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Ancient Papyrus Finally Solves Egypt's 'Great Pyramid' Mystery (newsweek.com)
schwit1 was the first Slashdot reader to bring us the news. Newsweek reports:
Archaeologists believe they have found the key to unlocking a mystery almost as old as the Great Pyramid itself: Who built the structure and how were they able to transport two-ton blocks of stone to the ancient wonder more than 4,500 years ago...?
Experts had long established that the stones from the pyramid's chambers were transported from as far away as Luxor, more than 500 miles to the south of Giza, the location of the Great Pyramid, but had never agreed how they got there. However, the diary of an overseer, uncovered in the seaport of Wadi al-Jafr, appears to answer the age-old question, showing the ancient Egyptians harnessed the power of the Nile to transport the giant blocks of stone.
According to a new British documentary Egypt's Great Pyramid: The New Evidence, which aired on the U.K.'s Channel 4 on Sunday, the Great Pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu, was built using an intricate system of waterways which allowed thousands of workers to pull the massive stones, floated on boats, into place with ropes. Along with the papyrus diary of the overseer, known as Merer, the archaeologists uncovered a ceremonial boat and a system of waterworks. The ancient text described how Merer's team dug huge canals to channel the water of the Nile to the pyramid.
According to a new British documentary Egypt's Great Pyramid: The New Evidence, which aired on the U.K.'s Channel 4 on Sunday, the Great Pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu, was built using an intricate system of waterways which allowed thousands of workers to pull the massive stones, floated on boats, into place with ropes. Along with the papyrus diary of the overseer, known as Merer, the archaeologists uncovered a ceremonial boat and a system of waterworks. The ancient text described how Merer's team dug huge canals to channel the water of the Nile to the pyramid.
This is a nice theory. Now they need to prove it's possible by actually using this method to excavate and move a stone as large as the largest one in the pyramids. Of course, they can't use any sort of modern technology to help them in any way.
Sometimes the simplest ways are the best ways.
Everyone knows the only way the pyramids could have been built was with the help of ancient aliens.
I always knew they used the tractor beams on their spaceships.
It's TRUE!! They got the Germanic peoples to come down, filled them up with beer (Egyptians had that!) and said, "if you think you're so superior, build a fucking pyramid with stone from waaaaay down there!"
The Germanic peoples said, "Hold onto my beer."
And built the pyramid.
True story. It was a long lost piperous larcenous transcript that had told it all.
The mystery continues...
Aliens did it man. Everyone knows that. Flying saucers, tractor beams, glowing power crystals, the works.
Or they got enough pace on the waterways to pass the end of the last canal?
The base of the Great Pyramid may have been designed as a water pump. Maybe it was part of the waterworks.
Ramps, boats and good rope. I pretty much guessed that as a child but you know well done to those involved.
Nothing can match the power of Trump voter who thinks NFL players taking a knee in protest (i.e. exercising their Constitutional Right of Free Speech.) during the National Anthem is disrespectful of the flag and our military. But somehow they weren't angry when Twitler his own self failed on numerous occasions to place his big right hand over his heart during the same and had to be prodded by Melania to show respect. Or when Twitler disrepected the Gold Star parents of a decorated war hero. Or disrespected John McCain, a Silver Star medal recipient and POW. But I digress.
Clearly all those Trump voters travelled back in time and built the pyramids in ten minutes, fueled by their insipid hatred of Rich Blacks exercising their Rights.
Go ahead Russian puppets, boycott NFL games. Vladimir Putin salutes you.
ancient egypts were white...
Who is looking for the canals?
Nobody's saying they should go to jail or have the government stop them. But free speech does not mean there can be no consequences. If the NFL wanted to fire them they could, within the bounds of whatever their contract is. They also can choose to not do anything or even support it. But that has nothing to do with their "Constitutional Right of Free Speech".
The people saying it's disrespectful are also exercising their rights. For what it's worth, I think they don't understand, or choose not to understand, what the players' protest is actually about. And for what its worth I think Trump is a dangerous lunatic who should not be in charge of anything. But defending the players by saying "it's their right" is missing the point.
Actually there is DNA evidence that the original founders of Egypt were Indo-European.
Foget Net neuatrality? These sites will kill internet as we know it.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Those "archeologists" were not present there.
That "surveyer" was only part of a conspiracy to surpress the truth about our ancient overlords.
No ammount of "evidence" will change that.
I still can not conceive how that could be done by mere humans, therefore: Aliens!
Anything and everything else is all fake news.
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
No need to get fancy about such ideas; levers, rollers, ramps, chisels, hammers, muscle. It's not only possible, it's obviously possible. They were metalworkers.
And that's not to say they didn't apply something, or several somethings, more clever to the problem, either - it's just that excavating such blocks can be done with those things and nothing more.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The comments section on this site has really gone downhill. Where did all of the intellectually brilliant and funny comments go? Could it be a new age of younger, less smart people due to frequent use of cell phones and Facebook? Has the NSA infested the community? Mass mind control?
I believe the correct answer is slaves. It's amazing what you can accomplish with a whip.
An old horror movie showed how the stone blocks were not stacked at first; that they were raised to allow human traffic to walk in between and access the pyramid's hidden chambers, until the 'slaves' arrived at the Pharaoh's final resting place. They pulled a switch that released these huge stone blocks that went through each floor and pulverized the supports and scaffolding while unleashing torrents of sand in the process, drowning and suffocating all the slaves, entombing them with their beloved ruler, and lowering the huge stone blocks until they were neatly stacked together, packed tightly even.
But free speech does not mean there can be no consequences.
This isn't "shouting fire" in a crowded theater. The NFL will deal with them as it sees fit. We don't need Russian trolls inciting divisiveness. Go fire up some ire in Russia and kick Putin out if you've got so much time on your hands.
But defending the players by saying "it's their right" is missing the point.
Said the Russian troll trying to incite more divisiveness.
The real mystery is how they lifted these blocks up the structure. The descendant of the caste of temple builders in South India says they build a helical wall that spirals around the structure. The wall is filled with sand. Stones are rolled up the helical ramp and moved into place. Once the structure is complete, the scaffolding wall is broken, sand spills out, and the structure is reveled. How they build the Big Temple at Thanjavur
It is possible the Egyptians also used inclined planes, possibly even the same helical inclined plane. BTW the helical inclined plane is used day in day out by us, we call them the threads in nuts and bolts.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I thought it was well established a that the stones were poured in place using forms like concrete. A lot like how the Hoover Dam was constructed. The theory was supported with finding hairs sticking from the stones, as they likely fell from worker's heads into the slurry, and bubbles in the stones which are indicative of a pouring rather than a natural sedimentation.
These theories of having space aliens build them, or some lost advanced technology, were all very compelling when I was younger. I remember checking out books from the library on aliens building this and that, aliens visiting ancient civilizations and this being documented in cave paintings and such, and of "cryptozoologists" writing of animals that exist in out of focus photographs and wild imaginations. I've outgrown that. I just find it fascinating these theories of fantastic historical events persist as much as they do in this age of so many people having high definition cameras in their pockets and ready access to so much technical knowledge. I'm quite certain such fantasy will not go away, it's part of what makes us human.
Much more likely is that these pyramids were made with a limestone slurry poured into wooden forms built in place. The tightly fitted faces of the stones weren't from expertly carved blocks but from the cured blocks not adhering to the newly poured blocks. This would be difficult to prove without destructive evaluation of the blocks, which I can understand would be problematic logistically, politically, and for a lot of other reasons.
So, someone finds something that is supposedly from a person that worked on the pyramids. We've seen fakes before. We've misinterpreted ancient texts before. We've seen ancient fakes get misinterpreted before. This "mystery" has gone on for a very long time and nothing is going to rid us completely of it.
I just ponder on if someday in the future someone will find our modern construction and wonder how such a "primitive" culture could build something like the Hoover Dam.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
This "great mystery" hasn't been such for a long time. Quarries carved rocks to make blocks, the blocks were moved onto barges and then the barges were sailed to places where they were required. Evidence for canals was established long before now. The only mystery is why anybody has such trouble understanding that ancient peoples weren't idiots.
Just watch out when the impatient/overworked/stressed out alien parents show up to pick after their kids.
Its not gonna be pretty.
That the primary witness has been dead for 4000 years.
...enough Jews in Egypt to do that?
Someone had to say it.
Said the Russian troll trying to incite more divisiveness.
Hey mistah dubya, yer term's been up and done for a goodly bit now.
In Egypt, there are still large obelisks, and large carved stones, including granite!
Your solution doesn't explain those.
Yah, those nut jobs in Ancient Aliens are gonna have a cow now.
Well, they most likely weren't "black." It's a rather taboo subject.
Personally, I think the most obvious theory is likely to be the closest to the correct explanation: that the blocks WEREN'T quarried, but are some form of manmade cast stone made from ancient concrete.
If they were cast instead of directly quarried, the builders could have just built the whole thing like a modern freeway embankment... build the perimeter, backfill the inside with sifted & graded crushed rock & sand. Maybe put down an occasional layer of cloth to stabilize it horizontally (knowing the cloth will eventually decay, but only really NEEDING it for stabilization during construction). Cast the next row of stones, move them horizontally into place, and backfill the interior up to the next level. Stir, rinse, and repeat until you're done. Modern retained-earth construction obviously goes quite a bit further, (like using steel cables to pull the retaining walls inward so they can be vertical instead of sloped, and using precast wall segments instead of casting them on-site), but the basic idea is the same.
Moving big, heavy things HORIZONTALLY is fairly straightforward. So is moving crushed-rock cementious slurry up a hill in small buckets. If they're cast stone, the pyramids' construction basically just becomes a matter of having lots of money, immense HR management resources, and good supply-chain management.
From what I've read, Egypt's antiquities ministry is part of the reason why relatively little is known about the "nuts and bolts" construction details of the pyramids. It WANTS to preserve the aura of mystery, because the official narrative drives tourism and brings enormous amounts of money into Egypt. From their point of view, the absolute WORST thing that could happen is if someone were to demonstrate that the pyramids were no more special than a random freeway embankment.
Bozhe moy, you managed to pivot an article on ancient pyramids to arguments about the NFL! Well-played, comrade.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
The point is that indeed there must have been some pretty sophisticated tools at work, well beyond what is attributed the ancient peoples.
The mystery is NOT whether ancient peoples moved large blocks, but rather HOW they did so without sophisticated setups that they weren't supposed to have known about.
Even stranger is the fact that the oldest structures (some perhaps much older than has been attributed) seem to be the grandest and most perplexing.
The mystery is: What kinds of technology did the ancients actually have, and why did they seem to lose their knowledge of these things.
Especially important is the fact that Egypt did not use slaves for construction.
But they were (and still are, if they come over here) "African Americans"
So did jews
And at some point in the future it could well be revealed that this papyrus that was magically found, was produced by a dubious artifacts dealer, for a good profit. Most "artifacts" since the 1950's are fruit a very lucrative trade. The work of these forgers is so good that even the best experts are sometimes fooled, often for decades.
Shouldnt be marveled. Monuments to death and slavery.
I learned that almost five decades ago.
#DeleteFacebook
You think Trump is a dangerous lunatic,
Yes.
in contrast to Obama,
Yes.
a sympathizer of Islam and communism.
No.
Stephan
Whatever race they were, they were using slaves. We should hate the Egyptians solely because they used slavery.
Well, Yul Brunner notwithstanding, the currently accepted theory is that the pyramids were not built by slaves, but by paid labourers.
Stephan
Actually there is DNA evidence that the original founders of Egypt were Indo-European.
Since Indo-European is a language, part of a cultural complex that spread over many different populations, I find that hard to believe. Do you have any reliable sources? Of course there is European DNA in Egypt - it was very much part of the Greek and Roman worlds. However, I'm not aware of any linguistic evidence for PIE ever playing a role in Egypt before Alexander's conquest.
Stephan
Islam is not a threat. Extremist Islam is a threat, it's not the same thing. Extremist Christianity is a threat as well, like any extremist sect or ideology.
I have not seen Obama being a communist sympathizer, though that's a phrase seldom heard these days, invented by the anti-commie extremist of Joe McCarthy who I thought was still dead.
As for Trump, he's automatically dangerous because he's the president and is far more dangerous than any other single person in the US. He's also showing plenty of signs of being a lunatic; an out of control ego, and sees hallucinations of things that aren't there. Now putting his own personal foibles ahead of the good of the country isn't necessarily a sign of madness, it is more evidence of being dangerous. So, dangerous lunatic is not necessarily an incorrect description.
You've heard the expression "in theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."
Theoretical calculation can show why something is IMPOSSIBLE. It cannot show that there is no unforeseen, insurmountable impediment. Only actually doing it can prove that there is not anything that makes it impossible to actually do.
Having said that, accomplishing each part, separately, is strong evidence that the entire process can be done. If people build appropriately sized canals in similar geography using only tools and technologies available to the ancient Egyptians, and they can (separately) build appropriate barges, and another group can move the blocks to where the barges would have been, it's reasonable to think they probably could have combined each of these steps.
There has been no historical or archeological evidence found that the Egyptians ever enslaved the Jews.
This space unintentionally left blank.
Another person not paying attention. I wish people studied history more.
Are you saying blacks fuck a lot and have no Jobs so they multiply faster than a plague
Dr. Daniel Jackson isn't posting here any more.
We all know they were built by aliens. Don't screw up a good story with facts.
Were you born that stupid or is it an acquired trait?
Thatâ(TM)s by looking at the DNA of 3 people. Look at the art in the pyramids if you want to see what the Egyptians looked like.
So you're not disputing the dangerous lunatic part?
The way I've heard it it was the USians not the Germanic people. And we're not talking about pyramids but about oil. And we're not talking about building but about stealing.
All the rest is about right.
I remember from about 15 years ago a documentary on putting up obelisks in which a number of archaeologists tried to do it as a practical demonstration. They tried elaborate schemes with sand running out of boxes and so on. The foreman of the team of hired help that constructed these things begged to be allowed to try his own method, and on the last day he was allowed to try. He built an A frame and a few other bits and with his team of men it took them half an hour once that was constructed. It shows the value of practical experience. So in this case it would be good to get some engineers skilled in hydrology, construction, shipping, etc., with good practical experience to look over the evidence in the diary and see if they could come up with a suitable way of implementing what it hints at (I imagine given the expense you'd have to simulate it in silico, though) to see if it makes sense. That sounds like it would be a really fun research project.
They must have had help from white people.
It's a good thing, then, that Egyptians themselves are significantly Europoid, right?
Ezekiel 23:20
That's technically not exclusive with having (some amount of) slaves. I mean, if your intention is to extract some corvée labour from your freemen, having or not having slaves is immaterial. They're already working for you.
Ezekiel 23:20
Actually there is DNA evidence that the original founders of Egypt were Indo-European.
Since Indo-European is a language, part of a cultural complex that spread over many different populations, I find that hard to believe. D
The term Egypt is complex, as there were multiple kingdoms in both time and geography. That's not surprising as we are talking of a period of thousands of years, and the borders of European countries have been fluid over even the last 200, let alone the classic pharonic period of over time times that.
Is the Torah of so little historic value to you? You sound like an anti-semite.
That's a very nice insight.
Of course there is European DNA in Egypt - it was very much part of the Greek and Roman worlds.
Given Cleopatra's relationship to Julius Caesar this statement is true in several ways.
I read they were moved using an alien transportation system powered by the Sun's harmonics. The book had equations and everything.
Twice the the time back to the ancient Greek philosophers.
12 centuries before Moses and Ramses II.
Heiroglyphs 7 centuries old, but a mong first substantive documents.
Only a few cuneiform tablets as old as this.
Ancient Aliens.
Dunno why my idea never caught on :-) .
Ask any sculptor, and they'll say "take a block of wood/stone and remove everything that doesn't look like a [final object].
Clearly the Egyptians set up a gigantic block of stone and then carved away everything that didn't look like a stepped pyramid.
Waiting for my Nobel Prize..
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Nobody's saying they should go to jail or have the government stop them.
Actually, people are. Or more vicious ideas.
Bad troll. Would not read again
Everyone already knew that the Ancient Egyptians use barges to move the massive stone. They built barges as big as football fields to move obelisks. The mystery is not how they got the stones to the site of the great pyramid, it is how they got the stones to the top of the great pyramid.
The opposite is true. Egyptian colonies and trade depots form the nucleus of European Civilization.
The protest is about black people never being satisfied, even though the USA gives them the most handouts and better quality of life than any other country.
It's not extreme though, it's normal Islam. Their religion literally says to kill non-believers.
Aside from the off-color humor, Cleopatra was greek (ptolomy dynasty) and lived closer to our time than the time when those pyramids were built - they were already 3000 years old when she was alive, 2000 years ago.
Yes, the pyramids really are that old.
Yes Egypt has been invaded by many groups.
No, we don't know much about the ethnicity or culture of the time when they were built.
Yes, Subsaharan Africa had some extremely advanced cultures and kingdoms - and did so right up to about the 15th century when the Portuguese systematically flattened just about every coastal city they could locate.
Trump acting to silence them is, imo, crossing the line. The constitution protects us from the government. This wouldn't be a big issue out trump didn't fan the flames
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
First. Where are the remains of the "man made canals" ?
Second. They wouldn't even be able to build anything. They found the pyramids there. They tried to reproduce and failed.
And the Bible says not to have pre marital sex, people don't follow it.
Religion says a lot of things.
LOL nice to know that Ben Carson is a high ranking government official. I always thought he was a doctor. What a sneaky fuck.
So all religions are equal for you? You seem like a cultural relativism.
For me, as well as for Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Douglas Murray, and many more, Christianity is a better religion because Jesus was a hippie, while Mohammed was a warlord who had a child bribe. Both prophets are seen as the perfect man by their followers.
Who is a better man for you, Jesus or Mohammed?
Would following one or the other makes you a better person and if so, which one?
Also, check this out: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D8tFH5yIvsQ
Even moderate Muslims admit you are wrong.
Nope, the Jews were never captives in Egypt. That's all myth.
Youâ(TM)re a trolling idiot
Yes, but Christians stopped stoning people in the streets. Islam still does it.
How has he "acted" to silence them?
Did he send in the police or army?
Because I must have missed that.
Or did he use his words?
OMG!!
Extremist Buddhism is terrifying...
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
How has he "acted" to silence them?
He gave direct instructions to the NFL owners to fire them. Which is completely illegal. Not just as a constitutional violation (demanding punishment for an exercise of free speech). There are also laws forbidding him from demanding that non-government organizations fire people.
What BLM wants is basically for the existing laws to be enforced. The perception is that a police officer can kill a black person at will and get off without serious punishment. There have been plenty of highly visible examples, although I don't know how the stats actually work out.
This is complicated because the lack of enforcement is within the justice system, for the most part. Grand juries did not indict in some egregious cases. Juries tend to find the police not guilty, no matter what the circumstances. BLM wants this to change.
(This is why I'm not keen on jury nullification. It can really easily turn into a system of oppression for a disfavored group, when crimes against that group go unpunished.)
In this country, a jury trial is necessary to convict someone of a serious crime, and so this is going to be a matter of changing how juries think. BLM therefore needs publicity, preferably not of the violent kind, and the NFL protest is an excellent way to do it from their point of view. They also need to publicize every Tamir Rice or Philandro Castile case, to get people thinking that the outcomes may be wrong.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
They even get free bullets, courtesy of the local police departments.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"Slavery" doesn't have a single meaning. Some systems weren't all that harsh, some were horrifying.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Indo-European is a language family, which Egyptian of whatever period doesn't belong to. How do you label DNA as Indo-European?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
yes it is, but in a different way than you mean
When Tebow took a knee to pray it was outrageous to them. But, by all means, the teams should be allowed to piss on the USA DURING the Natl Anthem. The constant double-standards are getting a bit ridiculous. Lose the cult mentality on both sides, folks.
Sans! I, the Great Papyrus, have discovered that the pyramids were built by HUMANS!
They answered the easy part about how they moved the bricks horizontally. So how did these cavemen move them vertically to build something that tall?