Ok so how’d they do it, you know the ancients, how’d they move all that rock. And why? Why can’t science figure this one out?
Need2know
Science HAS figured it out. Don’t you watch NOVA?
Maybe there are somethings we really don’t need or want to know. When I had mirrors explained to me in grade 9 science I was devistated. Mirrors are magic and wonderful, that they can be explained by srtaight lines is sad. Sometimes science wrecks things, why wreck the seventh wonder of the world?
I saw something on TV a while back that tried to answer this question.
Strictly holding to techniques that they believed were available to the ancient Egyptians (at least near as they could figure it) they set out to build their own tiny pyramid. They used stones of the same size but only stacked them in a pyramid maybe 4-5 stones high.
Using pulleys, winches, logs as rollers and what not they succeeded but BARELY. A few times people were almost killed and it was EXTREMELY hard. They almost gave up.
So, while they proved it could be done they also proved how great of an engineering feat the Egyptians pulled off. It also probably helped that the Egyptians had scads of slaves to do the work and didn’t give a crap about worker safety. No doubt thousands died piling that heap of stones.
As to why each Pharoh basically had to outdo his predecessor. If you go back far enough their are dozens of pyramids around Egypt…some so small they’re almost entirely gone from aging. Each one got a bit bigger through the years however. Coupled with Egypts growing wealth new Pharoh’s could build greater and greater structures all for their glory.
Or it could have been aliens ;)…
I like the “Mysteries of the Ancient World” series where they re-build things like obelisks, bridges and trebuchets.
Hard to figure out cuz the Egyptians weren’t thoughtful enough to leave notes behind telling us how they did it. Accursed pharoahs.
I’m sure the big theory you might have heard is the “rolled the stones along on logs” theory which explains how they got them from point A to point B. Now as far how did they get them up on the dang pyramid, I believe the leading theory is that they built ramps with a slow gradient up to where the stones needed to go. The problem with this theory, of course, is that as the stones went higher, in order to keep the ramp’s gradient slow, it would have had to have been one damn big ramp, and thus probably just as hard to build as a pyramid itself. Another theory along the same lines was that the pyramid was built inside out, and that a series of slow gradient ramps wound their way around the outside of the pyramid, and these ramps were simply part of the pyramids themselves. this theory works for the “great” pyramids but not the step pyramids. there’s also the issue of how they got the stones so dang close to each other (apparently you can’t slip a piece of paper between the pyramid’s stones)
We know very little about the Egyptians’ technology (though we can be reasonably sure it weren’t aliens helping them as some folks think…I doubt they would have left THAT tidbit out of any of their heiroglyphs) and it is possible they could have built some equivilent of a crane as well.
A few years back a couple of Egyptologists from England and Egypt and some workers from Egypt decided to see if they could, using “ancient” technology only, build themselves a small pyramid. I guess they cheated on the cutting the stones part, but they did manage to build themselves a small pyramid using the roller logs and ramp ideas. I don’t think it was as good as the actual pyramids but intriguing. fortunately no one got squashed flat in the effort.
One quick reply:
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I do believe that modern historians dispute this claim, and suggest that the pyramid workers were typically freedmen. They did tend to suffer pretty bad for their work (go figure) but they were apparently afforded burials near to the pyramid, which was a big honor at the time.I wasn’t just talking about the Egyptians either, we seem to forget about all of those huge pyramid temples in America. Besides what of the claim that ropes, logs and pulleys just wouldn’t work on stone the size used in these things. In South America there are stones that is estimated to weight over 220 tons. According to all the sensationalist writings there are only two cranes in exisitance today that could lift something like that and it would take as long as 6 weeks just to get the crane lined up right.
There is this new theory too that the Egyptian pyramids were poured like concrete. A type of limestone based concrete.
So what about the little guy that built Coral Castle in Florida and claims to have learned the secret. What do you think about him?
I do like these little mysteries don’t you? Rather humbling I think that not everything can be given a pat answer.
Need2know
Add to the mystery…how did ancient Britons get Stonehenge built? Especially those 30-ton cross stones hung, what, 20 feet off the ground?
[sarcasm]They used the ancient power known as Manna. The Egyptians knew it, so did the folks who built Stonehenge. The Maya and the Inca knew it and the last group to use it on a large scale were the Easter Islanders. Then there was the guy who built Coral Gables…[/sarcasm]
The truth of the matter is that the megalithic structures that make people wonder, “how were they built?” are due more to a strong governmental system than anything else. The buearucracy needed to mobilize the people and resources needed is at least as impressive as the finished products.
Take that libertarians! Once again, government bureaucrats are vindicated!!! 
Please don’t go dragging me into that argument… 
needs2know sed:
Ahhh, the great constructions of the Toltecs, the Incas, the Mayans. How’d they do it? Hard, backbreaking work in the service of their kings and their gods.
The Mayan temples at Chichen Itza were constructed over the course of several hundred years. The city supported 50,000 residents at its height, mostly farmers. Farmers in the Yucatan had about six productive months in the fields. The rest of the year they worked as stonemasons and builders. Six months, half of every year, was dedicated to building temples.
It’s estimated that El Castillo, the great ziggurat at Chichen Itza, was constructed over the course of 80 years (so 40 years of actual work). It’s also estimated that the life span of most of these farmer/laborers was 35 years or so.
How’d they do it? They busted their asses for five hundred years.
-andros-
The actual building time may be substantially longer than what you suggest. The Maya are know for their practice of building over previous structures. They would build a pyramid and hold a dedication ceremony. After a number of years a ceremony would be held to remove any "power’ from the building, and they would build on top the previous pyramid. The most ‘buildings in one’ is, I believe, five. Of course this would be over the course of hundreds of years.
I wouldn’t think they could bring those things up in a couple of months like some tract house, but from what I’ve read what some of you are saying is still really just speculation. They didn’t have any written records to verify this did they? I think that is the beauty of the whole thing the fact that it is so amazing.
Needs2know
When you have a technological culture like ours, a lot of construction methods that rely on brute force become ‘lost arts’. It would be arrogant to think that a scientist today could necessarily come up with the optimum way to move a block using muscle power, when the ancients had thousands of years to refine the techniques.
Also, don’t underestimate the amount of patience people used to have. The efforts to build pyramids with muscle power today were under time constraints and budget constraints. Things were rushed, plans sped into action. Let the boys have 200 years to finish the project, and see what they come up with.
In any event, I don’t know of a single historical landmark that we don’t know how to build today using nothing but the tools at the time. At least conceptually. For instance, the giant rock caps at Stonehenge could have been levered into place by placing rocks or wood planks underneath. Lift one end up, put a board under it. Lift the other end, so the same. Repeat, until the thing is 20 feet in the air. Manoever the pillars under it, and remove the boards.
Sam Stone wrote:
Thanks, Sam, I was about to make the same argument.
The reason we’re not sure exactly how the ancient Egyptians or Mayans or Stonehengians built their structures out of Great Big Stones without mortar is that we haven’t needed to build anything out of Great Big Stones without mortar for a couple millennia. Why go to the trouble of positioning Great Big Rocks so closely together that a piece of paper can’t fit between them, when you can just put them sort-of next to each other and fill in the gaps with mortar? Why use Great Big Rocks at all, when you can just pour concrete into the shape you want, in the exact location and orientation you want it to end up in?
Hundreds of years from now, moveable type will also have become a Lost Art. People in the distant future are going to wonder how we ever managed to print books without laser printers. This does not mean we got help printing books from aliens.
What they said.
adam, you’re right about the Russian doll temples. El Castillo is believed to have been built around only one smaller temple, although that’s be no means certain.
There are, however, some construction records for the outermost shell that seem to indicate that temple, at least took less than a century.
But hell, only something like 15 out of 300 temples at Chichen Itza have been excavated and restored, and the jungle isn’t very polite to delicate artifacts. I suspect that nothing about CI will ever be much more than reasonably educated guesswork.
OK now… I never said the ancients had help from aliens. But I do know some people think they did. Wouldn’t that be a real hoot for me to try and argue that on this board!
So we don’t know for sure cause it’s a “needs to know” kind of thing. That makes sense I guess.
Need2know
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Yes, each used of a buildings construction probably only took a few years. I was referring to the use of the building site. Temples upon temples upon temples would have been ‘occupied’ for a long time.
Most artifacts that would be used to date a pyramid aren’t going to be damaged by the jungle. While the Maya kept written records in the Classic and Late Classic periods, they wouldn’t have kept construction record. What there would have been at a place like Chichen Itza, is a record of a battle that was won, essentially the reason why the pyramid was built.
When a pyramid was dedicated, and also when it was closed to be built upon, there was as I mentioned a ceremony. The ceremony involved leaving a cache buried at the site. The caches usually included 2 ceramic pots placed lip to lip and filled with various and sundry items. Occasionally, things found inside of a cache can be used to date the placement of the cache. If that doesn’t work, the ceramics can be used to ballpark a date.