The Old World is a reference to those parts of Earth known to Europeans before the voyages of Christopher Columbus; it includes Europe, Asia and Africa.
stan wrote:I still don't understan, Frank. Wouldn'tyou have to carry up twice as many rocks? How do you get that counterweight up there?
Instead of rocks you could use people. They would have to climb the pyramid every time but once again, while they're going down the pyramid there could be another team going up at the same time etc.
Once again that's a half-baked thought and it could happen that I am very wrong about it
BTW I've read somewhere that our old pal Zahi found some remains of the ramp for the giza pyramid. Any info on that?
You'd have to drag up the first one, but it would be on a low level and as you got higher up you simply use the last stone you drug up as the counterweight and put it in place as you drag up the next one using it as a counterweight. Each stone becomes the counterweight for the next stone. There would still be a lot of tugging and dragging, but using the wieght of the stones to pull up the next one as you place it would make at least part of the tugging much easier and the ramp wouldn't have to be at such a low angle.
Sounds as if you want to build the front of the pyramid and then haul the stones up the ramp so you can build the back?
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Minimalist wrote:Sounds as if you want to build the front of the pyramid and then haul the stones up the ramp so you can build the back?
Right! Lower the ones for the back side as you're pulling up the front. It could be progressive from when it started getting a few layers up on the front. As it gets higher it gets "thicker". It should increase their speed and make it easier to handle the weight of the ones coming up. Several crews doing this could place quite a few blocks fairly rapidly. Twenty years still may not be enough time, but I ain't married to the twenty year restriction. It's mostly a good guess. As I tried to post on here earlier when it got lost. Perhaps the son built or at least finished the father's pyramid. Maybe they did this when they ran out of time or maybe they always did it. I did read on one of these posts where some of the higher mortar with organic parts was C14 tested and it was older than the bottom layers. That's what made me think of coming from the top down...so to speak. I bet if they tested the other side on bottom it would be older still. It's all a wild, off the cuff theory into which I didn't put a helluva lot of thought, but so far it still makes sense to me. Techniques would have had to change for different parts of the pyramid, but that's the way construction goes, a lot of improvisation.
I've got to think about that one, Frank. On the surface, it seems kind of Rube Goldbergish.
If you are going to postulate that the Egyptians had knowledge of the use of 'counterweights', why not simply give them a decent sized wooden crane based on the 'shadouf' that they use to lift water for their fields?
Set the crane up next to the pyramid and simply lift each stone up?
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Minimalist wrote:I've got to think about that one, Frank. On the surface, it seems kind of Rube Goldbergish.
If you are going to postulate that the Egyptians had knowledge of the use of 'counterweights', why not simply give them a decent sized wooden crane based on the 'shadouf' that they use to lift water for their fields?
Set the crane up next to the pyramid and simply lift each stone up?
They probably used something like that. They obviously knew about levers and counterweights. They would have had dozens of "shadouf-like" cranes all over the pyramid. Dozens of crews placing blocks. Dozens hauling them up and so forth.
is well suited to lifting water but the technology has obvious limitations for lifting rocks.
Allowing for the fact that it would have to be much larger it still seems that it would have trouble as the succeeding tiers moved back from the lower tier. YOu could put some slack in the rope so that the crews standing above could grapple the stone and pull it in but everytime you do that you lessen the distance that the stone could be lifted.
Second, the shadouf-like crane would have to be mounted parallel to the pyramid, or else at a sufficient distance to enable the counterweight to swing. Either method would have the effect of reducing the useful height.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
They would just be for moving them around small distances and placing them. It would be a variation of the shadouf. The short end would be the lifting end and the long end the handle of the lever. You could probably lift even those heavy stone a few inches with just a couple of these, very sturdily built, of course.
is well suited to lifting water but the technology has obvious limitations for lifting rocks.
Allowing for the fact that it would have to be much larger it still seems that it would have trouble as the succeeding tiers moved back from the lower tier. YOu could put some slack in the rope so that the crews standing above could grapple the stone and pull it in but everytime you do that you lessen the distance that the stone could be lifted.
Second, the shadouf-like crane would have to be mounted parallel to the pyramid, or else at a sufficient distance to enable the counterweight to swing. Either method would have the effect of reducing the useful height.
I don't know. You need a much larger counterweight than the stone you are trying to lift. Even a 3 ton weight on one end and a 2.5 ton 'cargo' on the other would put 5.5 tons of stress on the beam. I can see them cracking constantly.
Again, casualties down below would be heavy.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Minimalist wrote:I don't know. You need a much larger counterweight than the stone you are trying to lift. Even a 3 ton weight on one end and a 2.5 ton 'cargo' on the other would put 5.5 tons of stress on the beam. I can see them cracking constantly.
Again, casualties down below would be heavy.
No no, if you use the short end on the block, you don't even need the counterweight. It's just a lever system, but that's only for "fine tuning" the blocks into their final place. It would have nothing to do with lifting them from the ground. Only for levering them into position. Little jacks, if you will, to move them around short distances. People keep looking for one method and I'm sure they used many methods. Work on any construction site and you'll see many different ways to do basically the same operation, just in a slightly different circumstance or location. With an almost unlimited labor force I can see how they could get this done with the technology they had. In 20 years? Probably not, but the timespan is not "set in stone' then is it?
Frank Harrist wrote:They would just be for moving them around small distances and placing them. It would be a variation of the shadouf. The short end would be the lifting end and the long end the handle of the lever. You could probably lift even those heavy stone a few inches with just a couple of these, very sturdily built, of course.
I was just wondering if a tree trunk would withstand a couple of tons of weight. I suppose it does, as it has been used for ages in construction.
That kind of crane, with a well placed counterweight on the long arm, could make stone lifting quite easy.
Probably not, but the timespan is not "set in stone' then is it?
Ah...that depends on who you talk to.
First off, if you look at the cruddy little 5th Dynasty pyramids, it isn't too hard to imagine small stones piled up in a few years. There is evidence through inscriptions (not the least of which are the pyramid texts themselves in Unas' pyramid) that there were burials.
So the question comes down to the "tombs and tombs-only" stance of Egyptologists.
If you are building a tomb you need to have it ready before the intended honoree drops dead. Given life expectancy in that age I have a feeling that the origin of the 20 year figure came about because the Egyptologists needed a reasonable number in which to account for the building of a tomb within the reasonable life span of a pharoah.
20 years is 'reasonable' for constructions of smaller pyramids using smaller stones. It is not so reasonable for the constructions of Khufu and Khafre's pyramids. Moreover, as far as I know, there has never been the slightest shred of evidence that there ever was a burial in or under either of those pyramids.
The explanation is that they were 'robbed' in antiquity but they have never detected the point of entry (obvious in other tomb robberies) and the robbers would appear to have 'swept up' after themselves which seems to be an odd way to behave after one has just desecrated a tomb!
If they were not built as tombs the whole problem evaporates. They could have taken 100 years to build them and it would not matter. Just as it did not matter how long it took to build the cathedrals of Europe.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Well there is a crypt/stone coffin in the GP. Also I don't think they had to stop when the guy died. Like I said before there are three chambers in the GP and they could have been used in succesion as the pyramid was finished. That would account for the 3 chambers and also give them lots more time to finish it. I think Khufu died soon after the project was started so they buried him in the bottom chamber and then after a few years as the pyramid got taller they designed a second chamber up in the body of the pyramid and put him there and then after it was finished they put him in the top chamber, where they had planned to put him all along. They immediately started on the next pyramid. After 3 of these the state was almost bankrupt, not to mention sick of building stinkin' pyramids so they didn't try this again on such a scale.
Who is to say that the stone "crypt" was ever intended to be a crypt?
Where is the cover? Or did the 'robbers' take that out too?
There are a few holes in the story. Just like the bible.
Recall that when the Caliph broke in, 1,000 years ago, the GP looked the same as it does today...and the Caliph was greatly disappointed.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
