We’ve all seen documentaries and possibly read books in which the basic methods by which the Egyptians built pyramids was described. As I recall it usually goes something like this:
Measure out a very large square area, and put in a foundation. Be sure you make the foundation level.
Quarry giant blocks of limestone.
Sail them downriver on barges and push them to the build site on giant logs.
4 .Lay down successive layers of blocks, each one smaller than the one below it. Build ramps up to the building level so you can get the blocks up there.
Finally… And here we come to something I don’t remember ever seeing explained. How did they ensure that the tip of the finished pyramid would be positioned over the center of the foundation? I think the tip of the Great Pyramid is out of position by a few inches, truly an amazing accomplishment considering these people didn’t even have wheels or iron tools. Have scholars come to any kind of consensus on this point?
I’ve thought of two possible explanations.
Whild they didn’t have the tools to quarry stone blocks of an exactly uniform size, if they always tried to achieve that, the variances among thousands and thousands of blocks would cancel each other out, so the end result would be the same as if they had actually machine quarried each block to an exact size.
They obviously knew that the angle of a side of the pyramid to the ground had to stay uniform all the way up, so they used a plumb line, a compass, or perhaps some kind of protractor like device to ensure that everything was going up evenly.
I’m not seeing what the problem is here. Couldn’t they just measure the length and width of each layer of the pyramid, and then use those measurements to determine the (central) placement of the next layer? This way, even if some of the yet-unplaced blocks were a bit too long or too short, they could at least select them such that their total length and width was correct for the level. (And really, it’s only the blocks forming the exterior edge and interior walls you need to get exactly right; any small gaps in the interior blocks can be left as-is, or filled with mortar or sand or rubble.) All you need to do this is a ruler (which is trivial to make) and an understanding of how to add and divide numbers. It doesn’t even need to be the same ruler for every measurement.
You also have to remember that some pyramids were a bit wonky, so they did it by doing and learning.
Also, if you take the Great Pyramid, only a miniscule percentage of the final dressed masonry skin survives. Just like any other rough masonry that you know will be hidden beneath a much more carefully finished surface, you can go for reasonable speed and reasonable accuracy, knowing that unless the errors are way too big (relatively easy to fix by just bashing rocks until they surrender), it can all be covered by the final skin of well-dressed limestone.
While you should correct errors course by course, the nice thing about the pyramid form compared to a brick wall, is that an error in one course of a brick wall is a lot more controlling for everything built above it. It doesn’t just become a geometrical line but is also a force distributor, so has to be far more accurate or everything built above it is actually in peril.
I think the ancients should be given more credit for thier creativity, ingenuity, and expertise. We’ll never know for sure how they did some things, but clearly, they were done. For keeping the pyramid on-center as it was contructed, perhaps a jig was used to maintain the angle of the corner stones as the layers progressed. The cornerstones being the most critical for maintaining the shape needed to be placed with precision - it’s not like they could go back and re-lay a layer once the next layer was placed. Of course, if there was a bulge or dip, they could send in the masons to make adjustments. I think if they were able to maintain the correct angle of each cornerstone to the one below and above, eventually all four corner edges will meet at the theoretical middle-top, and each side would be symmetrical.
Not really. The great pyramid at Giza is only about 200 years newer than the oldest Egyptian pyramid. And only about half a dozen big pyramids were built in that time. Only one collapsed. But since the casing stones mostly fell off long ago we don’t really know how accurate they were. At least not within inches.
Ultimately, as noted by other posters, the only thing about them that is difficult is the scale. Get the core stones close to the right shape, put on the casing stones and then carve the whole thing to be precise. Current thought is they used sightlines up from the corners but we don’t know.
I see many quotes about the unbelievable precision of the great pyramid’s construction, but I also see pictures like this. Clearly, at least as it currently exists, the top of the pyramid isn’t a fine point that can be said to be within inches of anything. And it definitely seems to be made of roughly-hewn blocks with lots of space in-between them.
I mean, certainly a good bit of construction and a well-solved logistical challenge, but I don’t see how anyone could claim hyper-precision. Frankly I think most such claims originate with the “Ancient Aliens” crowd from a time when photos were less common.
I don’t think anyone here is claiming “hyper-precision” but the evident works of the Egyptians suggests a great level of accuracy. And keep in mind the outer skin of the pyramids has long since been removed and the stones have been exposed to the elements for a millennia, so no one should be expecting a perfect point at the top at this stage.
I also don’t give any credence to the whole ‘Ancient Aliens’ business. People were able to build some awesome things in history but there is no magic to explain it, just hard work and smarts. We could eventually figure-out how they did what they did, but no one today wants to bother taking the time or energy to build a 1:1 scale pyramid to unlock those mysteries.
My understanding is that the casings didn’t so much as fall off but rather were … repurposed … by later generations. Although some could have fallen and then been repurposed.
Well, not now obviously. But can’t the position of the missing tip be inferred, or constructed in the geometrical sense from the edges as they exist today? Of course, it would be better if the smooth limestone coating was still there, but since there is a remnant of that on a nearby pyramid, it’s not like they’d have nothing to go on.
You can’t have “dozens of stories” with just bricks as the load bearing material, well I guess you could, but the lower level walls would have to be much thicker than those above and you’d end up with something like a pyramid.
The tallest brick skyscraper is considered to be Chicago’s Monadnock building, at 16 stories. The vertical load bearing structure is all bricks, bur there is also steel wind bracing. Any taller brick buildings you are thinking of have steel girders or some other kind onternal support, and the bricks are just for looks.
As someone who builds stuff I think this set of pictures pretty much tells everything. There is a great variation in shape and symmetry of the individual blocks and their placement visible in the closer views but the wide angle views demonstrate an overall geometric accuracy.
Reference points and sighting, measuring. They obviously did not have lasers or even lenses, but they would have had sighting tools, stringlines, plumb bobs, reference objects, marking tools and conventions.
Modern laser levels are great, but at this very moment somewhere in North America at a modern building site with heavy equipment and vis vests, two workers are using a frickin string and their eyeballs to straighten whatever it is they are laying out.
Chalklines aand plumb bobs are still crucial tools to this day. Tellingly, one of my lasers is even described as a “laser chalkline” by the manufacturer. A high level of accuracy can be achieved with some very simple tools.
Also, these close ups show that the great pyramids had cupholders.
I also don’t see the puzzle. There were plenty of measurement devices available to the ancient Egyptians that would have been more than adequate for the purpose. Maybe we don’t know precisely which of those devices they used, but they had so many options that it hardly matters.
If I were tasked with engineering the building of a pyramid right now, even with all of the modern tools at my disposal, I probably still would mostly use the “primitive” tools similar to what the ancient Egyptians had.
