# 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:** 88
**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 14, 2015, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1742 "2015-05-14T17:43:07Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > I suppose you could say that Egyptologidsts don’t even know that CO2 geysers don’t exist. :rolleyes: It is not my problem if you insist in showing your ignorance, only a few geologists seem to have that problem, published science accepts that CO2 geysers exist. The problem is not that, the problem is that the published science reports many examples of them, but not in Egypt. ---
**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 14, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1743 "2015-05-14T17:49:23Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > THE major flaw in all of this is your need to have the Tower of Babel story to be literally true. > From which ‘follows’: > > 1. That there was one single ancient language. > 2. That this language is the Egyptian language of around 2500 BC. > 3. That they had no Gods and any mention of them is meant to be a physical phenomenon. > > Everything falls flat when you realise that Egyptian is **NOT** the only language around in 2500BC and that it is basically the same as the Ramesside Egyptian as written 1000 years later. > > There is absolutely no reason to assume that the Pyramid Texts are in this _mythical_ language of yours. Even less because there are more ancient Egyptian writings and they differ more from the PT in style and glyphs than the writings from the time of Ramses. Not to mention that Old Egyptian didn’t “collapse” or “fail”, **cladking**. You seem to believe that the language just disappeared overnight, relatively speaking. It didn’t; it evolved into Middle Egyptian, then Demotic Egyptian, then Coptic. Which is still around, as a liturgical language used by Coptic Christians in, logically enough, Egypt. If that counts as a collapse, then Latin also “collapsed” into the Romance languages and Sanskrit into the Indo-Aryan ones. That’s what languages _do_. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1744 "2015-05-14T17:55:47Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And nowhere in your response you deal with the fact that there is not enough natron to counteract the acidity, as always a very underwhelming response from you… > > And once again it is you that is depending on magic to make all your design work. It is not necessary to “counteract the acidity”. It is merely necessary to start forcing gas out of solution to trigger the eruption. Dump some salt in warm soda to see what happens. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1745 "2015-05-14T17:57:29Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > What dictionary are you using?? > The word is _sta_ and it isn’t written as you state. > > Not in mine at least, Wallis Budge, Dover publ. 1978. What does it show? ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1746 "2015-05-14T18:15:32Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > Are you getting it from reading the Pyramid Texts? I’m no Egyptologist - I had never even heard of the PT before this thread. The PT are the only writing that survives from the great pyramid building age. More accurately it’s from shortly after this era but is obviously ancient so all or most of it was actually written concurrently with pyramid building. The authors of the PT knew exactly how these were built and the names of the individual workers and their tools. This work is wholly incomprehensible to Egyptologists as PROVEN by the fact they don’t understand the meaning of the simplest terms. Even if it actually were understood they’d be none the wiser because they believe it is a book of incantation. Based on the similarity of terms and phrases in the PT they have concluded that it means the same thing as the book of the dead which was written 1000 years later and is comprehensible. THIS IS ALL TOTALLY ILLOGICAL but they can’t see the vast illogic in it. Their understanding of the pyramid builders is consistent with later times because of this assumption but it is inconsistent with the physical evidence because it is wrong. To understand how wrong Egyptology is you must understand these three paragraphs. They had perfectly understandable reasons to make the mistake but it is still a mistake and it is still illogical and non sequitur. > [@](#): > > Do you read the hieroglyphics themselves, or do you read the English translations? Mostly the translations but I do try to muddle through the actual glyphs once in a while. > [@](#): > > It seems your interpretations differ from those of everyone else on the planet who reads them - how do you know your interpretations are the correct ones? I don’t know that I am correct however if you just read this work rather than “interpreting” it then there is a wholly different meaning. I’m not assigning word meaning based on research of later people but rather determining word meanings from context. I simply assume it made sense and sought meanings that were consistent with logic. I believe this “interpretation” is actually correct because it makes the entire PT comprehensible and internally consistent. Egyptologisats believe it is so inconsistent that they even have to correct grammar and spelling. I don’t believe there are ANY errors. Egyptologists believe it is so incoinsistent that the siumplest terms had hundreds of different definitions. No word had a definition at all!!! Words represented a single referent and each thing had three words to describe. It was the selection of the specific word used in context that conveyed meaning. This is wholly different than modern languages. They also included all new learning directly into the language; it became part of the grammar and terminology required to communicate. This language was highly effective as a basis of thought. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1747 "2015-05-14T18:20:06Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Draw any comparison you like. The point is that you accept as genuine, whether reasonable or not, the motives for building cathedrals, but deny that those could be essentially the same motives for building pyramids. Can you explain what difference you see? It required 100,000 men twenbty years to slave away dragging stones up ramps in a primitive economy that couldn’t support such waste of resources. The cathedrals rarely had more than a few hundred workers and most required less than twenty years. The total amount of back breaking work to lift a cathedral is insignificant compared to lifting a great pyramid. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1748 "2015-05-14T18:22:18Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Not to mention that Old Egyptian didn’t “collapse” or “fail”, **cladking**. You seem to believe that the language just disappeared overnight, relatively speaking. It didn’t; it evolved into Middle Egyptian, then Demotic Egyptian, then Coptic. Which is still around, as a liturgical language used by Coptic Christians in, logically enough, Egypt. If that counts as a collapse, then Latin also “collapsed” into the Romance languages and Sanskrit into the Indo-Aryan ones. That’s what languages _do_. It evolved virtually overnight. We canb’t see it because we can’t understand the ancient language. It wasn’t the vocabulary that changed. Every word survived the collapse of the language. It was the way words were ordered to make sense that changed. ---
**Author:** ![Clark\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c77e96/32.png) [@Clark\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clark_K)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1749 "2015-05-14T18:22:43Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > All dialects were the “words of the gods” so it was merely a matter of learning different pronunciations of a relative handful of words. You say “tomato,” I say “ramp.” You say “potato,” I say “stinky-footed bumpkin.” Let’s definitely call the whole thing off. ---
**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 14, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1750 "2015-05-14T18:24:50Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > It is not necessary to “counteract the acidity”. It is merely necessary to start forcing gas out of solution to trigger the eruption. Dump some salt in warm soda to see what happens. Again, a very ignorant response. All the examples of cold water geysers (and the one you once linked an image to -in Madagascar- that “looked like the ben ben”) still have a lot of CO2 and acid in the “inundation” coming out. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1751 "2015-05-14T18:27:08Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > What we call “ramps”, they knew as “brown feet sticks”. My visceral knowledge tells me that the word for “brown” was also the word for “stinky” (that makes sense, right?), and the word for “stick” was also “bumpkin.” ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1752 "2015-05-14T18:34:10Z")
> [@XT](#): > > But no word for ramp, even though they obviously knew about ramps and used them… Yes. Obviously. But the lack of attestwation PROVES Egyptologists don’t really know anything at all about the culture. There only weapon and chief argument for the last century has been “cultural context” but there’s no such thing since the word “ramp” isn’t attested and there’s no direct evidence any great pyramid was a tomb. “Cultural context” exists only in the minds of Egyptologists and is founded on the four fundamental assumptions that the buiulders were changeless and superstiutious bumpkins who dragged tombs up ramps. All of these assumptions are wrong so there is no “cultural context” as they define it. The reality is quite different. ---
**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 14, 2015, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1753 "2015-05-14T18:39:36Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Yes. Obviously. > > But the lack of attestwation PROVES Egyptologists don’t really know anything at all about the culture. There only weapon and chief argument for the last century has been “cultural context” but there’s no such thing since the word “ramp” isn’t attested and there’s no direct evidence any great pyramid was a tomb. > > “Cultural context” exists only in the minds of Egyptologists and is founded on the four fundamental assumptions that the buiulders were changeless and superstiutious bumpkins who dragged tombs up ramps. All of these assumptions are wrong so there is no “cultural context” as they define it. The reality is quite different. At this point I would like for you to show that you know the definition of “reality”, please. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1754 "2015-05-14T18:41:35Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > All the examples of cold water geysers (and the one you once linked an image to -in Madagascar- that “looked like the ben ben”) still have a lot of CO2 and acid in the “inundation” coming out. The ben ben is on the Giza Plateau and specifically in the “Sphinx Temple”. It doesn’t matter if they’re acidic or not. All that matters is that the water gets to 81’ 3" and there is no contradictory evidence that it did. To my knowledge no such contradictory evidence exists. I suppose the lack of ereoded stones fromn the “walls of shu” could be taken as contradictoiry but there would be few such stones and they’d all be deep inside the pyramid under the first step because they were repurposed when the mehet weret was canibalized for stone. The evidence matters. It is Egyptologists who don’t take it into account. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1755 "2015-05-14T18:49:44Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > The ben ben is on the Giza Plateau and specifically in the “Sphinx Temple”. > > It doesn’t matter if they’re acidic or not. All that matters is that the water gets to 81’ 3" and there is no contradictory evidence that it did. But there were no geysers. Prove me wrong. ---
**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 14, 2015, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1756 "2015-05-14T18:56:58Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > The ben ben is on the Giza Plateau and specifically in the “Sphinx Temple”. Not even close to what a ben ben was. > [@cladking](#): > > It doesn’t matter if they’re acidic or not. All that matters is that the water gets to 81’ 3" and there is no contradictory evidence that it did. Of course it doesn’t matter because it is clear that chemistry and physics are not on your side, at all. > [@cladking](#): > > To my knowledge no such contradictory evidence exists. Of course, we already established here that you do not know it. > [@cladking](#): > > I suppose the lack of ereoded stones fromn the “walls of shu” could be taken as contradictoiry but there would be few such stones and they’d all be deep inside the pyramid under the first step because they were repurposed when the mehet weret was canibalized for stone. The evidence matters. It is Egyptologists who don’t take it into account. So never mind the funicular and the mess of layers of material that do deposit downstream from a cold water geyser. So no, it is you the one that does not take evidence into account, and neither physics or chemistry. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1757 "2015-05-14T19:05:02Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > What does it show? Phonetically I would read it as ‘s t ta a u’ and the determinants cord with a line through it and two legs walking ---
**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 14, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1758 "2015-05-14T19:10:40Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Yes. Obviously. > > But the lack of attestwation PROVES Egyptologists don’t really know anything at all about the culture. There only weapon and chief argument for the last century has been “cultural context” but there’s no such thing since the word “ramp” isn’t attested and there’s no direct evidence any great pyramid was a tomb. > > “Cultural context” exists only in the minds of Egyptologists and is founded on the four fundamental assumptions that the buiulders were changeless and superstiutious bumpkins who dragged tombs up ramps. All of these assumptions are wrong so there is no “cultural context” as they define it. The reality is quite different. So, to summarize, they knew what ramps were, they used them, but because you haven’t found an ‘attested’ word for it that means they didn’t use them. Q.E.D. 😛 > [@](#): > > The ben ben is on the Giza Plateau and specifically in the “Sphinx Temple”. Are we talking about A ben ben stone or THE Benben Stone? Because if it’s the first then you’ll need to provide a cite (I guess I’m not seeing the big deal, since they are just cap stones…nothing to do with geysers except maybe in your mind). If the [latter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benben) though you are simply wrong. > [@](#): > > It doesn’t matter if they’re acidic or not. All that matters is that the water gets to 81’ 3" and there is no contradictory evidence that it did. It matters a great deal, actually, but I’m still waiting for you to give a straight forward explanation of how the water got to 88 mph…er, sorry, I mean 81’. How, EXACTLY, did the water get up to that height from your theoretical underground geyser? > [@](#): > > To my knowledge no such contradictory evidence exists. Since you ignore contradictory evidence and, in fact, deny knowing about it, ofter a post or two after it’s presented, this is really militantly unsurprising. > [@](#): > > The evidence matters. The evidence you’ve failed to produce…repeatedly? > [@](#): > > It is Egyptologists who don’t take it into account. I’m starting to think what we have here is…a failuah to communicate. 😛 Perhaps in your language ‘evidence’ means ‘wild guesses taken from ones ass and presented as assertion bordering on The Word Of the Gods(tm…arr)!!’ while everyone else has a different definition of ‘evidence’ that isn’t based on the old language that only you know and can translate. ---
**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:** [May 14, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1759 "2015-05-14T19:13:42Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > When the word for “ramp” finally becomes attested a century after the end of the great pyramid building age it is an isosceles triangle lying on its side with the hypotenues to the left. Ironically in this first usage it is a means for men to get down rather than up; it is merely a path like a stairway. > [@cladking](#): > > The PT are the only writing that survives from the great pyramid building age. Ever try considering both pieces of information simultaneously? (Assuming you are correct about the date of oldest example of the “ramp” glyph). If the only writing that survives from the “great pyramid building age” is the Pyramid Texts, and “ramp” isn’t in there…that just means that “ramp” isn’t in the Pyramid Texts, not that the word didn’t exist at the time. Just like “lever” isn’t in the Bible, there’s no reason to expect construction minutia to appear in a religious text. “Wheel” doesn’t appear in the Pyramid Texts, does that prove the Egyptians didn’t have wheels, let alone pulleys? ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1760 "2015-05-14T19:16:08Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Oh, and if the utterances were meant to be read aloud to the assembled public, why were they written on the inside of the pyramids, and on the sarcophagi within? Would they have teams to relay the words from the interior to the outside, like a giant game of telephone?. **Latro** , can you answer this point? I’ve read that many inscriptions did in fact begin with a pair of symbols meaning “for recitation” or “to be spoken aloud.” I’ve been looking for a cite but can’t find one. If that’s correct, why would it be put inside a sealed tomb? ---
**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 14, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1761 "2015-05-14T19:20:03Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Ever try considering both pieces of information simultaneously? (Assuming you are correct about the date of oldest example of the “ramp” glyph). If the only writing that survives from the “great pyramid building age” is the Pyramid Texts, and “ramp” isn’t in there…that just means that “ramp” isn’t in the Pyramid Texts, not that the word didn’t exist at the time. Just like “lever” isn’t in the Bible, there’s no reason to expect construction minutia to appear in a religious text. “Wheel” doesn’t appear in the Pyramid Texts, does that prove the Egyptians didn’t have wheels, let alone pulleys? The non-stinky footed Egyptians used every word they had in the PT of course…because it’s in the ancient language that everyone knew back then, even the spaces had meaning! And if ‘ramp’ isn’t in there that means that the Old Kingdom Egyptians utterly rejected the use of ramps (such that they didn’t even have a ‘attested’ word for it) in favor of dead lifting the stones with wooden boats filled with non-acidic water from cold CO2 geysers that have been hidden from modern eyes! Genius, I tell you…pure genius! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=87) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=89)