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Scientists Have an Answer to How the Pyramids Could Have Been Built
- kevincennis 12y ago"Scientists Have an Answer to How the Pyramids Could Have Been Built" would probably be a better title.
- benbreen 12y agoI'd have to agree, it's a slightly misleading title. This part was the most interesting to me: "Notably, few of the many studies were performed by interdisciplinary teams. While both physical scientists and archaeologists have tackled the problem, the divergent sets of skills and interests may have delayed a solution to the mystery." There needs to be a lot more collaboration between scientists and archeologists/historians on questions like this. Experimental archeology is an interesting subset of this, but my impression is that it's been fairly moribund since the 70s and 80s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_archaeology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_archaeology
- dang 12y agoOk, we'll use that here.
- belovedeagle 12y agoTHANK YOU. I'm tired of all this scientistic nonsense showing up on HN: "Stupid Egyptologists couldn't get it right for hundreds of years; scientists forced to step in and solve the mystery with absolute certainty!" was basically how the headline read before.
- tantalor 12y agoDo not confuse "an answer" with "the correct answer".
- mayoff 12y ago“Despite the seemingly obvious answer—tomb art discovered in the 19th century depicts laborers pouring water in front of a block-hauling team—debate over how the pyramids were built is almost as ancient as the pyramids themselves.” In other words, people don't read comments. This is why the best practice is to build self-documenting pyramids.
- autokad 12y agolol yeah exactly. its quite obvious looking at what they were doing: http://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/el_bersheh/djehoutyhotep/photo/djehoutyhotep_41.jpg http://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/el_bersheh/djehoutyhotep/pho... but it is cute that they 'figured it out with science'.
- lifeisstillgood 12y agoFourth row down, far left, there is a guy standing on the sled pouring blue stuff in front of the sled, with dozens of others pulling the sled he stands on. My guess is that the number of people in the picture will turn out to be exactly the right number needed to pull a full sized replica of the sled And thank you HN - obscure reference to Pyramid tomb art, "oh here is a link to the very image, three minutes later." Gotta love HN ! Edit I expect water pourer was the cushy number right up until the sled got stuck because you poured wrong - whips were probably involved then.
- lstamour 12y agoIt showed up on HN at least once before, different article though. Edit: Ah, see comments elsewhere on this page for links. :)
- roywiggins 12y agoThere was an article on this a while back that Egyptologists had interpreted it as depicting something ceremonial- something like breaking champagne bottles across ships' bows. Having scientific evidence that wetting the sand ahead of the sledges -could- have eased transport is pretty nice evidence that that's what the picture depicts, but without something corroborating its efficacy, it was just a plausible interpretation.
- mz725 12y agofinally
- olivermarks 12y agoSeems implausible given the incredibly precise dimensions of each block - dragging them through wet sand would remove a significant amount of surface area..."The accuracy of the pyramid's workmanship is such that the four sides of the base have an average error of only 58 millimetres in length".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza#History_and_description http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza#History_a...
- bdamm 12y ago58 millimeters is quite a lot. Besides, it's totally reasonable to think that the stones were rough-hewn at the quarry, then refined at the construction site.
- jahewson 12y agoSorry but humans dragging a block of stone through wet sand is going to have almost zero impact on its surface area, especially over the short distances described in the article. The forces needed to significantly erode the stone would be huge, and are inconceivable given the low friction between the block and the wet sand. Not that it matters, because the article is about dragging the blocks through wet sand on sleds - did you even read that?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- zipwitch 12y agoWhat, again? It feels like I hear some variation of this about once a quarter now.
- anigbrowl 12y agoAlmost exactly: http://iop.uva.nl/news-events/content/2014/00/prl-egyptian-pyramids.html http://iop.uva.nl/news-events/content/2014/00/prl-egyptian-p... just blogspam from JSTOR.
- specialp 12y agoThis paper was originally published in Physical Review Letters in April and covered pretty widely by the press back then.
- knd775 12y agoIsn't JSTOR what started the issues for Aaron Swartz? On topic: I read about that probably being how they moved the materials in second grade.
- Dirlewanger 12y agoAny other information about this Dutch team's model? Are they publishing something? Pictures? Who are they? The article could at least provide more information about them...
- specialp 12y agohttp://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.175502 http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112... This is the original article that the APS published in April. Someone posted the PDF here: http://www.slideshare.net/joseluismoreno9235/sliding-friction-on-wet-and-dry-sand http://www.slideshare.net/joseluismoreno9235/sliding-frictio...
- civilian 12y agoI'm not an egyptologist or a physicist. But I've always wondered what happened to the "concrete pyramid" theories. I know that it's only been pushed by Prof. Davidovits but I haven't really heard any proper critiques of it. (I'm not sure if that's because I haven't researched enough or if Davidovits is considered a quack.) Here's a NYtimes link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/africa/23iht-pyramid.1.12259608.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/africa/23iht-pyramid... And the geopolymer institute: http://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids http://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids edit// and the geopolymer papers download page: http://www.geopolymer.org/formulaire/download-articles http://www.geopolymer.org/formulaire/download-articles
- sopooneo 12y agoI have heard this theory before, and I understand it is made by reputable sources. But it's always baffled me. I would have thought even a freshman geology major could tell the difference between a man-made stone and one cut out of natural earth. But then, I don't know any geology.
- anigbrowl 12y agoThey were obviously done with a 3d printer, there's clear evidence of stepping. I'll show myself out.
- Cthulhu_ 12y agoWith 3D printers growing to the size where they can build houses from concrete (right now), I can see our spacefaring offspring in a few hundred years flying to remote planets and 3D printing pyramids.
- lportion 12y agoAre they going to decorate the innards of said pyramids with diagrams of themselves hauling stuff with sledges, water and ropes too?
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- ricardobeat 12y agoThis was news back in April: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2617275/The-mystery-Egyptians-built-pyramids-solved-Researchers-wet-sand-key-movement-huge-stone-blocks.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2617275/The-m... The important part is that they merely proved that the theory of pulling blocks over wet sand makes sense, but not how the pyramids themselves were built (blocks elevated, aligned, etc.).
- Maken 12y agoSo, they were built with enough stone, time, slaves and... water.
- jacobwcarlson 12y agoThe pyramids were not built by slaves, but by hired workers. The workforce generally consisted of farmers during Inundation periods when their farmland was underwater. Edit: I swear I wasn't trying to be pedantic Internet one-up guy. It really was meant in an "Oh hey, that's a very common misconception but the real story is actually more interesting" way, sorry :/
- Maken 12y agoI know they weren't technically slaves, but it's not like they really needed those when the Pharaoh could basically invoke anyone in Egypt to work on his Pyramid.
- eru 12y agoDo we know how much power the Pharaoh had in practice? How absolute was their rule?
- tomsthumb 12y agoThere were effectively living gods. Combing that with any sort of power would mean the peasants probably did whatever they were "asked".
- eru 12y agoI'm not sure what they were allowed to ask in practice. The Chinese Emperors were effectively some kind of living god as well (as where the Japanese Emperors). In practice, their power was limited. Also, before the industrial revolution (or perhaps the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Revolution) states didn't actually have that much influence on the daily lives of people.
- WalterBright 12y agoI remember back in the 1970's all these "mystery" TV shows wondering how the South American Indians could fit blocks of stone so precisely that a knife blade could not be inserted into the gap. Their conclusion, naturally, was that space aliens had done it. (Although this was silly on the face of it, because the rest of the construction was not particularly accurate.) This nonsense persisted until some archaeologist figured out that such a fit could be obtained in about 30 minutes by banging and rubbing the two rocks together, and demonstrated this on camera. That was the last I heard of the South American monuments being built by space aliens. I figure most of the ancient construction puzzles would be head-smackingly obvious if we just saw what they were doing. We often mistake primitive societies for being stupid, when in fact they were remarkably clever in finding solutions within the severe limitations of their technology.
- bithive123 12y agoThose TV specials are still being produced: http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/articles/ancient-alien-theory http://www.history.com/shows/ancient-aliens/articles/ancient...
- scoot 12y ago> some archaeologist figured out that such a fit could be obtained in about 30 minutes by banging and rubbing the two rocks together Remind me how much the rocks weighed?
- WalterBright 12y agoIf you have a way of lifting the rocks and setting them atop each other, you can use the method. Just use a lighter "proxy" rock to bang on the heavier one, test fit, bang on the high spots, test fit, bang on the high spots, test fit, etc., until it is as accurate as you like. There also turn out to be sites where this work was in progress when it was abandoned. So feel free to believe in space aliens if you like :-) I subscribe to the notion that the simplest explanation is the most likely.
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- thisnewmaka 12y agoyou know who else had an answer ... the egyptians
- thisnewmaka 12y agoyou konw who else had the answer .... egyptians
- shliachtx 12y ago> If people from all walks of life can come together to build a monument that stands for 4000 years, then academics from different disciplines can come together to study them. Something tells me the laborers who built the pyramids weren't working voluntarily...
- eric_the_read 12y agoThe source for the idea of the pyramids being built by slaves was most likely Herodotus, who was probably more than a tad biased, being Greek. The evidence I've seen, from articles such as this one from the Deseret News ( http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705357902/New-Egypt-find-indicates-slaves-didnt-build-pyramids.html?pg=all http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705357902/New-Egypt-find-... ) and the Scientific American Frontiers show Dead Men's Tales ( http://www.pbs.org/saf/1203/segments/1203-4.htm http://www.pbs.org/saf/1203/segments/1203-4.htm ) indicate that the people who built the pyramids were most likely volunteers, most of whom showed up, did the equivalent of their national service for a few years, and went home.
- jqm 12y agoProbably the workers were paid rather than enslaved.... '''An inscription on a tomb of a priest judge buried near the pyramid builders city read: “I paid them in beer and bread, and I made them make an oath that they were satisfied.''' http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub365/item1932.html http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub365/item1932.html
- Houshalter 12y agoI had read that they probably used milk instead of water as it would make a better lubricant.
- damian2000 12y agoIts pretty similar to how some tsunamis manages to wreak havoc in low lying towns ... a small initial wave inundates the area with a few centimetres of floodwater, paving the way for the following large surge, which encounters little friction due to the existing water.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- amrek 12y agoA french architect named Jean-Pierre Houdin has arguably cracked the method by which the pyramids were constructed back in 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTgxGJfXRQ0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTgxGJfXRQ0 You'd think, that out of all the disciplines of human knowledge, an architect would have been consulted on the puzzle of the pyramids' construction much earlier, but this is surprisingly not the case. I mean, who better to help decipher how something was built then a person who designs structures?
- Thimothy 12y agoProbably an engineer. After all, architects design buildings but, usually, they have nothing to do with the calculations and construction methods employed to build their design.
- amrek 12y ago"Engineer" is a very generic term for a wide variety of fields. An architect is actually a specific type of engineer who not only designs buildings but also plans their construction. This requires intimate knowledge of the materials used; e.g. how long they will last, the forces they can withstand, etc., and you can bet there is a great deal of geometric calculations involved. You are mistaken if you believe an architect is simply a fancy term for "graphic design artist for buildings". Architects don't simply put onto paper whatever comes to mind without a care for practicality. After all, if it can't be built, you'd be out of a job very quickly.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- PSeitz 12y agoThis is not news, I saw this in a documentary several years ago.
- gpvos 12y agoDebunked. (Although I can only find this in Dutch at the moment.) https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dayralbarsha.com%2Fnode%2F184&edit-text= https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=y&prev... Original Dutch: http://www.dayralbarsha.com/node/184 http://www.dayralbarsha.com/node/184
- jplur 12y agoAs an art handler, I've a theory that they placed thick blankets under the blocks and pulled the blankets. You'd be amazed at what a couple of people can pull with a blanket.
- lurkinggrue 12y agoThey had massive whips, Rimmer. Massive, massive whips.