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Architect Claims to Solve Pyramid Secret
Alreadybutnotyet writes "A French architect claimed Friday to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid of Khufu was built — with use of a spiral ramp to hoist huge stone blocks into place. The construction of the Great Pyramid 4,500 years ago by Khufu, a ruler also known as Cheops, has long befuddled scientists as to how its 3 million stone blocks weighing 2.5 tons each were lifted into place. 'The most widespread theory had been that an outer ramp had been used by the Egyptians, who left few traces to help archeologists and other scientists decode the secret to the construction. Houdin said he had taken into account the copper and stone tools available at the time, the granite and limestone blocks, the location of the pyramid and the strength and knowledge of the workers.'"
This is old news to me. I saw the "Spiral Ramp" idea on either the History Channel or The Discovery Channel at least a couple years ago. The show even had a CGI model of the spiral ramp.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
I saw the condensed version (due to my preferences) and clicking it just said "Nothing to see here; move along." It would have been funny if it had stayed like that....
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Any sort of ramp would do. I really don't see why he has to specify that it's a spiral ramp.
There should be a "-1:Groupthink"
Eh, well considering that the content of the article isn't really "new"...
Perhaps it's a joke to see if people will be excited at a theory that's been bandied about for a long time now?
Besides, I thought that we'd stop getting April Fools stories now that it's April 2nd GMT.
Seems like this would be easy to verify. There should be the remnants of the tunnels still in place. HAs he found any?
Due to some translation errors, and an over active project manager's ego, a simple request for a small pond to keep water for a herd of goats gets "innovated" into a series of pyramids that can be seen from far away. The rest is history.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Doesn't have that SlashRating© bullshit on the side of the article. The horror has ended!
Wow you guys are dumb. This is obviously NOT a real article.
Everybody knows the pyramids were created by giant aliens.
When is Slashdot going to add a -1 moderation option for people who actually RTFA?
Nicely done narration of the process. The 3D technique allowed some exploration for the viewer. A passive video would not have been as effective for this.
Took a bit to accept the virtual scientist, but it worked.
So what we have here is a feasible theory with no supporting physical evidence. I don't know I would call this "uncovering" or "discovering", since it is completely speculative.
Personally, I think the most "obvious" method would be correct. The Egyptians would not have been able to do a computer simulation to determine if their building plans were feasible. Thus I would think they would have gone with the most obvious, full-proof method, even if it would have required more resources. The article is short on details, but any building techniques beyond a certain level of complexity would likely have been too much of a gamble for them to attempt.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
The sphynx was covered to its neck in blown in sand not so long ago. Some other buildings bear evidence of using sand to cover the site as they built up with rough stone, then as they dug it out again, the stones were dressed nicely from the top down. Egyptians are used to sand - it is everywhere - there is no shortage of it. This architect clearly could not see the forest for all the sand...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Personally, I thought this was one of the worst...it was so...tame. Last year was great. It is as if they aren't really trying this year.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
You'd never guess he is French would you.
meh
Let's see 3,000,000 blocks / (365*20)days = 420 blocks/day. Assuming an average of 12hrs of daylight we get 35 blocks an hour which is about 100 seconds / block. Just the cutting and shaping this many blocks with simple tools is amazing, not to mention transporting then raising them. A truly astounding feat.
Here, you missed this part in your copy/paste...
...
Ending eight years of study on the subject, architect Jean-Pierre Houdin released his findings and a computerized 3-D mockup showing how workers would have erected the pyramid at Giza outside Cairo.
According to his theory - shown in a computer model available at http://www.3ds.com/khufu - the builders put up an outer ramp for the first 140 feet, then constructed an inner ramp in a corkscrew shape to complete the 450-foot structure.
Houdin also postulated that King's Chamber was hoisted into place through a system of counterweights.
Houdin said he plans to verify his theories through non-invasive tests on site.
If you're going to copy half the article word for word, at least do the whole damn thing.
Archive.org seems to have missed it, too
k ooslashdot.jpg , orl oads/2006/04/pink_slashdot.jpg
You can see part of the homepage at
http://mitternachts-lied.net/blog/images/posts/ki
http://www.desiringmachine.org/blog/wp-content/up
enjoy
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
They took the stone mason from this "This Old House" and in 30 days built like 10 meter tall Pyramid. They used a simple outside ramp and "turning" posts at the corners. Hardest part was placing the cap stone.
Was a great show, I guess it sis not make it to France.
Unless the great pyramid was the first one they ever built, some of these methods (especially rope twisting scaffold to raise the capstone) may have been tried on smaller pyramids. Thus, the gamble might not have been as big.
That's spelled "Pulitzer", you insensitive clod.
And when you have tens of thousands of slaves (err, employees) doing it, that sounds like a bunch of slackers. And ditch the 12 hour day idea, our employees will happily work by torch light!
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
...and the pyramids were built spirally, how do you then get rid of the spirals?
My theory is that there can only be one true Science Fiction series, and the rest are all bunk. However, which one is true depends on which of the alternative universes you live in. Universes involving ponies (OMG! Ponies!) are, of course, wholly exempt from alien marauders, on account of being obnoxiously cute.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Actually, it's already been proven that they were not slaves. They were actually employed to do the job.
Sci Fi set in the age of steam is called Steam Punk... Set in the age of Pyramids we would have to call it Reed Punk... This wasn't the first Pyramid built; however they built them, clearly the scaled up from job to job... It wasn't like they programmed "hello world" one day and the next started to create a complete OS from scratch. My guess is his solution is a little bit too neat, and relies on technology more than brawn.
Has there been any Peer review of this "discovery?"
This "prof" seems more than anything to be shilling for some 3D modeling software. The software is certainly quite impressive. The scene where the cap stone is raised by turning it, so that ropes attached to it twist and thereby lift it, is quite impressive as well; the ropes are suspended from a teepee like structure of wooden poles. I'm sure it would work once you got it moving the first ½ rotation; up to that point I'm sure you really had to push very hard...
Our good "prof" set out to find out how he could build a construction project (of the great pyramid) using only the materials of the day, based on whatever evidence there is, and of course on his modern understanding of the world.
The scenes where wooden carry frames transport major stone blocks by the aid of counter weights seemed straight out of Indiana Jones. It's certainly possible so he claimed, but the technology seems really pushed to the limit(s).
What happened to the idea that the stones were "wrapped" by four pieces of 90 degree "curves" so that when all tied together the stones could be rolled around like "wheels."
http://www.hawknest.com/
Yeah, the current discussion is abbout how they put in the formwork, and where they parked the mixing truck. I'd like to know how they got those big trowels up there too.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
You can't actually think that it only took 20 years.
I think 35-40 years is more accurate.
They're using their grammar skills there.
On the website that explains it all, http://khufu.3ds.com/introduction/, there is a link to download the website's soundtrack. I'm sorry but I can't take them seriously anymore if they pull off crap like that.
-- Cheers!
There's a better explanation that this, and its been around for about ten years. (another) French theorist, Joseph Davidovitz, has shown how the Kufu pyramid could have been made of a limestone polymer: a kind of concrete. His theory has the blocks being cast in reusable molds, in situ, rather than carved or moved.
e -pyramids-made-out-of-concrete-1
All the mineral materials were nearby and easily mined. Given enough skilled teams, blocks could have easily been cast in place at what we now consider an astonishing rate. It also explains why the joints between the blocks are perfectly fitted. Transportation costs could have been kept low, because only small batches of material needed to be moved at a time: in relay chains rather than massive hauling projects.
http://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids/ar
Incidentally, It's no surprise that the French are always coming out with theories on the Pyramids. They invented Egyptology during the Napoleonic era.
If the pyramids were built by super-intelligent aliens, wouldn't they have Linux installed?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
So, where can I get a patch for my Pharaoh PC game? My subjects are still building external spiral ramps.
Based on my experience with programming projects, I'd say it must have been like this:
- the client's manager (the pharaoh) couldn't be arsed to actually think what he needs and to specify it, and probably was also affraid to sign anything that doesn't cover all potential aspects, hypothetical future needs, buzzwords, etc, in one go. So it has to have not only a pond, but also sphinxes, obelisks, etc, just in case someone ever needs them, and sometimes because he just didn't really understand what he wants. Maybe also a case of new alpha dog having to piss on everything and mark his territory, so building a pond doesn't sound as grandious as restructuring the whole burial process in Egypt.
- the team's marketting guy just had to sell the biggest and most expensive thing he could, even if the client doesn't actually need it. So he took the Pharaoh to a restaurant and to golf, and established himself as the guy the Pharaoh can trust, unlike those pesky IT nerds... err... embalmers who insist that they need a pyramid for it like a fish needs a bycicle. He had to cut the price and deadline a bit, though, but he's proud that he made a sale, and it's not his problem how that's going to be built with only 20 men within the promised time.
- some other politics and power games were involved, such as between the vizier for construction and the vizier for agriculture, or between the nomarch (governor) of Saqqara and the nomarch of Thebes. Extra funds and grandious requirements are piled just to make a silly "I'm greater than you because my pet project got more funding than yours" point.
- the builders' manager had read in some "Construction Week" ragazine for managers that pyramids are the latest cool buzzword, and everything should be built with pyramids. He doesn't really understand what those are, when they're used, and when they're not used, since those ragazines are little more than fashion magazines and never actually give you the actual information needed to make an informed choice or design. So the pond must have pyramids too, he's sure that's what makes a project successful. He's also the only guy the marketter consulted with, if any.
- a couple of workers don't give a fuck about actually solving the problem, they just want the latest buzzwords on the resume so they can apply to an even better paid job. They heard that spiral ramps are the latest buzzword, so they have to have "has used spiral ramps" on their resume. The original spec for 3 ft tall pyramids in the corners of the pond gets ballooned into a gigantic monstrosity just so they can get that buzzword on their resume. (Of course, now there's a problem with the deadline, but that's not their problem.)
- the architect fully cooperates with the above, or maybe is one of the above, plus he has to justify his job. His boss doesn't really understand architecture, but can be smoked with lots of buzzwords and complicated diagrams. A complicated architecture with lots of clever buzzwords, (A) makes the boss go, "whoa, this guy is so smart, I'm happy we have him to plan all this for us", i.e., establishing credentials, and (B) "whoa, these projects are so complicated, good thing we had an architect to plan it for us", i.e., making sure he gets to keep his job and be called upon for the next pond too, and (C) it lets him get paid for months, maybe years, of just painting diagrams, which is good.
- a couple of workers are in it just for fun and playing with the biggest rocks and newest techniques, and only incidentally get to be paid for it. They'll cheerfully help inflate the spec even more, because it lets them play with big stones and logs instead of the boring old bricks for a 3ft decoration.
- most of the builders are contractors or consultants paid by the hour. 'Nuff said.
- at least one manager involved has realized that, according to the corporate rules, he'd get a promotion if he had just a couple more people under him. Unsurprisingly, his solution to everything is to hire more people and push for even mo
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I thought I recently heard that the 'huge blocks' were an early form of concrete?
:)
I've also been told that, in order to place these stones in the lifetime of the pharoh associated with it, they'd need to be dropped into place every 8 seconds.
Is is safe to assume we're going to get contradictory stories about them for just a few more years?
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
The event was presented in interactive, realtime 3d, on a 24m base, 400m2 stereoscopic screen; one of the biggest, if not the biggest, virtual reality screen. Here's a small post I wrote about the VR presentation -- A VR Geek Blog
Due to some translation errors, and an over active project manager's ego, a simple request for a small pond to keep water for a herd of goats gets "innovated" into a series of pyramids that can be seen from far away. The rest is history. The amazing thing is that there are really people who passionately believe the Pyramids were built by aliens. The Pyramids generate quite a lot of theories about their origins from 'Pyramidologists' around the world. Some are quite serious most of them are ridiculous to the point of being funny. The chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, who regularly gets swamped in these proposals coined a word for 'Pyramidologists', he calls them 'Pyramidiots'.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Are you sure about the number of blocks? Most of the interior of the pyramid is fill, not properly cut and positioned blocks.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
elsewhere even bigger. I guess.
How do you tag stories for later in Slashdot?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
As an archaeologist I have read a number of serious academic articles about the use of 3D reconstructions to present ideas. I won't get into all the gory details of archaeological theory here, but the short version is this:
Images serve as extremely persuasive representations of the past, and it often the case that a reasonably compelling image which doesn't clash do badly with out own pre-conceived notions will often be accepted without being questioned very much. A good example of this is the popular image of the Neanderthals as stooped brutish creatures - An image based upon work which was discredited more than 100 years ago (I forget the exact date). CG images can be even more persuasive due to their ability to move around and show people and systems in action.
I appreciate that this project is based upon actual engineering work, and isn't just a bunch of pretty pictures, however watching the presentation I can't help but feel that they are a little bit in love with their own images. They claim to be certain that their 'internal ramp' hypothesis is correct, and twice claim it is backed up by strong evidence, and yet they present no physical evidence whatsoever. All they have is a model which doesn't disprove their theory and a pretty 3D model. It is interesting study to be sure, but until they find physical evidence (and to be fair they have expressed an interest in looking for some) statements like 'This revolutionary idea sweeps away all the other hypotheses put forward up to now' (page 4 of the pdf) go much to far.
now who wants to test the theory out by chipping away under a 2.5 ton block until its just balanced on its corner just right to rotate it.. perfectly balanced... up the stairway...
personally if i was a rich arrogant king Id just cover each level in salt and then wash it away. Damn that would be expensive though...
It's whether you're allowed to quit the job and try moving on to something else, preferably by telling the foreman that he can take this 3-ton block of stone and shove it.
There is no way to tell if that was allowed. However, it is believed that this all is focusing on religion, and not so much to see this as a tax from the government.
YOu could tell the foreman to shove it, but the result may be that you do not have a pretty after life. Since the rule of the country also rules the after life, you may have to regret your decision for eternity, and not only for the rest of your (shortened???) lifespan.
When I was a kid in high school in the early 1970's (yeah, I'm a jurassic geezer), this was one of the theories of how it got built. Although not given much credit by scientists, it was considered more likely than aliens and anti-gravity technology.
Always remember, Hollywood got it last idea before the pyramids were built.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Here's a challenge for you. Input: copper, stone, wood tools, ropes, boats, sliders (like on a sled). No wheels, but you do get to use levers. Power supply is limited to bone and muscle - yours, or any animal you can train to do it.
Now, spend a few thousand years figuring out clever ways to put these tools together to get things done.
People often forget the element of time. We aren't as clever with rope and levers and ramps, because we have huge amounts of power to use or waste.
"Technology" doesn't have to mean smaller, faster computers - it can mean using the old resources better.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Ok, I am going to start an actual simulation for building the Pyramids.
All of you guys come out of your mother's basement and be my slaves.
No wages. Bad conditions. Whips and chains. Move some heavy rocks
for me and we will build one. Move it or die.
This is going to be fun but I hope there are no uprisings.
(PS: Yes, I know that Nova did it. However, mine will be full size. None of this 9 foot tall crap.)
Yeah, this has been proposed every few years. I can't find any articles on it right now, but the most recent time it was talked about, the scientists showed core samples that had crystallization that matches the way concrete would form. These get ignored because anyone who wants to study the pyramids aren't allowed to unless they subscribe to Egypt's dogmatic view that they were built @3000 BC by hard working Egyptians moving gigantic rocks thousands of miles...
Clones are people two.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
that the blocks where poured in place - like concrete. Did that already get disproven?
Sounds to me like ....
Aliens built it, told the people how to make them.
Either they slowly forgot how to build them well, or the tools used to build them gradually broke down.
Thats why the first generation was the best and they got worse as time went on till they completely gave up because all their
alien tools broke down or ran out of power source (darn nuclear batteries)
And I bet the Egyptian govt knows this and 100% blows the religeons out of the water, and yes that means all , Islam to Christianity to Judaism, all alien based from the kabbalah http://www.jewfaq.org/kabbalah.htm
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Last I heard, it wasn't slaves that built the pyramids, but paid laborers. They found tablets with their wages and everything. Typically, it would be farmers that during the off season would make some extra money by working at the pyramids.
1. go here http://www.construire-la-grande-pyramide.fr/html/i ndexGB.htm
2. click "The Theory"
3. click "3. THE THEORY REVEALED"
Then you can see in detail what he is talking about. The animations work in linux with firefox and no plugins here. It looks like a way to pile rocks into a pyramid using brain power and not much else. Wonderful. I bet it might be right. No concrete required.
Hey, the Egyptians had water (and water power) too.
AFAIK this has been the accepted standard theory behind pyramid construction for years. I saw a thing from the History Channel which detailed exactly this theory probably two years ago, and I'm fairly sure said documentary was made during the mid 90s.
There's some evidence that the ancients were better moving large rocks using levers than we are these days, (Stonehenge, in particular) but that in itself isn't a huge revelation. I remember the saying that as the printing press improve{s,d}, so engineering has inversely slid further and further into decline. It genuinely is true that we're not anywhere near as good at constructing buildings as we used to be...mainly because the degree of integrity imbued in the structure of buildings must, by definition, be a mirror of the degree of integrity present within the structure of the society responsible for their construction. Solid physical structures are only possible when solid social structures exist beneath/behind them.
pyramids
It annoys me whenever people toss out the idea that "Aliens must've told them what to do" with the implication that ancient people were too ignorant to figure how to do things themselves. Like you said, these people lived every day with these tools and materials and were no different than us. They were always looking for ways to get more out of what they had. They had people who thought just like modern engineers or skilled craftsmen. The problem is that they usually didn't write things down or the idea stayed local and didn't spread.
Some of the techniques they used are disarmingly simple yet clever. For instance, the Egyptians didn't have iron to help split stone blocks, so they hammered out holes then inserted dry wooden edges and watered them until they swelled and split the rock. Pretty damn smart.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Egyptians cut the stone blocks into easier to move shapes at the quarry then cut them into the final shape at the building site. Maybe they cut them into cylinders and rolled them!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
They took a top down approach to building the pyramids. The would put a block into place flat on the ground, remove the sand below the block, then shift new supporting blocks in place, and repeat.
Isn't it really a helical ramp? It sounds more like a conical helix than a spiral, and wikipedia agrees with me.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
The most interesting thing about all of this, imho, is the fact that we are still trying to figure out how the pyramids were made. Here we are in the 21st century, and our top scientist/engineers can't figure out how a bunch of stone age people created one of the world's most sophisticated engineering feats ever. Why is that? This new spiral theory may indeed be correct, but they instantly dismiss one of the most compelling facts: the pyramid of Khufu was NOT built by the pharaoh Khufu. Khufu's name appears nowhere in or on the pyramid (except for one scribble of graffiti). Egyptians were obsessed with covering their works with words, names, and decorations: the Great pyramid is virtually devoid of any decoration of any kind. Why is this important? It's important because it suggests that the pyramid already existed long before the stone age building timeframe. Graham Hancock is the main proponent of this ancient theory and his book Fingerprints of the Gods is a fascinating theory about how the pyramids are much older than we expect. The inner-ramp theory people dismiss this theory off hand in their 3d video, but it's a theory that's worth exploring if you consider yourself a true Egyptologist.
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If you're looking to get the XPI plugin for viewing the application/x-virtools, have a look here web browser plugin details for virtools files.
Spoiler: it doesn't work on linux.
The first time I saw a chip from a pyramid block (yes, a real chip, illegal as hell, never should've been even picked up, much less smuggled out of Egypt and put into my hands) .. my first reaction was: "This isn't stone, this isn't limestone! This is cement! Crappy cement, yeah, but cement never the less."
:-)
.. lost opportunity, of the criminal kind true, but still ...
Nothing's changed my opinion since. I guess I'd have to go to the quarry onsite and personally examine the raw material there (right next to where a block had been quarried). Or have another friend get me another chip from there
I should've made an outrageous offer for that first chip, I know. Knew it then too, but the owner was so proud of himself, and so fascinated with it himself. Sigh
You see, Miyamoto's Mario 64 level 'Desert's Hill' pictures a pyramid that contains a spiral ramp which leads to the top of the pyramid revealing a small opening where the workers would place the top rocks of the pyramid precisely on top. Which proves my theory on the conspiracy of Video Game Giants trying to force their beliefs unto us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_ Super_Mario_64_shifting_sand_land.jpg _ Super_Mario_64_shifting_sand_land.jpg
n ce_pyramid_theory.html?source=mypi 7 .095FRANCE-GREAT-PYRAMID.sff.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fc/N64
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fc/N64
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7dMHvZXegVU
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZsgMWdJQyi4
here's the actual story and image:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501ap_fra
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/aponline/604
You mean the quarry sites right next to the Sphinx that show how the blocks were cut and that match the makeup of the blocks in the pyramid? Go ahead and look at them if you want -- they're pretty cool.
Everybody is clear that the pyramids were faced in a lighter colored and polished stone from across the river, some remnants of which can be seen at the top of (I believe) Khufu's pyramid? That was removed by later dynasties for use in other monuments. And the top stones were quarried in Upper (Southern) Egypt and barged down to Giza. These were not simple structures, even though they were not completed, and they were made from a variety of materials. I'm not persuaded that there may have been some of this concrete involved, but I would wonder why it wasn't used anyplace else at any other time over the thousands of years after the pyramids were built. It would seem to have been a good candidate for construction, perhaps as an alternative to the mud-brick that almost everything in Egypt was made from. Obviously, if it's what any significant part of the pyramids are made from, it's far more durable than mud-brick.
The Pyramids where not build by slaves but by payed workers. At least the majority of the workers where not slaves. Slaves, most of the time convicted criminals, worked in the quarries however. But also there lots of payed men worked.
m
See e.g. as reference (or sue google to find more): http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/slaves.ht
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Must have misunderstood me. The best April 1st was The OMG it Ponies year.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.