Is there a cogent explanation? The tourist guides try and convince you the masons used copper (the hardest metal for the period)to scour granite, insert wooden wedges, soak , expand split…bollocks! How were they quarried in the first place? Not to mention, but obviously I am, the enormous precision acheived by such an unreliable method. Then there’s the mystery of how they were moved. Rolling on tree logs? The only native tree is far too sparse and soft for this purpose. Even the labour involved for such a task by pure mechanical effort seems to be unavailable for the era. I’m sure there’s an answer, but I havn’t found it yet.
They used thousands of hardwood logs harvested from the Great Sahara Forest…
<center> ;)</center>
TT
“Believe those who seek the truth.
Doubt those who find it.” --Andre Gide
Did you see the Nova episode “This Old Pyramid”? A transcript is at www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/1915m.html
wolfduke wrote:
There’s a huge quarry is right next door to the Great Pyramid. It’s been pretty well established as the quarry for the Great Pyramid’s main bulk stones for quite some time now.
And this is the Number One problem with everyone who speculates on a supernatural origin for the pyramids. “Gee, I can’t figure out how the ancient Egyptians could have done it, therefore the ancient Egyptians couldn’t have figured out how to do it either.” This is a pretty condescending attitude to have toward the stonemasons of Giza – they were modern humans in every aspect, braincase included, and they would have been every bit as creative and resourceful as modern humans are, even if they didn’t have our technological base to build on.
The truth, as always, is more complicated than that.
“They would have been as creative as modern humans”
But not more. And it’s been proven that we today cannot build a Pyramid like structure. The Japanese tried building a perfect but smaller replica as a tourist attraction and failed miserably, even though they used technology. No one has EVER been able to build that type of a structure with or without modern inventions. And there’s a little more-its location conveniently one of the few places such a structure could hold, etc.
Do some research on the pyramids of Okinawa, Japan. I think they come pretty close to proving my hypothesis.
And how long did the modern Japanese pyramid builders try before they gave up? Did they know about all the tricks they figured out in the “This Old Pyramid” episode of Nova? Were they on some tight business schedule that required them to drop the project when they hit their first unforeseen difficulty?
Remember, the ancient Egyptians worked with stone as a building material every day. No modern construction crew builds with Megalithic masonry, since they can just pour concrete into the shape they want right at the block’s final resting place. Giant stone construction has become a lost art.
Oh, and regards the Okinawa underwater pyramids – the more I read about them, the more they have in common with natural rock formations, not man-made stone edifices.
Except, of course, the Egyptians.
Oh, and the Mayans.
And the Aztecs.
And the Sumerians.
And the Babylonians.
Excuse me? The laws of physics and the properties of solids are different in Egypt that elsewhere? Can you provide some details, please.
Citation, please. What, exaclty, were the Japanese trying to produce, and how did it fail?
Which hypothesis is that? I did not see you set one forth. The latest information I found on the Okinawan sites had both dating and provenance still unconfirmed. I found teh pictures and dive accounts intruiging, but I was disturbed by the association of Boris West and Anthony Said with the site reports. Both of these men have been involved with sensationalized and poorly researched accounts in the past.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
nebuli, you must have spilt pizza on that page 'cause the link doesn’t work. Please try it again.
It depends on what they were building the pyramid on also. The Egyptians cleared the sand down to the bedrock for the pyramid. If the Japanese didnt do that for theirs (proper site preparation), yeah, the pyramid they tried to build probably would have failed.
Oh and in the Philippines, there are the remains of an ancient pyramid near Mt. Tenongchol, with only the base remaining intact.
I’m not arrogant to assume this ancient culture didn’t know Tracer, and you mentioned supernatural before I did.
I simply asked how.
Yet once again the answers I’ve seen so far are from that. Hardwoods in the Sahara? How old are you assuming the pyramids are Thufferin? I don’t recall the murals of such a vastly different environment
There’s a quarry next door. Well duh. How do you quarry granite with copper? How do you quarry granite without boring holes? Hey’ I’m sure it can be done, I want to know if there are authorative answers.
Where are the plans to these incredibly complicated buildings that incorporate such awesome mathmatics? Where are the hyroglyphs demonstrating these things? Where are the legendary stories of its construction that would have affected the lives of many thousands of families that have nothing to do with the Pharoahs personel story. Where are the apparati of of megalithic masonry?
I can’t accept the historical dictum as I know it with so many relevant gaps in them.
Obviously the teeming millions harbour many who are easily satiated.
I know how you feel!
There was a children’s book by David McCallum (last names is a guess but maybe not too far off) and I bought myself a copy but now it has wandered off into the hands of a niece or nephew… It is available in paperback, too. I think it is called Pryamids.
The author/illustrator uses pen and ink to very plainly and clearly show how the pyramids were made. Looks very logical and do-able if you have thousands and thousands of man hours and infinate patience.
But there is really no longer a great debate going on about making pryamids.
If you check this out at your local library you might also ask for a series about ancient technology. There may have been 7-12 volumes or more; I have only the one about mummies, dyes, beer (?) making - stolen from a library in the late 1950s or early 1960s by an uncle. The information desk should still be able to find the set without more information, it’s a classic. The mummy volume, at least, is a great read.
I know, I know, someday I’ll mail the volume back to the correct library.
Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&* codes 'til I get 'em right.
thanx Jois I’ve tried the Library, I need references.
All of these pyramids are…imperfect, sort of like the very early Egpytian pyramids like that of Djoser, the Bent Pyramid, and the Step Pyramid. The Great Pyramid and the other at Giza not only have smooth sides but are better aligned.
I meant that the bedrock underneath is strong enough so that such a structure wouldn’t sink into the ground under its own weight. If the Egyptians had done it in a geologically weaker area, it would already be sunken into the sand. They, of course, didn’t know anything about geology, so either they were really lucky or there’s something more here.
Later. I saw it in a video on the pyramids and it’s 1:30 AM here. Could you wait until tomorrow?
Some of those pictures look VERY man-made…let me see if I can get one onto this board:
http://www.mozingodesigns.com/brainrape/assets/images/japan4.gif
http://www.mozingodesigns.com/brainrape/assets/images/japan4.gif
Now, tell me THAT is natural. Either it’s one of the biggest hoaxes in the history of the world or those things are for real.
Oops, I accidently posted the same picture twice. The second one I meant to post was
http://www.mozingodesigns.com/brainrape/assets/images/japan4.gif
Sorry, I don’t know what the problem is. Maybe some board error. The link is http://www.mozingodesigns.com/brainrape/assets/images/japan_8.jpg
[Moderator Hat: ON]
Wolfduke, I don’t know if you did it by mistake or what, but you started this thread twice with the same OP and title, and then started this one as well. There is no need to start a thread twice. Since the other one doesn’t have any responses and is exactly the same, I’m deleting it. Just wanted to let you know.
David B, SDMB Great Debates Moderator
[Moderator Hat: OFF]
[Note: This message has been edited by David B]
If the Egyptians had done it in a geologically weaker area, it would already be sunken into the sand. They, of course, didn’t know anything about geology, so either they were really lucky or there’s something more here.
Yes, but they knew enough that sand is NOT a suitable material to be setting stones on. On the Giza plateau, the bedrock is not far below the sands. It would be foolhardy to place that many stones on sand. Here’s a quote from Nova’s site on the pyramids:
I’ve read that the way the granite stones were quarried were with dolomite balls that were used to pound away grooves in the granite. For the limestone, holes were drilled, and then wedges driven in to split the blocks off (you can see wedge marks at the quarries).
Copper CAN be used to chisel soft stones like limestone (not granite). They wear quickly, but copper is common in that region. The finishing of the granite stones was accomplished by pounding with dolomite balls (a harder stone than granite). The limestone casing was probably polished using stones.
Sorry 'bout that chief, the double post was unintentional.
Pounding granite with dolomite?! Thats just a hypothesis, or did all these dolomite balls sink into the sand without a trace? You’re not grasping the enormity of this task either. These individual stones can weigh over ten tons each! Sheared with a precision and alligned to multiple points then hoisted many feet into the air. As I said before, where are the massive stuctures and evidence of planning that must come with these engineering super constructs if they were built useing the simple techniques you are happy to accept Doobi? And how can such a knowledge that would have touched millions of lives be lost? Why is there no empirical evidence of these techniques anymore if its so damn simple?
I saw the Nova Special, and I highly recommend it: an engineer builds a six meter pyramid, finished in limestone, in three weeks or something like that, using only ancient materials and about twenty local laborers. The pyramid would have been completely finished, rather than just two sides, if they hadn’t spent so much time experimenting with things that didn’t work.
I don’t see how the lack of records proves anything about how they made the pyramids. If Optimus Prime and the rest of the Transformers showed up and built them in a day, you’d think someone would have written something down. The records to which you’re referring were lost or damaged, and prove nothing one way or the other.
Never attribute to an -ism anything more easily explained by common, human stupidity.
They don’t need to be sheared with precision. They only need to be taken, on at a time, from adjacent blocks in the quarry. They don’t need to be “hoisted” anywhere because they were dragged up ramps of sand that were then carted away by the workers, one basketful at a time, the same way they were built.
As noted earlier, dig up a copy of David Macaulay’s (not McCallum’s) book Pyramid. (It was written before the recent discovery that the rubble beds near the pyraminds were the actual quarries for the basic construction stone, but the rest appears to be accurate.)
Several archaeologists have tested their theories about construction using the blocks found in the quarries. They have found that with as few as 20 workers, a large limestone block can be moved steadily over a “road” of crushed reeds with a liquid poured directly before the leading edge of the block for lubrication. Providing a pair of runners like a sledge makes it even easier to use.(Yeah, I know you want a reference and I don’t have one for this. It was demonstrated on either Discovery or national Geographic.)
The other aspect of pyramid building that is frequently overlooked by the “they couldn’t do that” crowd is the length of time and the number of workers that were available for the project. The pyramid of Khofu/Cheops took 29 years to build and some of the “detail” work was still being finished after his death. With thirty years and nearly unlimited manpower, an awful lot of scraping and planing and grinding can be accomplished.
Tom~