Life sized replica of noah's ark currently under construction

[Anomalocaris]

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.

I'll extend your assumptions with the following, conservative additional assumptions:

1. It's say it takes a team of 10 stone pounders 1 working day to hack a stone out a quarry and roughly shape it. So it takes about 3500 men working the daylight hours to create the 350 blocks needed each day.

2. Let's say it takes another team of 20 men 30 minutes (including rest) to manhandle each stone out of the quarry onto the path to the pyramid construction sight, So each team can move about 20 stones a day out of the quarry. So it requires 170 teams or about 3500 more men to load quarried stones onto transportation path.

3. Let's say it takes another 1 tool man for every 5 stone pounders to keep a continuous supply of fresh tools available, and another bus boy for every 10 stone pounders to move the stone chips and keep the quarry clear, that's another 1050 men.

Putting it together, roughly speaking, 8050 workers are required at the quarry to turn out 350 1 tons, roughly finished stones ready for transport to the pyramids

4. Let's say the linear distance between pyramids and quarry is 1 mile, and a team of 10 men can move the stones half a mile an hour. This means each stone spends an average of 2 hours on the way to the pyramids, and there must be about 50 stones on the path at any one time, and 50 teams of 10 men, or 500 men, to pull the 350 stones from the guarry to the pyramid.

5. Let's say the linear distance up the ramps of the pyramid is on average also 1 mile, and it 20 men to move it up at 0.5 miles an hour. So there must be a total of 1000 men on the ramps to pull 350 stones up the ramps.

6. There needs to be a total of about 150 sleds to move the stones, since it takes a total of 6 hours to move each stone. Let's say that each sled lasts 3 trips, so 50 sleds need to be replaced or refurbished each day. Let's say it takes 20 men-days to acquire and move the timber, and build or replace each sled. That's 1000 men working to keep a steady supply of good sleds

7. Let's say it takes another team of 10 stone setters 10 minutes to set each stone, so each team can set 120 stones a day, and there needs to be about 3 such teams, or 30 stone setters, to set 350 stones a day.

Putting that together, roughly 3000 workers are required to move 350 stones a day from the quarry to the pyramid and set it.

So all together, a total of only about 11350 direct labor (8000 in the quarry, 2000 moving the stones, 350 setting the stones, 10000 to refresh the sleds) is needed to quarry, transport, and set 350 stones a day.

Now expending the logistics, say 1 person for every 5 men to cook, bring food, handle sanitary requirements, etc. So a total workforce of about 14000 men should be able maintain the tempo you stipulated by working just 12 hours a day 6 month a year.

Impressive, yet, but far short of preposterous.