# 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:** 60
**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 3, 2015, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1182 "2015-05-03T20:16:37Z")
> [@andros](#): > > No diagrams, but as best I can gather they took a great big pulley, ran a great big rope through it, attached a stone to one end of the rope and a giant bucket to the other, then filled the bucket with geyser water until it was heavy enough to hoist the stone. Maybe down a shaft in the middle, next to the geyser? Maybe down the other side? > > Anyhoo, I’ve taken the liberty of an [artists’ rendering](http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a211/andros_sd/pyramid_zpsbadr7jlq.png). Enjoy! Very nice work. If they were going to do something like that, an even easier method (not requiring magic geysers) would be to fill the bukkit by just carrying water up there in a bukkit brigade. Or using sand, which is heavier, not in short supply, and evaporates more slowly. ---
**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 3, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1183 "2015-05-03T20:27:23Z")
I did spot one tiny flaw in this plan however… It appears you can only build the pyramid this way if it is already there to sling your rope and pulley over. ---
**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 3, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1184 "2015-05-03T21:05:35Z")
It is really more likely that we can see a geezer stealing a geyser than seeing that contraption in action. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1185 "2015-05-03T21:31:41Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > . . . It appears you can only build the pyramid this way if it is already there to sling your rope and pulley over. Freeze the geyser! ---
**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:** [May 3, 2015, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1186 "2015-05-03T22:54:49Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I did spot one tiny flaw in this plan however… > > It appears you can only build the pyramid this way if it is already there to sling your rope and pulley over. mayve if we built a ramp as tall as we intend to make the pyramid - on all 4 sides - we could extend some logs acrross the span to hold the ropes. maybe they had skyhooks in the past? ---
**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 3, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1187 "2015-05-03T23:17:10Z")
I’m pretty sure logs have been debunked. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2015, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1188 "2015-05-03T23:45:48Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I’m pretty sure logs have been debunked. Post 152 ---
**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:** [May 4, 2015, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1189 "2015-05-04T00:28:58Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I’m pretty sure logs have been debunked. I think I just figured it out. There are no ramps left behind - when they were constructing the ramps on the four sides of where they wanted to build the pyramid - the simply pushed the ramps together to make the pyramid. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1190 "2015-05-04T01:36:29Z")
**simster** : I love you and want you to prepare my remains for mummification. ---
**Author:** ![THE\_ELECT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9a140/32.png) [@THE\_ELECT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/THE_ELECT)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1191 "2015-05-04T14:20:19Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > Why did aliens build the pyramids Aleins did not build the pyramids.Supernatural beings who are extra dimensional and are fallen angels along with their offspring called gebor built these landmarks.Secondly these landmarks werenot built in our earthage.Mankind is presently in a second earthage the pyramids around the planet were made in the earths first earthage.These creatures are not biological like us, they are physical but also supernatural and they are all masculine in nature. ---
**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 4, 2015, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1192 "2015-05-04T14:38:15Z")
Oh well, at least witnessing is allowed in GD. But this is thread is not much about metaphysics, but physics and evidence. Do you have any links to evidence or supporters of this idea **THE ELECT**? ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1193 "2015-05-04T14:59:45Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Oh well, at least witnessing is allowed in GD. > > But this is thread is not much about metaphysics, but physics and evidence. Do you have any links to evidence or supporters of this idea **THE ELECT**? Yeah, right. …Like Facts Will Change Anyone’s Mind About Anything. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1194 "2015-05-04T15:21:33Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Yeah, right. > > …Like Facts Will Change Anyone’s Mind About Anything. _But they will_. I’m sorry you don’t believe that, but it is very much the case. Were you to bring _facts_ to this discussion, not merely your own beliefs (however “logical”), you would absolutely find a receptive audience. I think you’re still not getting this. People are not challenging you because they’re on the side of the International Egyptologist Conspiracy. They’re challenging you because you have _brought nothing with any factual support to the table_. ---
**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 4, 2015, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1195 "2015-05-04T15:25:22Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Post 152 Posts have been debunked. ---
**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 4, 2015, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1196 "2015-05-04T15:28:55Z")
> [@74westy](#): > > That article is vague but seems to be saying that prairie dog language is a collection of nouns. Did you see anything this the article that would meet Slow Moving Vehicle’s criteria? IANA linguist - I just cosplay one on the interwebz - but it seems to me that the question “What is language” is not definitively settled. I use Steven Pinker’s definition of a finite number of signs that can produce an infinite number of utterances. Unless the prairie dogs can generate a completely unique call, I would hesitate to label that “language”. (Note that the researcher behind this work is a biologist, not a linguist or cognitive scientist.) But I’m willing to admit I might be wrong. In any case, even if prairie dog calls or whale song or chimp cries are language, they’re not “metaphysical”, as **cladking** claims, and they certainly don’t provide any evidence to suggest that the pyramid-builders spoke a magical language that was qualitatively different from any other human language ever spoken. ---
**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 4, 2015, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1197 "2015-05-04T15:32:11Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Yeah, right. > > …Like Facts Will Change Anyone’s Mind About Anything. [Bugs Bunny] Heh, he don’t know me really well uh, folks? 🙂 [BB] You really ignore what I explained in another thread, I post to learn and to teach to others, the ones making the extraordinary claims can get it or not but that is not the most important thing IMHO. Sometimes the lesson everyone else will get is that the one that is not understanding how science is done will be a warning to all. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1198 "2015-05-04T15:34:51Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Yeah, right. > > …Like Facts Will Change Anyone’s Mind About Anything. _Geysers?_ ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1199 "2015-05-04T15:36:29Z")
> [@andros](#): > > _But they will_. I’m sorry you don’t believe that, but it is very much the case. > > Were you to bring _facts_ to this discussion, not merely your own beliefs (however “logical”), you would absolutely find a receptive audience. > > I think you’re still not getting this. People are not challenging you because they’re on the side of the International Egyptologist Conspiracy. They’re challenging you because you have _brought nothing with any factual support to the table_. I bring so few facts because there are so few facts but thesefacts include things like work equals the weight times the height. They include things like the evidence for steps and the vast illogic in the notion that they could only have used rampds therefore they did use ramps and the utter absense of evidence for ramps is proof they used ramps. How does anyone compete with this? I show a 100,000 ton water collection device and ramp believers say it was for spent holy water used by highly religious people and as proof they offer the non-existence of the gods they believed in. As proof the pyramids were tombs they offer the absense of bodies. At every step the actual evidence is simply being held aside as red herrings. Before I caught on tothis there were dozens of times I thought I had found something that virtually rose to the level of proof but each time it is dismissed as being irrelevant. Even a picture on an encrustation bubbling up from below on the Giza Plateau has no weight and no substance. Until a professional pronounces it as real and ties it in with ramps and stinky footed bumpkins it may as well not even exist just like ALL the other physical evidence. It’s not only people’s warped ideas about reality that constitutes “ignorance” it’s everybody’s adherance to what they’ve been taught and the status quo. But this is another subject and the question here is how they built the pyramid. As I’ve long said “aliens” makes more sense than “ramps” because ramps are debunked and it’s hard to debunk most of the alien theories. Alien theories can be crafted around the actual evidence while ramps can not. ---
**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 4, 2015, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1200 "2015-05-04T15:41:15Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > There’s really little we know about the nature of gravity beyond “weight and inertia”. I’m merely trying to show that the Egyptians knew weight and inertia as well. They used vector equations to compute load movements. These were called the “seven arrows of sekhmet (power)”, I believe. Nope. We know gravity is the curvature of spacetime, we know the equations that describe it (at least on the macro level), we know it’s the weakest of the four fundamental forces. You claimed that the pyramid-builders understood the nature of gravity as well or better than modern science. Then in another post you asked to be shown where you had made a factual error. I’ve shown you. Now you’re just waffling and claiming that you “really meant” that the pyramid-builders were aware that things fall down. Sorry, that’s called “moving the goalposts”. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1201 "2015-05-04T15:56:59Z")
+QUOTE=Slow Moving Vehicle;18338883]Nope. We know gravity is the curvature of spacetime, we know the equations that describe it (at least on the macro level), we know it’s the weakest of the four fundamental forces. You claimed that the pyramid-builders understood the nature of gravity as well or better than modern science. Then in another post you asked to be shown where you had made a factual error. I’ve shown you. Now you’re just waffling and claiming that you “really meant” that the pyramid-builders were aware that things fall down. Sorry, that’s called “moving the goalposts”. [/QUOTE] I most assuredly to not think the Egyptian understanding of gravity was equal or superior to ours. I said their understanding of how it worked was not much different. Essentially we believe all bodies attract and this is what they believed as well. How it “bends spacetime” or how it relates to the other forces is simply unknown. The irony is Sir Isaac Newton studied the Great Pyramids and the culture looking for proof of his theory of gravity but never found it. He may have found one of his laws of motion but didn’t even know it. Yes, the builders knew things fell down is which is just about as much as we know about why. That they knew things fell down is proven by the fact they used a plumb bob. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=59) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=61)