[discostu]

It probably wouldn't have handled 200 tons scaled up, most woods don't maintain a nice curve of strength increase with size increase (like twice as big isn't usually twice as strong). Luckily they didn't have to. I just provided that example to show what a pulley can do (if you've ever looked in the elevating section of a crane you can see the pulley system that's doing all the work, admittedly these are much better pullies than the Egyptians had to work with, but it's a conceptual thing, what can a pulley accomplish). The biggest estimates I've seen for pyramid blacks was 80 tons, and that was just for some of the base blocks. The general concensus is most blocks were in the 2 to 3 ton range. The fun thing with pullies though is the different ways you can configure them, you can lay it out so multiple pullies share the load. If you set up for seperate pulley systems united only by pulling the same block they each will only be hauling 1000 (we'll take low end estimates for ease of math) pounds. Or if you've got the manpower you don't even need pullies. If you connect 10 ropes to 1 block and put 4 people on each rope each person is hauling 100 pounds, each rope gets 400. That's not an outrageous load, heck in by youth when I worked fast food I'd carry 100 pounds of meat upstairs every morning setting up for transition to lunch.

The biggest problem becomes friction on the ground/ ramp. Gotta have some sort of wheel or roller or lubricant, especially when on the ground, that sand can be really annoying stuff. Gotta avoid the drag that will dramatically increase the effective weight of the stones. But there are very low tech solutions to that: logs, water, grease.

[Dan Day]

The biggest problem becomes friction on the ground/ ramp. Gotta have some sort of wheel or roller or lubricant, especially when on the ground, that sand can be really annoying stuff. Gotta avoid the drag that will dramatically increase the effective weight of the stones. But there are very low tech solutions to that: logs, water, grease.

It's also possible to strap wooden or stone "cradles" to the giant blocks which in effect "round them off" temporarily, at which point you can just roll them up the ramp with almost zero friction by running a rope or ropes down the slope, under the block, up the back side, over the top, and then back up the slope. Pull on the top of the rope, and the block simply rolls nicely up the ramp.

Discussed, and with pictures, here