# 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:** 19
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/361 "2015-04-22T18:36:53Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > There isn’t _now_, but the pyramids used to have a glacis outer layer. > It’s not unlikely that it would have had some writing, boasting by the builders, “for the tourists” (as you say). > > Was the glacis still intact at the time of Herodotos? Yes. It was intact. He reported the causeway was intact as well which I have some doubt about. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/362 "2015-04-22T18:41:50Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Yes. It was intact. > > He reported the causeway was intact as well which I have some doubt about. Causeway or would he be talking about the canals? Being dry they would of course look like causeways. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/363 "2015-04-22T18:42:50Z")
> [@simster](#): > > travel there - get a sample of the water - and do the test yourself. They lock this stuff up behind heavy steel gates and they prosecute people (through UN treaty) who still manage to get samples. The first thing Zahi Hawass did after being led into a cave he said doesn’t exist is put a heavy gate on it and close it to further research or excavation. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/364 "2015-04-22T18:43:34Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > There isn’t _now_, but the pyramids used to have a glacis outer layer. > It’s not unlikely that it would have had some writing, boasting by the builders, “for the tourists” (as you say). > > Was the glacis still intact at the time of Herodotos? I assume the “glacis” is the outer cladding of white limestone. The outer cladding was still on, I believe, until medieval times - when they were removed and used to build stuff in Cairo. > **[Great Pyramid of Giza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza#Casing_stones)** > > The Great Pyramid of Giza\[a\] is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It served as the tomb of pharaoh Khufu, who ruled during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Built c. 2600 BC, over a period of about 26 years, the pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only wonder that has remained largely intact. It is the most famous monument of the Giza pyramid complex, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Memphis and its Necropolis". It is situated at the In... To my mind, the main picture that the passage of Herodotus invokes is a strikingly modern one - of a knowledgable and curious foreign tourist wandering over the sights of Egypt with a guide/interpreter, asking about stuff - like “how was this built?” and “what does that writing say?”. What we read is what he was told. My point is that the sight he was seeing was, in this particular case, already very, very ancient. I have no doubt he is more or less accurately giving us what he heard, but what he heard may simply be the spiel the guide was telling him - some info accurate, some not. Even today, how many people actually know what machinery was used to build the great Cathedrals of Europe? Yet there is much more continuity (and much less time, and much more literacy) between them and us, than between the great pyramid-builders and H. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/365 "2015-04-22T18:49:39Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Causeway or would he be talking about the canals? > Being dry they would of course look like causeways. Here’s the extract in question more fully: > [@](#): > > 1. Down to the time when Rhampsinitos was king, they told me there was in Egypt nothing but orderly rule, and Egypt prospered greatly; but after him Cheops became king over them and brought them to every kind of evil: for he shut up all the temples, and having first kept them from sacrificing there, he then bade all the Egyptians work for him. So some were appointed to draw stones from the stone-quarries in the Arabian mountains to the Nile, and others he ordered to receive the stones after they had been carried over the river in boats, and to draw them to those which are called the Libyan mountains; and they worked by a hundred thousand men at a time, for each three months continually. Of this oppression there passed ten years while the causeway was made by which they drew the stones, which causeway they built, and it is a work not much less, as it appears to me, than the pyramid; for the length of it is five furlongs and the breadth ten fathoms and the height, where it is highest, eight fathoms, and it is made of stone smoothed and with figures carved upon it. For this, they said, the ten years were spent, and for the underground chambers on the hill upon which the pyramids stand, which he caused to be made as sepulchral chambers for himself in an island, having conducted thither a channel from the Nile. For the making of the pyramid itself there passed a period of twenty years; and the pyramid is square, each side measuring eight hundred feet, and the height of it is the same. It is built of stone smoothed and fitted together in the most perfect manner, not one of the stones being less than thirty feet in length. > > 2. This pyramid was made after the manner of steps, which some call “rows” and others “bases”: and when they had first made it thus, they raised the remaining stones with machines made of short pieces of timber, raising them first from the ground to the first stage of the steps, and when the stone got up to this it was placed upon another machine standing on the first stage, and so from this it was drawn to the second upon another machine; for as many as were the courses of the steps, so many machines there were also, or perhaps they transferred one and the same machine, made so as easily to be carried, to each stage successively, in order that they might take up the stones; for let it be told in both ways, according as it is reported. However that may be, the highest parts of it were finished first, and afterwards they proceeded to finish that which came next to them, and lastly they finished the parts of it near the ground and the lowest ranges. On the pyramid it is declared in Egyptian writing how much was spent on radishes and onions and leeks for the workmen, and if I rightly remember that which the interpreter said in reading to me this inscription, a sum of one thousand six hundred talents of silver was spent; and if this is so, how much besides is likely to have been expended upon the iron with which they worked, and upon bread and clothing for the workmen, seeing that they were building the works for the time which has been mentioned and were occupied for no small time besides, as I suppose, in the cutting and bringing of the stones and in working at the excavation under the ground? > > 3. Cheops moreover came, they said, to such a pitch of wickedness, that being in want of money he caused his own daughter to sit in the stews, and ordered her to obtain from those who came a certain amount of money (how much it was they did not tell me); but she not only obtained the sum appointed by her father, but also she formed a design for herself privately to leave behind her a memorial, and she requested each man who came in to her to give her one stone upon her building: and of these stones, they told me, the pyramid was built which stands in front of the great pyramid in the middle of the three, each side being one hundred and fifty feet in length. > > 4. This Cheops, the Egyptians said, reigned fifty years; and after he was dead his brother Chephren succeeded to the kingdom. This king followed the same manner as the other, both in all the rest and also in that he made a pyramid, not indeed attaining to the measurements of that which was built by the former (this I know, having myself also measured it), and moreover there are no underground chambers beneath nor does a channel come from the Nile flowing to this one as to the other, in which the water coming through a conduit built for it flows round an island within, where they say that Cheops himself is laid: but for a basement he built the first course of Ethiopian stone of divers colours; and this pyramid he made forty feet lower than the other as regards size, building it close to the great pyramid. These stand both upon the same hill, which is about a hundred feet high. And Chephren they said reigned fifty and six years. This reinforces my notion that he was basically relating stories the local guides told him - some of them real whoppers. Like the story that Cheops prostituted his daughter to earn cash to build the pyramid (and as “tips” she took stones to build her own! That’s one hell of a lot of prostitution) Note he is careful to say this is what he was told, not that it was necessarily true. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/366 "2015-04-22T18:50:48Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Causeway or would he be talking about the canals? > Being dry they would of course look like causeways. From his description there is little question he was referring to the causeways. He said they took ten years to make but I’m sure they also meant the huge water collection device under the pyramid and preforming the low hill already present. This would also include a small factory and port at the river and the Great Saw Palace on the east side of the pyramid. These latter were long gone by Herodotus’ day. Preparing the site with all the infrastucture from the “min” to the “stone flippers” and loading platforms was a huge job inb itself. You can still see the excavation for the water collection device on the north side of G2. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/367 "2015-04-22T19:16:47Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > To my mind, the main picture that the passage of Herodotus invokes is a strikingly modern one - of a knowledgable and curious foreign tourist wandering over the sights of Egypt with a guide/interpreter, asking about stuff - like “how was this built?” and “what does that writing say?”. What we read is what he was told. Yes, I agree that he is recounting what he was shown and told during his ‘tourist trip.’ > [@](#): > > My point is that the sight he was seeing was, in this particular case, already very, very ancient. I have no doubt he is more or less accurately giving us what he heard, but what he heard may simply be the spiel the guide was telling him - some info accurate, some not. Even today, how many people actually know what machinery was used to build the great Cathedrals of Europe? Yet there is much more continuity (and much less time, and much more literacy) between them and us, than between the great pyramid-builders and H. My point is that there might have been more continuity than you give them credit for. The fact that we have more widespread literacy today only means that knowledge is more widespread. Back then it would have been confined to the priests and their libraries. Kind of how lots of our literature was confined to monastaries, for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/368 "2015-04-22T19:25:26Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > From his description there is little question he was referring to the causeways… What I take from the description could also be a canal. It’s some 15 meters high, ‘at its highest’. I’m not familiar with the lay out of the causeways but it would make a lot of sense to bring the stones up to the pyramids using boats, instead of dragging them on sleds or rollers. Doesn’t Herodotus say a link was made to the Nile? He says it was for the making of an island. Maybe a garbled description of the canals extending right up to the sides of the pyramid? ---
**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:** [April 22, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/369 "2015-04-22T19:26:50Z")
Is there evidence or a strong reason to suspect that the Egyption priests had libraries that contained 2000 year old documents in Herodotus’ time? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/370 "2015-04-22T19:40:18Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Yes, I agree that he is recounting what he was shown and told during his ‘tourist trip.’ > My point is that there might have been more continuity than you give them credit for. The fact that we have more widespread literacy today only means that knowledge is more widespread. > Back then it would have been confined to the priests and their libraries. > Kind of how lots of our literature was confined to monastaries, for a long time. I’d say the evidence available in the passage itself is against this. As can be seen in the passage, a lot of what he was told was flat-out impossible or in the “urban legend” category - for example, I will categorically state it was flat-out impossible that Cheops prostituted his daughter to pay for his pyramid, and that his daughter built her own pyramid with her tips! Now, it is entirely possible that there was 2,000+ year old, well-researched secret preistly wisdom carefully gleaned from surviving construction manual texts mixed in with the obvious urban legends about royal prostitutes and misinterpretations (like pyramids decorated with boasts about the cost of radishes) - but there is no evidence for it. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/371 "2015-04-22T19:41:38Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Is there evidence or a strong reason to suspect that the Egyption priests had libraries that contained 2000 year old documents in Herodotus’ time? What is so odd about that idea? How old is Herodotos’ work again, _we_ still have that, don’t we? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/372 "2015-04-22T19:42:00Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > They lock this stuff up behind heavy steel gates and they prosecute people (through UN treaty) who still manage to get samples. The first thing Zahi Hawass did after being led into a cave he said doesn’t exist is put a heavy gate on it and close it to further research or excavation. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. sounds like an excuse to me. got a cite for any of that? ---
**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:** [April 22, 2015, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/373 "2015-04-22T19:47:27Z")
So where’s Cleopatra’s pyramid? She has one, right? ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/374 "2015-04-22T19:49:35Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I’d say the evidence available in the passage itself is against this. As can be seen in the passage, a lot of what he was told was flat-out impossible or in the “urban legend” category - for example, I will categorically state it was flat-out impossible that Cheops prostituted his daughter to pay for his pyramid, and that his daughter built her own pyramid with her tips! > > Now, it is entirely possible that there was 2,000+ year old, well-researched secret preistly wisdom carefully gleaned from surviving construction manual texts mixed in with the obvious urban legends about royal prostitutes and misinterpretations (like pyramids decorated with boasts about the cost of radishes) - but there is no evidence for it. Indeed, you are right, there is no evidence that scribes would have been copying 2000 year old texts for…uhm…2000 years. But I don’t consider it too far fetched, though. Like I said, Christian Monks have done the same thing for centuries. No doubt a lot would not have been copied, but the Egyptians were proud of their long history and I would actually find it more strange if they _hadn’t_ preserved a lot of texts. ---
**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:** [April 22, 2015, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/375 "2015-04-22T19:50:09Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > What is so odd about that idea? > How old is Herodotos’ work again, _we_ still have that, don’t we? I am not saying it’s impossible but there aren’t that many examples of 2000 year old library collections. I don’t think you can just assume that they had all these 2000 year old documents preserved and studied. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/376 "2015-04-22T19:56:37Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Indeed, you are right, there is no evidence that scribes would have been copying 2000 year old texts for…uhm…2000 years. > > But I don’t consider it too far fetched, though. Like I said, Christian Monks have done the same thing for centuries. > No doubt a lot would not have been copied, but the Egyptians were proud of their long history and I would actually find it more strange if they _hadn’t_ preserved a lot of texts. I have no doubt that they did preseve texts - I just think that what they chose to preserve is more likely to have been stuff like dynastic histories and ritual/magic texts. Indeed, there are plenty of examples of both that have survived to the present. Things like construction techniques - I would not be surprised if they were passed down master-to-apprentice. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/377 "2015-04-22T20:12:17Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > I’m repeating again “peer review” only applies to what they consider “peers” which by definition is "those who have accepted that stinky footed bumpkins dragged tombs up ramps [QUOTE=cladking] It was a dangerous time to waste vast resources building a tomb for a dead god who lived eternally. [/quote] Are you implying that the pyramids were not tombs, but rather served some other purpose? > [@cladking](#): > > Levers do not reduce the amount of work required. Indeed, they tremendously increase the amount of work because the pry bar must be lifted and suitable accomodations must be made. Any fulcrum available would be subject to excessive wear. Huh? Of course levers reduce the amount of work required, that’s what they are _for_: to amplify force, so that a given input creates a greater output than it otherwise would. ---
**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:** [April 22, 2015, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/378 "2015-04-22T20:17:47Z")
Cladking, I still don’t get what this water system you believe in actually did. Was water used as a counter weight? Did flowing water push something? Have I missed a post where you describe the method? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/379 "2015-04-22T20:22:21Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Is there evidence or a strong reason to suspect that the Egyption priests had libraries that contained 2000 year old documents in Herodotus’ time? The Library of Alexandria wasn’t destroyed until 48BC, so there is reason to suspect it is possible. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/380 "2015-04-22T20:25:20Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I think we are more in agreement here than what it seems, if you look carefully the smaller lifts that we are talking about, that were likely used for the internal ramp theory, \*\*are \*\*levers. I think so too. There’s no reason the blocks had to be raised on the exterior. There are a lot of possible advantages to moving them through the interior. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=20)