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People still associate Ancient Egypt as something out of the stone age. They were in fact a very sophisticated society. They had advanced knowledge of math, architecture, farming, crafting, astronomy, and construction. They had scientist, educators, engineers, geniuses, and deep thinkers amongst them, just as we have today.
How did they build the pyramids? Sheer manpower, lifts, pulleys, ramps, copper tools (maybe some imported iron tools), precise mathematical measurements which the ancient Egyptians excelled at, and skilled craftsmen, something else the Egyptians excelled at. Oh and time - decades to construct. These huge limesetone blocks were floated down the nile on and then moved using these ramps and pulleys and probably lubrication (nile mud)...and of course manpower numbering in the thousands.
However, it was never high tech. Let's remember this is one of the most basic structures - a pyramid. Tools were simple by today's standards - copper or stone (maybe iron) - and yes they can cut into both granite and limestone. It's been proven. Is it easy? No. The tools must have continuously needed to be resharpened or replaced. But they managed. After cutting a rough shape other abrasives would be used by skilled crafstmen to shape to an exact form.
Egyptians specifically didn't leave designs behind on HOW they built the pyramids, but they did leave behind much documentation in terms of the workers, dedicated work camps and stations. Like a Gantt chart of assignments. We can also get much evidence from their artwork and other constructions, of which there are many spread all over Egypt of similar impressiveness.
This thread raises many interesting questions. Scientific folks are still working on the answers and I see from this article that they have made some new discoveries and suggestions to how it may have been done since the last time I researched.
However it was done it's certainly an astounding feat. And there certainly is a spiritual quality involved in a task of this magnitude.
That is what is the most significant to me. This must have been done during a time of relative peace and cooperation.
The key was in the spiritual accord that must have existed in the populace. Another lost art. I'm even more interested in relearning that than I am in the structures themselves.
The motivation - and some of the tools - may be the same or at least similar to the spiritual motivation and tangible, practical tools which led to the creation of the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages.
Simple tools. We were taught about them in fifth or sixth grade: levers, pulleys, etc, plus hand tools. Using smoothed logs beneath the stone blocks to roll them along. Constructing roads to smooth the way. Using existing waterways to bring the stones as close as possible to their ultimate site. Patience: Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was Stonehenge.
Thanks for the link. I visited Stonehenge in 1976, when you could still wander around among the stones and touch them. I'd read somewhere that some "sensitives" could feel vibrations or small shocks from touching the stones, so of course I had to try it. Felt nothing but cold stone, to my slight disappointment. Still, a remarkable experience.
I've also visited the Rollright Stones and Avebury Ring, as well as Tenochtitlan and Cahokia, along with Adena and other mounds in Arkansas, Kentucky and Ohio. Amazing structures, all of them, no matter how they came to be.
Nothing supernatural or magic about the methods used, though enormous creativity and insight and dedication were clearly present and essential, and all were places of great spiritual significance, traces of which can still be experienced.
I wonder about this too. Wouldn't most of people's time/energy have gone to food production? And how many people were there just hanging around and available to haul giant stones all over the place? Just seems highly unlikely to me. I suspect they had some knowledge that has been lost to us.
The theory at one time was Egypt used slaves to build the pyramids, but that has been dismissed in modern thinking. There was plenty of labor available. In Egypt everything centered around the seasonal flood cycle. It was a very fertile but quick season (or a famine if there was a drought). What to do during the long off season? Hey build a pyramid. I am sure it was more complex than that of course - more of a civic duty/religious purpose.
The same concept for wars, common in ancient times as well - where do countries get the manpower to campaign for months out of the year? They make do, fight wars, return to the fields to harvest and plant, and campaign again the next year.
How did they move literally a thousand ton single stone? Even in modern times, who would do this? To me, thousands of little slave hands wouldn't accomplish this. However, they did move thousand ton blocks of stone.
The heaviest stone every moved that we know of, is the Thunderstone which weighed 1250 tons, and was moved from Russia to Finland in the 1770s.
The overland movement was done by dragging on sleds over metal rails. They managed to drag it about 500-feet per day, over level ground. If a few Russians could do that, the ancients would have had no problems mustering the huge amount of cheap manpower (often free in slaves) to drag 1000 ton stones around.
I am not saying the ancient Egyptians had steel rails or ball bearings, but just noting that if modern man could drag a 1250 ton block with ease, it stands to reason that ancient man found something similar to achieve the same result. It is not like they dragged blocks on grass and dirt. They would have had some method to creat a much more frictionless process.
Many stone structures are. Research Puma Punku, for one.
Puma Punku stone are more accurately cut.
I was replying to the two things you mentioned in your post. There are also people discussing Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids in this thread. There seems to be more understanding among historians about how those were built than say Puma Punku.
There are just advanced civilisations on another planet or solar system,they just have technology we dont have now,may be someday we will.
You figure where do we come from?
if Darwin is right,why arent the other species advancing,you would think by now the domestic ones would evolve ,flush a toilet,open the fridge,run to the store with our credit cards,?
why are we the only specie which keeps advancing?
There are just advanced civilisations on another planet or solar system,they just have technology we dont have now,may be someday we will.
You figure where do we come from?
if Darwin is right,why arent the other species advancing,you would think by now the domestic ones would evolve ,flush a toilet,open the fridge,run to the store with our credit cards,?
why are we the only specie which keeps advancing?
I know of a cat which uses the toilet. He still hasn't decided if he's willing to flush or not.
The heaviest stone every moved that we know of, is the Thunderstone which weighed 1250 tons, and was moved from Russia to Finland in the 1770s.
The overland movement was done by dragging on sleds over metal rails. They managed to drag it about 500-feet per day, over level ground. If a few Russians could do that, the ancients would have had no problems mustering the huge amount of cheap manpower (often free in slaves) to drag 1000 ton stones around.
I am not saying the ancient Egyptians had steel rails or ball bearings, but just noting that if modern man could drag a 1250 ton block with ease, it stands to reason that ancient man found something similar to achieve the same result. It is not like they dragged blocks on grass and dirt. They would have had some method to create a much more frictionless process.
How did they move these large stones up mountains?
500-feet per day is 155 metres, 1Km per 6 days roughly. However, this does not explain how you drag large stones using wood logs (no wheels) up a mountain.
Modern man did NOT drag this Thunderstone with ease. 500-feet per day is puny. Why do you think they had to use metal rails? Because if they used the available resource at the time, wood logs would not be going anywhere. Doing this with todays technology does not explain how they did it in ancient times. Have you any idea how large a 1000+ton stone block is? Try levering it with a tree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam812
I have spent 8 hours a day 5 days a week for decades being a Mason. There is nothing supernatural/mysterious about how any of this was done and I find your posts in this thread highly insulting to me and my craft.
Is there is anything you have done for decades and actually know how it works in our real world that we actually live in? If so just imagine someone telling you what you are doing is wrong and will not work. Then they tell you the wackiest way imaginable to do it as being the correct way. That is exactly what I see in this thread.
Sorry petal, if you are going to be insulted by anything on this forum, you better leave now. Your craft has not explained how the ancients moved 100+ ton stones up a mountain. Period.
You absolutely nailed the part I made bold. It also describes every post you made in this thread.
I hate to break it to you but I have seen this beyond wacky theory before. It is not new and I have heard it since the 70's and it is no more true now than then.
I have spent 8 hours a day 5 days a week for decades being a Mason. There is nothing supernatural/mysterious about how any of this was done and I find your posts in this thread highly insulting to me and my craft.
Is there is anything you have done for decades and actually know how it works in our real world that we actually live in? If so just imagine someone telling you what you are doing is wrong and will not work. Then they tell you the wackiest way imaginable to do it as being the correct way. That is exactly what I see in this thread.
Not only that, but you, a mason in the 20th/21st century, are working using techniques based on the availability of machine power. Much of the detailed knowledge base of how to do heavy construction without cheap machine power has been lost, since it's no longer needed.
What those who insist "it must have required alien intervention or supernatural forces" don't realize is that they're taking four or five or ten people, most of whom don't know anything at all about construction, and the few who do have never lived in a world without cheap machine power, and asking them to spend a couple weeks to figure out whether these heavy construction tasks can be done without machine power. When these amateurs confess they don't know how to do it, they leap to the alien intervention or supernatural explanation. No, the problem is they've sent children in understanding to do adult jobs.
Set a few thousand professional masons, construction superintendents, and engineers the task of figuring out how to do assigned tasks of heavy construction without machine power; give them decades to do so; and make it well-paid; and you WILL get your answers. And they won't require little green men or witchery.
How did they move these large stones up mountains?
There were no mountains to cross except the pyramid itself at 500 feet. A few of us already explained the theory - the stones were cut elsewhere near the nile, floated down the nile (and yes, they could construct craft that would support a ton), and then pulled up to the pyramids to put into place using sheer manpower, maybe rollers, maybe sleds, maybe lubricants (mud, water) to ease the pulling, or a combination of all. The pyramids of course being adjacent to the nile at that point in history. At the structure itself they most probably circled the pyramid with dirt ramps at a moderate incline in order to ease dragging the stones up, like a circular staircase.
I've been to Egypt and the pyramids twice. Actually the Pyramids at Giza are just one of a number of impressive architectural achievements spread through the land. From the pyramids you see other smaller pyramids in the distance, including one that they sort of failed at and the ancients flattened the top. A practice pyramid I guess before they perfected their craft.
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