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Caltech Team Raises 6900-Pound Obelisk, By Kite
Paintthemoon writes: "So, this crazed entrepreneur and Caltech buddies this weekend staged a successful test of using a 30-foot kite to raise a 6,900 pound concrete obelisk in the Mojave. The theory behind this is that the ancient Egyptians could have used such wind power to raise obelisks and build the pyramids ... " The article is from earlier this month. It's been a lot longer than that since scientists started trying to figure out how the Egyptians moved and righted some of their obelisks.
Firstly there is very little evidence of slaves bulding. Most Egyptologists believe that they did not keep slaves, that people worked part time on the large construction projects and would be farmers or fishermen or whatever the rest if the time. Secondly the Egyptians left no records at all of how they built the pyrmaids or raised monuments. Thats one reason for all the speculation.
Actualy there is, here is an article that highlights it. Archaeology and the Bible
And it is fairly certain that the Torah was written down within a generation or two after the arival in Israel.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Warning theology follows...
The start of Jewish thought is the Exodus. The Torah tells us that we should act in every generation as if we personaly were brougt forth from Egypt. And the Midrash says that the soul of every Jew ever born was there when G-d presented the Torah at Mt Saini. So while it happened 3313 years ago and I'm only 28, I can quite truthfully say that the Lord G-d brougt me out from Egypt, and that if G-d had not brought us out we might still be slaves to this day.
For more information find a copy of a good Passover Haggada.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
It should be noted that the book of Exodus does not say that we built pyramids, it says we built Pithon and Ra-ameses (I probably have the spelling wrong. The pyramids were a 1000 years old by this time.l ogy_and_the_Bible_-_Part_2.asp
As for the archaological stuff see this link: http://aish.com/societyWork/sciencenature/Archaeo
Erlang Developer and podcaster
It was part of a "Nova" miniseries called "Secrets of Lost Empires". Personally, I felt the episodes focused too much on the theorist's constant bickering. They also had some really strange theories:
"I believe the Incas used thermo-deagregation to build their stone walls, said one such theorist. He then proceeded to use a concave mirror in an attempt to "melt" the stones into place.
The modern view is that all Egyptians were required to give up a month or so for "national service". Considering the leader of the country was a god, it was the least they could do :)
Slaves were probably not the major builders of the pyramids and temples, it was done by ordinary citizens. Of course, you could call them serfs, since their work on the pyramids was basically required, a tax of sorts. True slaves (owned, bought, sold) were rare before the Ptolemaic period, and were mainly house servants.
About four thousand expert stone sculptors worked on the pyramids year round. During the Nile floods, ninety-five thousand citizens did the heavy work.
Also, it could be used as a "greener" way to do building in richer nations!
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I also saw a program on one of the Discover channels recently, describing methods of moving these large, cube-like stones for pyramids. They tied a piece of wood to each of the four sides of the stone, and each piece of wood had a curved face on the outside, such that when you would look at the stone-surrounded-by-wood, it appeared as a square inscribed within a circle. Tilted on its side, it became a "wheel", which was much easier to move up the ramps. Brilliant stuff.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
In his book The Ancient Engineers, L. Sprague DeCamp hypothesized that they used simple earthen ramps to right the stones, and that they transported them by dragging them through mud. In the ancient world, dirt was a LOT cheaper than timber, especially the kind of quality timber that could hold up Stonehenge blocks.
He thought they got the crosspieces in place by burying the uprights in a huge mound, then dragging the crosspieces into place on top and excavating the supports.
This kite thing is cool, but far-fetched, especially since the researcher has been using modern materials to build her kite. It also leaves you very dependant on the weather.
What are the hieroglyphs for "Keep it simple, stupid?"
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
The point is not whether that's how the Egyptians did it - the point is that they COULD have done it this way, as well as in many other ways. We should not get stuck in our mental image of ramps and countless slaves which isn't based on much concrete evidence, either.
This reminds me of a wonderful experiment which shows that Archimedes could have suspected the universality of gravity and prove it with tools and materials available at the time.
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Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Same person, mostly same words and phrases, just a brief mention that they lifted something heavier.
Lando
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
There's actually no good evidence that the Israelites were actually in Egypt. There's no Egyptian records of it, and they wrote a lot of stuff on their buildings. The Israelite written record was probably created about 580BC. Before that, it was an oral history, which could have been embellished.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
errr. which planet are they from? and where is Egyptio? or is it a new wireless company?
Certified Black Helicopter Pilot *** Unwitting Dupe of One World Gov'ment
But as I remember, the large-scale test (30 ton obelisk) using the elaborate tilting mechanism failed when using man-power. There was a cylindrical log underneath the obelisk which they couldn't keep from being dragged instead of rolled (too much downward pressure from the weight of the obelisk). They eventually had to use an industrial crane to get the obelisk in place, which obviously was unavailable to Egyptians.
The sandbox test worked perfectly, and though it was a smaller obelisk (6-tons or so) it was done totally man-powered. The Egyptians have raised obelisks that weight up to 100 tons, and the sandbox theory seems the most likely one that could have been scaled up for obelisks of this size.
"I can only show you Linux... you're the one who has to read the man pages."
You make it sound like they're attaching a huge object to the bottom of a kite and flying it around. They're not, they're pulling on ropes with the kites, and the ropes go through a pully system on a firmly anchored scaffold. How is that dangerous?
It's been a lot longer than that since scientists started trying to figure out how the Egyptions moved and righted some of their obelisks.
Really? I thought that exploration into the ideas of how the pyramids were built was a new area of science. Thank goodness I have Slashdot, that bastion of excellent journalism, to straighten me out.
NOVA Obelisk Episode
They also did one on raising the Easter Island statues.
NOVA Easter Island
http://www.geopolymer.org/archaeo1a.html
Admittedly, it is only a theory, but it seems to have more weight to it than using kites...
I have a book (unfortunately, not nearby, so I can't quote the title and such - maybe I will follow up later with a reply) detailing how the blocks used in the construction of Egyptian monuments could have been cast, in situ.
The author of the book is an inventor who developed a type of concrete that looks and "works" like natural stone - in fact, comparing it with the blocks used in the pyramids, he found the compositions nearly identical. He then goes on to find local (to Egypt) sources of the chemicals and materials needed for this special "concrete", then uses those materials to perform experiments to cast blocks from the resulting mix (mixing the material and casting blocks).
To me, this idea seems to have the most weight, especially given the evidence the author presented. This doesn't mean that this had to be the way, but it makes a lot of sense...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
First off, a link:
Geopolymers
Also, look into "agglomerated stone"...
The man who (re?)discovered this technique, was one Prof. Joseph Davidovits.
Here is his book (unfortunately, it is out of print. I found my copy only a couple of years ago in the discount section of a local Bookstar, so you might check), which is available in PDF format (for the price of 9 euros, which is reasonable):
The Pyramids: An Enigma Solved
The first chapter is available for free online as well - so check that out...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Egyptions? Hmmm, free radical north africans?
I just saw an exhibit on Napoleon and his stay in Egypt. There was a number of sketches of the egyptians showing him how they moved large blocks around, with 1/4 circular wooden 'arches' strapped to the blocks.
Napoleon's thie^H^H^H^Harcheologists then used the same techniques to remove a number of obelisques and other large stones. They even removed a number of large palaces back to France for the wealthiest supporters of the little corsicain. Yup, stone by stone, until the brits sank the french in alexandria harbor. I had a dinner in one of those egyptian palaces a few years ago near Toulon.
So the egyptians already knew of this technique back in the early 1800's, and presumably the 'arches' found in a number of digs date back to the creation of the pyramid.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Dude, they didn't have cameras back then :)
How we know is more important than what we know.
True, but there are plenty of hieroglyphs depicting people wearing makeup.
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satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
here's a link to support yer argument ;)
:)
And here's the "Official" site:
Coral Castle
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satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
There are no hierglyphs depicting kites
nice try though.
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satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
Of course they don't have written records of what happened. That's why there is so much conjecture about how the damn things were built in the first place.
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They don't have written records of how the pyramids were constructed. It makes more sense that they would have more personal records on the fact that they were enslaved.
Doubtful. There don't exist many records of ancient cultures who saw value in teaching slaves how to read & write. I'm not saying it's impossible, just unlikely that you would ever find the personal memoirs of one of Pharoa's slaves.
What happened in the past always gives an insight of which way to move ahead in the future. For example I was watching a tv show called Frontline on Friday in which the state of the world was being discussed, and how man has destroyed much of it (animals going extinct, plants, algae, etc.) and the scientist predicted that at the rate we're going with global warming, tree deforestation, fishing overkill, that the world is in some serious shit.
In Mongolia as it stands, many of the country's natural grass is barely growing due to the country's collapse, and the boom of farmers raising goats, and not switching to other parts of the land to allow the fields to grow back. In China they faced the same problem years ago, and now within the next 5 years they have to destroy hundreds of thousands of animals in order to avoid losing many resources.
Paleontologists explained how essential things are nowadays, how they're being destroyed, and how this compared to the repeating occurances of extinction with the dinosaurs, and other stuff like algeas, and crap like that.
History is repetitive, and scientist up to this date have still not mapped out means to re-create faster than we destroy. It's expected within 100-200 years a major shortage on things we take for granted unless change happens now. Since they stated their is no more time to waste.
Anyways I would rather see this being studied than missle defense programs, technological bs like Echelons, Carnivores, etc., I think it's more important to understand what happened in the past to gain insight into the future.
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We all know the aliens from another Stargate set up the pyramids!
Ok so it wasn't funny. Anyways there was a recent (semi recent about 4 months ago) documentary on PBS depicting how this may have worked which knocked off many theories and made sense. According to the doc., slaves were not used and this was judged based on evidence from an excavation, that showed what were supposedly slaves, were treated like royalty. (Judging from the medical care they received)
Leading engineers calculated block by block how it was done, and their theory was, ramps were made, and the stones were hauled up these ramps by many workers who traveled to Egypt to honor the kings. Enigneers, doctors, you name it supposedly assisted raising the blocks until it was done.
According to the scientists and Engineers I think it took about 30-40 years per pyramid, in which many felt honorable to do. This again was based on evidence from excavation which showed no one was a prisoner, or slave, engineers who recreated the scenario (nice SGI graphics too).
Also in the documentary it showed how ancient medical techniques were used to heal broken bones, etc.
What is Shadowstorm Intelligence Layer?
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WHat did she make her kites out of? Probably, ripstop nylon or some other modern, lightweight, strong fabric.
Now, if she can make her kites out of materials the ancient Egyptians had, using techniques they had, and perform the same feat, then I'll be impressed. Not before.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Don't let Charlie Brown build pyramids.
One way was to have a huge platform over the landing area and then use ropes to tilt the obelisk over the platform and hopefully land it in it's place.. This experiment took a full day to set up, another day to try and work out and in the end modern machinery to save the day.
There was also a separate experiment going on at the same time(although, with a minitaure obelisk) where a sand box was used.. It worked beatifully. They had a high platform with a sand box in front of it and as the sand was removed the obelisk tilted down gracefully onto it's place.
Later in the show they did an experiment with a full size obelisk at a granite mine in usa (first part was filmed in egypt) using first miniature prototypes and after a full size obelisk and a sand box(with dry sand vs. the damp one used in egypt).
Once the old-style(no modern machinery used here, except to set up the box and obelisk) ropes were gently released the obelisk practically pushed the sand away from underneath it and lowered itself into the right place. Final adjustement of about 15 degrees was performed by pulling the ropes.. Everything worked beautifully..
I believe the program was called Secrets of the Angient Egyptians, etc..
In the end of the program they did try the sandbox method on a large obelisk(probably 30ton) and it worked. They had a quite a few people working at an american granite mine pulling it up the last 15 degrees...
Hi!
Regardless of whether the amateur Egyptologists are correct or not, this is a significant piece of work for reasons only alluded to at the bottom of the DailyNews article: using kites affords low-tech (or no-tech) societies the means to achieve substantial power. They demonstrated substantial lift capacity in the Mojave Desert--but think about applying that lift to a lever, or using blocks (systems of pulleys) to lift, pry, or drag.
That's substantially more important than most /. readers might think. While we're living in a high-tech world that seems to only be getting that much more sophisticated, there are vast parts of the world that are still farming, building, and lifting with oxen. The Rodale Institute International Program has worked to get international food organizations away from a North American mindset that focuses on capital-intensive (and diesel-fuel-intensive) methods with big tractors and combines. Instead, they've applied a lot of what's been learned about farm implements to traditional means of propulsion (oxen). They're making a lot of headway--showing that a lot can be accomplished using low-tech methods.
This nice and neatly fits into the same scheme. Nobody's hoisting obelisks these days--but if you're building a road in Senegal, or upstream from the Three Gorges Dam, you may have a multi-ton rock to move. Instead of tackling the problem of finding earth movers big enough to solve your problem, you can drag it out of the way with kites. A vastly simpler, less expensive, more feasible solution.
So will this help out? I doubt it. It sounds unwieldy, dangerous, and impractical.
This thing will kill people who take it seriously. Let's imagine our big block is up and we want to put it down someplace. Contoling loads suspended from modern cranes is difficult enough when the wind blows. A kite has no firm foundation, twice the line to contend with and is utterly dependent on the will of the wisp. I would not want to be under or even around a heavy load lifted by kite.
Power is still needed to control the kite. Even with clever contorls built into the kite for elevation and swing, how do you control radius? It would take lots of work to haul your line in. OK, someone brings a big deisel engine. Great! Now that you have spent all that money, why don't you just buy yourself some angle iron and plate so you can make a boom and a proper crane?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Heyyyy, who modded this down? Someone give the AC an informative point, huh?
I'm all for elegant solutions, but do we have any solid (or more convincing) evidence, other than the fact that it works? Let's not forget that the Egyptians had a lot of slaves, and didn't much care if a hundred died trying to lift an obelisk the hard way.
The other view I have heard expressed is that they used ramps.
The ramps were made of mud bricks, and the obelisks were dragged up them. There were holes on the ramps filled with sand where the obelisks were to go. On getting the obelisk in place, the sand was removed from the bottom. Ther obelisks eventually sank onto place. The sand and brick ramps were then removed, leaving no visible signs of how the obelisks got there.
Personally, I would prefer the kite theory to be true, purely on grounds of elegance.
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.
My friend, Obelix, does this as a day job. When he was a baby, he fell in to a pot of magic potion created by our village druid that gave him permanent super strength. Although he is classified as a "menhir delivery man" by our village chief, he is essentially a obelisk installer. For all you ladies out there, he is available. His hobbies include eating wild boar and beating the snot out of those crazy Romans.
Did nobody at this event bother to photograph it? Anyone have a link with pictures?
Even with the best will in the world, I'm kind of curious how the Egyptians, with their technology, could have got a kite of that size to stay together in thirty mile an hour winds, let alone fly in any controlled fashion. And then have the strength to lift a several hundred ton obelisk?
As Willeke Wendrich, associate professor of Egyptian archeology at the University of California, Los Angeles said in the article, "The kite project seems like a lot of fun, but it doesn't prove the pyramids were built that way."
It is a really cool geek achievement and certainly a lot of fun, but you have to wonder how much would be possible without modern materials?
I guess I'll just go back to believing in the entirely more reasonable Silent Bob and his Jedi Mind Trick moving the stones. "Fly fat boy, fly."
Stonehenge is a rather different problem to the pyramids.
For a start, the source of the stones used in Stonehenge is known, and it is from several hundred miles away (Southern Wales IIRC). This means that the biggest "wow" in the building of Stonehenge was the transport of the stones, and not erecting them.
Stonehenge is a group of discrete, freestanding stones, with the exception of the cross-pieces. Moving a stone into an upright position is a relatively simple exercise, even if it involves lots of gym. Upright timbers and ropes would have been more than sufficient, when combined with manpower, to lift the stones.
Placing the crosspieces, too, is more simple than the problems faced by the pyramids. For starters you only have to elevate the stone three meters. Given the amount of timber available in Britain (as opposed to the massive amount you will find lying all over in Egypt ...), it would not be difficult to build a strong enough scaffold. The Stonehenge crosspieces are also signifcantly smaller than the blocks used to build the pyramids.
It should be noted that Stonehenge is the largest and most well known of the ancient British monuments, but not the only one. There are several similar, but smaller, examples within a few miles of Stonehenge itself, and may others scattered around the countryside.
The pyramids were larger (on a massive scale), the stones used were larger (in general), and the structure consisted of many more than two layers of stone. In Egypt it is assumed the ramps were made of sand and mud, rather than timber, but significant amounts of timber would still be required as uprights either for scaffolding or simply to get leverage to raise (turn over, turn upright) blocks.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
People often wonder how the Egyptians moved things of that weight with such precision.
:)
Here's how.
They had lots of expendable slaves, and huge whips
i also remember that i heard she lost all of here funding because the ultra prejudiced director of the cairo museum made it his personal mission to destroy her reputation because he believes that ramps were used and that its the only possible option... this guy is the same one who refuses to allow a robotic camera into the uncharted shaft in the great pyramid, simply because "there's nothing there", even though its hasn't been explored beyond measuring its length, which isn't even necessarily accurate.
I distinctly recall seeing a program where a crawler with a camera attached was sent up the shaft of the great pyramid and it turned out to be a dead end. I wonder if that was very recently done? Or maybe it wasn't the great pyramid after all. But somebody did once sent a robotic crawler up the shaft of one of the larger pyramids once to see what was there. I remember watching with great anticipation.
actually when the pyramids line up with some of the stars in the Orion constellation (presumbably not all, I'm sure Orion wasn't one of THEIR constellations
Getting closer. The three main pyramids at Giza line up (once you wind back the sky to the time that the pyramids were built) almost perfectly with the three main stars in "Orion's belt." This is not only in geographical alignment but also in relative size, i.e., the size of the pyramid is proportional to the relative brightness of its corresponding star.
Then there are seveal other pyramids that were built far away from Giza that also match up to stars in the constellation of Orion. According to the Egyptologists, what we refer to as the constellation of Orion was referred to by the Egyptians as the constellation of Osiris, the Egyptian deity that governed death and rebirth. Since the pyramids were tombs and the Egyptians believed that death was a transition to another world, it only made sense that if you were to build pyramids that lined up with any stars you would choose the ones that were related to Osiris.
Another example of someone forgetting that if a simple explanation and a complicated explanation exist, then the simple one is almost always right. So when you have a situation where there's sand and a lot of people available, a solution that uses those elements makes more sense than kites, aliens, or cantilevered structures that take calculus to design.
:-)
I think that's a bit of an oversimplification of Occam's Razor. But what's more important is to remember that there were definitely engineers present. That is obvious from the math involved in the ratios of the pyramids sides and their alignment, etc. There really is a lot of complicated geometry and trigonometry in there. Take a look at the so-called "bent" pyramid, and you will see the learning process that the engineer went through once he determind that his original design wasn't done properly (or perhaps he predecessor's design).
At any rate, if engineers in ancient Egypt were anything at all like their modern brethren, then you can screw Occam's Razor. They would have done it the most efficient and clever way that they could devise, not by using the K.I.S.S. method. And then they would have bragged about it down at the pub afterwards.
Lookout, the wind is dropping!
Huh? _*SPLAT*_
Put a simple ratchet system (ever seen a trebuchet or a catapult?) in your pulley/scaffold system and then if the wind dies the obelisk stays in its semi-erected state.
Simply put, this whole idea runs back into the same problem that lead scientists to believe that the ancient Egyptians used mud instead of wood for scaffolding- that there just wasn't enough timber available.
I think that people overplay the lack of timber. Egypt was a large kingdom that traded with many other people in the Mediteranean. Lebanon was reknowned for their trees. Lebanon is not that far away from Egypt, especially if you wanted to ship overseas and then up the nile. For such an extravagant project, I can't imagine that they'd spare much expense. Especially if it would make things easier.
But with that same reasoning you can also postulate that the ancient Egyptians also crossed the Atlantic since they were capable of building large boats. They certainly had the materials, the tools and the manpower to do it. You CAN demonstrate using materials in the region and establish a proof of concept. BUT THAT DOESN'T PROVE they went to the Americas.
You may find it interesting to note that there are some cultural similarities between ancient Egyptians and Ancient South Americans, not to mention that there is evidence of having been cocao plants, the source of choclate and cocaine, in ancient Egypt. Please note that these plants are indigenous to South America, not Africa. So there does appear to be some evidence to indicate that the Egyptians, or somebody that the Egyptians traded with, did in fact travel to and from South America.
Lack of proof means just that. LACK OF PROOF. That's the scientific method.
I almost agree with you, with one exception. The scientific method allows that what is currently accepted as truth or fact may in fact be incorrect. The scientific method is a method by which we can challenge accepted theory and hopefully prove new theories. It is not a method by which we can just sit back and say, "we already know everything about this topic and future postulation is therefore useless."
You're using the proof of one concept to demonstrate proof of another. It may be possible to demonstrate the building a kite-powered lifting scaffold - and THAT may prove it was possible, but it doesn't mean the Egyptians actually did it.
That's exactly what I've been saying. It doesn't prove that it *DID* happen, it merely proves that it was possible. Since we don't have any concrete evidence to the contrary nor do we have any concrete documentation as to how they were built, any reasonable speculation is perfectly acceptable. What I deem reasonable speculation is that which is a) proven to be technically feasible and b) that which isn't plainly proven by some sort of evidence to be untrue. The kite theory certainly fits that profile.
The absence of proof doesn't make an idea automatically crackpot. It's the continued pushing of that idea in spite of an absence of proof that makes it crackpot.
This is incorrect in principle and as it applies to this discussion. As it applies to this discussion, I am not "pushing" this theory. I am merely pointing out that it would be wrong to eliminate it from possibility just because it is unconventional. In principle, it's the wrong approach because it eliminates a lot of basic thinking that goes into research. When a scientist sees unexplained phenomena, he tries to make theories to explain the phenomena based on other knowledge that he has of similar situations. Then he tests his theories. If he waited until he had hard facts or evidence that explained the phenomena, there would be no such thing as theory. Theory is based on speculation, the same kind of speculation that the kite-flyers have offered here.
Actually, Cleopatra was a 7th generation incestual descendant of Ptolomy, a general of Alexander the Great's. She (probably) wasn't related to any of the people she ruled.
Good for her, but I think that it was obvious to anybody who read the post that I wasn't speaking in a strictly genetic since but in a cultural sense. Though she "probably" wasn't genetically Egyptian, she is considered by most to be Egyptian and for my purposes of comparing generations of Egyptians and Greeks made a good reference point. And since you're such the historian, shame on you for not knowing that the pyramid-builders were not contemporaries with Greek historians.
WHY is it so hard to believe that ancient Egyptians used their brains and muscle to build these things.
It's not. But why is it so hard to believe that they used their brains more than they used their muscles?
Beyond that, you make the same mistake as about 99% of the Slashdot posters here. You ASSume that they tied a rock to a kite, flew the kite, then skillfully positioned the kite to drop the rock where they wanted it. That's not what the article described. It only touched on the concept, but they built a tower where they wanted the obelisk. They ran a rope through the tower (via a network of pulleys) down to the obelisk. The kite was at the top of the tower (where there was more wind) and was presumably launched from there. With the kite tethered in this manner, you don't need to control where the kite goes so long as it keeps going up or in a direction away from the tower. This will pull the ropes, thus lifting the stone (or the obelisk). Stacking stones in this case is even simpler because the tower will allow the stones to be lifted to nearly the exact same location on the horizontal plane.
Why is it that nobody ever reads the articles anymore before shooting off their mouth? It plainly talks about pulleys and scaffolds.
The advantage of using any tool lies in the ability of it to project a controlled amount of force along a certain direction. The wind is unstable at best; you can't control it and you can't predict it. That means it's force waxes and wanes. It also changes direction. This scafford not only holds the rock, it also holds the kite. The kite places a certain amount of force in a certain place on the scaffold as it lifts the rock. If that force changes, you stand a chance of demolishing your scaffold. All of this uncertainty makes it unworkable.
It certainly doesn't appear to be all that unworkable, especially seeing as someone has already done it. If you'll recall, that was the point of the article.
Besides, just WHERE is it in the culture? If they actually used kites, where is the literature describing them? To the ancients, it would have seemed like the power of the gods (the wind) was helping them to raise their buildings. This theme would have been repeated in their literature and described by foreigners (ie Greek historians). There would have been wind and kite festivals (like in China). Little children of today would still be flying kites, like their ancestors. But none of this exists. There is NO ancient cultural tradition of kite flying in egypt - at least that I'm aware of. Show me EVIDENCE of such a tradition and I might believe it.
I'm not saying that the Egyptians built it this way. I merely pointing out that it is certainly quite feasible. You see an absence of concrete proof and automatically write it off as some crackpot idea that is impossible. I see a proof-of-concept experiment that demoinstrates the feasibility of an idea and think, "Hey, it's possible."
Just because there is no evidence that Egyptians flew kites 6000 years ago doesn't mean that they didn't fly kites. There are very large portions of the historical record that did not survive until the present day intact. If we did have all of the historical records, we would know for a fact how it was done. Remember that when we speak of the pyramid builders we aren't talking about a people who were contemporaries with Greek historians (or any other historians from whom we have writings). We are talking about a civilization that predates the Greeks by several thousand years. These are not the Egyptians of Cleopatra. They are the ancient ancestors of Cleopatra.
I completely agree with ( him ? her ? What's a Willeke ? .) Both in the "lot of fun" and in the "proves nothing" part of it.
That said, I consider this kind of research as very thought-provoking (it has provoked at least two thoughts in myself, close to a record), and worthwhile in itself. Well done!
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Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Consider the materials necessary for flight alone.
For a kite that size to sustain it's structural integrity under even light-moderate winds requires very strong materials in the wing itself (like nylon) and the assembly that shapes the kite (more than likely tubing from an aluminium alloy). The moments produced around assembled components would be surprisingly high, especially near the center if the wing.
Although the Egyptians were known for managing huge loads, it seems to me they wouldn't have anything strong or light enough to support these kinds of forces. (My point being, if they did construct a wing, the freakin' Kite would most likely weigh several hundred pounds itself)
this is my sig, be amazed.