You’ve got to give the Egyptians some credit. I mean, there weren’t any precedents for working on such a scale (indeed, the Pyramid of Khufu was the tallest man-made structure in the world until the Eiffel Tower was built in 1898). I don’t believe that the principle of the arch had been formulated yet. And surely, motivating up to 30,000 laborers to lug around 2 million blocks weighing 2.5 tons or more is nothing to sneeze at.
Nova has an excellent website about the pyramids, and addresses many of the points discussed here (how the stones were moved, the resources behind the construction, etc.): http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/explore/
However, I agree with the basic point of the OP that the engineering principles were hardly superhuman–no alien assistance was needed. The workers just needed to possess a fervent belief in the pharoah’s godliness and a faith in an afterlife full of rewards for their labor. And awesome physical stamina, needless to say.
Stonehenge, on the other hand, is just a pile of rocks.
smiling bandit, when you’re done with Stonehenge, d’ya think you could address the issue of how the Holy House got to be moved from Nazereth to Loreto, Italy? 'Cause medieval legend has it that angels picked it up and moved it.
BTW, what happened with smaller pyramids then bigger ones then the really, really big one at Giza was…
So this pharoah decides to build a pyramid, to the glory to his pharoahcity and his god. So he calls together his architects and engineers, they design the thing and hire a contractor who hires a bunch of subcontractors who hire union help, who promptly go on strike when they hear their garlic ration is going to be reduced as a cost-cutting measure. After much negotation, management agrees to restore the garlic ration, work proceeds and a smallish, step pyramid is built.
Then the next pharoah, says, “By Ra, I’m going to build a bigger, better pyramid, to the glory of my pharoahcity and my god”. So, again with the architects and the engineers and the contractors and the subcontractors and the union and the garlic, and the next, bigger and better pyramids.
Then the next pharoah…
well, I think you get the picture. Then one falls down and a bunch of the union guys get killed, the union lobbys for safer working conditions and the pyramid currently under construction is built bent so that it won’t fall down due to having been built at too steep an angle.
Things progress in this fashion across several generations until you get to the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The main point of this thread is a valid one - there was nothing superhuman about the construction of the pyramids. But I wouldn’t say they weren’t a marvel of engineering; there was a little more to it than “piling rocks”. Remember that they had elaborate systems in interior passageways, so the stones had to be stacked exactly right, leaving blank spaces in the right pattern to form near-perfect interior chambers and passageways. And don’t forget all the elaborate carving without the benefit of modern tools. It’s not like they could go down to Home Depot and buy a router. (O.K., the carving isn’t really an engineering feat, but it’s pretty darn impressive, IMHO.)
Another plug for Nova: They did an interesting piece where they got people to attempt to recreate some ancient engineering marvels (on a smaller scale) using only what was available at the time. There were some interesting theories on how this stuff was done.
No doubt, the Pyramids are a great achievement, although no special “modern” engineering was needed, true. The Great Pyramid is the last standing of the “7 Wonders”, and as Skopo pointed out, it was the largest man made item for all of human history until about a hundred years ago. Hmm, was the Great Lighthouse at Alexandria taller?
While we are on the “7 Wonders” I remember there were two ancient lists of 7, and they differed by one item. What was that item? That is what “wonder” was on one list, but not the other? Something is telling me the “Hanging Gardens” is on the more well known list, and not on the other, which had some Temple or other…
THIS should be one of the modern 7 Wonders of the world
The Pyramids were built with thousands of slaves but what this guy did he did alone…to me that makes it all the more incredible
BTW He built this house for his bride to be who cancelled the wedding one day before they were to be married and according to the site she even never went to see it
Well the Pyramids are certainly piled up rocks… Now try “piling up rocks” in 2500 BC into something cohesive. Its primitive… but then so were the egyptians.
The internet is just a bunch of computers connected by phones ? I get your point thou… people to tend to overdo stuff.
Having just come back from Peru... I really admired Inca stonemasonry... but comparatively they were primitive to spaniards... that doesnt diminish some incredible stuff they did.
Another thing: Because pyramids are found both in Egypt and Central America, the idea MUST have been carried by space aliens, right?How about the idea that, because pyramids are such a stable structure, the design may be ‘universal’ and discovered independently by different cultures?
The pyramids don’t actually have carvings in/on them. (My Egyptologist tour guide told me this. I didn’t go into any of the big pyramids, but the small one I went into (next to Khufu’s) certainly didn’t have anything on the walls. )
I think Aladdin (the Egyptologist) said that the pyramids weren’t carved because in those days the kings were so great they didn’t need protecting (etc).
There are a few things most people do not know about the pyramids that are quite interesting. (Take note Aladdin told me this while I was there, I can’t link/cite!) Also, I’m talking about the 3 big Giza pyramids here.
The biggest two were covered in a high grade limestone when they were first built, but it was taken off by the Ottomans to build Cairo. There is a little left on the top Khafre’s pyramid, apparently it was too steep to take. This is the reason the pyramids look sort of like steps.
The entrances to all the pyramids face exactly North.
The bases of the pyramids are perfectly level. They were made this way by flooding the Nile over the site.
The pyramids were built not by slaves, but normal workers, most of whom were farmers who couldn’t work in the flood season.
People don’t realise how big the stones are. The biggest ones, at the bottom, weigh about 15 tons!
I think you really need to go there, stand next to one of them, and look up, before you can fully appreciate what a feat it was making them.
(Feel free to dispute my claims, they come purely from memory!)
As far as I remember: Before the pyramids, Kings’ tombs were sort of like flat squares (like the bottom of a pyramid). But the Egyptians decided that wasn’t good enough, so they put another level on top. Then another level. Etc etc. So became the step pyramid at Saqqara. I guess they just refined the method to cut out the steps. I have this vague memory that they wanted to get the Kings as close to the sky/gods as possible.
Besides, a pyramid is much more interesting looking than a rectangular building of almost sold rock (IMHO)!
I emphasized the labor rather than the engineering knowledge involved. Mostly, they had to have a decent plan and know what they wanted it to look like before they got started. After that, it was a fairly simple matter of actually getting the carved blocks to the site and putting them in place. The real marvel was their ability to get anough voluntary labor and create the knowhow to put the blocks up.
I will see if I can find a site about Thor Hayedral, but he was around quite some time ago.
I think I’m going to skip Stonehenge. Mostly because we really don’t know what it was for. It may ahve had some astrological significance, but we really can’t be sure how much it was used for those purposes. Oddly, similar sites, on a far smaller scale, may have been used for sheepherding.
Anyway, now, the more impresive structures, to me, were the MesoAmerican pyramids.
What is so cool about these is the sheer fact that they sometimes dragged the stone needed for the structures up a friggin mountain. Fact is, we don’t know exactly how they did it, but probably it had to do with massive labor.
You know what. This thread isn’t about debunking anything anymore. Its just my personal venting and “look at the sheer labor involved thread”. If the mods want to move to to MPTIMS, feel three.
Well last night I went home and pulled out my only Easter Island book I have. Guess what, it was written by our friend Thor Heyerdahl. There were pictures in it, but only a few showed the natives helping move or raise any of the statues. I didn’t have a chance to read much, though I did skim it, and it seems to be a bit embellished. He talked openly of canniblism, which Cecil has addressed here.
I really think that Thor might not have been totally truthful in his writings. If these people knew how they moved the statues, set them up etc, how come they do not know the language as well? Why do they not know how to put the “hats” on top of the statues. (they may but I couldn’t find it in my skimming and he said a couple of times that they didn’t tell him.) The natives also tried to take advantage of him a number of times by offering newly made artifacts as originals. That’s not to say that a lot of his work isn’t good but I don’t think it can be taken at face value.
Do forgive my lack of preview. I was trying to state that we people landed on the moon (in 1967 not in 3000 BC) when that was considered impossible. Just an illustration that there is very few things we can’t do when we as a species sets its mind on it.
Ultimately, though, the point was the illustrate that there need be no exceptional talent, skill, or advanced knowledge involved in the process. It can be done by people without superior engineering skill.
Hmmm…I’m pretty sure that some of the items in the burial chambers inside the pyramids had carving on them (although I could be confusing it with Raiders of the Lost Ark)
It’s very likely. Unfortunately, if I remember correctly, nothing much was left in the pyramids after the tomb robbers had pilfered them.
Some people stumbled upon a shaft, at the bottom of which the Ancient Egyptians had hidden the personal effects of a Queen (because they didn’t want her stuff stolen). I don’t for the life of me remember if the things in there were carved or not. (The Egyptian Museum is overwhelmingly full!)
Regardless of whether there was carving or not in the pyramids, there certainly is on other Ancient monuments (temples etc), and I remember going into one tomb in the Valley of the Kings and seeing a half-finished wall. There were outlines of carvings in red, then corrections done in black. It was really interesting seeing how it was done. The Ancient Egyptians really were very skilled. It amazes me that the Egyptians were building these enormous monuments that have survived for so long, when the rest of Africa (as far as I know) were still hunter-gatherers.
The Egyptian pyramids were built around 2500BC, the Mexican ones were built much later. They really aren’t comparable are they? Besides which, the Egyptian pyramids would have looked much less like a “pile of rocks” if the Ottomans hadn’t taken the outer layer of limestone off them.
I think they were built differently, but they are more of less comparable. I think Giza is bgger than the temple f the Sun, but I haven’t bothered to look for a cite because I’m too lazy.
Now try “piling up rocks” in 2500 BC into something cohesive. Its primitive… but then so were the egyptians.