Giza pyramids

[orogenicman]

I'm not sure if it's correct but I read that the pyramids were built in about 20 years.

We actually had a good discussion about this a while back so, in the interest of not repeating things go check this out ( but please reply in this thread, not the old one.) We want to keep the mods happy.


http://atheistforums.org/thread-8552-pos...#pid179703

I'll bite. I took a look at your post, and will re-post it here to more easily reference it in my response:

Egyptologists insist on this equation for the Great Pyramid.


4th Dynasty Egyptians + Bronze Age technology + 20 years = Pyramid.


Obviously any term of the equation can be attacked. The "Ancient Aliens" crowd invents spacemen to do the job!

I prefer to consider the time factor.

There are an estimated 2.5 million stones in the GP.

2.5 million divided by 20 years = 125,000 stones per year.

125,000 stones divided by 365 days per year = roughly 342.5 stones per day that need to be placed.

342 stones per day divided by 24 hours per day = 14.25 stones per hour or roughly one stone every 4 minutes or so. Such a schedule is preposterous but it gets worse.

That's working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year for 20 years. It never gets dark. There is never an accident. There is never a sandstorm. No one ever has to take a dump and the workers go around the clock without sleep or food. If you hypothesize multiple shifts of workers you merely increase the logistical problems involved in supporting such a workforce and you haven't done anything about the darkness.

Now, Rhythm as you correctly point out the general idea is that the bulk of the labor force was drawn from the peasant force during the flood which lasts, let's say half the year just for the sake of argument. The Egyptologists are willing to stipulate a force of perhaps 8,000 permanent workers, masons and such who work all year round producing stones for the peasants to move when they show up. Fine, that will help some but you are still moving one stone every 2 minutes because you are only working six months per year. Then, you do have to account for the darkness so half of your work day is lost which means 1 stone every minute.

And we haven't remotely discussed building some kind of ramp system to move the stones to the top which one engineer noted would have been a bigger project than the pyramid itself!

T'is a problem because the pyramid is there. It is not a figment of someone's imagination.

Let's look at a different appproach. Archaeological evidence suggests that the people who built the pyramids were not slaves, but highly skilled workers, most of whom were highly respected by Egyptian society, particularly the stone masons. That said, that same evidence shows unambiguously that most of these workers suffered horrendous injuries, both long-term and short term, indicating that they basically were working their asses off. So it is not unreasonable to assume that they were working long hours with little interruption (I do take the position that they did sleep at night, go to the bathroom when needed, ate ample amounts of food, and that most of the work was not done on a 24 hour schedule).

In addition, it has been determined unambiguously where the stones came from (they came from the quarry that is located behind the pyramids, a quarry that was not discovered until relatively recently because it had been infilled with the rubble that was used to make the ramps used to place the stones in their respective positions). Inside this quarry is ample evidence for how the stones were quarried and processed. So they know how the stones were made, and where they came from. From this information, it has been estimated that it took 2 masons to quarry one stone, and two additional masons to process each stone for use in the pyramids.

It has been suggested that the stones were moved using manual human labor, but others have shown that pack animals such as camels and possibly oxen, likely had a major hand in it as well.

Finally, the limestone that was used to make the pyramids was relatively soft and so wasn't as hard to process as some have suggested.

So taking these facts into account, I think you should try to refigure the math. If it took 20 years to build a pyramid, then you have to consider that they weren't working 24 hours per day to finish the task, that pack animals were involved in helping laborers move the stones, and that each stone was quarried and processed into finished form by no fewer that four people. This should help you figure out how many laborers were needed to complete the task, because I think the number of laborers is the real issue here, not how many stones were processed and emplaced each day. Keep in mind that there are thousands of burials in the vicinity of the pyramids, mostly likely containing many of the remains of those who built them.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Why on earth would someone want to do this? I don't get it.

I don't either,and don't believe it for a second.


The cost would run into billions,and for what,curiosity? I don't think so.

I'll believe it when I see it.

[Minimalist]

In addition, it has been determined unambiguously where the stones came from (they came from the quarry that is located behind the pyramids, a quarry that was not discovered until relatively recently because it had been infilled with the rubble that was used to make the ramps used to place the stones in their respective positions).

Correct. One of the problems with the Japanese tests was that they were assuming the stones were brought in by boat. They found that off loading them up the muddy banks was an impossibility. The discovery of the quarries solves that problem. BUT, the Tura limestone which was used for the casing blocks did come from the east side of the Nile which raises the loading/unloading question again and the huge granite blocks from the inner chambers came from Aswan, far up river. This could all be resolved if there were some sort of harbor/roadway built to facilitate the loading process. All we have to do is find the harbors/roads. Egyptians do not seem to have been big on building either but one cannot rule out the possibility.

So it is not unreasonable to assume that they were working long hours with little interruption

Agreed, I would accept from dawn to dusk but you still lose on average half the day that way. And it still complicates the math of placing the blocks in the 20 year time frame.

It has been suggested that the stones were moved using manual human labor, but others have shown that pack animals such as camels and possibly oxen, likely had a major hand in it as well.

Oxen are depicted in tomb art for the Old Kingdom so that is possible but archaeologists have determined that camels were not domesticated until the first millenium.... which upsets the fundies endlessly because they do so want their "Abraham" to have been a camel jockey. We have no representations of pyramid building in Egyptian art. We do have a carving of a New Kingdom obelisk being pulled on a sled by manual labor. More than that is speculation. We have no evidence.

Finally, the limestone that was used to make the pyramids was relatively soft and so wasn't as hard to process as some have suggested.

Absolutely true, but what is equally true is that their copper tools were soft too. I've seen demonstrations in documentaries of smoothing limestone blocks with hand tools ( even flint scrapers were used) and it does work. But it took a long time to do and it is precision work. And there is no way in hell that you get that kind of performance when it comes to copper tools on the harder stone.

Lastly, there is still the mystery of the ramp system which one engineer called a project even more massive than the pyramid itself. I have a thought but without evidence it is no more valid than the spaceman idea.

[Anomalocaris]

The Egyptians built more than one canal to connect the nile and the red sea, so I would not be surprised if they built a canal from the Nile to a jetty at the base of each pyramid to facilitate movement of the stones. As to any ramp, I suspect any reasonable efficient technique to build the pyramids must either incoroporate the ramps directly into the structure of the pyramids, ie the unfinished structure of parts of the pyramid acts as ramp for moving material to other parts, or the ramp must be so constructed such that large portion of their material will gradually be dismantled and incorporated into the pyramid as the pyramid is finished.

As to smoothing and polishing casing stones, I wonder if roughly shaped lime stone blocks were primarily not polished with tools, but we're polished against each other? Perhaps roughly shaped blocks were first used as a sort of paving stone, with other similar sized blocks secured by wooden frames and dragged over them, so that stone polish themselves against each other as they are moved to the pyramid and up it's sides?

As this process occurs, the stone flour that would result from stones grounding against each other, when wetted with water, would make a very efficient polishing compound, capable making an almost mirror finish to the stones, as demonstrated by the glacial polish the one finds where glaciers have receded from the stones they polished.

[Minimalist]

I suspect any reasonable efficient technique to build the pyramids must either incoroporate the ramps directly into the structure of the pyramids,

That's pretty much what I see and the problem is obvious. It erases the evidence of its use on the way down. That way, you don't have to build a big ramp, merely a ramp from one course of masonry to the next.

[Mal Kiever]

I'm looking for a link that says that the egyptians supposedly used copper tools to cut through granite, but that granite can't be cut with such a metal. I don't know if anyone here is familiar with this.

[Minimalist]

Oh the Mohs scale, granite, which is mainly quartz has a rating of 7 while copper is about a 3.

Calcite ( limestone ) is also about 3

http://mexicogemstones.com/glossary2.htm


There is also an Absolute Hardness scale referenced here which suggests that quartz is much harder than calcite/copper.

What it means is that even using copper tools on limestone they would have been constantly sharpening them...another class of skilled workers for the project, btw.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/exp...tory2.html

The foundations of the pyramids were laid with limestone blocks mined by masons using copper chisels.

[5thHorseman]

Heh. If they do, the Jews would FINALLY have a legitimate claim to their kvetching! I'm all for it!

That's when I'll finally change my religious views to "atheist."

And we'd feel so privileged

[Minimalist]

So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh.

Ex 1:11


More shit that they didn't do, either.

[orogenicman]

Agreed, I would accept from dawn to dusk but you still lose on average half the day that way. And it still complicates the math of placing the blocks in the 20 year time frame.

It all boils down to manpower. The pyramids were the Apollo moon shot of their day,and I have no doubt that people came from far and wide to work on them.