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It is too bad Egypt does not try and restore the external layer the Pyramids had. From ancient text it said the Pyramids would glisten bright from the sun. II
by jmclnx 4y ago
It is too bad Egypt does not try and restore the external layer the Pyramids had. From ancient text it said the Pyramids would glisten bright from the sun.
IIRC, they had a smooth limestone covering that was bright white.
- hammock 4y agoWhen I visited the pyramids, I was so blown away that they were stair-step - and decaying, since I have always seen depictions and imagined them to be smooth-sided. I had to learn that the outer layer was removed (pillaged?)
- cbzbc 4y agoAnd a gold capstone.
- smallnix 4y agoThey are so old, even the damages are of historic value.
- moffkalast 4y agoBecause it's whole lot of effort to make the entire structure appear less authentic? The limestone being removed and used for other buildings around it is part of its history too. Makes most sense to just preserve it as-is as much as possible and stop it from deteriorating further.
- zelphirkalt 4y agoConservator restoring things to their original state take great pains and sometimes use the original methods. I imagine that to be infeasible for the pyramids. Doing it differently would be changing the original thing. On the other hand it could serve to protect what still remains of the pyramids.
- jfengel 4y agoI think "bright" is relative. There are plenty of limestone structures in the world, including some modern-built pyramids (of much less grand scale). Limestone is soft and porous and will never glisten the way marble does. It would have been very impressive, to be sure. But I don't think it's going to match the experience you have in mind. Since any such modern facing would completely hide all of the authentic material, you might as well just build a completely modern structure elsewhere. With modern building techniques it wouldn't take all that long.
- methodin 4y agoThat would actually be a pretty amazing thing to recreate the pyramids relatively close by as modern structures and replicate it so people could experience everything in it.
- jfengel 4y agoThere's not really anything inside a pyramid. It's just a pile of rocks. There are a few chambers, but you don't need the entire pile of rocks for people to experience those. If you want to stand inside a big pyramid shape made of modern materials, you can go to Las Vegas. From inside it looks like any other building, though I suppose the rooms with the slanting windows are faintly neat.
- justinator 4y ago>It's just a pile of rocks So the outer sides of the pyramid are these very precise steps with amazing accurancy, and it's just filled in (where there aren't chambers) with... piles of rocks?
- dekhn 4y agoI don't think that's correct. They are filled with rough-cut core blocks that are backfilled with small amounts of rubble.
- saalweachter 4y agoI've wondered if you could build a stone pyramid -- using modern machinery -- financed as a time capsule. For $X dollars, you can pay to have a cubic foot of stuff interred in the pyramid, for future historians to find. If a pyramid-sized pyramid can hold Y such lots, can you sell enough to pay for the construction? It doesn't have to be anywhere specific, just pick a spot that's relatively dry and has appropriate stone nearby. Run it as a tourist trap afterwards to pay for whatever ongoing costs are needed to keep people from disassembling it for raw materials.
- 4y ago
- detourdog 4y agoThey don't know what tools were used... or really much else. The pyramids and most ancient architecture is what you see is what you get. How or why can't be answered. Much less what the result looked like.