]

more Pyramid BS! if they poured stone in place why would they go through trouble to have a separation between the stones? those stones were quaried and stacked, one on top of the other....

[savedbygrace]

Two things I must hasten to say:

1. I wasn't directing the statements with "bunk" and "silly" at you personally. I've heard this line of debate before and I was directing it at the originators of it, not at you.

2. I over-simplified by referring to nerves firing. I was referring to all brain activity, of course.

[Fee]

Just curious. Are you saying that the Pharaohs of the Bible were not entombed in their own pyramids?? What were they buried in??

[razorback-bert]

Valley of the Kings.

[Bernard Marx]

I don't see any reason for people to invent goofy methods of building those things when simple tools easily available at the time can account for them.

I agree with your notions about moving the blocks to the site. But how did they raise them into place? The old idea of a ramp doesn't make sense: I did the calculations once and a ramp would require as much or more material as the pyramid itself, depending on how it was built. I've seen data somewhere about the time required to build the structures. They know how long the workmen were there and if I recall correctly they would have to have put a block in place every 15 minutes or so to get the job done in the time available. I'd love to know the real answers but I doubt they'll be known in my lifetime.

Just for the record, I first read speculation about the blocks being cast in place back in the 1950s. I've never seen anything I consider scientific one way or the other about whether it's true or even possible. That doesn't mean something hasn't been published -- I just haven't seen it although I try to keep up with this stuff. There was also another article I recall that purported to provide evidence of power-driven machinery used in the pyramids' stonemasonry. I'm going to do another search for it -- I'd like to refresh my memory about it.

[Bernard Marx]

The whole question was posed by Lavosier when during Napoleanic occupation of Egypt, the French discovered a finely made quarzite vase thousands of years old from Egypt, which could not be duplicated in 18th century France. He reasoned that it was molded from a plastic mass. Could be. They weren't dumb just limited in their resources.

I agree the ancients weren't dumb -- far from it! But I cut stones for a living (the kind you wear on your person) and I think I know a little about the subject after 40 years. If the material was indeed quartzite it was in all probability natural. I've seen numerous examples of Egyptian glyptic work in hard materials like jasper and other quartz family minerals. There's no doubt in my mind they were carved tediously by hand or with simple muscle-powered machines, using harder stones like corundum sands or even diamonds as abrasives. (Diamonds from the Golconda region of India made their way to the Mediterranean via the Silk Road and its unchronicled predecessor routes. The Romans even had a trade in diamond-tipped tools used in drilling and engraving, but I believe they were available much earlier in Egypt). I doubt the secrets of laboratory hydrothermal quartz deposition were known to anyone at that time, nor can I imagine how a quartzite vase could be "cast."

[austinTparty]

Slave labor was not used to construct the pyramids. NOVA had an interesting piece on this, see here. I know that Nat'l Geographic has also done articles on the worker's villages at the base of the pyramids...