For thousands of years people have wondered how the pyramids where built. A new theory just might answer that.

jean-Pierre Houdin finally completed his theory after 8 years and his seemingly waterproof theory was praised by all the scientists at the presentation.

The first 43 meters of the pyramid witch consists of 73% of the pyramids collective mass were built with the help of a single 400 meter long ramp on the outside of the pyramid witch was later removed.

The building material after the ramp where then chopped into fitting sizes and reused at the upper part of the pyramid.
To get the stone blocks up there they had to use a 1.8 meter wide ramp on the inside of the pyramid that was planned from the start and started in the southeastern corner of the pyramids base.
The ramp had been unused until that point, but became the main "road" for the workers to drag the heavy stones up.
The ramp was placed a few meters away from the outer walls and had about 21 "turns" and was about 1.6 kilometer long.
It had an incline of about 7% and was covered with wooden rails on the floor to reduce friction and made it easier to drag the stones up.
In the corners, the ramp went all the way out to the outer wall where it was open to make room for a small "crane" to help turn the stone. After the construction was finished the corners was sealed with big precut stone that had been stored near the corners.

After about 20 years the top stone was placed and the pyramid was finished by giving it a layer of white limestone from the top to bottom, and it was so well done that you could not even fit a knifes blade in between them.

Nobody nkows for sure how long it took to build the keops pyramid, but according to the Greek Herodot it took 20 years.

Houdin reckons it ttok 21 years, witch means that the workers put a new block in place every 2 minutes during a 10 hour long work day.

How many workers there where is not known. Scientist estimates that there where about 30-100 000 man. jean-Pierre Houdin consider these numbers to be way to big and and according to his calculations should be about 4000 instead provided that they used the interior ramp.

No theory is complete without an explanation on how the Egyptians maneuvered the up to 60 tonn heavy granite block. Houdin believes that the big gallery, witch is a 10 meters tall narrow room just by the burial toomb, rooms a big counterweight that was used when placing the huge blocks.

There are several bits of evidence to support his theory: In the pyramids northeastern corner, about 90 meters above the ground there is trace of an opening where a crane would have used to be 4500 years ago, should Houdins theory be correct.
And it was in exactly at that spot in 1986 a group of French scientists observed a fox going inside a gap.
That indicates that there is an open area behind the outer wall, and perhaps even a ramp that the fox might have used to get up there from the inside.

The French scientists inspected the pyramid using mikrogravimetri (don't know how to translate that word, it might be thermogravimetric, but i am not 100% sure) to measure the variations in the density in the different parts of the pyramid, so that they might uncover hidden rooms or something like it. The first conclusion was that there where no trace of any cavity. The records where forgotten in an archive for 14 years, but in 200 when one of the scientists heard of Houdins theory, he said that there had been one picture that had stumped the scientists. But when they where unable to determine what it was, they had forgotten all about it. When Houdin got to examine the picture, it was as if the pieces of the puzzle fell together. The picture fitted perfectly with the sketch Houdin had made of the suggested interior ramp. The positions where the mikrogravimetri(thermogravimetric?)had measured lower density was the same places where the ramp was according to Houdin.

Illustrert Vitenskap Nr.1/2008 (27/12/07-13/1/08) http://www.illustrertvitenskap.com/polopol...?a=1217&id=9944

I had to translate it from Norwegian, so if there is to much spelling/grammar errors, that is why.

"The first 43 meters of the pyramid comprises 73% of the pyramids collective mass"

What does this mean?

(i corrected some english)

4000 men, working, cutting large stones hauling blocks from the quarry, many miles away and fitting blocks in place at a rate of 1 every two minutes!

Was Egypt able to produce enough food for them?
And trees that had to be constantly cut down and used.
Wasn't it determined that the stones that make up Cheop's pyramid, had come from a quarry about 60 miles distant?

Here is another article i found on it. It is in English, and has some pictures to illustrate, might be easier to understand.
http://www.archaeology.org/0705/etc/pyramid.html

Senhuan..he means the first 43 meters of height.. from the base going up 43 meters.

Interesting..when I have time and energy and its not New Years I would like to look at his stuff.

To answer the questions: Yes, Egypt good produce the food easily. Egypt at the time was fertile.

I cant remember how far the quarries were but in some cases, yes, quite far.

As for the food, i seem to recall reading that they had farms not to far away from the construction site where they bred sheep. Not 100% sure, it is a long time since i read about it and i might remember wrong

The city where the "support" staff lived has been found.. all kinds of food vendors...butchers, bakers, etc. There is basically a small town of people whose job it was to keep the builders in good shape. There are medical records that have been found, etc.

I was quite excited when this area was found because I believed it would put the final nail in the "UFOs built the pyramids" coffin...but I was wrong. sigh.

Well I am not going to say UFOs, but I am not going to give the Egyptians super human abilities either.
Lets see here...
4000 workers to build the pyramid, did that include the lumberjacks, cooks, and supervisors?
How many people were also in their army?
How many other craftsman were at work on other projects for trade and or for architecture?
How many farmers, leaders, servants etc, etc...
What was the total estimated population of Egyptat at that time?
In short could they really be able to support this project in the maner suggested?
It seems far fetched to me.

When this subject of how the pyramids were built comes up, I can't help but think of EDWARD LEEDSKALNIN and Coral Castle.

You are very right. Perhaps too right.

I too will never say it was UFOs, I even doubt it. But it has come clear to me that there is an unknown factor to the history of Egypt. The many structures in the area have drawn attention, but they do not all share the same history.

The area has undergone more then the history books say. Gaping holes in it's history are shrugged off as beneath consideration. Yet that is the stuff of faith not a science. Every time I am told religions and their faith are so bad, I see the guilty cries of one guilty man blaming another.

I do not believe that those pile of rocks are of any importance to us today but I do believe that the Great Pyramid and a few other structures were created with something man currently does not understand. Or even beyond our current understanding. I am not talking about anything god like or supernatural, only beyond what we can see and thus understand. That simple fact seems to rub man the wrong way. The irony in this is that I think we made it, but forgot how, why and lost what it was used for. But I know it is a dead pile of rock and can not longer serve whatever function it once performed.

Line all the priests up with hocus pocus you like, say it has supernatural power, a message form someone, anything you want, for that is all it is good for now. That and post cards and tourist.

It sounds very interesting but I find it hard to believe humans built any pyramids EVER! It's not how the pyramids were built that is a mystery it's the location and reason of why they were built that drives people to understand the meaning behind these structures. What you have stated is very interesting but the mathamatics and architecture behind these structures is no doubt something mankind will never decipher until the day the god's that they were built for return.

We built em. You should read up on Dr. Zahi Hawass' thoughts on the pyramid builders. As the head of Egyptian Antiquities he has a uniquely great prespective based on archaeological fact.

Here's some of them:

By measuring the human capacity of the town they found a few years ago (the town where the pyramid builders lived) Hawas estimates that there were on average about 20,000 workers at any one given time.

By studying the tools used to quarry the stones used, and by examining the actual quarries themselves, they have clearly shown the process by which the raw materials for the pyramid were created (by humans).

Recently a discovery was made that confirmed the existence and use of pulleys. Curcular wooden pieces with a slot on their side for a rope to fit in were discovered intact and dated to the time of pyramid building.

Hawass also speculates that the use of domesticated animals might have played a roll in moving the huge stones used. Ie, a coupla oxen can easily pull a big rock on a sled.

The most compelling evidence of human origins of the pyramid are the bones of people they found burried in and around the town they found. They were all messed up, fractures, breaks etc. Exactly what you would expect from a people who were hauling stones all day.

You get my point. Humans built em. No doubt about it. The evidence is there.

What I meant was - what do those figures mean? Why are they special? Sounds like they were plucked out of the sky. Yes, those figures are correct. But my question is - so what? What is the significance? I don't see any.

If you were to visit the pyramids, Alien, you would have no doubt they are human made. You can read the quarry marks. You can see where stones didnt fit together and people filled in gaps with sand, smaller stones, and pottery shards. You could visit the "Bent" pyramid ..where the math was wrong and they changed the angle half way through. You can see a number of pyramids there the construction was stopped and started in a different method.

If you bother reading this thread, you will see that the designer of a number of pyramids is known by name and you will see there are even pictures of stones being moved to construct them (though limited).

As Sen is pointing out.. we know where the builders lived, we know how they were organized. We know where the stones came from and though we may not know the details of moving them we know where the roads are that the stones were moved on are.

Apologies to Dundee.. as once again my post is too realistic..

Nope none needed, I saw the thread, had a quiet smirk and went looking for my bag of popcorn

The question of how the pyramids were built has not received a wholly adequate answer.

The one that seems to be the most credible is that the Egyptians employed a sloping and encircling embankment of brick, earth, and sand, which was increased in height and in length as the pyramid rose; stone blocks were hauled up the ramp by means of sledges, rollers, and levers.

By the late 20th century, archaeologists found evidence that a limited workforce may have occupied the site on a permanent rather than a seasonal basis. As few as 10-20,000 workers (from professional workers’ guilds), with accompanying support personnel would have been sufficient to the task.

In the late 1980s and '90s, excavations in the environs of the pyramids revealed labourers' districts that included bakeries, storage areas, workshops, and the small tombs of workers and artisans. These tombs range from simple mud-brick domes to complex stone monuments that appear to emulate, in miniature, the mausoleums of kings. Statuettes and other artwork depicting scenes from daily life were found within some of the structures; hieroglyphic inscriptions on tomb walls commonly identify the deceased, and many invoke curses on would-be tomb robbers.

We have also found, constructed near each pyramid, mortuary temples (1), which were linked via a sloping causeway to a valley temple on the edge of the Nile floodplain. Also nearby were subsidiary pyramids used for the burials of other members of the royal family.

In ancient Egypt, a mortuary temple is a place of worship of a deceased king and the depository for food and objects offered to the dead monarch. In the Old and Middle Kingdoms (c. 2575–c. 2130 BC; and 1938–c. 1600? BC) the mortuary temple usually adjoined the pyramid and had an open, pillared court, storerooms, five elongated shrines, and a chapel containing a false door and an offering table. In the chapel, priests performed the daily funerary rites and presented the offerings to the dead king's ka (protective spirit). In the New Kingdom (1539–1075 BC) the kings were buried in rock-cut tombs, but separate mortuary temples continued to be built nearby. All were provided with a staff of priests and assured of supplies through endowments of estates and lands to ensure religious services and offerings in perpetuity.


Source: Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des pharaons, by Pascal Vernus, Jean Yoyotte & Nathalie G. de Rivault, Paris, 1996.

Quarries: For granite they went to Wadi Hammamat, for quartz and amethyst and chalcedony (and especially for carnelian) to Wadi el-Houdi, for galena to Jebel Zeit, for sandstone to Gebel Silsileh (not too far from Aswan), for limestone to Tura, for turquoise to Serabit el-Khadim, for malachite and copper to the Sinai. Some stone quarries were not too far from Al-Jizah and Tura, others were far off from both sites.

As for pigments for example, recent evidence shows that Egyptians used blue cobalt some 3,000 years before it was re-discovered in Occident.

Yes we know the names of some workers and craftsmen. Under Tausert’s rule for instance, the most famous master craftsman was a man named Paneb.

This post has been edited by allison1597: Mar 19 2008, 10:31 AM

Another question that has not been answered.
Lumber, trees for wood needed. If they used logs to help roll the blocks along, just how far would those logs go before they rolled flat or became useless and had to be replenished?What was the rate of consuption of trees for this task?
How hard was the wood and how practical was it to work into a round shape to be used as a roller?
If this was a fertile land where they could easily feed 20,000 plus hungry as hell workers, how did they find enough trees for the centry long tasks, or if they did have enough trees how was there enough land to produce the food to feed them?

Logs were made from hardwoods (either acacia or ebony, depending on the task for which the logs were chosen and cut for; ebony being preferred for reason durability, for instance). Acacias were found in southern Egypt and Sudan; ebony had to be imported (from the land of Punt for example). Stone blocks, statues and obelisks were transported on barges/riverboats made of Lebanese cedar, a very resistant wood. (Sometimes they used some varieties of cypress). Egyptians were the first to recognize the importance of this wood in shipbuilding. Their navy was constituted of ships made from Lebanese cedar for reasons of fastness and solidity.

For the time being, Jean-Pierre Houdin’s theory is only a possibility. Evidences remain to be found, and notably the presence of the internal gallery, that should still be there.

Maybe it had already been discovered in the 1980s. Searching for gravimetric anomalies, scientists detected a loss of mass forming a sort of squared spiral.

But it is not enough. And that’s why improved, non-invasive analyses will be conducted in the coming months. And once again gravimetric, infra-red emission detecting methods will be used.

Until then, let’s wait and doubt…

Allow me to return to SD’s post #351529.

The solarboats (or funerary boats) were usually made of cedar (and especially Cedrus libani).

The logs: as a matter of fact, they did not use logs but sleighs. The rate of consumption varied according to the species of wood they used, and the way it was used...

As to the species of woods that I have already mentioned in my previous post (#351585), I add another hard wood – sycamore.