Giza Pyramids: The How, When and Why of Them. Part Four: You’ve got that sinking feeling

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

“Can you imagine maneuvering 25-80 ton stones up a ramp, around corners and into final position… at fairly rapid pace? Where would hundreds of workers stand (per stone) on the pyramid in order to move the stones? How could they carve everything with almost optical precision with primitive copper and iron tools (of which very few have been found)?”

 

 

 

The effort involved in building the pyramids according to the conventional view of this, by contrast with professor Davidovits’s explanation of it, is well summed up in the following post: https://geopolymerhouses.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/ancient-stonework/

 

….

There are large pyramids all around the world, including in Egypt and other countries in Africa, Central and South America, and China. The largest structures, in particular the famous Egyptian pyramids at Giza, have baffled scientists since they were first discovered. Many people agree that ramps to move the stones would have been too large and impractical to build (some estimate the ramps would have taken more time and effort to build than the pyramids). Here are some quick facts about the Great Pyramid of Giza from Wikipedia:

– “building this in 20 years would involve installing approximately 800 tons of stone every day”

– “since it consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks, completing the building in 20 years would involve moving an average of more than 12 of the blocks into place each hour, day and night”

– “The largest granite stones in the pyramid, found in the “King’s” chamber, weigh 25 to 80 tons and were [Ed.: some believe] transported from Aswan, more than 500 miles away.”

– “the mean opening of the joints is only 0.5 millimetres wide (1/50th of an inch)”
(The list goes on and on.)

 

All these examples have one thing in common: conventional theories about how they were built are difficult to believe, at least for me. Can you imagine maneuvering 25-80 ton stones up a ramp, around corners and into final position… at fairly rapid pace? Where would hundreds of workers stand (per stone) on the pyramid in order to move the stones? How could they carve everything with almost optical precision with primitive copper and iron tools (of which very few have been found)? Why do the granite stones continue to salt up on the surface? No other granite in the world accumulates salt deposits on the surface except the ones in the pyramids. Microscopic analysis of stone samples from the pyramids indicates random orientation, which indicates human construction (tamping in a form) versus orientation in layers as in natural stone.

These things have fascinated me since I was a child. There seemed to be no logical explanation to the mysteries until just recently when I learned about geopolymer. Finally, I found a theory that seems credible. This much appears certain: scientists agree that ancient Egyptians did use polymer to build certain items such as vessels. They agree geopolymer technology was known and understood at that time. If this is true, then it’s reasonable to believe at least some of the stones in the pyramids were made by geopolymer. It’s much easier for me to imagine thousands of laborers carrying or passing along baskets of geopolymer materials than moving and precisely fitting cut stone. ….

 

With professor Davidovits’s geopolymer theory in mind, I watched with horror on SBS TV (Sunday 12^th November 2017) as a team of archaeologists tried to sit a huge limestone block atop a small boat apparently modelled on the ones used in ancient Egypt at the time of the Giza constructions.

The block had to be situated right in the centre of the boat.

After what seemed like an age of careful and painstaking manoeuvring - this all involving just the one block - there was alarm because the boat had begun to let in water. I am not sure how it ended up, because I found what I considered to be more credible things on other channels. Though I would guess from the above photo that the team did eventually manage to float above the Nile with the limestone block atop.

I had felt sorry for them. If this was the laborious process that the ancient Egyptians had been forced to use for all of the blocks in the pyramids, then they would still be chipping away at them to this very day!

 

Nevertheless, we read: http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/an-ancient-papyrus-reveals-how-the-great-pyramid-of-giza-was-built

 

….

Wooden boats built with rope instead of nails.

The limestone was carried along the River Nile in wooden boats built with planks and rope that were capable of hauling two-and-a-half tonne stones.  Using ancient tomb carvings and the remains of an ancient dismantled ship as a guide, archeologist Mohamed Abd El-Maguid has recreated one Egyptian boat from scratch.

3D scans of the ship planks revealed that the boats were full of holes that lined up perfectly with each other. Instead of nails or wood pegs, these boats were sewn together with rope like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

With 1,000 holes and five kilometres of rope the new boat was assembled and Abd El-Maguid and in Secrets of the Pyramid, attempts to re-create every step of Merer’s journey down the Nile with a two-tonne limestone rock.

 

http://nypost.com/2017/09/24/archaeologists-solve-the-mystery-of-the-great-pyramid/

 

New evidence proves that the ancient Egyptians constructed the Great Pyramid at Giza by transporting 170,000 tons of limestone in boats.

It has long been known that the rock was extracted eight miles away in Tura and that granite used in the monumental structure was quarried 533 miles away in Aswan.

However, archaeologists have disagreed over how the material was transported to Giza, now part of modern-day Cairo, for construction of Pharaoh Khufu’s tomb in 2600 BC.

Now that mystery could be a step further to being solved after the discovery of an ancient scroll of papyrus, a ceremonial boat and a network of waterways, the Mail on Sunday reported.

The new evidence shows that thousands of laborers transported 170,000 tons of limestone along the River Nile in wooden boats built with planks and rope.

The 2.5-ton blocks were ferried through a system of specially designed canals before arriving at an inland port built just yards away from the base of the Great Pyramid.

….