# How were the pyramids in Egypt built? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 7, 2014, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559 "2014-12-07T10:40:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 107
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2122 "2015-05-20T20:52:37Z")
Unless maybe they built it from the top down. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2015, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2123 "2015-05-20T21:12:36Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > There are no PT or Coffin Texts inscribed on the walls or anywhere inside any great pyramid. Moving the goal posts, my point that stands is that PT were used also in engravings and paintings on coffins and jewlelry related to burial places and mummies, in essence to “help the dead arrive to their destination safely”, not in the context of soda drinking or geyser building. > [@cladking](#): > > Egyptologists don’t differentiate the real pyramids from the tiny little mud brick pointed tombs that come later to obfuscate. Well, I guess the ancient egyptians loved to obfuscate you. > [@cladking](#): > > There is no evidence to support the idea that the PT are incantation. They are obviously ritual and not incantation. They were fooled by the similarity to the book of the dead which is derived from it after the collapse of the language. Again, if you were correct we should see a lot of references and quotes from the PT in other watery or “geysery” locations, like around fountains. Do you have any? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2015, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2124 "2015-05-20T22:07:13Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > It would only be possible to wear those grooves in the pyramid if the pyramid _ **was already there** _. If the pyramid is already there, why would you drag more stones up it? Not to defend cladking’s crazy views, but the wear in the lower levels could have been while the pyramid was incomplete above that point. However, in that case I would expect the most wear at the lower levels and less as you go up. In that scenario, if you go down twice as far from the top, there should be four times the wear, with hardly any near the top. That’s not the pattern we see. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2125 "2015-05-20T22:20:50Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > Not to defend cladking’s crazy views, but the wear in the lower levels could have been while the pyramid was incomplete above that point. > > However, in that case I would expect the most wear at the lower levels and less as you go up. In that scenario, if you go down twice as far from the top, there should be four times the wear, with hardly any near the top. That’s not the pattern we see. Agreed. The features are interesting and demand an explanation, but this isn’t it. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2126 "2015-05-21T02:26:19Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Agreed. The features are interesting and demand an explanation, but this isn’t it. Bob Wilson Shoots a gremlin on the wing of a Gold Star Airline jet at 20,000’ and Rod Serling said; “Happily his conviction will not remain isolated too much longer for happily, tangible manifestation is very often left as evidence of trespass, even from so intangible a quarter as the t(T)wilight z(Z)one.” I have this pet theory that most “woo” arises from the interaction of the natural function of the brain conflicting with very unnatural thought in modern language. Even the “Twilight Zone” itself might arise indirectly from the original zone of the same “name”; 1679b. ---------------- he rests alive in the West (or, he is satisfied in living in the West), 1679c. among the Followers of Rē‘, who make the way of twilight mount up. The three pyramid’s SW corners align with the sunset on the winter solstice. The shadows cause the twilight to mount up. Serling may not have been aware of this and only listed a single “twilight zone” of which he was later aware. Be this as it may the fact is this post isn’t so much intended as a manifestation of woo as it is to call attention to a manifestation from the Twilight Zone. None of the lines are the result of wear from stones going up or down. They simply mark the path the stones took straight up the side. The causes are unique and individual to the specific line in question. As a rule they are caused by the simple fact that the stones were laid sequentially as they came up from the quarry. Since no stones could be laid at the point they came up or it would block the flow this area was skipped and was the very last spot on each course to have stones emplaced. These stones were unlike the stones that had been sequentially laid leaving faint vertical lines that are a manifestation from another place and time that is wholly dissimilar to anything we know. They are a manifestation of the very means of construction that employed men on the wing of geb. Cue music. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2127 "2015-05-21T02:37:20Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Cue music. [/Music](one pellet of natron) ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2128 "2015-05-21T02:43:56Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Moving the goal posts, my point that stands is that PT were used also in engravings and paintings on coffins and jewlelry related to burial places and mummies, in essence to “help the dead arrive to their destination safely”, not in the context of soda drinking or geyser building. Your point does not stand. There are no PT or any other writing (of note) on anything from the great pyramid building age. The PT doesn’t show up until the tiny pyramids and the Coffin Texts are even later. Many of the CT are even written in modern language. > [@](#): > > Again, if you were correct we should see a lot of references and quotes from the PT in other watery or “geysery” locations, like around fountains. Do you have any? I don’t know what you mean. One of the reasons that Egyptologists went so wrong is sample bias. Almost everything that’s known was pulled out of a grave. It’s not surprising that Egyptologists believe the ancients were obsessed with death. Only one other “watery location” is known from such ancient times and that is known today as the “Well of Joseph” which is near Giza and believed to date back to about 1800 BC. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2129 "2015-05-21T02:46:12Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Agreed. The features are interesting and demand an explanation, but this isn’t it. It isn’t even a groove down the face of the pyramid - in fact it’s where 2 faces meet. It’s an 8-sided pyramid. > **[Concave GP Faces](http://www.catchpenny.org/concave.html)** > > A look at theories about the allegedly concave faces of the Great Pyramid at Giza [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/IgwgPo0BC7Q/maxresdefault.jpg "The Great Pyramid of Giza has 8 Sides") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgwgPo0BC7Q) ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2130 "2015-05-21T02:52:17Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I’m not talking about word soup. I’m talking about mythologies and religious writings. They’re chock full of nonsense. No they aren’t. If someone says “I believe in ghosts” that is not “nonsense”. You might believe the belief is nonsense but the statement itself is perfectly comprehensible. If it isn’t you can ask for elaboration or clarification. Does he believe in trick or treating ghosts, the will of the dead, or apparitions from beyond the grave? If myth were nonsense it wouldn’t survive. The PT would be far better known and more widely read but Egyptologists and everyone else believes it’s incomprehensible gobbledty gook. In my entire schooling I heard of it only once and that in college. Of course I was studying science so naturally it didn’t figure prominently. Esssentially I was told it was more babbling from sun addled bumpkins which is exactly what it looks like to modern language speakers who don’t know it’s not modern language. > **[The Pyramid Texts Index](https://sacred-texts.com/egy/pyt/)** > > The Pyramid Texts, Samuel A.B. Mercer tr., at sacred-texts.com ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2131 "2015-05-21T02:53:44Z")
I’ve figure out a way to use acidic geysers that explains everything, mostly. The Giza plateau started out as a limestone mountain and the geysers were redirected and used to carve the mountain into pyramids. What appear to be seams and gouges were just the paths the spent water followed, which explains how tightly the “blocks” fit together. Later earthquakes split the rock along those seams, giving the appearance of individual blocks. You spurned my help, **claddy** , and now I must out-crackpot you. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2132 "2015-05-21T02:55:20Z")
> [@](#): > > When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The statement you have made here sounds like it’s exactly the same thing that mechanical engineers and architects do when they become creationists - applying their own discipline to a foreign domain and arriving very neatly at the wrong conclusion. I don’t know what you mean. There was nothing at all wrong with the system I designed and it ran like a top. I wrote the instruction manual and most operators seemed to get it OK. It was what was written by the programmers that was incomprehensible to me and my boss. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2133 "2015-05-21T02:56:06Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > I’ve figure out a way to use acidic geysers that explains everything, mostly. The Giza plateau started out as a limestone mountain and the geysers were redirected and used to carve the mountain into pyramids. What appear to be seams and gouges were just the paths the spent water followed, which explains how tightly the “blocks” fit together. Later earthquakes split the rock along those seams, giving the appearance of individual blocks. I can’t prove you wrong, so it must be true. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2134 "2015-05-21T03:01:52Z")
Feh! Try as you might, you’ll never disprove it to my satisfaction, and I will repeat it until you give up and leave me to wallow in my triumph. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2135 "2015-05-21T03:02:43Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > You spurned my help, **claddy** , and now I must out-crackpot you. 😃 Sorry about that. It was probably just friendly fire. 😉 I’m a tough man to out-crackpot though. I often wonder if the “cement” in the fine gaps between the stones is actually deposited calcium carbonate from the degassing water. The only “science” I know about it is it was tested long ago and was believed to be “burnt lime” which is chemically very simnmilar to calcium carbonate. I’m mostly just saying things I’m relatively confident about in this thread. There are many more things that I’m far less confident about like the cemnent and some of them sound outrageous. They’re gonna hafta wait. I don’t like speculation when Egyptologists do it and I like it less when I do it. In the meantime it might be wise to practice up on your “woo”. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2136 "2015-05-21T03:29:09Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Your point does not stand. > > There are no PT or any other writing (of note) on anything from the great pyramid building age. So why assume that they are talking about a geyser from the great pyramid building age? Do you have any consistency left? > [@cladking](#): > > The PT doesn’t show up until the tiny pyramids and the Coffin Texts are even later. Many of the CT are even written in modern language. Miserably missing the point. The point stands and you can not explain it away, ancient Egyptians (the ones that should know better) used the text in funerary contexts, again and again. No description about watery tarts moving the stones with watery lifts. > [@cladking](#): > > I don’t know what you mean. But of course, since realizing what I’m talking about shows how wet your ideas are. It is clear that when the PT was talking about natron it was about purification or when to apply natron during a mummification. There was no tradition nor any follow up or descriptions regarding the incredible feat of stones moved around effortlessly. The most logical conclusion remains, the PT were about religious ideas about the afterlife. > [@cladking](#): > > One of the reasons that Egyptologists went so wrong is sample bias. Almost everything that’s known was pulled out of a grave. It’s not surprising that Egyptologists believe the ancients were obsessed with death. > > Only one other “watery location” is known from such ancient times and that is known today as the “Well of Joseph” which is near Giza and believed to date back to about 1800 BC. So indeed, no evidence whatsoever of artwork or notes about the great mojito wellspring on the rocks. 🙂 The biggest logical failure of yours is clear, if the PT was about great geyser stone movers and not about funerary rites and things to do in the afterlife then the ancient Egyptians are indeed giving you the biggest raspberry from the great beyond. [http://www.virtual-egyptian-museum.org/Collection/FullVisit/Collection.FullVisit-FR.html](http://www.virtual-egyptian-museum.org/Collection/FullVisit/Collection.FullVisit-FR.html) > [@](#): > > On the interior surfaces of both the lid and bottom of this coffin are full length representations of the goddess Nut in simple yet extraordinarily effective red outlines (only the black wig was filled in, suggesting the inside decoration was left unfinished). Nut as a protector of the deceased in the tomb is noted as early as the Pyramid Texts where “the king goes to Nut in her name of ‘sarcophagus’ embraces her in her name of ‘coffin’ and rests in her in her name of ‘tomb’” (Hart 1986:146). Atop her head rests the hieroglyphic sign with the phonetic value “nu” (photos 10, 11, 38, 39, 40). ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2137 "2015-05-21T04:41:45Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The biggest logical failure of yours is clear, if the PT was about great geyser stone movers and not about funerary rites and things to do in the afterlife then the ancient Egyptians are indeed giving you the biggest raspberry from the great beyond. The PT is not about geysers, incantations, or funerary rites. It is one thing only and that is a collection of the rituals that were read aloud to the crowds gathered for the king’s ascension ceremonies and various groups of workers who made it possible. Most of these rituals were held during an eight day long party that kicked off pyramid building season and culminated with the ascension of the king. Many of these rituals were even held on years that there was no king to ascend because he was still young and fit. This part is really very obvious and I don’t think you even need to understand the writing to know. How Egyptology got “incantation” from this just stymies me. I doubt the ancients would care about this point though. I think it was the “stinky footed bumpkin” crack that started them spinning in their graves. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2138 "2015-05-21T04:51:14Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > The PT is not about geysers, incantations, or funerary rites. First time I see a whole geyser thrown under a bus. 🙂 And the cites showed that it was the ancient Egyptians the ones that put that PT text in their burial coffins and mummy jewellery to tell you and everyone else in no uncertain terms where they thought that lines from the PT were appropriate to be engraved or painted. Not for day long parties, but to remember and guide the dead. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2139 "2015-05-21T04:54:53Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > I say we stop addressing him. He’s obviously too obsessed to listen to anyone but himself, because that’s better than me thinking he might be trying to get a rise out of us for his own enjoyment. > > **cladking** , go back to my post about getting a website. You’ll save your fingertips by not having to repeat the same bullshit over and over, and if you leave out a comments section nobody will disagree with you. Oh! I did consider this. I’m not sure people will come to me when they tend to push me away when I go to them. It’s not only Egyptologists that I’ve apparently offended but a lot of people and experts in the soft sciences. I guess when you say things like “everything people believe is false or true only from a specific perspective” soft scientists feel pretty uncomfortable. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2140 "2015-05-21T05:05:03Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Oh! > > I did consider this. > > I’m not sure people will come to me when they tend to push me away when I go to them. It’s not only Egyptologists that I’ve apparently offended but a lot of people and experts in the soft sciences. I guess when you say things like “everything people believe is false or true only from a specific perspective” soft scientists feel pretty uncomfortable. Well, following Jeremy with his ever shrinking circles of influence is easier than doing the work needed to convince experts that you are onto something. [![](https://files.growery.org/files/g12-27/142252564-Nowhere_man_from_Yellow_Submarine.gif) ](https://files.growery.org/files/g12-27/142252564-Nowhere_man_from_Yellow_Submarine.gif) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2015, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2141 "2015-05-21T05:24:14Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > No they aren’t. If someone says “I believe in ghosts” that is not “nonsense”. You might believe the belief is nonsense but the statement itself is perfectly comprehensible. If it isn’t you can ask for elaboration or clarification. Does he believe in trick or treating ghosts, the will of the dead, or apparitions from beyond the grave? Sure, but when someone writes ‘I believe in Ghosts’, it’s not reasonable to surmise that they are actually documenting the recipe for spaghetti with meatballs. Which is what you have done. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=106) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=108)