From: Hermit (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Wed May 08 2002 - 14:12:00 MDT
We don't "know" how the pyramids were built. Certainly, the Egyptians themselves learnt the needed techniques very slowly, and there are clear stages of development, scale and techniques (some of which can be seen in the attached picture - but bear in mind that the arabs stole the dressed sandstone for their buildings (post 600CE) which once covered them). We do know how the priests explained it to Herodotus of Halicanassus when he visited Egypt in about 450 BCE. Herodotus was told by his Egyptian guides that it took twenty-years for a force of 100,000 slaves to build the pyramid. They also told him that the stones were lifted into position by the use of immense machines. The purpose of the structure, according to Herodotus's sources, was as a tomb for the Pharaoh Khufu (generally referred to as Cheops). Most of this was probably imaginative reconstruction. After all, by the time he visited the site, the great pyramid was already over 20 centuries old, as Khufu (2589-2566 BCE) reigned from 2613 to 2498 BCE (
4th Dynasty of the "Old Kingdom") and the truth about it was surely shrouded by the mists of time.
There are many hypothesii to explain it, many of which have been tested and have been shown to be effective. These range from the use of slip clay as a lubricant (highly credible, refer e.g. http://www.unmuseum.org/bldpyram.htm - a very convincing site) through the use of simple rollers or sledges (less persuasive, dealt with above) to the outlandish, for example the suggested use of hydraulics to position the blocks (e.g. look under "Articles about our research" at http://www.thepump.org/art2earlystages.htm. Please notice the somewhat strident pseudoscientific tone of the article - the authors have a bee in their bonnet about the power of "vortices" rather than the use of simple technologies like hydraulic rams and bucket lifts).
However the building was accomplished, and despite what you may have heard elsewhere, tests prove that it was well within their known capabilities using bronze age technologies, one thing that has always struck me about the Egyptians, is that the pictures of the pyramid workers do not show vast teams of people. Given that they were working with heavy objects, I find that indicative that they were using smarts rather than force. Another strong indication that smarts were at work, is the simple matter of cost. Slavery is known not to be cost effective - particularly when it comes to skilled labor (Toynbee) and the Egyptians evidently had a very large number of skilled stone masons in their workforce. I would suggest that these would not have been slaves (although many of them may have been indentured servants), and that the camps found were where the workers lived. However, as noted at http://www.unmuseum.org/bldpyram.htm Egypt had a seasonal economy, and I am readily persuaded that the agricultural workers ma
y well have worked on the pyramids when not required for agrarian duties. It is likely that labor was provided instead of levies (paid in the form of goods and services as there was no monetary system then), which had already been a feature of the Egyptian economy for 1500 years previous to the building (we have many of the tax records). If that is the case the cost, although it still would have been large, would not have exceeded the capacity of the domestic economy. While a slave force of 100,000 almost certainly would have, as, using late 17th century numbers (the only reliable numbers about pre-industrial slavery are provided by the Dutch and Chinese), would have required about 600,000 to 1,200,000 support staff (to farm, feed and guard them). A number that at the low end would have taxed the economy to the hilt and at the upper end, would likely have exceeded the entire effective's population (total population of about 2 million).
Regards
Hermit
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