The science of building an Egyptian Pyramid.

[Pinch Paxton]

I think that there is a good reason for the pyramids to have been found in loose sand in a dessert. loose sand is easy to dig. The easy way to build a pyramid is to dig a huge hole in the sand. Slide the giant stones down the slope, and make the base. Ok so that sounds like a huge hole. You are right. But it is far easier to dig the huge hole, than it is to lift the stones to the top of the pyramid. After the first level of stones have been placed, you fill around them with sand. This allows the second level to slide down the slope, and easily slide on top of the first level. You keep doing this until the top stone is at ground level. There may be a slight upward slope to place the last stone. This would make the final process easier. You now have an underground pyramid. The final process is to level out the sand around the pyramid. This is a huge task. You have to drag sand for many miles to accomplish this task. The use of thousands of workers, and maybe dogs, makes this task a bit easier, but of course it takes many years to finish the job. Weather may help this process. Anyway, I think this sounds like the best way to build a pyramid.

 

 

Pincho.

[aman]

I'm not sure where the deepest loose sand is in the world but in most places like where the pyramids are, a short depth of sand reveals a layer of sandstone.

If I wanted to build a spectacular pyramid, I'd locate a lone mountain or solitary rock formation and carve it out.

Just aman

[Pinch Paxton]

Remember that the short depth of sand that leads to the sandstone would still be below the base of the pyramid using my method. It's just that the sand above it would have been higher.

 

Pincho.

[Sayonara]

How do you keep the pyramid-sized hole in the sand completely free of sand?

 

I mean, it's easy enough to dig, but not to confine.

[Pinch Paxton]

I admit that keeping the sand from sliding down the slope would require some more work, but it doesn't sound too problematic as to cause my theory to crumble. I can think of ways in my head, like laying cloths, or wooden fences, but I really don't feel I need to cover every aspect of my idea. I think it sounds ideal in the sand where pyramids are mostly found. I think that the sand is no coincidence.

 

Pincho.

[Pinch Paxton]

Just thinking about that once more, I would like to include glass as a possible solution too.

[Sayonara]

If you have a system of sand breaks made of wood, cloth etc holding back the sand, you would have to have a very shallow incline otherwise the force of the sand on the breakers would be phenomenal. You could probably do it though.

 

The only problem then is of course that you can't slide stones down into the hole because they'll shave your barricades away on the way down.

 

Tricky.

[Pinch Paxton]

Maybe they open a gate like a dam and the stones all go down the same channel. This would be energy efficient. Clearing the sand out afterwards would be worth the price. Actually it could be used around the outsides of the stones.

 

Pincho.

[VendingMenace]

here are my thoughts...

 

1) in reply #2 is more pertinant than you seem to think. The fact that there is a short distance under the sand until you get to sandston is very important. Why? Simply this, for at least hundreds (if not thousands) of years there have not been people around to maintain the pyramids. Thus, we can assume that the sand around the pyramids is in equilibrium with the sand everywhere else. THis means that it is natural for the sand to be this shallow. It was not altered to be this shallow. Thus, if you assume that conditions back when the pyramids were built are the same as today (which you seem to be, but more on this later) then we find that the sand is too shallow to allow them to be build in the manner that you propose.

 

2) Conditions durring the building of the great pyramids where not nessesarily the same as they are today. In fact, it has been proposed that durring that time of egypt's history, the location of the pyramids was much more lush (and less sandy) than it is today. So the sand idea would not work.

 

3) Lets assume that the sand has about the same density as the stones that were used in the great pyramids. By your scheme, people would have to first dig out a hole much bigger than the pyramids, build the pyramids, fill in sand while building the pyramids, and then remove a volume of sand again much larger than the pyramids. All this adds up to moving a mass that is much larger than 4 times the mass of the pyramids already.

 

Of course it may seem easier to move sand, but is it? First you have to build a containier to hold loose sand and then you must move this container. Thus you are moving not only the weight of the sand, but the wieght of hte conatainer as well. Thus, you are again adding mass that must be moved.

 

Now i am not saying that you are inccorect, nor do i wish to appear condesending. I am mearly calling to your attention what issues i see with your idea. In summery, they are; the sand was probably not deep enough for the required escavation of sand, their might not have even been sand around, and the work required by your proposition is most likely at least an order of magnitude greater than would be required by building them in a more traditional fation.

 

That is all

[Pinch Paxton]

You are still calculating the depth of the sand after it was taken away from the pyramids. Do you see? I am proposing that the sand was up to the top of the pyramids originally, then moved further away from the pyramids. Therefore the sandstone would have been deeper inside the original dessert. If the dessert were a lush, green place then my theory breaks down. Moving the sand could be done by dragging it away with some kind of solid rakes and thousands of people arranged like rings of a ripple in water. Or sledges.

 

Pincho.

[Sayonara]

I think VendingMenace's point was that if you excavate sand in a desert so that you are working below the equilibrium level of the surrounding area, the sand will come back.

 

The only way around this is if the original equilibrium level was high enough to contain the best part of a pyramid, but if this were so where has all the sand gone from the rest of the desert?

[Pinch Paxton]

Hmm I see. My idea only really works if there was a huge crater full of sand, then the hills around it were lowered to release the sand or something like that. That sounds unlikely, unless this were the impact point of a huge meteor, and the sand was the dust that fell back down into the crater. Maybe the edges of the crater were the sandstone used to build the pyramids in the first place. All a lot of speculation. Ok I shall leave this idea to stew for awhile. It does seem like the easiest way to build a pyramid though for such an ancient race that I find it hard to leave it alone.

 

Pincho.

[JaKiri]

Given that the Egyptians had reasonably developed engineering in other sectors, I'd say it's safe to assume that they were built in a standard fashion.

[atinymonkey]

I think the most popular theory at the moment is almost exactly the opposite of Pinch's.

[Pinch Paxton]

Just as a matter of interest, could this picture be showing how they moved the sand away from th pyramid after they built it?

 

 

 

 

Pincho.

[Sayonara]

The Egyptian writing and recording system relies almost completely on context, so without knowing where this came from or what it was a part of it's not possible to accurately determine what it's meant to represent.

 

It's interesting though that there are smaller figures who appear to be toiling at the feet of the larger ones. In fact there seem to be three 'types' of figure.

[Pinch Paxton]

Yeah it is an interesting picture because it shows something very much like my idea of how they moved the sand away. The slippery snake would represent the slipping sand down a trench system. There appears to be a small building at the beginning, and there appear to be high wooden supports to lift the wooden trench into the air. the first trench appears to have someone sending sand to the top. And at the ends of the trenches, the sand appears to be falling out onto the floor. I could easily imagine this as a secret formula for the pyramids using the idea that I have mentioned. I only just found this picture, and it took me by surprise. Sorry to sound too fenatical about my idea. I have a very open mind, so feel free to dissasemble my theory.

 

Pincho.

[Sayonara]

The snake symbolises evil, power and healing (the healing aspect from Babylonian culture iirc), and also represents Kebechet - daughter of Anubis, and the goddess of purification through water.

[Pinch Paxton]

Usually yes! But a picture of a man can represent life on earth, but it can also represent a toilet. lol!

[atinymonkey]

I don't recall seeing any diagrams that showed apparatus quite like this. However, there isn't any secret as to how the pyramids were built. As I said, the most popular theory is the opposite of digging a giant hole, they simply pushed the sand up to make each level ground level.

[Sayonara]

Well Kebechet is traditionally part of the 'funeral cult', but I'll have to do a bit more specific research to find out if that had anything to do with pyramid culture.

[Pinch Paxton]

Yeah I agree with the pushing sand method. That picture has apparatus higher than the building, suggesting that the sand was piled up to begin with. I think that the theory of piling sand is right. Still though, it requires pushing the blocks up an incline. Not a bad idea though.

 

Pincho.

[VendingMenace]

right, wich would make much more sense, because;

a) You are not digging away sand, building, putting back sand, and then moving it away again. YOu are just putting it in place and then moving it away againg. It saves you one step of sand moving

 

b) it is easier to pile up sand against somthing than to dig out a deep hole -- just look at the way sand pile up against a pier on a beach or how large dunes form at logs and stuff. Rarely do you see a hole apear.

 

c) going with the whole "amount of the sand in the desert today is the same as in the past thing" it would explain why the pyramids are not covered with sand right now. (I still am not sure you understand this point, pinch)

 

so, if you want to claim that the egyptains used sand to push blocks around to make the pyramids, then it makes a whole lot more sense for them to build up the sand than to dig it out.

[Pinch Paxton]

Yeah it makes more sense that way. It is still quite a new theory, and it still works with the picture that I found. So that's fine. As for the sand coming back over time, well water certainly would, and sand is like solid water, so that is right.

 

Pincho.

[fafalone]

Actually it appears the way the blocks were moved was using rollers to eliminate kinetic friction. That way it only took a few people to move one of the blocks along a level surface, and a few more to move it up an incline.