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Update on the Kite-Obelisk Project
pyramidiot writes: "A month or so ago a story from the LA Daily News about a group of people who are trying to prove that the Egyptians may have used kites to erect obelisks and build pyramids was posted on slashdot. Naturally, the article as a bit bland and left many questions unanswered, and some answered incorrectly. Well I'm the engineer of the project and I've been developing a website to answer everyone's questions. The URL is www.pyramidiots.com, and, although it is still under development, it may help to answer most of your questions."
- A big, modern nylon-kite
- A dozen or soo modern low-friction pulleys.
- A few hundred meters of pro low-friction super-strong syntetic rope. (locked like climbing-rope to me)
Then you can raise a small obelisk on it's end.Big surprise there. I completely fail to see how this even indicates that the old egyptians /could/ have done this. To demonstrate that possibility you'd have to repeat the experiment with the materials available to the old Egyptians. (this means no nylon, no syntetical fibers, only the kinds of cloth the Egyptians had, no ball-bearing low-friction pulleys.)
I wonder how much of a pull such a kite provides anyway. More than 8 people with an old-fashioned manual winch ? I doubt it. And much less manageable, since you need convenient wind.
... they sound like a spectacular construction method. One that would have been immortalized in art.
I'm skeptical of the kite theory simply because we haven't run across any paintings or etchings of people using them to raise the stones.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Raising ships with ping-pong balls
Solar sails for spacecraft
Laser-powered spacecraft
Supersonic speeds underwater
Fake breastesses
Sometimes it feels so good to be a human being :)
"Has sensational journalism gone too far? Find out at eleven!" - John Stewart
"We have an A-Bomb...what more do you want, mermaids?" --I.I. Rabi, speaking in defense of Robert Oppenheimer
This looks like a clever assortment of levers and pulleys to allow a small amount of force to move a heavy object. Such machines are nothing strange; my question is, and I was unable to find a reason, why do you need a kite? Why not some people (they had plenty of slaves, no?) pull on the rope instead?
Those who do not know the past are doomed to reimplement it, poorly.
Why does everyone think that everytime they come up with a creative way to move a large object that they have discovered the way the egyptians built the pyrimids and oblisks?
I saw a very interesting thingie on PBS about this, the archelogical evidence suggests that the egyptians did everything with three elements, human labor, wood, and sand. Wood was the only one which they didn't have abundant supply nearby, but pieces of a giant wooden barge, large enough to carry many stones or a few oblisks, have been found, and a replica made.
The Oblisks stand upon stone squares with what archaeologists call a turning groove. This turning groove they claim, kept the oblisk from sliding around as it was stood into place.
A theory which will be difficult to prove by archaelogical evidence about the erection of the oblisks is that they used the most simple machine they could, gravity. A large box was made around the base for the oblisk and filled with sand. Several sand vents were cut in the sides of this box, allowing sand to run out when opened. The oblisk was dragged on top of the sand and the vents opened. This technique has been demonstrated, it gets the oblisk within a few degrees of vertical, the remainder can be pulled by fewer than 200 men.
Why would they need to use kites when they could use sand and gravity?
BTW, at first I thought you were saying that they used JEW's to construct thier stuff. Big shock, its in the bible...
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
Human labor.
Why would Egyptian engineers bother developing such outlandish methods of construction when they could use the most available resource in any advanced society- human labor. Considering the influence of religion in their society and the intelligence levels of the common workers, when the Pharaoh (who was considered a God) gives the command for an oversized grave marker, people get to work.
The most promising explanation on how the Pyramids were built I've seen was by an archeologist who discovered some wooden models. These models were 2 flat pieces of wood, each shaped into a half circle, and then attached together by wooden pillars. He theorized that these were models of the equipment used to move the 6,900 lb. blocks of stone. By standing the rectangular stone on its shorter end, and then attaching these half circle units to each longer side with thick rope, the stone block was now the shape of a circle. This could easily be done with enough human hands.
Now, with enough human labor these mammoth blocks could now be rolled with relative ease to their position. To raise the blocks up to the top of the pyramid he suggested the ramp method which had been theorized by other scientists. This basically was a dirt ramp that was built around the sides of the pyramid as it got higher, which allowed the stones to be dragged in place, or in this case, rolled into place. Given enough slaves, every block could be moved into position in a timely manner- allowing the pyramid to be completed in the relatively short time of 20 years.
All of this could be done with some of the most readily available resources: willing human labor, wood, rope and dirt.