Great Pyramid of Giza

[Artyom]

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This is the new interview with John Anthony West, I think this is an appropriate thread to put it on. Enjoy.

 

[Herodotus]

But there is no reason to believe the Egyptians didn't build the pyramids.

I think we should give the ancient Eqyptians their due...they were a remarkable, highly talented civilisation to whom we owe a great deal...they deserve better than for us to assume their most spectacular works must have been created by others, or that they were told how to do it by Atlanteans or aliens or Smurfs or whichever explanation is in fashion this week.

Agree. I've always found it rather insulting to these civilizations/cultures to suggest that they lack the intellect, technology or resources necessary to construct monumental architecture. Of course humanity had the ability to construct the Pyramid complex, Stonehenge, The Nazca lines or anything else that we find extraordinary. Ancient Man was much more advanced than we give him credit for.

 

[Artyom]

Ok, can indians from Amazon forest build a MacBook pro? They are quite intelligent people from their perspective and know a whole lot more then we do about surviving in jungles.

So, once again - we don't know the source for Pyramids building technology, it could be inherited from previous highly advanced (absolutely not necessary in a way we think about being advanced, it depends on an energy source you use) civilization or from a civilization from other planet. All what I'm saying is that given what tools and piece of Ancient Egypt technology we've put gathered so far it is impossible to built Pyramids that magnitude using those tools.

 

[aNorthernSoul]

The only thing that really troubles me about the Giza pyramid as something built by the Egyptians is actually two things:

1. The Water damage suggests it is older than we are told (Or is that just the Sphynx)
2. Why were they able to build one so perfectly but the others seem like shoddy replications of the one nearly perfect one?

 

[bobheck]

Ok, can indians from Amazon forest build a MacBook pro? They are quite intelligent people from their perspective and know a whole lot more then we do about surviving in jungles.

So, once again - we don't know the source for Pyramids building technology, it could be inherited from previous highly advanced (absolutely not necessary in a way we think about being advanced, it depends on an energy source you use) civilization or from a civilization from other planet. All what I'm saying is that given what tools and piece of Ancient Egypt technology we've put gathered so far it is impossible to built Pyramids that magnitude using those tools.

Mostly agree, but a distinction -- ...it is impossible to build Pyramids of that magnitude using those tools and known/perceived methodology.

They could have very well had techniques that have long been forgotten, but used the same physical tools.

 

[Jose Collado]

The Romans moved huge stones, some weighing nearly 1,000 tons. Yet, no one seems to care.

I found this article interesting re the techniques that may have been used.

How they may have done it

 

[Astroboy]

This is always worth repeating since people continue to think that pyramid construction is done by supernatural forces.

Maybe the Egyptians were just clever like Mr. Wally T Wallington who may have figured it out all by himself.

The Forgotten Technology
The Forgotten Technology
The Forgotten Technology

As a former Architect I always remind people when speaking about this subject that what the Egyptians did was indeed incredible but not impossible. We don't build things with giant blocks of anything anymore because there is absolutely no pragmatic reason to do it not because we can't.

In construction you build things with components that can be hauled in a truck, picked up by a few people at most, can fit through a doorway, cross over a bridge, go under a freeway overpass, go under street lamps, go under powerlines, easily manufactured, and so on... Occasionally you get pieces that need a crane or heavy equipment to move but you want to avoid this cause the cost of renting and running this equipment is very expensive.

 

[Artyom]

Ok, I think I'm crazy if I can't understand how it was possible to cut and move 2.5 million blocks, each weight from 2-3 tons and more into a construction of that magnitude and make long tunnels inside, to move that weight blocks on several hundreds meters attitude using what - copper chisels, people force and a ramp?! This is exactly what mainstream Egyptologists tell us now. If they used a ramp, where is it now?

There were, to the best of my knowledge, 3 attempts to build pyramids in 20 century using the same, the ones which official Egyptologists believe were used, tools two by american groups and one by japanese group and all of them failed.

People, Chris Dunn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dunn_(author)
<br> (http://www.gizapower.com/) found on stones marks of instruments, which rotated on high speed while cutting those stones and yet we don't know what was the power source to rotate those tools.

I have strongly suspicious that the pyramids builders could deal with a gravitation we can't at this point. We even haven't found the source for gravitational field yet, I hope Lisa (http://lisa.nasa.gov/) will help in its study.

Bottom line (if it's ever possible to put a bottom line in this mystery) - we see constructions but can't see the tools which were used to build them. So it's too early to make conclusions about how exactly the pyramids were built.

PS. Take a read http://www.gizapyramid.com/

 

[Astroboy]

Ok, I think I'm crazy if I can't understand how it was possible to cut and move 2.5 million blocks, each weight from 2-3 tons and more into a construction of that magnitude and make long tunnels inside, to move that weight blocks on several hundreds meters attitude using what - copper chisels, people force and a ramp?! This is exactly what mainstream Egyptologists tell us now. If they used a ramp, where is it now?

There were, to the best of my knowledge, 3 attempts to build pyramids in 20 century using the same, the ones which official Egyptologists believe were used, tools two by american groups and one by japanese group and all of them failed.

People, Chris Dunn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Dunn_(author)

(http://www.gizapower.com/) found on stones marks of instruments, which rotated on high speed while cutting those stones and yet we don't know what was the power source to rotate those tools.

I have strongly suspicious that the pyramids builders could deal with a gravitation we can't at this point. We even haven't found the source for gravitational field yet, I hope Lisa (http://lisa.nasa.gov/) will help in its study.

Bottom line (if it's ever possible to put a bottom line in this mystery) - we see constructions but can't see the tools which were used to build them. So it's too early to make conclusions about how exactly the pyramids were built.

PS. Take a read http://www.gizapyramid.com/

I don't suppose you've ever heard of this French Architect Jean Pierre who has this theory. Plausible and supported by radar scans.


Here is more of Wally T Wallington:

Hey, you can believe what you want. I've got proof in my examples that the pyramids could be built with conventional means that were readily available to the Egyptians.

Do you seriously believe that if the Egyptians had figured out anti-Gravity they would have only built the Gisa Pyramid and just never built anything bigger and grander? Or they would have used their knowledge of Gravity which would have been thousands of years ahead of everyone on the planet to conquer the world? They would have flying machines and gone out to space if they had been able to lift 70 ton blocks with anti-gravity.

But no, the Egyptians got conquered by the Romans, Greeks and just about everyone else including the Europeans later. They never built anything to rival the Great Pyramids. They never built flying machines. They never wrote about defying Gravity. Their empire was not as big as the Romans, the Mongols, or the Greeks. Gee Egyptians didn't make very good use of the most advanced technology that modern humans have yet to discover. They only use it to lay a huge pile of rocks.

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Well, even this thing is questionable. Mainstream Egyptologists tell us that the biggest Pyramid on the Giza plato was built for Khufu, but there is only one sign with his name was found inside and this is the only reason for them to believe and actually to tell with confidence that this pyramid was built as his coffin. Google for 'Geomancy DVD-ROM - The Induction Series' and you'll find a collection of videos worth to watch. After watching Christopher Dunn presentation I think his ideas have all chances to discover the true idea which stands beyond the pyramids building.

Right. None of the pyramids were ever used for burial. They never found a body in any of them, except for one that had two mummies that were placed in there at a later time. The real tombs are underground, and are very different and ornate.

The idea that it was built for Khufu was from some workmen's graffiti found above the King's chamber. In reality it is presumed that Colonel Howard Vyse, the English adventurer who discovered it, did it himself so that he would get credit for the discovery.

I think Dunn makes some very good points, and it's easy to see even without reading his book, that the chambers were never made for people to walk in, and many of the features make no sense in the context of a tomb. And to say they did all this work making a shaft, and then changed their mind and made a new one, that's just absurd! The whole thing is very meticulous and perfect in its dimensions. You don't need perfect angles and flat surfaces for a tomb, but there they are. You can't fit a sheet of paper between the stones, but they changed their mind about the construction of the thing? Please! It was well planned out.

When you take the fact that nothing was ever found in the pyramid, and that they had to blast a hole in the side to get into the thing, since the real "entrance" was a large hidden hinged door on the side, that was sealed shut, it's clear it wasn't looted by grave robbers in the past.

From a very early age I saw that it was some kind of device.

Also some of the theories on how they built the thing as also pretty out-there. My favorite is the latest one, the dirt ramps. That doesn't explain how they cut the huge stones with copper tools, along with making optically flat surfaces, and perfectly round holes, and then moved these huge slabs of stone, and then, they would need ramps several miles long.

All these idiots, I mean experts, that come up with this stuff should be made to actually demonstrate how it's done! I remember they tried to build a small pyramid once, and had to resort to using a crane, and they still couldn't do it!

But they have to keep that job security...

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

I've got proof in my examples that the pyramids could be built with conventional means that were readily available to the Egyptians.

How do you cut granite with copper tools? You can't. You can't cut limestone with copper tools either.

And who says the Egyptians built them? You can see the smaller pyramids they tried to build.. the small stepped ones. Some of them collapsed.

With all those theories, no one has demonstrated making any of this stuff using those methods.

We can't even build the things now, with our methods.

In the Dunn book he quotes the technical director of the Indiana Limestone Institute of America on how long it would take to cut all that stone. With modern equipment it would take 33 quarries 27 years (assuming not a single problem) to fill the order for 131,467,940 cubic feet of stone!

Plus modern quarries will give you a tolerance of 1/4 inch (+/- .02"), and the stones at the Great Pyramid are cut to .010-inch tolerance.

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Mostly agree, but a distinction -- ...it is impossible to build Pyramids of that magnitude using those tools and known/perceived methodology.

They could have very well had techniques that have long been forgotten, but used the same physical tools.

Right, but Egyptologists will say they used copper tools, etc., because no other tools were ever found. If they had tools that they used, where are they?

I think the copper tools where from the Egyptians that everyone is assuming built the pyramids, but they couldn't have with those tools. Since we have found no other tools, they didn't build them! They didn't even have the wheel.

Or... they didn't use tools.

Either way the common explanations by experts are full of holes.

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

This is always worth repeating since people continue to think that pyramid construction is done by supernatural forces.

Maybe the Egyptians were just clever like Mr. Wally T Wallington who may have figured it out all by himself.

Do you see that all that stuff is being done on a cement slab? Did the Egyptians have a cement slab under the stones they were moving?

Did Wally lift that stone up several hundred feet, or even try to push it up a ramp several hundred feet?

Jose, same thing with your link. It's easy to sit and draw some pictures and say they used this or that. But when it comes time to actually do it, it doesn't work. And where did all the wooden rollers and things comes from? Palm trees?

It was tried for a TV film crew once... anyone remember that? They were moving rather small stones, using the suspected devices, and they couldn't do it. Even with a crane, they couldn't do it.

So where's the proof guys?

 

[bobheck]

Do you see that all that stuff is being done on a cement slab? Did the Egyptians have a cement slab under the stones they were moving?

Did Wally lift that stone up several hundred feet, or even try to push it up a ramp several hundred feet?

Jose, same thing with your link. It's easy to sit and draw some pictures and say they used this or that. But when it comes time to actually do it, it doesn't work. And where did all the wooden rollers and things comes from? Palm trees?

It was tried for a TV film crew once... anyone remember that? They were moving rather small stones, using the suspected devices, and they couldn't do it. Even with a crane, they couldn't do it.

So where's the proof guys?

Call me crazy, or whatever. But I gotta go with Mr. Moon on this one. This has perplexed me for years.

They did not have strong timber. They did not use beasts of burden, and they did not have the wheel. Yet, they cut, moved and stacked these stones that would be a major chore even for today's most powerful cranes.

I would bet the answer lies in some common method known to them and Edward Leedskalnin.

 

[Kieran]

I always found it strange the the egyptians actually never described how they constructed the pyramids. I could be wrong on that matter havent the info.I have always found the shape interesting, the triangle,when i hear storys that ancient beings gave the egyptians a hand, i find it it intrigueing, yet still a story.

The triangle could be symbolic of something yet unknown. i just discussing something i have no knowledge.Has any historian ever discussed why the triangle shape was picked for the design over others.

Just as a point and not trying to match it with i siad. Some ufos seen have been triangle shaped according to eyewitness's,could the triangle shape mean something or could it mean fuck all.

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

I always found it strange the the egyptians actually never described how they constructed the pyramids.

I'm quite sure you are correct. The only reference I have ever seen was about putting a piece of papyrus with symbols on it on top of a stone and striking it with a wand to make it move, but that reference was in a book I read a long time ago, so I can't verify that it actually came from an Egyptian text.

They wrote down an awful lot of stuff, but no plans or mention of building the pyramids? Seems quite odd.

Many experts have a real problem saying "we don't know" about a subject. If they stopped making assumptions, like that it was used as a tomb, and it was built by so-and-so and using certain tools, then we could take a step back and wonder about it without those constraints. If you have to force it into a pigeon hole, you are not going to get all the pieces to fit.

Bobheck, it has perplexed many people for as long as they have been there. I have no problem with people sitting and trying to understand how it was done, but then their ego gets in the way, and they announce they discovered the answer, though only on paper.

Just stop and look at the really odd features in the thing. Forget about how it was constructed and by whom. Much of it seems to serve a purpose, but that purpose is lost to us, and surely had nothing to do with entombing a body. How about the long "air shafts" with wooden doors and brass pins way up the shaft? What are they for? The chamber above the "king's" chamber with the granite slabs stacked up? The well shaft, grotto, and pit at the bottom of the thing. The weird Antechamber and Grand Gallery.

And not far from Great Pyramid were a series of very precise "trial" passages cut into the bed rock. Those aren't even part of a structure.

It also doesn't match any other Egyptian building methods or features.

It's a shame the casing stones are missing. It must have looked amazing with all that polished limestone on the outside.

 

[Astroboy]

How do you cut granite with copper tools? You can't. You can't cut limestone with copper tools either.

You are wrong and here is the demonstration of how it can be done.

NOVA Online | Secrets of Lost Empires | Pharaoh's Obelisk | Cutting Granite with Sand

 

[Astroboy]

And who says the Egyptians built them? You can see the smaller pyramids they tried to build.. the small stepped ones. Some of them collapsed.

This well known history and demonstrates a natural progression in the development of the pyramids. They started with stepped pyramids and tried to build higher and bigger. Some collapsed because like many cases in building history the people who built them did not have a mathematical understanding of structural stresses and relied on experience, including many mistakes. The Bent Pyramid is an example of when the builders changed their minds in the middle of construction when stress cracks appeared and changed the angle of the upper half of the pyramid to reduce the volume. That later angle was used again in the Great Pyramid.

Through trial and error people develop rules of thumb to follow to avoid collapse. We have a well demonstrated example in the historical development of the Gothic cathedrals of Europe. In their attempts to build higher and thinner there were many buildings that collapsed. The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is a good example of how experience taught them to use flying buttresses to offset the lateral forces. Amazingly computer models of the structural stresses indicate that the shapes of the buttresses were a nearly perfect match to the stress graphs. Divine intervention? Not really, just clever builders who pulled from hundreds of years of experience.

With all those theories, no one has demonstrated making any of this stuff using those methods.

We can't even build the things now, with our methods.

I think I've already shown that people can do those things using tools and methods available to Egyptians.

There is nothing that the Egyptians did that we couldn't do. You are making the statement based on your own personal opinion not fact. We just have no practical reason to make buildings out of 70 ton blocks of stone. Our modern approach is for cost, light weight, strength, and ease of construction.

In the Dunn book he quotes the technical director of the Indiana Limestone Institute of America on how long it would take to cut all that stone. With modern equipment it would take 33 quarries 27 years (assuming not a single problem) to fill the order for 131,467,940 cubic feet of stone!

Gee did Dunn ever get the formula for the calculations from this guy? What are the assumptions? It sounds impressive but not very useful for scientific judgements. Is is a 8 hour work day or a 12 hour? 5 days a weeks or 7 days? You should see what the Chinese can do with unlimited manpower and a 24 hour building schedule. A gianormous airport in Beijing built in 2 years. It's ultra modern and unbelievable in scale. Terminal 3 alone is larger than London Heathrow Airport's 5 terminals combined with another 17% to spare. If you tell people to do this in the Western world they would say it is impossible.

Plus modern quarries will give you a tolerance of 1/4 inch (+/- .02"), and the stones at the Great Pyramid are cut to .010-inch tolerance.

That is because the giant diamond blade is about 1/4 inch. That has absolutely nothing to do with the fitting of stone on site. Quarries don't typically do finish cuts just raw cuts. The band or circular blades are made for bulk cutting. Yet another example of using one fact that is unrelated to support something else.

And there is nothing amazing about a joint that you can't fit paper through. Countertop installers do this all day long. They use a common and simple technique called scribing.

Here is an excellent article that describes how Professor of Architecture Jean-Pierre Protzen demonstrates how the Incas, who had no wheel or modern tools, quarried, transported and precisely fitted large stones:

NOVA | Transcripts | Secrets of Lost Empires | Inca | PBS

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

This well known history and demonstrates a natural progression in the development of the pyramids. They started with stepped pyramids and tried to build higher and bigger.

That's an assumption. It's not well known "history" it's what they teach in text books, along with the "fact" that the pyramids were tombs. This is the common answers, but there are many problems with these ideas.

We have a well demonstrated example in the historical development of the Gothic cathedrals of Europe

That's not the same thing at all, and the Gothic cathedrals of Europe ar enot one of the wonders of the world.

I think I've already shown that people can do those things using tools and methods available to Egyptians.

No, what you showed, including the Nova link about cutting with sand, is a method to do something similar. But they don't get the same results.

And the Egyptologists still say they used copper tools.

There is nothing that the Egyptians did that we couldn't do.

Where are the very large structures that were made by modern man then? I mean with really big stones like that. The Egyptians did some amazing things, but they didn't continue making large structures like the pyramids. If that was their level of technology, why not build a whole city like that?

You are making the statement based on your own personal opinion not fact. We just have no practical reason to make buildings out of 70 ton blocks of stone. Our modern approach is for cost, light weight, strength, and ease of construction.

But we can't even do it if we wanted to.

Gee did Dunn ever get the formula for the calculations from this guy? What are the assumptions? It sounds impressive but not very useful for scientific judgements. Is is a 8 hour work day or a 12 hour? 5 days a weeks or 7 days? You should see what the Chinese can do with unlimited manpower and a 24 hour building schedule.

It was with double shifts at the time that book was written. I suppose you can call up a quarry and get a quote.

A gianormous airport in Beijing built in 2 years. It's ultra modern and unbelievable in scale. Terminal 3 alone is larger than London Heathrow Airport's 5 terminals combined with another 17% to spare. If you tell people to do this in the Western world they would say it is impossible.

It wasn't done by hand and with no machines, right? Or with huge stones.

That is because the giant diamond blade is about 1/4 inch. That has absolutely nothing to do with the fitting of stone on site. Quarries don't typically do finish cuts just raw cuts. The band or circular blades are made for bulk cutting. Yet another example of using one fact that is unrelated to support something else.

The point was that is the best tolerance they can offer, and the Egyptians didn't have diamond blades.

We don't built things with that much perfection. No absolutely flat surfaces or perfect angles. The real question is why did they need that?

And there is nothing amazing about a joint that you can't fit paper through. Countertop installers do this all day long. They use a common and simple technique called scribing.

Yeah, once again, with power tools. I can show you the counter tops in this apartment and you sure can fit paper in the seams. I'm a woodworker, so I know about that stuff.

Here is an excellent article that describes how Professor of Architecture Jean-Pierre Protzen demonstrates how the Incas, who had no wheel or modern tools, quarried, transported and precisely fitted large stones:

NOVA | Transcripts | Secrets of Lost Empires | Inca | PBS

It's always on a smaller scale... and that's the problem.

I'm sorry, but until someone builds that exact structure with these primitive tools, I wont believe it. They haven't done it yet, and even doing it on a small scale, they fail.

And for even larger cut stones, go to Baalbek. These are estimated at 2,000 tons:

OK lets do that with sand, shall we?

And that brings up an interesting point. Why did they use such large stones? What was the point? Obviously it wasn't hard to do 5000 years ago....

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

I always found it strange the the egyptians actually never described how they constructed the pyramids. I could be wrong on that matter havent the info.I have always found the shape interesting, the triangle,when i hear storys that ancient beings gave the egyptians a hand, i find it it intrigueing, yet still a story.

Well here's something I just found.

WHO BUILT THE GREAT PYRAMID?

THE ADOPTION THEORY

In his book ‘The Phoenix Solution’ (1998 ), Alan Alsford claimed that much of the evidence for the 4th dynasty origin of the Giza Pyramids and Sphinx actually pointed to an adoption scenario, rather than construction of the monuments during that time period. Thus, according to this theory, the Egyptian pharaohs Khufu and Khafre adopted the Great Pyramid, the Second Pyramid and the Sphinx, rather than built them. In addition to renovating these structures, they and their successors built the causeways which ran between the mortuary and valley temples, and the smaller pyramids and masteba. According to Alsford, this massive building program would explain the presence of the early dynastic workers’ villages which have recently been excavated at Giza.

The Inventory Stele, found in 1857 by Auguste Mariette to the east of the Great Pyramid, dates to about 1500 B.C. According to Maspero and other experts, however, it shows evidence of having been copied from a far older stele originating in the 4th Dynasty. In this Stele, the pharaoh Khufu speaks of his discoveries made while clearing away the sands from the Great Pyramid and Sphinx. He dedicated the account to Isis, who he called the ‘Mistress of the Western Mountain’, and the ‘Mistress of the Pyramid’, and identified the Great Pyramid itself as the ‘House of Isis’.

According to the text, the Pharaoh inspected the Sphinx and found that the monument and a nearby sycamore tree had been struck by lightning. The lightening strike had knocked off part of the headdress of the Sphinx, which Khufu restored. Egyptologist Selim Hassan, who dug the Sphinx out from the surrounding sands in the 1930's, observed there was indeed evidence that portions of the Sphinx were damaged by lightning, and the location of the ancient repairs was clearly visible. He also discovered that sycamore trees once grew to the south of the monument. The Stele finishes with the story of how Khufu built small pyramids for himself, his wife, daughters and other family members, next to the Great Pyramid.

4th dynasty inscriptions found at Giza also confirm that Khufu was building mastaba fields for his senior officials to the west of the Great Pyramid in the fifth year of his reign. Given the time frame and huge resources necessary for the construction of the Great Pyramid, it would appear highly unlikely that he would have diverted significant manpower and materials from the building of his own 'tomb' to build these masteba and smaller pyramids. The inscriptions make a great deal more sense if the Great Pyramid was already in existence.

Returning to the Inventory Stele, there is mention of Khufu repairing the Sphinx rather than building it. If it is accepted that the Inventory Stele is a genuine copy of an earlier document, and not a fake, this would undermine the belief that Khufu’s son Khafre built the Sphinx. Thus, the evidence from geology and the Inventory Stele, together, support the view that the Sphinx is far older than the 4th Dynasty.

And of course the water erosion on the Sphinx backs that up.

So there you have it. They probably found them already there, and adopted them. The small pyramids came after the big ones, and the quality of them shows they didn't know how to build them, not that they got better at it.

But now we know that they did have hardwood trees in the area.