“Despite the seemingly obvious answer—tomb art discovered in the 19th century depicts laborers pouring water in front of a block-hauling team—debate over how the pyramids were built is almost as ancient as the pyramids themselves.”
In other words, people don't read comments. This is why the best practice is to build self-documenting pyramids.
Fourth row down, far left, there is a guy standing on the sled pouring blue stuff in front of the sled, with dozens of others pulling the sled he stands on.
My guess is that the number of people in the picture will turn out to be exactly the right number needed to pull a full sized replica of the sled
And thank you HN - obscure reference to Pyramid tomb art, "oh here is a link to the very image, three minutes later."
Gotta love HN !
Edit
I expect water pourer was the cushy number right up until the sled got stuck because you poured wrong - whips were probably involved then.
I've seen this before and found it compelling. Partly I was interested as I came up with an experiment to look at static friction with and without water present for a high-school physics project many-many years ago.
However, that schematic appears strongly interpretative. In the original image I can't see any ropes [that could just be a bad photo]. Also if the slaves are pulling the sled to the right, why are half of them looking left?
The posture is all wrong for pulling on ropes, whilst the posture of the single person pouring water is more natural.
Would a single water pourer be enough. If not why wouldn't they have used the "stacked" technique they've used elsewhere to show there were more than one? At least there appear to be suppliers bringing water on yokes.
To me the figures to the right of the sled seem more like they're walking backwards and forwards, perhaps they're compressing the sand, but they don't seem to be pulling. Contrary to that the single figure on the far right appear to be holding a rope over their shoulder, which is weird if everyone else is holding it at waist height.
Lastly, what are all the "soldiers" doing at the top? They seem to be carrying beams or statues or somesuch in the original, quite different to the swords[?] in the schematic interpretation.
It would be nice to see a cleaned up processed image of the wall that perhaps had used some microscopic or other capture methods to ascertain pigment missing in blank areas.
Is there a reference for what the text on the original image says? That seems like it would be pretty pertinent to the point at hand? Would this whole system work on sloped sand?
I think the schematic is not accurate. Look at the 6th set of two people in the top pulling row. One of them is clearly facing back. This is the same with the 8th such set of two. A lot of the heads in these 4 rows are difficult to make out.
On the other hand the number of people looking back in the schematic is 0, 2, 11 and 8 for each row.
There was an article on this a while back that Egyptologists had interpreted it as depicting something ceremonial- something like breaking champagne bottles across ships' bows.
Having scientific evidence that wetting the sand ahead of the sledges -could- have eased transport is pretty nice evidence that that's what the picture depicts, but without something corroborating its efficacy, it was just a plausible interpretation.
I remember back in the 1970's all these "mystery" TV shows wondering how the South American Indians could fit blocks of stone so precisely that a knife blade could not be inserted into the gap.
Their conclusion, naturally, was that space aliens had done it. (Although this was silly on the face of it, because the rest of the construction was not particularly accurate.)
This nonsense persisted until some archaeologist figured out that such a fit could be obtained in about 30 minutes by banging and rubbing the two rocks together, and demonstrated this on camera.
That was the last I heard of the South American monuments being built by space aliens.
I figure most of the ancient construction puzzles would be head-smackingly obvious if we just saw what they were doing. We often mistake primitive societies for being stupid, when in fact they were remarkably clever in finding solutions within the severe limitations of their technology.
If you have a way of lifting the rocks and setting them atop each other, you can use the method. Just use a lighter "proxy" rock to bang on the heavier one, test fit, bang on the high spots, test fit, bang on the high spots, test fit, etc., until it is as accurate as you like.
There also turn out to be sites where this work was in progress when it was abandoned.
So feel free to believe in space aliens if you like :-) I subscribe to the notion that the simplest explanation is the most likely.
* So feel free to believe in space aliens if you like :-)
Boring straw-man. I was refuting the fact that this could have been done in 30 minutes with rocks of that size. Nobody is suggesting the existence of extra-terrestrials, (other than you).
It was demonstrated on TV with rocks about a cubic foot in size. Many Inca walls are built with stones that size. The technique is adaptable to larger stones, but of course they'll take longer.
When I was young Von Daniken's book had just come out and popular culture was awash with this sort of stuff. Remember crystal skulls? "Wow look at those things, how could people from those ancient civilizations possibly have made them?" Simple answer - they didn't, they were all made in modern times.
I love your comment because it's a perfect example of how science (in general) is able to embarrass itself by being unable to hold ambiguity.
We don't know if aliens built the pyramids. We can only say that there is no existent proof that would point us in that direction.
What we do know that the Egyptians didn't bang together 80 ton granite blocks to make them smooth. That's a more ridiculous notion than space aliens (which is saying something).
The article above is also nonsense. We don't know. We have no idea how they constructed the pyramids. And it's OK to say that. Scientists need to learn that it's OK to leave problems unsolved and to say, "We don't know," rather than to grab at the first available explanation and say, "This is it." It embarrasses the entire profession.
I agree that the article is not very good, but this comment misses the point.
If I see a brick building in the street, I don't know how it has been done, but I can make reasonable guesses on what's most probable, based on the apparent age of the building, maybe I passed by a construction site where a similar building was being built, I can go to the library to check architecture books, I may try to ask a construction worker...
Do I know how that particular building has been done? Probably not, we haven't seen it, but I'll get a good idea on how it may have been.
Of course, this doesn't mean that it's impossible that an alien ship came in the night and drop the whole thing. It's just not a probable explanation.
We know a lot of things about the pyramids, given that it has been a while. But we know similar constructions, how that evolved, some documentation, materials, etc...
Do we know for sure how they were build? Not really. But we know a lot about what are the most likely ways (and they don't include aliens or lost civilizations). Is this subjected to revision? Of course... Is "We just don't know" a good description? I don't think so.
So what is more probable: rubbing 80 ton granite together or aliens? Neither; they're both crazy.
We have an idea on some aspects of the pyramid's construction, but how they cut the stone "in situ" to that level of perfection, currently has no good explanation. Not "we know 80% but are missing 20%." It's "we don't know 100%."
I asked my mom once how they could make the foundations of the pyramids level over such a long distance. She replied that they could have dug a trench, filled it with water, and used that as a reference level for the foundation.
My reaction was "duh, but why didn't I think of that?"
We don't know if the Egyptians actually did it that way, but just because we are accustomed to think in terms of modern surveying equipment doesn't mean there aren't simple, low tech, accurate and effective solutions.
As for how to cut a rock accurately in situ, the usual way is to use a carpenter's square, jig, or form tool. Low tech and easy.
That's how you cut granite? It's one of the hardest known substances and for that reason it's often cut with a diamond blade.
No one's asking how they got a level foundation. That might be unclear to you, but it wouldn't be to most people, certainly not experts.
But no one knows how they cut that stone as well as they did. Not experts in any field. No one. I'm not saying they didn't have some amazing low tech solution we just don't know. I'm saying we don't know what it was.
And rather than saying, "We don't know," to say, "They rubbed the 80 ton stones together," or "They used the world's most massive jig," is just mind beggaring. Just say, "We don't know." It's not that hard.
Actually, I take that back. Evidently, for some people, it's impossible.
No, it's how you get the shape correct. You don't need a massive jig, either. I'm just pointing out there are many simple, low tech ways of doing it accurately.
> No one's asking how they got a level foundation.
Actually, that question was asked on one of those Egypt shows in the "how could they possibly have done that" way. I just used it as an example.
As for stone rubbing, that was in reference to how the Incas shaped stone.
The important part is that they merely proved that the theory of pulling blocks over wet sand makes sense, but not how the pyramids themselves were built (blocks elevated, aligned, etc.).
I'm not an egyptologist or a physicist. But I've always wondered what happened to the "concrete pyramid" theories. I know that it's only been pushed by Prof. Davidovits but I haven't really heard any proper critiques of it. (I'm not sure if that's because I haven't researched enough or if Davidovits is considered a quack.)
With 3D printers growing to the size where they can build houses from concrete (right now), I can see our spacefaring offspring in a few hundred years flying to remote planets and 3D printing pyramids.
I have heard this theory before, and I understand it is made by reputable sources. But it's always baffled me. I would have thought even a freshman geology major could tell the difference between a man-made stone and one cut out of natural earth. But then, I don't know any geology.
The composition is both limestone and also red granite, which are both cut the same way. I'm also not an expert, but the idea of somehow pouring and curing granite doesn't seem to make much sense.
I thought it was making sense when a friend showed it to me, but I'm a neophyte as well and I was also enthusiast before that with the "internal ramp" theory.
I'd have to agree, it's a slightly misleading title. This part was the most interesting to me: "Notably, few of the many studies were performed by interdisciplinary teams. While both physical scientists and archaeologists have tackled the problem, the divergent sets of skills and interests may have delayed a solution to the mystery."
There needs to be a lot more collaboration between scientists and archeologists/historians on questions like this. Experimental archeology is an interesting subset of this, but my impression is that it's been fairly moribund since the 70s and 80s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_archaeology
THANK YOU. I'm tired of all this scientistic nonsense showing up on HN: "Stupid Egyptologists couldn't get it right for hundreds of years; scientists forced to step in and solve the mystery with absolute certainty!" was basically how the headline read before.
Its pretty similar to how some tsunamis manages to wreak havoc in low lying towns ... a small initial wave inundates the area with a few centimetres of floodwater, paving the way for the following large surge, which encounters little friction due to the existing water.
A french architect named Jean-Pierre Houdin has arguably cracked the method by which the pyramids were constructed back in 2007:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTgxGJfXRQ0
You'd think, that out of all the disciplines of human knowledge, an architect would have been consulted on the puzzle of the pyramids' construction much earlier, but this is surprisingly not the case. I mean, who better to help decipher how something was built then a person who designs structures?
Probably an engineer. After all, architects design buildings but, usually, they have nothing to do with the calculations and construction methods employed to build their design.
"Engineer" is a very generic term for a wide variety of fields. An architect is actually a specific type of engineer who not only designs buildings but also plans their construction. This requires intimate knowledge of the materials used; e.g. how long they will last, the forces they can withstand, etc., and you can bet there is a great deal of geometric calculations involved. You are mistaken if you believe an architect is simply a fancy term for "graphic design artist for buildings". Architects don't simply put onto paper whatever comes to mind without a care for practicality. After all, if it can't be built, you'd be out of a job very quickly.
Any other information about this Dutch team's model? Are they publishing something? Pictures? Who are they? The article could at least provide more information about them...
As an art handler, I've a theory that they placed thick blankets under the blocks and pulled the blankets. You'd be amazed at what a couple of people can pull with a blanket.
> If people from all walks of life can come together to build a monument that stands for 4000 years, then academics from different disciplines can come together to study them.
Something tells me the laborers who built the pyramids weren't working voluntarily...
The source for the idea of the pyramids being built by slaves was most likely Herodotus, who was probably more than a tad biased, being Greek. The evidence I've seen, from articles such as this one from the Deseret News ( http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705357902/New-Egypt-find-... ) and the Scientific American Frontiers show Dead Men's Tales ( http://www.pbs.org/saf/1203/segments/1203-4.htm ) indicate that the people who built the pyramids were most likely volunteers, most of whom showed up, did the equivalent of their national service for a few years, and went home.
Probably the workers were paid rather than enslaved....
'''An inscription on a tomb of a priest judge buried near the pyramid builders city read: “I paid them in beer and bread, and I made them make an oath that they were satisfied.'''
The pyramids were not built by slaves, but by hired workers. The workforce generally consisted of farmers during Inundation periods when their farmland was underwater.
Edit: I swear I wasn't trying to be pedantic Internet one-up guy. It really was meant in an "Oh hey, that's a very common misconception but the real story is actually more interesting" way, sorry :/
I know they weren't technically slaves, but it's not like they really needed those when the Pharaoh could basically invoke anyone in Egypt to work on his Pyramid.
They figures on top of the workers look like they have a whip in their hand. May be part of an employee motivational program give the employee's a little whip for encouragement.
I'm not sure what they were allowed to ask in practice. The Chinese Emperors were effectively some kind of living god as well (as where the Japanese Emperors). In practice, their power was limited.
Seems implausible given the incredibly precise dimensions of each block - dragging them through wet sand would remove a significant amount of surface area..."The accuracy of the pyramid's workmanship is such that the four sides of the base have an average error of only 58 millimetres in length".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza#History_a...
Sorry but humans dragging a block of stone through wet sand is going to have almost zero impact on its surface area, especially over the short distances described in the article. The forces needed to significantly erode the stone would be huge, and are inconceivable given the low friction between the block and the wet sand.
Not that it matters, because the article is about dragging the blocks through wet sand on sleds - did you even read that?
58 millimeters is quite a lot. Besides, it's totally reasonable to think that the stones were rough-hewn at the quarry, then refined at the construction site.
In other words, people don't read comments. This is why the best practice is to build self-documenting pyramids.