I found this videoon Youtube offering a hypothesis about how the pyramids were built. Basically, the idea is they floated the blocks up a water-filled tube.
They made a small model that shows the principle. It seems to work OK. But would it work on a large scale, lifting multi-ton blocks hundreds of feet?
Leave aside the archaeological evidence or lack of it for the moment. Just assess the physics.
Link to the point in the 20 minute video with the model.
I’m not a physicist or a mathematician but I’m skeptical that because it works for matches or a small stone block, it would be viable for the large stones used in the construction of the pyramids.
With a big enough tube and big enough floats the physics could be worked out. But the scale of a working, operational device would make it impractical to say the least. Just guessing I’d say the water management issue alone would be harder than dragging the stones around.
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In order to make it work at all, you need airtight seals at the top, and even then it only works about 30’ at a time. Restrict the seals to what they could make with their level of tech, and it’s going to be even less efficient. Honestly, it looks to me like the pyramid-building infrastructure would end up being even more difficult to build than the pyramids themselves.
The use of a water-column is possible another way: put the block plus flotation device at the bottom of the column, seal the bottom, then fill the column with water. There would then be no 30 foot limit. You could have two linked columns to make things go faster: when the stone is removed from the top of one column and the next is placed in the bottom of the other, you let the water flow from the full column to the empty one. Then you only need top up the latter column.
It’s interesting, but I doubt it would scale up. You’d need better seals than I think they had, and I’m not sure what the effect of multi-ton buoyant blocks crashing into your wooden gates would be. You’d need to ensure that the angle of the rise overcame the friction of the floatation devices and blocks so they wouldn’t get stuck or destroy the papyrus/animal hide floats as well. And, basically, I don’t see what this buys you in practical terms wrt lowering the overall labor…you are talking about moving the blocks from the local quarry up to the construction site, but that’s really not that challenging to do with just some ramps, sand and water and some guys with ropes. I didn’t watch the whole video, but the really challenging part of the construction wasn’t moving the stones from the quarry site to the construction site but getting the blocks up once you got the pyramid above about 2/3rds of its final height. That’s where you get into the debate about ramps and the current thought is they used traditional ramps to get it that high then used internal ramps (which there is evidence for) to go the last 1/3.
This video is cool, and would be cool to do, but it wouldn’t really give enough benefit verse the cost…and that assumes they could make the tube and coordinate the buoyant blocks moving upward through the gates, which I doubt they could have done even if they wanted to go through this much effort to do something they could do much simpler with technology that every society used to do the same things.
It was only an 8-meter change in elevation from the quarry/dock site to the construction site…I didn’t think they were saying they would use this all the way up, just as a method to logistically move the blocks from the quarry to the construction area (I didn’t watch the whole video however). If they are saying they would build essentially a dammed enclosure to the height of the pyramid then yeah, that’s not going to happen.
Déjà vu.
I watched a bit more, and, yeah, that wouldn’t have been possible, IMHO. They basically created a water shaft all the way to the top, with a large floatation tank/receiving area for the blocks.
A couple of quick points. Only the outer casing stones and the base were that precise. The inner core outside of some of the inner rooms were often stone and rubble construction with plaster. They would not be doing that level of fitting…it’s how they were able to actually build the things in the lifetime of a single pharaoh. You didn’t need to have anything but the base leveled with water (which is how they did it btw) and some stringer beams (which there is evidence all around the base in the form of square cut holes all around the base). We wouldn’t be talking about smooth plexiglass but instead stone that these floats and blocks would be rising up through, and I seriously doubt that any of them would survive the trip without puncturing…and having one fail would mean it would crash down through your stone tube with tremendous force. Again, it wouldn’t be worth the effort to build something like this.
It is pretty cool, and I can see how this COULD work if you could get around all of the engineering challenges and points of failure, unlike the guy who was proposing cold geysers tossing the stones to the top of the pyramids while Egyptians sat around drinking and laughing and pulling levers. 
Yes I was thinking of this too, the water can actually be flowing down the shaft to some degree and still lift the block. However, how do you get the water at the top to fill it and to keep sending it down?
You carry it up. Probably with a hoist and chain of buckets.
Note that that’s exactly how a canal lock works. It’s a proven technology which has seen practical application in the real world.
There’s also a guy in Michigan who’s single-handedly constructing a full-scale replica of Stonehenge in his backyard, using methods that could have been used by the ancients. He doesn’t swear that they absolutely did use his methods, but they could have. He’s calculated that, using his techniques, a thousand men could have built the Great Pyramid in 30 years.
Right, but then your challenge is moving tons of water uphill, instead of tons of stone. Yeah, it’s easier to move tons of water if you have pumps, because you can’t pump stone. But it’s not all that much easier.
The thing is, everyone is imagining that moving a multi-ton block of stones using only human muscle power is impossibly difficult. But it isn’t. You just need human muscle power and simple machines: levers, pulleys, wheel/axles, inclined planes, wedges and screws. You don’t even need vast numbers of workers, one worker can move a multi-ton block of stone by themselves as long as they use the appropriate mechanical advantage. All it takes is leverage, more people just makes it faster.
Yes, building the Pyramids was an insane amount of work, it took thousands of people working for decades to build just one. But that’s all it takes…thousands and thousands of man-years of physical labor and some levers and rollers and pulleys and inclined planes. Not easy, but simple. and all done in the off seasons between planting and harvesting.
Exactly. I also think that people imagine that the blocks they see either on the outside or in the various rooms represent the entire structure, so they think ‘man, how did they perfectly shape and fit all those millions of blocks!’. However, once you get past the outer shell or in the interior rooms there are tons of gaps and very rough cut blocks with lots of mortar filler and smaller stone fragments…i.e. rubble. It’s one of many methods they used to cut the time and effort. Moving even the largest blocks wouldn’t have been that much of a technical challenge to the Egyptians or any of their contemporaries. Really, the wonder is the logistics support for the workers, which was pretty impressive. The reason most other cultures didn’t build stuff like this was that such a construction was a huge drain on the entire nation, and basically just for a big tomb (that was often robbed shortly after the king was tucked in there with his boodle). Several Chinese dynasties came to bad ends because of elaborate tombs the emps wanted, and it pretty much ended the old kingdom in Egypt. Even less elaborate tombs of later dynasties were a huge drain.
This idea that our ancestors couldn’t have built stuff like this or needed elaborate and complicated methods to do it (like the video in the OP) is just wrong. While the video in the OP is cool, and you could, perhaps, make it work (sort of), you didn’t need to do any of this to actually build the thing…what you needed was basically a willing workforce, the extra resources and logistics to support it, and the willingness to sacrifice the future of your dynasty to build a big tomb for your body to rot in and shiny stuff for grave robbers to swipe.
That’s Wally Wallington. He just uses levers, counterweights, pivots, and other simple machines. Oh, and at one point in the video he uses water to soften the ground and let the stone settle into its proper place. Nothing magical or extraterrestrial about it.
I haven’t done the math but I’m guessing the size (volume) of a bundle of reeds required to float a 15 ton block of stone would be substantial and a limiting factor as well.
[quote=“Lemur866, post:12, topic:801069”]
…(Re: people moving stones) All it takes is leverage, …
Not only leverage but material that can transmit those forces.
Right–like wood and dirt and stuff. If we’re just talking about moving small things like multi-ton stone blocks.
But yeah, if we’re all, “Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world,” then the problem becomes that the lever will bend before you move the world. And also that you couldn’t physically build such a lever. And building the place to stand could be a problem too. So there’s that.
However the ancient Egyptians did have access to wood, and dirt, and rocks, and sand, and plant fibers, and leather, and water, and clay, and even bronze, and so could make all sorts of things like ropes, rollers, levers, beams, jugs, chisels, wedges, and so on.
They didn’t have pumps. They’d have had to haul it up by hand. Not feasible in the quantity they’d need.
They also didn’t have all those things. Specifically, they didn’t have wheels, pulleys, or screws. It’s the lack of the wheel and pulley (and draft animals) that makes it seem like an impossible task to many moderns. So people keep coming up with things like in the OP.
I think the appeal of water-based methods is that water is infinitely frangible. No human can lift a ten-ton block of stone. A few hundred humans working together could… if you could get them all around the stone and lifting at the same time. But if you’re instead lifting ten tons of water, you don’t have to lift it all at once: You can put as much in a bucket as one man can carry, and then just keep making trips until you’ve got enough.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking?
Crazy cladking and his pyramid building fountains?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18292352&postcount=104
That thread got really weird after he showed up.