# 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:** 120
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2382 "2015-05-27T14:46:02Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Unless you’re M C Esher it’s IMPOSSIBLE to design any ramp system that gains 480’ without it being a mile long. Of ccourse this presumes you don’t just make it much steeper. > > Please assume the statement makes sense and look for the logic in it. Once you find the logic then argue with me if you still want to. If you can’t find the logic then please ask for an elaboration or explanation. If you assume everything someone says is illogical or nonsensical then communication will fail. Your own assumption seems to be that it’s one continuous ramp, despite being shown several theories where this isn’t true. You cling to the strawman, however, even though even IT doesn’t disprove ramps the way you think it does. As for the last part there, you have pretty much assured everyone that just about everything you claim is either fiat wisdom or assertions from your supposed authority and basically is illogical and/or nonsensical. You have only yourself to blame for this. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2383 "2015-05-27T15:12:02Z")
“There are some evidential problems as well.” > [@Mangetout](#): > > Quoted for irony. I believe the real irony is that each of us looks at the world and tries to make heads and tails of it and the natural reaction for most (sane people) is to simply accept what’s already known. Rather than looking at the facts that generated that knowledge we accept the givens and the opinions of experts. In our own fields of expertise we might not be so quick to jump on board but outside of it we simply accept what’s already “established fact”. People don’t realize how tenuous “established fact” really is in all things considering the great pyramids. G1 is a 6 1/2 million ton behemoth which makes it seem very concrete and a very established fact but there simply is almost no evidence at all how it was built or what the builders were thinking. ALL evidence in ALL things has to be interpreted but in the case of the great pyramids reality (as we understand it) itself becomes an interpretation of very little evidence that doesn’t hang together. But ALL this evidence still exists. I am familiar with the evidence (especially as it relates to water) and am fully capable of interpreting it in “every” concievable way. I’ve shown ramps weren’t used yet the pyramid didn’t blink out of existence when ramps were debunked so we still know that they were built by some means. There are many possibilities and some are more consistent with the scant evidence that others. The one thing that looks probable is that stones were pulled up a five step pyramid one step at a time. The fact is that while the pyramid having been a pump is a very attractive idea and well within the capabilities of the ancients there is at least one glaring problemn with the concept. The concept is attractive on many levels and is well within the interpretation of most of the evidence but if it’s really impossible based on the glaring problem then there’s simply no “possible” means to have water on the top of the pyramid to float Myer’s idea. People are taking bits and scraps of evidence and building huge constructs of them and no one is more guilty of this than Egyptology. They are interpreting information to be consistent with their paradigm but people have been told for a century and a half that the ancients weren’t capable of using any means but ramps so it seems “right”. It is nonsense. They were capable of even more primitive means than using ramps. Ramps are simply debunked and there’s not a lot of possibility that Egyptologists are so incompetent they could have missed a large drain in or near the subterranian chamber. Without this drain the pyramid couldn’t be a pump eliminating many of the most attractive theories of how it was built. I simply don’t know. Like everything else I don’t know, I don’t know just how incompetent Egyptologists are. I doubt they are any less competent than other scientists however and it’s hard to believe any scientist would overlook the obvious. They’ll overlook the obscure and things they don’t expect to see but not an 10" drain. ---
**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 27, 2015, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2384 "2015-05-27T15:17:12Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > I’ve shown ramps weren’t used No you haven’t. You have repeatedly and doggedly asserted it, which is not the same thing at all. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2385 "2015-05-27T15:17:32Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Your own assumption seems to be that it’s one continuous ramp, despite being shown several theories where this isn’t true. You cling to the strawman, however, even though even IT doesn’t disprove ramps the way you think it does. You didn’t look for the logic. Imagine you have just dragged a 2 1/2 ton stone up 480’ using an intricate and unknown ramp system. Pretend you were blindfolded and have no idea how the ramp was configured. You may well have been on segments that were level when the pulling was easy but let’s not even consider those because you were getting no closer to 480’ while on flat stretches. Just add up all the hard places to drag a stone. How many feet, yards, or miles of ramp did you drag the stone. Do the math. Ignore the ramp since it factors out of the equation. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2386 "2015-05-27T15:18:33Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > No you haven’t. You have repeatedly and doggedly asserted it, which is not the same thing at all. See post # 152. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2387 "2015-05-27T15:30:58Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And the less one understands either, the more similar they become. I bet you have an extremely hard time telling one from the other at this point, right? If I’m having any trouble telling languages apart it’s my use of English and ancient language. I’ve always “thought like an Egyptian” but didn’t know it before. Tamarian would be a nearly useless language for most subjects. Ancient language isn’t very useful for concepts that can’t be formally defined. Ideas like “belief” or related to beliefs would be hard to discuss in ancient language. Trying to define concepts like “super ego” would be virtually impossible. This is about the same problem you’d have trying to converse in computer code. The difference here is that ancient people weren’t computers. They needed to handle more complicated commands than “go to”. Hence the language was far more complex than anything a computer could manage. It was far more expressive and had more flexibility than Tamarian. Modern people would find it highly restrictive but the chief cause of the lack of range and scope was that the ancient knowledge lacked range and scope in most areas. We have far more knowledge today. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2388 "2015-05-27T15:41:20Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > See post # 152. We have. It doesn’t debunk anything. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2389 "2015-05-27T15:43:31Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > If I’m having any trouble telling languages apart it’s my use of English and ancient language. I’ve always “thought like an Egyptian” but didn’t know it before. I don’t believe that you have any special insight into how ancient Egyptians thought. Assertions like these make you sound delusional – no one could possibly know exactly how an ancient people thought. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2390 "2015-05-27T15:48:28Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > See post # 152. Third base! ---
**Author:** ![Redshirt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@Redshirt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redshirt)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2391 "2015-05-27T16:03:06Z")
If the ancient language didn’t deal well with belief, how does the shopkeeper tell the cop “I only caught a glimpse but I believe it was Jimmy Slimfinger who stole my loaf of bread”? ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2392 "2015-05-27T16:40:58Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I don’t believe that you have any special insight into how ancient Egyptians thought. Assertions like these make you sound delusional – no one could possibly know exactly how an ancient people thought. If you read the Declaration of Independence you can get a great deal of insight into how Jefferson thought. If you read Ten Little Indians you can get a lot of insight into how Agatha Christie thought. It’s more difficult with the written word because you can’t ask questions or get elaboration but everything a person thinks is eventually reflected in what they say or write. When you factor out the various writers of the ritual from the PT what’s left over is Egyptian thought. Of course if you don’t understand the words you can’t see the thinking. And herein is the chief reason Egyptologists missed this; they expected ancient people to think just like they do. Of course they misunderstood the words. Egyptological thinking is removed from ancient thinking across a span of 4,000 years that can’t be bridged by simply translating a lot of the words in the PT. They may as well be a million light years away. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2393 "2015-05-27T16:43:47Z")
> [@Redshirt](#): > > If the ancient language didn’t deal well with belief, how does the shopkeeper tell the cop “I only caught a glimpse but I believe it was Jimmy Slimfinger who stole my loaf of bread”? You’d say, “The phenomenon of missing bread coincided temporally with a glimpse of Jimmy Slimfinger.”. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2394 "2015-05-27T16:45:21Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > If you read the Declaration of Independence you can get a great deal of insight into how Jefferson thought. If you read Ten Little Indians you can get a lot of insight into how Agatha Christie thought. It’s more difficult with the written word because you can’t ask questions or get elaboration but everything a person thinks is eventually reflected in what they say or write. These documents are for more complete, translatable, and comprehensible than the PT. And even these documents don’t tell us exactly how Jefferson thought, or Christie thought – they just give us some small insights. At most, the PT may give you some small insight into _which ever Egyptian persons wrote the PT_. It gives you no insight into how Egyptians thought _as a people_… not that any population has a homogenous way of thinking. > [@](#): > > When you factor out the various writers of the ritual from the PT what’s left over is Egyptian thought. Of course if you don’t understand the words you can’t see the thinking. And herein is the chief reason Egyptologists missed this; they expected ancient people to think just like they do. Of course they misunderstood the words. Egyptological thinking is removed from ancient thinking across a span of 4,000 years that can’t be bridged by simply translating a lot of the words in the PT. They may as well be a million light years away. I don’t believe that you understand the words any better than they do, much less the thinking of ancient people. Still sounds delusional – totally outrageous claims backed up by mere assertions, insistence, and certainty. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2395 "2015-05-27T16:49:58Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > You didn’t look for the logic. > > Imagine you have just dragged a 2 1/2 ton stone up 480’ using an intricate and unknown ramp system. Pretend you were blindfolded and have no idea how the ramp was configured. You may well have been on segments that were level when the pulling was easy but let’s not even consider those because you were getting no closer to 480’ while on flat stretches. Just add up all the hard places to drag a stone. How many feet, yards, or miles of ramp did you drag the stone. > > Do the math. Ignore the ramp since it factors out of the equation. I have no idea what you are getting at or what point you think you are making, so it’s pretty hard to answer your non-question. As has been shown, there are various ways to build ramps, and most archeologists and the dreaded ‘Egyptologists’ agree that a mix of ad hoc technologies were probably used. That means that in some parts they probably used levers or lifts similar to the shadoof, in some parts they used ramps to pull up stones to the next level. You don’t need one contiguous and continuous miles long ramp to build the pyramids, and your insistence on attacking this strawman argument was evident literally 20 or so pages of this trainwreck ago. As your attempt to claim, by fiat, that ramps have been debunked in the infamous post #152 is laughable and has becoming pretty much a running joke at this point to everyone but you, who don’t seem to get that no one else accepts your debunkment. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2396 "2015-05-27T16:53:16Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > If you read Ten Little Indians you can get a lot of insight into how Agatha Christie thought. This is what Christie thought: “Every generation they’re going to change the name of this book and republish it. I’m going to make a boatload of money! And the reader will never guess that the geyser did it.” ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2397 "2015-05-27T17:37:25Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > The pyramids are sitting on huge water collection devices. That only you, with no evidence and no experience in archaeological excavation and no first hand experience of the Giza plateau can find. > [@cladking](#): > > It was the PT that told me where to look to find it. Even though you have no education in reading it and are basing your “translation” on your re-interpretation of what someone else rendered into an English transliteration. _(Did you ever find the quotes for your unsupported claim that anyones translated the “eye of Horus” in “dozens” of ways?)_ > [@cladking](#): > > Far more importantly is there is no overseer of ramp builders, ramp architects, or ramp dismantlers buried anywhere in Egypt. There are no overseers of basket makers, no overseers of harness makers or salve makers. There is not even a single stone dragger or his overseer in evidence. There are also no references to pipemakers, nitron chargers, geyser gate managers, etc. So, your “evidence” that there were no ramps equally disproves your claims for magic geysers. > [@cladking](#): > > The pyramid town had equal numbers of men and women and was a tiny fraction of the size that would be required to drag stones and build ramps. The town is hardly large enough to supply such a large army with water and supplies far less do all the work themselves. It is little larger than a couple soccer fields. Indeed the builders’ town was a mere 300’ by 700’. By today’s standards this would accomodate only 933 people in an office building. People need far more space where they live. Only about 40% of the population was men so there wouldn’t even be nearly enough labor to supply food and water to the thousands necessary to build ramps and drag stones up them. You say ancient people didn’t mind being cramped up. Modern sanitation and processes are more efficient than they were in 2750 BC but let’s say they were willing to be jammed in cheek to jowel. This only increases occupancy to about 2800 men which is still grossly insufficient. With so many people in close contact disease would spread like wildfire. Since there were storage and production fascilities in the town as well it’s highly improbable that there were numbers even approaching these levels. Of course, to make this claim, you have to deliberately ignore the general hypothesis that the village held only the skilled artisans and managers, (who would easily fit into such a town), while the large number of simple laborers would have lived in temporary housing for the specific season when they were not engaged in farming, providing labor only during the off season. > [@cladking](#): > > Logic says that on a gargantuan project that a highly efficient means must be used. Utter bullshit. Logic and the historical record indicate that gargantuan projects with enormous labor pools tend to ignore efficiency, completely, relying on the huge pool of labor to simply accomplish the task with brute force. > [@cladking](#): > > Perhaps the greatest inconsistency is the cultural evidence right on site. In the pyramid builders cemetery is the “Overseer of the Boats of Neith”. This would be the loader on the south side in all probability but it could have nothing to do with ramps. There are canal overseers, overseers of metal shops, director of draftsmen, inspector of craftsmen, controller of a boat crew, controller of the side of the pyramid, inspector of metal workers and a host of other jobs that reflect a sophisticated and intelligent culture. Most tellingly is that there is a “Weigher/ Reckoner”. This job would be critical on a device that was said to be sensitive enough to tell the difference in weight of a “heavy heart” from a feather. The quarrymen who shaped the stones were called “sculptors” and the “Chief of Sculptors” is buried on site. They found a standard weight in the queens “air siphon” and a hook. Every job is accounted for but the word “ramp” isn’t even attested in the great pyramiud building age. In other words, no one is mentioned who would be needed to play around with harnessing imaginary geysers. = = = Now, I am not a big proponent of the various ramp theories. There are clearly questions regarding the construction that still need to be answered. However, your “debunking” of ramps is simply nonsense and you cannot even be consistent or logically coherent in your own claims. Post #152 is truly Time Cube level imagination. ---
**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 27, 2015, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2398 "2015-05-27T18:38:37Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > See post # 152. Seen it (I think you might have mentioned it once before). You haven’t debunked anything. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2399 "2015-05-27T19:54:07Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Large pieces of concrete would undergo more breakage due to expansion. . . . Covered in expansion/contraction. > [@cladking](#): > > . . . This isn’t a major effect on a large flat piece is it? . . . . It’s large enough to cause drainage problems. Before the additives were available, some floors got a second, shallower layer to reduce the ponding. > [@cladking](#): > > . . . The amount of water lost from a ditch is proportional to its size but is also dependent on the type of soil. In this case (karst) much of the loss is is independent of the size but more related to its depth and lenght. The articles I ran across (which sounded like they were all repeating the same source) said that the ditches were cut into bedrock. No soil involved. The water level would be (according to the theory) marked on the side of the ditch. Then the ditch could be filled with stone level to the marks on the side or the stone of the ditch could be chiseled away at the mark or both. The idea being that you don’t need much water (one article said the ditches were two feet across - but with no citations, so _shrug_) before the marks are made and you want the water gone after the marks are made. If I were feeling puckish, I’d hypothesize a dye that could be mixed with oil and floated on the water to mark the stone side of the ditch automatically and exactly. I have absolutely no evidence for such a thing, however, so that would be irresponsible. ---
**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 27, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2400 "2015-05-27T20:05:37Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > If I were feeling puckish, I’d hypothesize a dye that could be mixed with oil and floated on the water to mark the stone side of the ditch automatically and exactly. I have absolutely no evidence for such a thing, however, so that would be irresponsible. If you change your mind, this certainly seems the thread fot it. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/2401 "2015-05-27T20:30:55Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Covered in expansion/contraction. > . . . . Actually, that implies that I agree that expansion is more likely to crack concrete. It isn’t. Which side of the / causes the break depends on the delta-T between final cure and time of breakage. Expansion is more likely to cause sidewalk buckling, but both can cause cracking. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=119) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=121)