# 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:** 116
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2302 "2015-05-25T05:04:11Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > For stones too heavy to move by adding wooden arcs, stone could be used - stone to bear the weight, framed with timber sides. Sure. They could have invented the wheel to build a pyramid and then decide never to use it again. Perfectly within the laws of physics but completely outside the laws of human nature. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2303 "2015-05-25T05:09:42Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > If you read again I’m confident you’ll see that nothing you’ve said here connects whatsoever with the objections I made to the “turn a block into a wheel” theory. I’m a bit doubtful that they didn’t know the wheel. Sure, not the spoked chariot wheel, but solid wheels are known from Mesopotamia dating back to 3500 BC. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2304 "2015-05-25T05:16:40Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > I’m a bit doubtful that they didn’t know the wheel. > Sure, not the spoked chariot wheel, but solid wheels are known from Mesopotamia dating back to 3500 BC. Doubt all you like but even the people advocating this stone wheel contraption say they didn’t have the wheel. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2305 "2015-05-25T05:56:20Z")
“The solid wooden wheel existed from the Old Kingdom, but it was too heavy for regular transport use over rough ground surfaces and was only employed on four wheeled carriages, which sometimes carried coffins or the god’s sacred bark during his festival procession.” –Rosalie David 1999. HANDBOOK TO LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT. p260 ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2306 "2015-05-25T06:28:32Z")
So tell me why the hell anyone talks about wet sand sledges when they had wheels. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2307 "2015-05-25T06:52:03Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > So tell me why the hell anyone talks about wet sand sledges when they had wheels. Because it’s not only wheels you need. The axles must also be able to bear the weight. So some loads, like the massive statues, are certainly too heavy. No idea if a good Lebanese cedar as axle could bear pyramid stones. But, any road, casing the stones as wheels would not be beyond the technology available. There’s no evidence for it, however. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2308 "2015-05-25T08:40:56Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Sure. They could have invented the wheel to build a pyramid and then decide never to use it again. Perfectly within the laws of physics but completely outside the laws of human nature. Not sure there are such laws - I mean, the Aztecs knew the principle of the wheel but never used it for anything but toys, just like the Chinese used sky lanterns since B.C.E. but never scaled that up to humans. People can be funny… Not that I think that’s what the Egyptians did. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2309 "2015-05-25T10:30:18Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > I understand this applies to vocabulary. I’ve seen no evidence it applies to grammar. You do not seem to have seen “evidence” for anything, with your funerary rooms turned into geysers and your odd belief that you alone in 4700 years have stumbled on the “real” meaning of texts that you can only understand by reading someone else’s transcription and then giving that text a totally different meaning. You never see any “evidence” that you have not created out of your own imagination. > [@cladking](#): > > I had to look up Blavatsky even though I’d heard the name before. She actually had one thing right and that is there is an intimate connection between religion, science, and philosophy. Some people think I believe that ancient language was “magical” or supernatural but nothing could be further from the truth. The same cerebral wiring that produced ancient language also produced the theory of relativity and the observation that there’s a natural connection between science and religion. People haven’t lost the ability to tap into their own brains but merely lost the playbook that kept us on the same page. Modern thought isn’t inferior but it is based on extrapolation from experiment. We don’t think that you think the language was magical, we recognize that while you deny it, what you describe could only happen by magic since it violates all natural laws. You have no evidence for this ancient magical language except your own belief in your magical powers to understand ancient language simply by reading someone else’s transcription of it and assigning new meanings to the words that you want to use differently than the actual text. This despite the fact that you want this 6700 year old text that you believe was created from a magical language at least 2,000 (and more likely many more thousands) of years after your imaginary “Babel” event is supposed to have occurred. You can call it what you want, but you need magic to make it happen. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2310 "2015-05-25T11:22:08Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Understands… 😉 > > Unfortunately my understanding of both sciences is woefully incomplete. I do get their respective metaphysics however (at least the definitions and axioms). Sarcasm, though, goes right over your head… ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2311 "2015-05-25T14:37:22Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > You have no evidence for this ancient magical language except your own belief in your magical powers to understand ancient language simply by reading someone else’s transcription of it and assigning new meanings to the words that you want to use differently than the actual text. This despite the fact that you want this 6700 year old text that you believe was created from a magical language at least 2,000 (and more likely many more thousands) of years after your imaginary “Babel” event is supposed to have occurred. > > You can call it what you want, but you need magic to make it happen. I don’t think I’ve put all the pertinent facts in a single post before so let me try again. Egyptology says these texts (PT) come from the little “pyramids” after the great pyramid building age ended. They believe these texts were ancient when they were inscribed into the walls of these pyramids. They say that the individual utterance were spells and incantations required by the king to get into the Elysium fields and the afterlife. They say that the language of the texts was much different than ours or later Egyptians so required a great deal more translation to make sense. Since this is the only extensive writing from so long ago they have no choice but to make many best guess translations for numerous words and many of these words have simply exactly the same definition applied to them as was used in the book of the dead. Rather than finding single definitions for terms like “the eye of horus” they found dozens. They believe the multitude of definitions for so many words explains why it is internally inconsistent and was caused by terms having many origins. They believe “eye of horus” simply arose in many places and the meaning was different in each. They can’t indentify the specific task of any of the 27 different magic sceptres that are recorded. They can’t identify how any of these arose nor the symbols. They believe that errors in grammar, syntax, spelling and pronouns are rife not only in the PT but in most of the recorded and inscribed words. They say each word was like those in our language and meaning was determined by context. This is “state of the art” as it applies to Egyptological belief about the language and nature of the PT. I’m simply suggesting there are simpler explanations than their’s. I’m simply suggesting that each word had only a single meaning. I’m merely suggesting that the intended meaning of a sentence wasn’t determined by the listener as each assigned a meaning to each word but was put into context by the author. I’m saying that when you solve word meaning by context a different way to talk emerges and the errors in the original writing no longfer exists. I have no means at all to communicate how to see this order in the PT other than to say what each word means. I think one of the problems is that people than deconstruct what I say so can’t apply it to the words themselves. “Osiris in his name of seker tows the earth by means of balance” makes no sense if you deconstruct it or interpret it. I’m suggesting that each word in the ancient language has a single meaning and each thing has three words that apply to it. I’m suggesting that the meaning is hidden in complex syntax but in context that disappears if you parse the words. There is no meaning unless you know to what thing the words each apply. If the word “henu boat” appears and you picture something floating down the Nile then you can’t understand the utterance. Each time the word “god” appears or a name of a “god” you must take its meaning from context and not from the book of the dead as Egyptologists did. I believe that all this was an easy mistake to make but it was still a mistake. I believe everything we seek to know about Egyptians is right in front of us in plain sight. We’ll soon KNOW the pyramid follows the curve of the earth and hence know they used water to level it. This will be the first step in a journey of rediscovery that gets us top a pinacle one step at a time. There is no other way to build a proper paradigm than to found it on facts and the concrete rather than ideas and beliefs. ---
**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 25, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2312 "2015-05-25T14:39:36Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Sure. They could have invented the wheel to build a pyramid and then decide never to use it again. Perfectly within the laws of physics but completely outside the laws of human nature. Sure. I’m not suggesting they actually did that, only pointing out that the strength of timber is not a limitation. Another solution would be to cut the stones into large cylinders at the quarry, roll them to site, then knock them square. I don’t think that’s what they actually did though. ---
**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 25, 2015, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2313 "2015-05-25T14:46:06Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > We’ll soon KNOW the pyramid follows the curve of the earth and hence know they used water to level it. This will be the first step in a journey of rediscovery that gets us top a pinacle one step at a time. There is no other way to build a proper paradigm than to found it on facts and the concrete rather than ideas and beliefs. Wtf are you on about now? If you use a plumb bob and square, you will build something that follows the curve of the Earth. If you use a bubble level, you will build something that follows the curve of the Earth. Any levelling method that is used locally, and works by gravity will do this. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2314 "2015-05-25T15:37:38Z")
I’m kind of curious how you could build something that DIDN’T follow the curvature of the earth. Would it only touch ground in the center with its corners in the air? If so, could you spin it like a giant dreidel? ---
**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 25, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2315 "2015-05-25T15:44:18Z")
Depends how long it is. For a lot of applications, it make immeasurably small difference, but I guess there probably are applications where you might decide to build something optically flat, and accept that it needs longer legs at the ends than in the middle. Science experiments involving lasers, for example. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2316 "2015-05-25T15:45:56Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Not sure there are such laws - I mean, the Aztecs knew the principle of the wheel but never used it for anything but toys, just like the Chinese used sky lanterns since B.C.E. but never scaled that up to humans. People can be funny… > > Not that I think that’s what the Egyptians did. Well I was being a little melodramatic but I have a hard time believing they would have used a very wheel like contraption to move these stones but never used it to carry other loads. I know no one here is seriously suggesting they did since there’s no evidence of it. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2317 "2015-05-25T16:04:09Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Not sure there are such laws - I mean, the Aztecs knew the principle of the wheel but never used it for anything but toys, just like the Chinese used sky lanterns since B.C.E. but never scaled that up to humans. People can be funny… > > Not that I think that’s what the Egyptians did. Jared Diamond - and IIRC the Master himself - suggest that without draft animals, it might never occur to you that wheels might be a handy thing to have around. (I think that’s a paraphrase of Cecil’s column.) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2318 "2015-05-25T16:08:46Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > I don’t think I’ve put all the pertinent facts in a single post before so let me try again. Egyptology says… There’s no such person, institution or organization named “Egyptology”, so please quote whoever the hell it is you claim is saying these things. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2319 "2015-05-25T16:20:18Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Egyptology says these texts (PT) come from the little “pyramids” after the great pyramid building age ended. They believe these texts were ancient when they were inscribed into the walls of these pyramids. They say that the individual utterance were spells and incantations required by the king to get into the Elysium fields and the afterlife. So Egyptology says that ancient Egyptians believed in the ancient Greeks afterlife?? ---
**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 25, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2320 "2015-05-25T16:44:33Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > We’ll soon KNOW the pyramid follows the curve of the earth and hence know they used water to level it. This will be the first step in a journey of rediscovery that gets us top a pinacle one step at a time. There is no other way to build a proper paradigm than to found it on facts and the concrete rather than ideas and beliefs. > [@Mangetout](#): > > Wtf are you on about now? > > If you use a plumb bob and square, you will build something that follows the curve of the Earth. If you use a bubble level, you will build something that follows the curve of the Earth. Any levelling method that is used locally, and works by gravity will do this. As I pointed before cladking is an expert of something all right. He is an expert of undermining the very same point he made in the very post he makes that point. The actual CO2 geysers in real life demonstrate how unreliable and weak they are, any hope to make them reliable does require another well to be opened to inject the substance to either push what you want from the earth or to make a reaction take place so the item will go out the other bore hole. And then he ignores the problems the acidic content that stills remains will do to limestone. Claiming that they “studied geysers” when the one proposing that is not aware of the basics is really asinine. What is clear to me is that every single time he goes to get his so called “evidence” he goes indeed to his real sources: Ancient alien proponents, or proponents of lost civilizations with incredible technology or knowledge. And we are meanies for not investigating that. :rolleyes: It is because of those sources that he can not accept also the chronology that most archaeologists and egyptologists agree nowadays. Problem is that on that regard cladking is also grossly ignoring that the chronology of the kings has been confirmed by other means. The fact that he is not aware of those confirmations is proof that he is not checking reliable sources, compounding his ever growing ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2321 "2015-05-25T18:31:51Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > I don’t think I’ve put all the pertinent facts in a single post before so let me try again. Egyptology says these texts (PT) come from the little “pyramids” after the great pyramid building age ended. Do you have a citiation where “Egyptology” says this, or is it just one more thing that you need for them to say so that you can claim they got it wrong? (I do not believe your unsupported claim, but for this post, I will grant your claim for the sake of argument.) > [@cladking](#): > > They believe these texts were ancient when they were inscribed into the walls of these pyramids. They say that the individual utterance were spells and incantations required by the king to get into the Elysium fields and the afterlife. They say that the language of the texts was much different than ours or later Egyptians so required a great deal more translation to make sense. OK. So they recognize that the language differs from that of other writings and, based on the ways that it differs, draw the logical conclusion that it is old. Fair enough. Of course, based on everything else we know about the Ancient Egyptians, regarding the PT as a funeral rite makes sense. It makes one wonder why you have to invent a different origin and use. > [@cladking](#): > > Since this is the only extensive writing from so long ago they have no choice but to make many best guess translations for numerous words and many of these words have simply exactly the same definition applied to them as was used in the book of the dead. What a shock! The same word appearing in similar texts is considered to have the same meaning. Who’d have thought? Once more, we are left to wonder why in the world you would go out and invent a new meaning for such words. > [@cladking](#): > > Rather than finding single definitions for terms like “the eye of horus” they found dozens. They believe the multitude of definitions for so many words explains why it is internally inconsistent and was caused by terms having many origins. They believe “eye of horus” simply arose in many places and the meaning was different in each. Oops. Now we are back to you actually making a claim that you need to support; otherwise we are forced to conclude you are inventing it. So, when you say “they,” can you name them? When you claim that they had a dozen definitions for the “eye of horus.” do you really mean that one single team of Egyptologists made this claim? Or do you really mean that multiple translators working at different times, with different backgrounds, arrived at different conclusions? And since this is a direct claim by you, I would like to see the “dozens” of definitions (in context) listed with which translator published which definition. (Again, this is a simple request for you to provide the sources for your claim. If you cannot provide it, I am free to dismiss your claim as the product of your imagination.) And, of course, even if the PT text is older than other Egyptian texts, there is no evidence that it is old enough to have been written in your imaginary pre-“Babel” magic language. It is simply not old enough and you have to pretend that your magic language continued in use after the “Babel” event for it to appear in the pyramids of Giza. > [@cladking](#): > > This is “state of the art” as it applies to Egyptological belief about the language and nature of the PT. I’m simply suggesting there are simpler explanations than their’s. I’m simply suggesting that each word had only a single meaning. I’m merely suggesting that the intended meaning of a sentence wasn’t determined by the listener as each assigned a meaning to each word but was put into context by the author. I’m saying that when you solve word meaning by context a different way to talk emerges and the errors in the original writing no longfer exists. Aside from this mostly making no sense, why should we believe your imaginary claim? > [@cladking](#): > > I have no means at all to communicate how to see this order in the PT other than to say what each word means. I think one of the problems is that people than deconstruct what I say so can’t apply it to the words themselves. “Osiris in his name of seker tows the earth by means of balance” makes no sense if you deconstruct it or interpret it. I’m suggesting that each word in the ancient language has a single meaning and each thing has three words that apply to it. I’m suggesting that the meaning is hidden in complex syntax but in context that disappears if you parse the words. There is no meaning unless you know to what thing the words each apply. If the word “henu boat” appears and you picture something floating down the Nile then you can’t understand the utterance. Each time the word “god” appears or a name of a “god” you must take its meaning from context and not from the book of the dead as Egyptologists did. So, you not only want to invent new rules for the language, you want to violate your own invented rules in order to make your “translations” come out the way you intend. If every word has only a single meaning, there is no such thing as context. If you walk through a COBOL program, every word has a single meaning. There is no context in which the meaning changes. That is an example of a language where each word has a single meaning. As soon as you begin trying to shape the meaning from context, you are no better off than the actual scholars who are attempting to translate the document–except that they have actual references to which they can point to indicate why they chose one meaning over another, while you have nothing more than your desire to invent an Ancient Egypt that never existed. > [@cladking](#): > > I believe that all this was an easy mistake to make but it was still a mistake. I believe everything we seek to know about Egyptians is right in front of us in plain sight. We’ll soon KNOW the pyramid follows the curve of the earth and hence know they used water to level it. This will be the first step in a journey of rediscovery that gets us top a pinacle one step at a time. With a few exceptions, there is a general hypothesis that the Egyptians used water to determine the level of the pyramids. Why do you think this is such a groundbreaking idea? > [@cladking](#): > > There is no other way to build a proper paradigm than to found it on facts and the concrete rather than ideas and beliefs. This would be humorous if it was not so sad. You offer nothing but (odd) ideas without any facts, at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=115) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=117)