Great Pyramid 20 year construction

I would like to start out by saying that I dont believe the Pyramids were constructed by Aliens or that ancient man couldnt have constructed the Pyraminds. I do have a issue with the 20 year timescale we are given by Egyptologists. This is close to being absurd in my opinion and Ill show you why I feel this way.

Im not a mathematician so please bare with me, and feel free to point any errors in my math.

Most books and encyclopedia state that there are between 2- 2.8 million blocks of stone in the Great Pyramid. These average about 2.5 tons with none smaller then 2 tons. The largest stones range from 9 to 15 tons. We will use a average estimate to work with in number of stones 2.4 million.

Seconds in a year = 31,556,926 x 20 (for twenty years) = 631,138,520

So we have a total of 631,138,520 seconds to work with.

No we divide that by the number of stones

631,138,520 divided by 2,400,000 = 263

263 divided by 60 (sixty seconds in a minute) = 4.38

So every 4.38 minutes a stone had to be quarried, transported and put into place. This had to occur 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year for the entire 20 year span.

This equation, however, does not include the time and labor required to design, plan, survey, and level the 13 acre site the Great Pyramid sits on. Nor does it include the construction time of the ramps needed to put the blocks in place.

If we are talking a straight ramp depending on the slope this could require more material then the pyramid itself. If we are saying a spiral ramp was used thats less material but you get into some serious issues when trying to drag a block with rope around one of the corners of said ramp. Either way its its going to be massive amount of material you have to put into place and remove.

But waits theres still other factors to consider that make it even harder. These blocks were all quarried without the aid of Iron tools.

They were also transported from quarries ranging a distances of 8 miles to 500 miles away. These all had to be transported these many miles without the invention of the wheel.

In my opinion its almost insane to think this was done in 20 years. Sure ancient man could hav done it but in that short period of time. So why are we given this 20 year time table by Egyptologists? Well they pretty much have too. They tell us that Khufu built it and he only reigned from around 2589 BC to 2566 BC. So he was only in power for like 23 years.

If the Pyramid took 40 or even 100 years Khufu could not have been soley responsible for it. Archaeologist tend to rock headed when they set their mind to a theory on what happened and will not change that view unless faced with overwhelming evidence they would look foolish to deny.

The "Archaeologist" that used TNT to blast his way into the inner chambers of the Great Pyramids was convinced it was built by Khufu before he even got inside. Lo and behold when he gets in there he finds some graffiti with Khufus name in a random spot. These workers that spent all this time building this tomb seems couldnt be bothered to actually carve his name into the rock just a quick paint job it would seem for the Great God king.







[edit on 25-3-2006 by ShadowXIX]

Do you have a link or other reference that validates this twenty year belief? I mean, I've heard that too, but not from an Archaeologist.

Maybe they say "between 20 and 50 years" or something along those lines, and the pseudoscientists (of course) latch on to the lowest number.

Just wondering.

Harte

No problem theres lots of places to see the 20 year claim. Its the most widely accepted timescale for construction.

www.discoverymiddleeast.com... amid/index.shtml

www.pbs.org...

www.answers.com...

They are pretty much stuck with the 20 year claim if it was built by Khufu as they claim. You cant very well have Khufu's tomb being built 20-30 years before he was in power or before he was even born.

Scholars today also, think it may have been built by only 20,000- 30,000 men over 20 years. Instead of the older 100,000 men estimates. We have been uncovering the homes of the people that built the Pyramids and I dont think the evidence suggest a labor force of 100,000 anymore.


[edit on 25-3-2006 by ShadowXIX]

Looks increasingly like the scientific community has cornered themselves on this one. Not only the builiding of the pyramids themselves but the observed technology that nobody has been able to explain yet.. like the sarcophagus (sp?), found in the kings tomb. Made of the hardest granite but perfectly rendered flat and hollowed out in a manner that would make 21st century technology proud. Yet these guys did this with sand and grinding stones? Today they use artifically grown diamond cutters to grind down granite and it is still a timely labor intensive process where mistakes can be easily made. Today we have computer controlled cutters etc that make work accurate to 1000s of an inch but the Egyptians had some guy going by feel and doing it out in the sun or under candle light.

Yes I also believe that the pyramids has more to it that any expert around can come out with.

Their mystery is still very much fresh and will never go away, some of the final findings on their constructions do not make any sense.

Specially when the people that constructed them were ancient men with by our modern standards.

But their creation proves that they were way more advance than us in modern time in their own time.

If my googles skills are accurate, the Empire State Building was built in 1 year and 45 days (410 days).

It has 10 million bricks in it. That means they had to put down 24,390 bricks per day, 7 days a week, for 410 days.

Sounds amazing, doesnt it? Especially if you count the fact it also has an additional 60,000 tonnes of steel and 200,000 cubic feet of limestone and granite that had to be put into place at the same time as those bricks. This was all done by a mere 3000 workers, pathetic by any measure in the ancient times.

Point is, numbers can make anything look magical. But it doesnt tell the whole story.

[edit on 26-3-2006 by merka]

Originally posted by merka
If my googles skills are accurate, the Empire State Building was built in 1 year and 45 days (410 days).

It has 10 million bricks in it. That means they had to put down 24,390 bricks per day, 7 days a week, for 410 days.

Sounds amazing, doesnt it? Especially if you count the fact it also has an additional 60,000 tonnes of steel and 200,000 cubic feet of limestone and granite that had to be put into place at the same time as those bricks. This was all done by a mere 3000 workers, pathetic by any measure in the ancient times.

Point is, numbers can make anything look magical. But it doesnt tell the whole story.

This is such a bad comparison for so many reasons.

First the obvious things the Empire state building was built in 1930 the great pyramid we are told about 2570 BC. So their was some slight differences in technology used

The Empire state building had Machines and Modern tools - powered cranes, Trucks, steel tools, power tools, cement etc.. etc.. the differences in technology used thousands of years ago with modern tools should be enough to make the comparison an absurd one.

It has 10 million bricks in it.

Thats might sound impressive until you see the size of these bricks and compare them to the ones used in the Pyramid construction. These are tiny modern building bricks most of which any single person can lift with ease. For the Great pyramid the average brick weight was 2.5 tons compared to a few pounds for the ESB

60,000 tonnes of steel

The Great pyramid was made up of 6,500,000 million tons.

200,000 cubic feet of limestone

The Great pyramid was made up of 90,000,000 cubic feet of masonry, enough to build 30 Empire State Buildings

Sound amazing?

The ESB No not really



[edit on 26-3-2006 by ShadowXIX]

ShadowXIX,

Thanks for the links. I found this completely reasonable explanation at the PBS.Org site you linked:

Now just recently I was contacted by the construction firm DMJM -- the initials stand for Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall -- it's one of the largest construction firms, they're working right now on the Pentagon. And one of the senior vice presidents decided to take on for a formal address for fellow engineers, a program management study of the Great Pyramid. So these are not guys lifting boilers in Manhattan, these are senior civil engineers with one of the largest construction corporations in the United States. And I'm sure they'd be happy to go on record with their study which looked at what they call critical path analysis. What do you need to get the job done? What tools did they have? And they contacted me and other Egyptologists and we gave them some references. Here's what we know about their tools, the inclined plane, the lever and so on. And without any secret sophistication or hidden technology, just basically what archaeologists say, this is what these folks had. DIM JIM came up with 5,000, 4 to 5,000 men could build the Great Pyramid within a 20 to 40 year period. And they have very specific calculations on every single aspect, from the gravel, for the ramps, to baking the bread. So I throw that out there, not because that's gospel truth, but because reasoned construction engineers, who plan great projects like bridges and buildings today and earthworks and so on, look at the Great Pyramid and don't opt out for lost civilizations, extraterrestrials, or hidden technologies.

I imagine that at least one answer to your original question can be found within the report mentioned in the above quote.

Harte

Originally posted by Odium
The Pyramids of Giza: Could they have been made?

The idea that it is a burial chamber, comes from four main pieces of evidence:

• The legends told to and reported by Herodotus who visited the pyramids in 443 BC
  
• The funerary complex near the Great Pyramid with inscriptions citing Cheops/Khufu as the reigning pharaoh
  
• In the pyramid itself, on a granite slab above the ceiling of the main chamber, some small, red ochre paint marks that have a slight resemblance to a hieroglyphic symbol for the name of Khufu
  
• Writing outside the pyramids, describing how and when it was built.

Now to truly argued against it, you need to examine the main pieces of evidence.

1. Can’t be taken as fact, as it is a story.
   
2. Could have been built after.
   
3. Claimed to be faked.
   
4. Seems to describe repair work, not building.

Now, the Pyramids are claimed to contain 2,300,000 limestone and granite blocks - which is actually more than contained in the entire Churches in the United Kingdom, during the 1400’s to 1800’s. On a mineral scale, limestone is 4 to 5 and granite is 5 to 6. Now, housed in the Cairo Museum the only example of saws that were found dating from the 4th Dynasty are copper and bronze, both which come between 3.5 to 4 on this scale. [1]

So, when looking at the first part the ability to cut and shape the blocks so perfectly is heavily suspect with the technology that they are described to have been using - next, you have the blocks themselves. Many of these blocks are meant to weigh on average 2.6tons, with the heaviest being estimated at over 15tons. Now, to complete the project in ten years Civil Engineering magazine [June 1999.] estimated that the average workforce was 13,2000 with a peak workforce of 40,000. Their calculations suggest that to complete it in ten years, with that many people you would have to sustain a rate of 180 blocks per-hour or three blocks every 60-seconds.

Now, think of that for a moment: to construct in ten-years, it would take a rate of 3blocks per-minute to be built in that time. An amazing feat, when many of the blocks were carved in Aswan, 600miles to the south. The problem with the Civil Engineering magazine, what they did not factor in was the time it would take to design, plan, survey, level a 13-acre site and more importantly, they didn’t factor in the building of other pyramids, temples, houses, gathering of food, etc. All of which would add considerable to their ten year estimate. When compared against the time span that Khufu reigned [2589 BC to 2566 BC.][2] the ability for such a project to be under-taken is highly suspect. However, it is not impossible.

How were the blocks moved? It is known, that the most likely source of the material was gathered from Aswan and the surrounding region - transporting them almost 600miles, in some cases. Now, depending on which theory you ascribe to the ability to move them is different. From, rolling them on wooden slates, to using kites to pull them and so on and so fourth. I actually ascribe to a hybrid theory:

If you take the theories of Mark Lehner and Mory Gharib, and combine them you have the ability to move the blocks “quickly”. Mark Lehner, put forward the theory that there was a road that was lubricated [with water or milk] and then pulled along these - sliding. Mory Gharib, a Caltech aeronautics professor put forward the idea that they could have been moved using “kites” and in June 2001, they were able to raise a 3000kg obelisk into position in 25seconds in just 22mph winds. It is fully possible, that these were added together. Thus much of the weight of the blocks, was removed from the labour force and they just helped to pull the rest of the weight. The largest blocks being transported fully by land, but the smaller being transported by ships with these kites helping to lift them.

Now, the problem of the ramp? To build a ramp to the top of the Pyramid would in fact take more material than the Pyramid themselves - however, excavation to the South of the Pyramids found the remains of a ramp. However, it wasn’t solid - two walls, filled with sand a material they had in abundance. The walls were used to help compact the sand so that they could build the pyramids.

When coupled with recent studies, done by Gilles Dormion and Jean Patrice Goidin they have found that between 10 to 15% of the Pyramid, is actually filled with sand, rubber, gypsum and so on and so fourth - the smoother blocks being on the outside and this can be seen on the pyramids themselves. Now that the case-stones have been removed [hundreds of years ago], the ones below them are not as smooth as people would suspect and this would remove the time they needed to work on them.

It is possible, that Khufu had them built - it has been displayed, through various theorists that it is fully possible to have built the pyramids in such a time frame. However, it would be hard-work - the evidence is there and clear that it could be completed but would be an amazing feat or engineering that is something even now we can’t compete with.

What was it used for?

Who knows? I tend to believe it was used for another purpose, not as a burial chamber but a temple. Will we ever find out? I hope so for my own sanity.

Odium.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khufu

I've posted this on many of the pages, however no one has ever taken the time to read it or comment on it. So I'll give it one last go here. It's just an idea on how the Pyramids were built.:-)

This guy gives no numbers for his calculations, no explanation for what methods are used, was it a spiral ramp used? a straight ramp? just his end figure which should throw up red flags.

But even he said it would have to be done between 20 to 40 year period. Thats a huge difference and 40 years would be 20 years more then the Pyramid could have taken. You have to remember most modern construction people also know about as much about ancient techniques as the ancients knew about modern methods.

He also couldnt have figured in every single aspect since even the Egyptologists cant even agree exactly how every single aspect was done.

These modern teams have tried to do this before thinking they had it all figured out and on paper they might have but in practice they have all failed to one extent or another. Even the NOVA team gave up rather quickly so slow was the quarrying process. They soon realized that the ancient method of transport was also hopeless and they called in a bulldozer to quarry the stone and a truck to carry it to the site. These people are just moving a few stones around of modest size compared to the largest used in ancient times.

The only real attempt was by a Nissan funded Japanese team which conducted a serious test in 1978. They set out to build a 1/3 scale duplicate of the Great Pyramid using the methods Egyptologists claim the ancient engineers employed. They could not duplicate a single step of the process.



link

Im not saying any lost civilizations, extraterrestrials, or hidden technologies were used but crunching the numbers 20 years makes no sense IMO.

[edit on 26-3-2006 by ShadowXIX]

Thanks for your post Odium

Do you have any links to more information on this Civil Engineering magazine article. 10 years timescale even on paper that I would really like to look into that more even though they left out some important aspects like you mentioned.

I would really like to see another team put their money where thier mouth is and try to build even a scaled version of the Pyramid in the times they claim they can do this. Theres a huge difference when trying this stuff out in real life, all type of unforeseen problems tend to arise you never planned for when you actually try the work.

An average person can lift around 100lbs when it comes to labour. So does that mean for each 2 ton brick there was 50 people moving it?

I saw the show on Discovery that said that it would have taken over the span of 20 years, 1 of those slabs had to be laid out with perfect presicion every 1.5 minutes.

There;s no way on earth.

Originally posted by dgtempe
I saw the show on Discovery that said that it would have taken over the span of 20 years, 1 of those slabs had to be laid out with perfect presicion every 1.5 minutes.

There;s no way on earth.

Thats what im saying, 1.5 minutes is likely not a bad estimate either for each block to have been quarried, transported and put into place.

Theres alot I didnt factor into my basic equation since it would make it alot more complicated, with factors that are hard to put a time on. But all the issues I left out would only have lessened the time per brick you had. I came up with 4.38 minutes but did not factor in the any design, plan, survey, and level the 13 acre site time. No time for the ramp construction which would be a feat in itself, No time for breaks, food or water.

I didnt even factor in if they only worked during daylight hours either which would have drastically cut down the time you had.

[edit on 26-3-2006 by ShadowXIX]

What are the mechanics of how they laid the bricks? Near the higher points I would also expect it to be more time consuming

Here's a dumb question for you. I would assume they started at the bottom and built up. How in the world did they reach those heights?

How in the world, if they were built by ancient civilizations, a world apart, could they have not only built the same thing, but built them at random locations all over the world??? Not to mention the moon, Mars, etc.

There was no communication between continents, to say the least.

I found some more information in this Wikipedia article that could give us a better understanding of just how difficult the quarrying and shipping process alone would have been.

A Great Pyramid feasibility study relating to the quarrying of the stone was performed in 1978 by Technical Director Merle Booker of the Indiana Limestone Institute of America. Consisting of 33 quarries, the Institute is considered by many architects to be one of the world’s leading authorities on lime stone. Using modern equipment, the study concludes:

“Utilizing the entire Indiana Limestone industry’s facilities as they now stand [for 33 quarries], and figuring on tripling present average
production, it would take approximately 27 years to quarry, fabricate and ship the total requirements.”
Mr. Booker points out the time study assumes sufficient quantities of railroad cars would be available without delay or downtime during this 27 year period and does not factor in the increasing costs of completing the work.[8]

link

This was from the Technical Director of the Indiana Limestone Institute of America. With modern equipment it would take 33 limestone quarries running at triple production levels alone to cut, finish and move that much stone.

Thats what he concluded with modern technology, Trains, Cranes, Steel tools, TNT all that stuff that makes work so much easier.

What are the mechanics of how they laid the bricks? Near the higher points I would also expect it to be more time consuming

Well nobody knows the exact methods used but we are too assume these blocks were dragged up massive ramps with rope without the aid of wheels or pulleys.

A ramp that was used to pull the top-most blocks of the pyramid into place it would likely grow thinner as the top of the pyramid shrunk. This starts to raise some problems as you get higher and have less space to work. You cant push these blocks with ropes only pull.

I would think they would have to dragged up as far as they could without your team of men walking off the side of the pyramid. Then they would have to use levers or another method to fit it into place.


[edit on 26-3-2006 by ShadowXIX]

Seeing as how this was a planned construction, isn't it possible that we can try and give our ancestor's credit to have actually gotten the material's, or most of them before actual construction took place? You know... give the guy's SOME credit and benefit of the doubt!

Originally posted by Prot0n
Seeing as how this was a planned construction, isn't it possible that we can try and give our ancestor's credit to have actually gotten the material's, or most of them before actual construction took place? You know... give the guy's SOME credit and benefit of the doubt!

Well you would have to blame the Egyptologists for that, since they are the ones that said all the work had to be done in that 20 years while Khufu was in power. They pretty much have to if they want to give Khufu sole credit as they do.

Egyptologists dont tell us that the the majority of the material for Pharoh Khufu's tomb was made even before Khufu came to power. If they did that would change the story and it wouldnt have been created in 20 years it would have taken longer.

They tell us this massive workforce worked for some 20 years during his reign on this project not before it.

History Channel's Josh Bernstein

"...Whereas I am just a neophyte, hoping not to miss the metal spike with my sledgehammer. The fact that I'm doing this in front of dozens of seasoned miners doesn't help -- nor does the camera. But it's surprisingly easy to cut these stones cleanly if you have the right tools and technique."

"Pulling the stones, too, is not too hard once you have people, water, a sled, and ropes. I imagine that back in ancient times the "Overseer of the Worksman Who Dragged the Stones" would have been an expert at leveraging and pulling these stones across miles of desert.

"While it's fun to speculate that people may have used sound waves and magnetic alignments to levitate or split the stones, it's nice to know that elbow grease and ingenuity can get the job done, too...

I watched this episode a while back. I think he hit the stone less than 15 times to make a near-perfect split down the side of it. The professional quarry workers that were showing him how to do it were able to use half the blows with the sledgehammer than it took Josh to do. This method, if used, could have sped things up enough to make a glut of stones at the quarry awaiting transportation to the building site.

If there was enough transportation or a quick enough means of getting the blocks to the building site, and if there were several teams setting the stones in their proper orientation at one time, then the 4.5 (approximate) minutes would be feasible.

JDub