Why not try to build an exact copy of the Great Pyramid, stone for stone, with today's tech?

I was thinking about this last night. How much would it cost? I would think a lot less than the sports stadiums being built today. Somebody like Steve Wynn could build one in Las Vegas and once finished it would bring in tourist dollars and pay for itself eventually.

The real intent here though would be to see how long it would take, how much labor and how accurately we could copy it, with today's technology of course. There is definite scientific and historical value here. A lot of questions could be answered.

Then there's the other side of the coin which would be our inability to recreate it, opening up a Pandora's Box. Sabotage and cessation of funding would soon occur in order to save face and a false history.

Peace

Nah, would'nt work. They'd never be able to get enough Hebrew slaves. Oh, that's right you said "with today's technology"

I nominate Pres. Dubya as the first to be buried within.




[edit on 11/28/2006 by Mechanic 32]

Originally posted by Dr Love
...The real intent here though would be to see how long it would take, how much labor and how accurately we could copy it, with today's technology of course. ...

How could you know how long it took to build if you would use 'today's technology of course', you'll need to have the slaves also...
or the aliens...

The point being with today's technology would only be to see if it could be done, even with the help of modern tech, that's all.

And BTW, I'm not just talking about the outside, I'm talking about all the inner passageways and rooms as well.

Peace

To answer the original question, I have only two words: Insufficient motivation.

Further elaboration:
Pharoah was not only king, but he was the living incarnation of a god & related to several other gods through his divinity...Egyptians didn't believe in a "single creation" as we moderns do, but creation was constantly renewed (The sun rising everyday, the regular innundation of the Nile River, etc). Therefore, Pharoah was very concerned about his afterlife & such tomb-structures were built for the purpose to continually "renew" Pharoah's existence in the afterlife.

Even for Pharoah & Egypt on the whole, it was religion that provided the motivation, but it must have still been a huge strain on the national economy to accomplish structures on the scale of the Giza Pyramids.

More on this over in here, somewhere in the page 20-30 range...

Nahhh has been tried and didn't work out. As far as I can remember a japanese team tried to build not a replika but just to move and place together few rocks 5 ton each with the "same method" ancient egyptians "used" to build the pyramids. And of course was a total failure. They couldn't even lift the rocks, forget putting them together fit and tight.
As for the use of our days technology I don't think somebody will attempt to do that. To expensive. Besides to lift rocks that wheight 200 tons you need a huge crane and today in the world there are only 4 cranes capable of lifting such wheight.

So just leave egyptologist in their beautiful dream of the Pyramids beign build with bare handes, woods and ropes

p.s. Of course this is my personal opinion.!!!

Originally posted by Telos
... Besides to lift rocks that wheight 200 tons you need a huge crane and today in the world there are only 4 cranes capable of lifting such wheight. ...

Want ot buy one? They are around for some time and not so uncommon:

www.oil-net.com...

(search for Manitowoc Vicon Lift Crane, lifting capacity 200ton)

Good question Dr.

To further peak the mind......

Maybe thats what the current pyramids actually are...a " copy of something else ".

This could be one big deja vu, the whole reasons the pyramids came to be in the first place.

In trying to copy something they had seen previously, they had three attempts before *insert outcome here* ( failing and giving up / succeeding & no need to go further ).


Of course with this hypotenuse, it only creates another question... where did they see it originally

Great pyramid took 20 years to build and had 2 million stone blocks.
Working 24 hours a day 7 days a week you would need to quarry, cut, transport and set into place 11.4155 stone blocks every hour of the day for 20 years.

Some of the stone blocks were quarried some 500 miles from the pyramid. So they would need to be cut, transported 500 miles and set into place in one hour to have the pyramid completed in 20 years.

Sounds impossible to me.

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by Grailkeeper
...In trying to copy something they had seen previously, they had three attempts before *insert outcome here* ( failing and giving up / succeeding & no need to go further ).
...

Why 3 attempts?

If it's related to the Egyptians, they built quite a substantial number of piramids.

Originally posted by jmlima
Why 3 attempts?

Before the 3 Giza Pyramids there were the (at least) 3 attempts to build the first Egyptian pyramids by Snefru...He was the father (yes, direct bloodline) of the 3 succeeding Pharoahs who built the Giza Pyramids. Snefru had to do it so many times because of architectual problems that needed to be solved: No one before had tried to build such pyramids with large cut-stone blocks on such a scale, so Snefru got it figured out mostly by "trial-n-error" method.

As I've said already, there's more info about the Giza Pyramids at the link I've posted earlier.

I have seen the best architects say that the pyramids are more complex then any stucture we have today.


Of course don't start bashing on me if you don't agree, bash one of the best architect in the world, that was on the doccumentary about the pyramids.

You can rule out ever trying this in the US!
Can you just imagine trying to get those designs approved by a structural engineer?
Can you just imagine trying to get permits issued given today's bureaucracy?
And forget about OSHA! They would shut down the jobsite in a heartbeat.

Heck, there are hoards of protesters every time a Super-Wal-Mart is proposed.

When they get the Pyramid done maybe someone can build an exact replica of Noah's Ark. If you put them side by side it would be amazing.


Cool Idea though!



[edit on 28-11-2006 by Sparky63]

Oh, they built one already.

It's bigger than the Great Pyramid (same basic dimensions) and the blocks fit together more tightly. They didn't build the interior as a solid (which is easy). Instead it's filled with rooms.

It cost $375 million to build, took a little over two years, and features a full-scale replica of Tut's tomb inside.

It's called the Luxor Hotel and resort, and it's in Las Vegas.

Originally posted by MidnightDStroyer

Originally posted by jmlima
Why 3 attempts?

Before the 3 Giza Pyramids there were the (at least) 3 attempts to build the first Egyptian pyramids by Snefru..

Actually, more than 3 attempts. There are over 100 pyramids in Egypt, most of them older than the Giza bunch.

Originally posted by Byrd
Actually, more than 3 attempts. There are over 100 pyramids in Egypt, most of them older than the Giza bunch.

Well, technically, yes...
But before Snefru, were some "step pyramids", which evolved out of the "mustaba" style...In turn which came from stone-covered mounds, which started below ground & eventually came above ground.

But if you look south of Egypt, into Nubia, you'll also find that they kept pyramid building (though not on such a grand scale) alive for over a thousand years after the Middle Kingdom had pretty much given up on the grand pyramid building during the 4th Dynasty.


Good point about the Pyramid in Las Vegas...I'd forgotten about that one. The main difference between the Hotel & the Giza structures is that Pharoah never never built his pyramids for the purpose of raking in profit. That does have an effect on motivation though...Also a good way to offset the enormous cost & labor for building it in the first place!
Greed does run as a close second to religion for motivation...


[edit on 29-11-2006 by MidnightDStroyer]

Originally posted by Mechanic 32
Nah, would'nt work. They'd never be able to get enough Hebrew slaves.

Oh, that's right you said "with today's technology"

I nominate Pres. Dubya as the first to be buried within.

[edit on 11/28/2006 by Mechanic 32]

the great pyramid was built before abraham

i'm going to have to start denying this ignorance

1: the great pyramids came well before the hebrew faith

2: the great pyramids weren't built with slave labor, the laborers were farmers in the off-season and regular citizens working for someone they believed to be a god

3: there is actually no evidence that the hebrew people in egypt were enslaved, the only place where we have documentation of it is in the bible

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul


3: there is actually no evidence that the hebrew people in egypt were enslaved, the only place where we have documentation of it is in the bible

I beg to differ. I distinctly remember Charlton Heston leading the Hebrew slaves out of Eqypt.

THe historian HErodotus alludes to the use of slave labor in constructing them, but he does not say that the HEbrews were the slaves.

Josephus however, did state that it was the Hebrew slaves who labored to construct them. But this was possibly just a reflection of the traditional belief at the time.

Interestingly, The Bible account in Exodus does not mention anything about the Hebrews building the Pyramids. In fact, there is no mention of Pyramids anywhere in the Bible.

I think if the Hebrews had constructed the Pyramids they would have mentioned quarrying and moving the massive blocks insted of merely making bricks.

herodotus and josephus both came over 2000 years after the construction of the pyramids...

anyway, my 1st point states that the hebrew faith came well after the construction of the pyramids, and the supposed hebrew enslavement came well after the establishment of their faith

I think if the Hebrews had constructed the Pyramids they would have mentioned quarrying and moving the massive blocks insted of merely making bricks

i think if the Hebrews had ever been in Egypt at all they would have mentioned the pyramids wether they built them or not
they certainly didn't waste any time going on about Mesopotamian Ziggurats did they and we know they were there as slaves of the Babylonians