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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."

10 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Summary of Article. by mcdrewski42 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

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    1. Re:Summary of Article. by greenhide · · Score: 4, Interesting

      During a Passover seder (how apropos!) I discussed the building of the pyramids with a professor who specialized in ancient civilizations of the middle east. He said that it's very obvious that they built ramps out of a kind of clay/sand mixture. There's even a name for this kind of mixture, although it escapes my mind. He said that it was scattered all around the pyramids and was easy to find.

      As far as he was concerned, case closed.

      This guy, at best, has explained how the rocks might have been brought to the pyramid's base.

      --
      Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
  2. The Reason for the Mystery by oni · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:The Reason for the Mystery by rco3 · · Score: 4, Informative

      365 days per year times 20 years is 7300 days. No holidays, of course. 12 hours of work every day gives us a total of 87,600 hours.

      This is all approximate, of course. However...

      2 million blocks divided by 87,600 is about 23. That's 23 blocks per hour, or about 2.7 minutes per block.

      That's a factor of five different from your estimate, although still impressive. Did you mean 20 to 30 blocks per minute?

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  3. ANOTHER one... by gnovos · · Score: 4, Funny

    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?

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  4. pyramids built with slave labour? by geoswan · · Score: 4, Informative
    Until you look under the rocks and find out that there is a human corpse under each and every one of them... They pyramids were just a fancified death machine. :)

    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.

  5. Confusing hypothesis with evidence by SnappingTurtle · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The dude certainly has some neat ideas. His theory sounds plausible to the casual observer (i.e. me).

    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.

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  6. Re:What if it Was Simpler Than That? by demi · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

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    demi
  7. Another Mystery by fm6 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Yeah, I've always found it more satisfying to believe that the pyramids were put up by human ingenuity, rather than by the whimsy of some God from Space.

    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.

  8. Dissapointed by kinnell · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

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