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Canadian Inventor: Pyramids Were Rocked Into Place
seafortn writes "A Canadian man is claiming he has solved the mystery of the construction of the pyramids - the ancient Egyptians attached curved boards to the building blocks and rolled them into place."
Guy can move rocks from A to B by rocking and/or rolling.
Guy doesn't really know how the rocks were lifted 60ft into the air, but suggests 'shimmying' may have been part of it.
Next week - Guy explains that he can fly to the moon using only pogo sticks. "See, how bouncy they are," he says, "now just bounce a little higher and I'm there."
What a pointless, informationless article that was.
/* affect != effect */ void affect(int *thing,int effect) { *thing += effect; }
The reason this is such a mystery is that the great pyramid is made of over two million blocks, each weighing two and a half tons. Our best estimates for construction time are that it took around 20 years to build. Assuming a 10 to 12 hour work day and no holidays (365 days a year) that means the ancient Egyptians placed a block every 20 to 30 seconds.
Today, even with modern equipment, we could not make that happen. Maybe we could place a block every 5 minutes or every 10 minutes, but I can't imagine we could do it under a minute continuously. It's just an amazing feet. You can see why people are so impressed.
There are so many examples of humans achieving such greatness, and accomplishing such feats, that later generations do not comprehend. I suppose our generation has the Apollo moon landings, and maybe a couple of other things. It really stands as a testament to our potential. So, when we start murdering each other wholesale I like to think about these achievements because it gives me hope that we can rise above our destructive nature.
Sheesh, one after another, trying to solve how th epyramids were built... Geesh, when will these people figure it out that these theories are all bogus, that the pyramids were built completely by natural erosion?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Ugg, I am so sick of this type of thinking.
Durgs - Blame Canadsa
Trrerorists - Blame Canadsa
now we're being blamed for the pyramids?
My list of multiplayer
As I recall, the main focus of it was the rolling logs for long distance transport (pretty well documented, not only by the tracks left, but discarded and broken logs etc., but also historical pictorial records) and also on leverage multipliers.
With the rollers, the key was sustaining momentum wherever possible (moving friction less than initial friction). No need to re-invent the wheel here (bad pun I know).
The materials analysis of the lever and pulley materials was the most interesting part I though. They demonstrated the feasability of several different methods of lifting/propelling the blocks (all dreamed up by a variety of egyptologists, engineers and wackos like Mr Raina) using only materials available at the time.
In contrast to the mental stimulation provided by that documentary, this article was a complete waste of time.
Mr. Raina has never been to Egypt nor have any scientists travelled to his humble home for a demonstration.
Well surprise, surprise...
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Yes, that is what we were taught in school -- that the pyramids were built with slave labour, with brutal working conditions. But there have been a number of documentaries about archeological investigations into the dormitories where the workers lived. IIRC the archeological evidence points to the workers not being slaves. IIRC the archeological evidence points to the workers working and living under reasonable circumstances.
Unforunately, he's confusing hypothesis with evidence. He's given some good anecdotal evidence that it could have been done that way, but no evidence that it was done that way. Produce some tangible evidence and he may be on to something.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
Or how about the possibility that the pyramids are not gargantuan but are merely very close up?
How come nobody every posits that theory indeed.
demi
Gee,
This is retarded. What is worse, that a geek blog picked up something this dumb, or a "real" news site? This idea is old, and long discredited.
The greeks started using the technique described, but not for many years after the Pyramids were built.
It is worth noting that there are pictures surviving from the period that show large teams of men, pulling big stone bocks or statues, on sledges. Maybe you can dream up some other way to do it, but if there's real evidence that they did it differently, you are just daydreaming.
But here's another disturbing thought. John Anthony West argues that water erosion on the Sphynx indicates that the thing was built before Egypt was an arid country. That's about 10,000 years ago. Of course this runs totally against accepted archaeological thought -- but you still have to wonder if Egyptian civilization isn't a tad older than currently accepted.
That is the title of a book written by a hungarian writer. It raises quite a few question about the great pyramid and tries to give some answers. Interestingly, I have not read the same conclusions in other books.
Ever wonder about the chamber with the 'well' under the pyramid? I think the official theory is that it was supposed to be where the pharaoh would be buried originally. However, a more plausible theory is that it was used to test whether the ground above could support the weight of the pyramid. A pendulum was used to test this, one end was attached to the ceiling and the other was lowered into the well.
Another mystery is the great gallery. In this book the writer assumes it was used as some kind of elevator. There are some interesting markings on either side of the gallery along the walls which a cogwheel can hang on to. Considering the Egyptians did not know the wheel it is quite a bold assumption.
Do not forget that there are some blocks in the pyramid which weigh 70 tons or so. And there is the king's sarcophagus in the king's chamber. It carved from one block of gratine, one of the hardest material on Earth.
Also, there is absolutly no evidence about that a pharaoh was ever buried in the pyramid. Considering all the mysteries, is it really surprising I am more inclined to believe the pyramid was not build by Egyptians?
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
When I first read the headline, I thought it said Canadian Inventor: Pyramids Were Rocketted Into Place. I had an image of an eccentric old man attaching explosive devices to 10 ton bricks, and flying them onto the top of a pyramid structure. What a let down.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Ummm... wrong.
I think this is really the only theory anyone has put forth that actually makes sense.
google is your friend
Understand, it's not that things couldn't be done this way, it's just that there isn't any need to invoke curved planks, floats, anti-gravity devices, etc., and there's no evidence of any of these. Building megalithic structures is not as hard as people think it is. Yes, it takes a lot of muscle power, but if you have that (and ancient people did), it's not that big a deal. This is not idle theorizing, either; there are people who actually go out there and try out their theories by building dolmens, giant statues, and the like (something Mr. Raina does not seem to have done). Everybody seems to have this desire to put one over on the establishment, but it's a lot easier to assume that the archaeological establishment is just a big bunch of meanies who put down your theory because it makes them look bad than it is to actually do the research yourself. And somehow these amazing new theories always seem to involve "lost knowledge", which conveniently overlooks the fact that the Egyptians wrote down and otherwise documented a ton of stuff - recipes, spells, contracts - so to assume that a major construction method was completely overlooked seems disingenuous.
The only mystery i see is how many people did they have working on these pyramids? I have read up and people have calculated that a rock needed to be placed every 2 or so minutes. While this might seem impossible but maybe there were say 10 groups of people moving an individual rock into place at the same time. so say it took 20 minutes to move the rock into place, if you have 10 groups doing that at the same pace then it could seem doable. Also since the pyramids were so huge perhaps they had 100 groups of workers moving individual rocks. That means if it took 200 minutes to put a rock in place, with 100 groups it would still be doable. The way i first pictured it was having one group moving one rock at a time every 2 minutes, but if you split it up into more than one groups then it gets more feasable.