# 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:** 98
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1942 "2015-05-18T01:26:29Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > cladking, how old is humanity? How long did your odd “perfect language” exist? When did it die? I’m no anthropologist but I believe that human like animals have existed for at least a quarter million years. By 100,000 years ago these animals probably looked a lot like us. But the human species is a product of complex language and this didn’t occur until about 45,000 years ago and arose as a result of a mutation. This original complex language was an elaboration on the simple animal language that was known to the first mutants. It required several generations for the mutation to become firmly established and for enough knowledge to accumulate to firmly establish humanity as we know it. The old language was “perfect” only for creatures with little theory. It became overly complex as new learning was added to it. This complexity led to its collapse around 2000 BC. The human race survived its collapse only because ancient technology could be passed down father to son and because humans did retain the little “cleverness” we actually have. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1943 "2015-05-18T01:30:00Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > This statement is absolutely incorrect. It brings into question whether you know what any of those four words mean, along with most of the rest of the words you use. Surely you must realize I meant that once the wiring is in place and the definitions are fixed that the language is not arbitrary. I looked for the sense in the writing and found it, surely you don’t have to dig too deep to figure out what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1944 "2015-05-18T01:34:14Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > He’s slipping. The ancient language is taking him over, soon he wil forget how to communicate with us entirely. I fear you may be half right in a left handed sort of way. 😉 I’m not too worried though since I still have a foot planted firmly on terra firma. 🙂 (think of it as an inside joke) ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1945 "2015-05-18T01:51:31Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > As pointed before, even by you, you do not even have a good idea about how your contraption worked… I think I have a pretty good idea of exactly how most parts of it worked. It wasn’t configured exactly the same at each pyramid because it depended on things like the location of the quarry and the distance from the river. There are some parts that get no mention in the PT and even what is described as to be deduced. I’ve never cited anybody at all in support of any of my hypotheses. I’m not even certain I understand the reason people are always citing other people. Citatrions have simply been to show evidence and have nothing to do with the source. Opinions are a dime a dozen and I never pick them up. Ideas are immensely valuale and I steal them anytime I can. Nailing ideas to the walls won’t stop me from stealing them. God only knows where I stole all the ideas that led to this theory. Packaging up opinion in the prettiest box won’t get me to take it or use it. I have no use for opinion so no use for citation or bibliographies. What matters is how the pyramids were built. My opinion on the subject has no substance than Egyptological opinion which has even been debunked. What matters are the facts and the logic. CO2 geysers do exist, can be controlled in theory, and appear to be described in the ancient literature. These are facts. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1946 "2015-05-18T02:05:41Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Yes, but I wanted to see if _ **cladking** _ would respond to the question, to see if he could or would show interest in anything outside of his pet obsession. Posting the lyrics was an interesting diversion from his pyramid fixation. I like a lot of good music and most of it was done after 1966. I think the human voice is the best instrument but also value good twelve string which is why I quoted a second lyric by Leo Kottke. He did both these songs but may not have written the former. John Fahey was his mentor and did some spectacular work with a twelve string as well. I really like good lyrics which are a sort of poetry, and music and poetry are probably our closest connections with the ancients and with the ancient language. I’m not much of a poet but I believe the parts of the mind that compose poetry would have played more of a role in speech in ancient Egypt. Everything doesn’t really come back to the ancients but it does often seem so. But then, this is a thread about pyramid building so there’s always this undercurrent. I can actually talk about only music in a thread about music! ---
**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 18, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1947 "2015-05-18T02:18:43Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > I think I have a pretty good idea of exactly how most parts of it worked. It wasn’t configured exactly the same at each pyramid because it depended on things like the location of the quarry and the distance from the river. There are some parts that get no mention in the PT and even what is described as to be deduced. > > I’ve never cited anybody at all in support of any of my hypotheses. I’m not even certain I understand the reason people are always citing other people. Because that is what the nowhere man (Jeremy) suffered. From The Yellow Submarine: > [@](#): > > [Jeremy is writing with his foot] > > **Jeremy** : The footnotes for my nineteenth book. This is my standard procedure for doing it. And while I compose it, I’m also reviewing it! > > **George** : A boob for all seasons. > > **Paul** : How can he lose? > > **John** : Were your notices good? > > **Jeremy** : It’s my policy never to read my reviews. “never to read my reviews.” This is really the very basic failure you have, you are only demonstrating to all that no one in any position of expertise is supporting you, it also leads to no one of notice that will follow your ideas either. > [@cladking](#): > > Citatrions have simply been to show evidence and have nothing to do with the source. Opinions are a dime a dozen and I never pick them up. Ideas are immensely valuale and I steal them anytime I can. Nailing ideas to the walls won’t stop me from stealing them. God only knows where I stole all the ideas that led to this theory. Packaging up opinion in the prettiest box won’t get me to take it or use it. I have no use for opinion so no use for citation or bibliographies. Like others said early in the thread, you are only happy running in circles then. > [@cladking](#): > > What matters is how the pyramids were built. My opinion on the subject has no substance than Egyptological opinion which has even been debunked. What matters are the facts and the logic. CO2 geysers do exist, can be controlled in theory, and appear to be described in the ancient literature. These are facts. “appear” is not a fact. You have shown many times that you have no idea what debunked is. You have no facts and logic. These are the facts here. Just continue like that and not even Ringo will save you from your nowhereness [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1161ab\_the-beatles-nowhere-man\_music](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1161ab_the-beatles-nowhere-man_music) "He’s as blind as he can be Just sees what he wants to see Nowhere Man can you see me at all? Nowhere Man, don’t worry Take your time, don’t hurry Leave it all till somebody else lends you a hand … He’s a real Nowhere Man Sitting in his nowhere land Making all his nowhere plans for nobody Making all his nowhere plans for nobody Making all his nowhere plans for nobody" ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1948 "2015-05-18T03:11:33Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > “appear” is not a fact. You have shown many times that you have no idea what debunked is. You have no facts and logic. I don’t want to get into semantics here but osiris is called a cool effervescent column of water that offgasses CO2. It seems it does “appear” to call him a geyser. Balanced on my mountain With the people all around Who say that I’ve been up too long And they want to bring me down I don’t mind the coming down It’s the way it’s gotta be What I hope I got left inside Is a little bit of me ---
**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 18, 2015, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1949 "2015-05-18T03:22:11Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > Surely you must realize I meant that once the wiring is in place and the definitions are fixed that the language is not arbitrary. > > I looked for the sense in the writing and found it, surely you don’t have to dig too deep to figure out what I mean. Surely you must realize you don’t know what you meant. Your fiction is unoriginal. There’s no magical language. ---
**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 18, 2015, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1950 "2015-05-18T03:37:06Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > I don’t want to get into semantics here but osiris is called a cool effervescent column of water that offgasses CO2. It seems it does “appear” to call him a geyser. > > Balanced on my mountain > With the people all around > Who say that I’ve been up too long > And they want to bring me down > I don’t mind the coming down > It’s the way it’s gotta be > What I hope I got left inside > Is a little bit of me An idea based on an interpretation of a text is not evidence. You are still facing smaller and smaller circles. And indeed no Ringo will help you here. > [@](#): > > **John** : Okay, men, all aboard. Let’s go somewhere. As pointed before, groups that for a living look at pseudo-science do not have any respect with ideas like yours, and we know why. Even the tourist agencies with experience with Egypt do not have any respect at all for those fanciful ideas either. [http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/pyramidtheories.htm#ixzz3aSQCjNO3](http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/pyramidtheories.htm#ixzz3aSQCjNO3) > [@](#): > > Year after year, we receive many emails about these various theories, which are often not particularly new. They have a tendency to cycle, being disproved, only to show up once again some years later. Many are based on smoke and slight of hand, ignoring various truths and a vast amount of scholarly research resulting in an extensive body of factual information. They go on and on, talking about the pyramids reflecting the circumference of the world or the hidden libraries of Atlantis, without paying much heed to information outside of their focus. > > For example, many if not most of these theories concern a single monument, such as the Great Sphinx or the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza, without much regard for their context within the Giza Plateau, the worker villages of those who constructed the pyramids, the hundred or so other Pyramids in Egypt or the many other extensive building projects in Egypt. For that matter, many of these theories completely ignore the ancient Egyptian religion as well. > [@](#): > > At other times, those proposing some of the wilder theories have demonstrated the lack of even a very basic knowledge of ancient Egypt, its monuments, religion and culture. In future subsections of this article, we will explore some of the more valid propositions, and perhaps even some of the less valid theories, but some do not even warrant acknowledgement. > > Take, for example some recent email I have been receiving about the pyramids of Giza. These claim that the Great Pyramids at Giza were never tombs at all, but were instead some sort of “scientific endeavor”. I would not usually grace the source of such a theory by publishing the website address, but this one time I will do so in order to point out some of the problems they pose particularly to those interested, but relatively uninformed about ancient Egypt . > [@](#): > > It is true that the early pyramids were not formally inscribed, but they were also a part of larger complexes, including mortuary temples that were inscribed. In fact, there are even inscriptions of pyramid workers that provide us with some information even in the Great Pyramid. Furthermore, later pyramids were inscribed with various funerary texts. > > The fact that the Egyptian pyramids were tombs is not simply an idea put forward by Zahi Hawass, however. The pyramids, including the Great Pyramids of Giza, have been excavated, explored, analyzed for well over one hundred years by many different scholars including people such as Mark Lehner, who first went to Egypt to explore the mystic beliefs of Edgar Cayce, but abandoned these alternative theories after gaining knowledge of the monuments and became a professional Egyptologist. Many other modern Egyptologists, even today, are doing work at various pyramids, and to our knowledge, none of them believe that the pyramids were not tombs. Furthermore, it should be pointed out that the Pyramid of Khufu, specifically, is situated in a necropolis and surrounded by many private tombs as well, most of which belonged to members of this king’s court. ---
**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 18, 2015, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1951 "2015-05-18T03:37:33Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > I don’t think so. I think these “modules” are a response by the brain to using an “unnatural” language. If we thought and spoke “naturally” these modules would each be a word and their organization would be grammar. [You are wrong.](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22013214) > [@](#): > > Our language is pretty arbitrary but this is due to drift. Ancient language and math are not arbitrary and are based on fixed definitions and the same operations. In an earlier post, I cited (that’s a thing you do where you show some evidence that you’re not just making stuff up; I think the concept is unfamiliar to you) three different words in three different ancient languages that meant the same thing. Language is arbitrary; now and in the past. > [@](#): > > No, no, no, no no. > > There was 40,000 years of straight line human progress up to 2000 BC and writing was a very modern development at that time. It’s not a coincidence that the ancient language collapsed so soon afdter the invention of writing. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You might try reading the link I stuck in the post you’re quoting. You would see that writing arose in Mesopotamia around 3200 BCE, in China around 1200 BCE, and in Mesoamerica around 600 BCE. > [@](#): > > You’re joking right? > > If this were widely known we wouldn’t be a species with amnesia. There wouldn’t a gap starting at 2000 BC and encompassing all human history before that time. We would know how the pyramids were built and have an understanding of the ancient “theory of evolution”. We’d know when agriculture was invented and why we raise goats instead of deer. You claim that all people before 2000 BCE spoke the same language, that it then collapsed, and the “new languages” were commanded by governmental edict, and you say _I’m_ joking? I studied Hebrew in college with a man named Ted Lewis, who is an expert in ancient Semitic languages. He took us once to the library to see some of the clay cuneiform tablets he was translating. I have held in my hand a text written five millienia ago. I know personal anecdote is not data, but don’t tell _me_ that we have no record of human history before 2000 BCE - I’ve _touched_ it. By the way, you should check out Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel and Raymond Solokov’s various works for an explanation of when agriculture was invented and why goats can be domesticated but deer can’t. > [@](#): > > That’s coolso long as you don’t forget ramps were debunked (see post #152) and we all remember to ask our favorite Egyptologist how the pyramids were built. 🙂 I don’t really care about how the pyramids were built - Egyptian history is not an interest of mine. But languages do interest me. And your uncited, unsupported claims are simply ridiculous. ---
**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 18, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1952 "2015-05-18T03:41:26Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > I like a lot of good music and most of it was done after 1966. \*\*I think the human voice is the best instrument \*\*but also value good twelve string which is why I quoted a second lyric by Leo Kottke. He did both these songs but may not have written the former. John Fahey was his mentor and did some spectacular work with a twelve string as well. My god, I think we are approaching the singularity - you’ve made an statement that I can whole-heartedly agree with! The voice is my favorite instrument, as well. And I too appreciate good lyrics. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1953 "2015-05-18T04:28:58Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > . . . why goats can be domesticated but deer can’t. . . . Could you summarize this in brief? It’s a fascinating question, and I have no idea what the answer is! (I would have thought that domestication is what has already happened to goats but not to deer. Goats have been changed by centuries of forced selective breeding – if the goat gets too rebellious, it gets slaughtered. We haven’t been keeping deer in pens for centuries, and so they haven’t had the rebelliousness bred out of them. Am I even close?) ---
**Author:** ![Redshirt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@Redshirt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redshirt)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1954 "2015-05-18T06:52:26Z")
**Trinopus** , a large part of it has to do with herd dominance. Some animals spend a great deal of effort establishing a pecking order. These animals do not domesticate well because of the stress involved every time herds are combined, such as when animals are bought and sold. Cows are apparently pretty laid back in that regard. Moo. ---
**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 18, 2015, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1955 "2015-05-18T12:10:32Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Could you summarize this in brief? It’s a fascinating question, and I have no idea what the answer is! > > (I would have thought that domestication is what has already happened to goats but not to deer. Goats have been changed by centuries of forced selective breeding – if the goat gets too rebellious, it gets slaughtered. We haven’t been keeping deer in pens for centuries, and so they haven’t had the rebelliousness bred out of them. Am I even close?) According to Diamond, that’s part of it - humans apply selective pressure for bonding or toleration of us. But there is a list of other characteristics a species must possess for humans to be able to domesticate them - a flexible diet (that does not compete too much with ours; also it helps if the animal can eat a food we can’t, like grass); a social hierarchy that permits humans to insert ourselves in the top spot; the willingness to breed in captivity, and a fast growth rate; a weak flight instinct when panicked (or an instinct to huddle together in that case, as sheep do.) Cats and ferrets are anomalies, because their wild forbears were not social, but they have become animals that seek out social groups. Selective pressure from humans at work here, most likely. Deer don’t make the grade because they flee when panicked, can jump long distances, and, most importantly, are territorial when they breed. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1956 "2015-05-18T12:51:34Z")
Well, I assume, also because they are not that useful as a farm animal. They don’t give a useful amount of milk, no wool nor can they bear any burden. So that would leave meat. But our other farm stock is also better at supplying us with that. ---
**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 18, 2015, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1957 "2015-05-18T13:21:38Z")
> [@cladking](#): > > I don’t want to get into semantics here All you \*have \*is semantics. This whole thread is just you saying that you don’t agree with well-established evidence and detailed investigation. You have neither (evidence nor investigation) so what remains is word play, and you don’t seem to understand most of the words you use. ---
**Author:** ![cladking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@cladking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cladking)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1958 "2015-05-18T14:23:07Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Even the tourist agencies with experience with Egypt do not have any respect at all for those fanciful ideas either. I’ve always gotten a kick out of TourEgypt’s site. It toes the company line very very closely, unsurprisingly. Their article of pyramid construction inspired my observation that Egyptologusts believe “they mustta used ramps” because it used to state this in one form or abnother more than 14 times in a single short article including two times in a single sentence. Unsurprisingly the conclusion of the article was that they used ramps. The site is actually fair quality in the sense that they don’t present mysticism or woo and they do have their facts generally correct. I’ve quoted the following paragraph from your post just to get youto look at it again; “The pyramids, including the Great Pyramids of Giza, have been excavated, explored, analyzed for well over one hundred years by many different scholars including people such as Mark Lehner, who first went to Egypt to explore the mystic beliefs of Edgar Cayce, but abandoned these alternative theories after gaining knowledge of the monuments and became a professional Egyptologist. Many other modern Egyptologists, even today, are doing work at various pyramids, and to our knowledge, none of them believe that the pyramids were not tombs.” Here it clearly states that Egyptologists believe the great pyramids were tombs just as I said they do. This is one of the four foundational assumptions of Egyptology which is a science founded on these four assumptions, one of which is the pyramids are tombs. Lehner was a believer in Cayce who was one of the “wooiest” of all pyramidiots. Don’t get me wrong, Cayce was no one’s fool but how anyone could get swallowed up in assuming there was any reality in his work is beyond me. There have been many of these, some based in logic and common sense at their heart and others that just require the reader to accept some fanciful belief like they can channel ancient times in their sleep or that the ancients were stinky footed bumpkins. Be all this as it may the point is a simple one. How is it possible that to be “scholarly” researchers must believe that the pyramids were tombs? There is no direct evidence that the great pyramids were tombs. So why do ALL egyptologiusts believe they were tombs? If you ask a thousand Egyptologists what rthe eye of horus was you’ll get 1001 different answers and a sore ear but if you ask them what the pyramid was they’ll each sing “tomb” in unison. Why is this? It is these simple facts, logic, and definitions that lead me to state things as I do. Despite the fact that the PT says in no uncertain terms over and over and over again that the great pyramids were not tombs and that the king’s tomb was in the sky to which he ascended on the smoke of incense from the funeral pyre on the east side of the first step, Egypotologists all believe his tomb was the pyramid. They believe this inaccuracy because the writers of the PT were stinky footed bumpkins who didn’t know what they were saying which they know because their descendents were highly superstitious and were obsessed with death. To Egyptology this all makes perfect sense but it is at odds with the evidence. It is at odds with logic. And it is at odds with the actual cultural context; 616d. Thou art given over to thy mother Nut, in her name of “Grave”; 616e. she has embraced thee, in her name of “Grave”; You can dance around the facts and accept the opinion of Egyptologists or you can research the subject for yourself. But no matter what you do there is no evidence of any sort any ramp ever lifted even a single stone on any great pyramid. Ramps have been debunked (post #152) and the cornerstone of the Egyptological beliefs has been removed. The other three cornerstones have been laid bare and shown to be smoke and mirrors. The word “ramp” isn’t even attested from the great pyramid building age. There were no ramps and no matter how many times “they mustta used ramps” is chanted or otherwise invoked no such evidence exists. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1959 "2015-05-18T14:29:09Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > The voice is my favorite instrument, as well. And I too appreciate good lyrics. So…_not_ a Ringo fan, then? ---
**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 18, 2015, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1960 "2015-05-18T14:33:24Z")
It’s pretty unsettling what the human mind can turn into, when a driving passion isn’t restrained by critical thinking. That account of seeing a pyramid, then embarking on this nine-year odyssey of constructing elaborate fantasies, and a sort of alternative reality, is seriously creepy and disturbing. It sounds like something out of a Dr. Mabuse movie, where someone’s mind becomes host to a self-aware set of ideas, that slowly consume and replace the host’s consciousness with a new one. Reading your posts fills me with one thought over and over, **cladking** : _I hope that never happens to me_. ---
**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 18, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559/1961 "2015-05-18T14:41:58Z")
Still going, like the energizer bunny. 😛 [QUOTE=cladking] Be all this as it may the point is a simple one. How is it possible that to be “scholarly” researchers must believe that the pyramids were tombs? [/QUOTE] Well, I think the reason that ‘Egyptologists’ think that the pyramids were tombs might have something to do with the fact that the progression of monumental architecture that lead up to pyramids (mastaba) were tombs, that entombing their pharaohs in such structures or in elaborate tomb system pre-dates AND post-dates the time of the pyramid builders, and, in fact, is not unique to Egypt. So, they have something a bit more than pulling some translations out of their ass to base their theory that the pyramids were tombs on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=97) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-the-pyramids-in-egypt-built/706559.md?page=99)