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Great pyramid of Giza -- Could we rebuild it?

Nathyn

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I was arguing with a creationist, and they claimed that humanity is becoming less advanced as an argument against evolution. They cited the well-known linguistics study a while back in which asserted that human language overall is becoming less complex.

I rebutted this claim by citing some of the recent modern advances: a photo of the Manhattan skyline, the ITER reactor, a defense robot by the Pentagon, and a chart of Moore's law.

He responded by claiming that we couldn't rebuild the Great Pyramid of Giza, because we couldn't cut and arrange stones with their same amount of precision.

Now, I've looked and I can't find any exact information on this... I have found some sources claiming that their sculpting and arranging of stones was more advanced than modern technology.

Is this true?

Three things to consider:

#1. Similar claims have been made about the stone spheres of Costa Rica, the Nazca lines, and crop circles, but this has been conclusively proven wrong by people making duplicates (often miniatures) of the originals... I'm thinking this is just another case.

#2. Would thousands of years of erosion (mostly from sandstorms) cause the stones to fit together more tightly?

#3. Couldn't they achieve almost a perfect fit by shoving rock that's too large against the hole you're trying to fill, scraping the corners repeatedly, until it fits?

And while we're on the subject: Anybody have any theories as to how they moved the stones used to construct the Moai and Stonehenge?
 
We can make bricks so they are all the same. The only reason we cannot build such things as the Pyramids now is that there is no need. In those days they had access to lots of cheap labour.

To move large blocks of stone you can use straight pieces of logs for wheels plus lots of cheap labour. Another method is to use water as lubricant, plus lots of cheap labour.
 
I would agree we can and have the technological means to do so but why would we? A pyramid takes up too much space. It might be more aerodynamic, if it is, but the land required would be better served to build three smaller structures than one large.

That said one large may serve a multitude of purposes that might be as beneficial.
 
This is one of the silly claims made by verious brands of believers: We couldn't build the pyramids today, so this means that humans are degrading/aliens built them/there were great lost technologies/they were made by magic/etc.

Of course we could build the pyramids today, especially if we were allowed to use modern technology (recruiting the necessary manpower to build them the old way might prove an insurmountable obstacle). It is a huge but fairly simple engineering task. If anybody doubts this, I have an offer for you: If you provide the funding, I'll build you a pyramid (manage the building project).

... And herein lies the trouble: It is virtually impossible to build a pyramid (in the scale of the Giza pyramids) today, because nobody will foot a multiple billion $ bill for something as uniquely useless as a pyramid.

Hans
 
Big pyramids look very impressive but they are in terms of technology required to build them and architecturally very simple structures. All they are is a shaped, pretty much solid, mound of stones.

ETA - and yes at one time we didn't have a very good idea how (for example) the Egyptian pyramids were built but today there really isn't much controversy.
 
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Hans is right. This is hooey.

Technology changes because new methods supercede old ones. This may be because the new method is superior technically or better economically.
How did the Egyptians build pyramids? By using large numbers of skilled stonemasons and lots of cheap labour.
If we built one today, we would use glass , steel , cranes and helicopters.

There's nothing exceptional about the quality of the stonework in the pyramids. The tolerances are far cruder than in Victorian buildings- and greatly inferior to the work in some mediaeval cathedrals.




This website http://www.theforgottentechnology.com/Page1.htm may impress your friend. It shows methods used by a retired American carpenter to show how megalithic builders could have moved large stones without power tools. His methods may not be the ones used, but he clearly demonstrates that such methods exist.
 
Like this one:
61894166_d7066f4d49.jpg


(The local story is that to reduce costs they altered the design to make it a stepped pyramid.)
 
The thing is, though, is that they precisely cut and arranged rock in ways that were superior to what we know we can do with primitive tools... So, how'd they do it?

Wikipedia says:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_Of_Giza#Construction_theories

The passages inside the pyramid are all extremely straight and precise, such that the longest of them, referred to as the descending passage, which is 350' 0.25" long deviates from being truly straight by less than 0.25 inches, while one of the shorter passages with a length of just over 150 feet deviates from being truly straight by a mere 0.020 inches. These and the above statistics prove the pyramid to be literally the most accurately constructed building on the face of the earth despite having been created several millennia ago. All theories which sufficiently allow for this level of accuracy assume a level of technology approximately equal to or exceeding current technology, at least in the area of tool making and construction.
Click to expand...
 
I wish I had video taped the documentary I saw a while back on pyramids. They mentioned some that collapsed during construction. They also mentioned another that is crooked because the foundations shifted during construction, so the architects change the angles of the walls so that it didn't collapse.

The most interesting part, though, was the claim that the pyramids only look cool on the outside, and around the rooms and hallways. The guys doing the documentary claimed that the largest part of the volume of the pyramids is just rubble - boulders and the scraps left from trimming the nice stones. They built the interior walls and the outside walls of properly dressed and set stones, and filled the space between with packed junk. They had a nifty animation about it, as well as some footage of a section of a collapsed pyramid wall that clearly showed the rubble filling inside the neat walls.

Regardless, if there were need to do so a pyramid could be built that could match any of the existing ones.

There's no real mystery as to how they were built - loads of hard work by very determined people. The exact methods aren't known, but as someone else has posted there are ways to move heavy loads by hand - and more than one way to accomplish almost any task.

If a pyramid were to be built today, I'd expect a combination of different heavy machines to be used in moving the stones rather than throwing thousands of laborers at the job.
 
*chuckle*

Well, in the OP, you didn't say 'today with their tools.' You said 'we couldn't cut and arrange the stones with the same amount of precison.' Well, actually, it would probably be difficult to build that sloppy what with laser levels and whatnot.

In other words, we could do a far, far better job than they did. As Hans said, fund me, and I will build it. I'll build a pyramid that's twice the size and far more precise in the middle of freaking Illinois.

Erm....but you fund it..:p
 
Nathyn said:
The thing is, though, is that they precisely cut and arranged rock in ways that were superior to what we know we can do with primitive tools... So, how'd they do it?

Wikipedia says:

The passages inside the pyramid are all extremely straight and precise, such that the longest of them, referred to as the descending passage, which is 350' 0.25" long deviates from being truly straight by less than 0.25 inches, while one of the shorter passages with a length of just over 150 feet deviates from being truly straight by a mere 0.020 inches. These and the above statistics prove the pyramid to be literally the most accurately constructed building on the face of the earth despite having been created several millennia ago. All theories which sufficiently allow for this level of accuracy assume a level of technology approximately equal to or exceeding current technology, at least in the area of tool making and construction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_Of_Giza#Construction_theories
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I can think of a couple of ways to get that accuracy, using nothing but the tools they would have had to hand.

The most obvious is to set a slightly oversized stone intentionally with a slight overhang, then trim and dress it to fit perfectly.
 
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The Wiki quote:
The passages inside the pyramid are all extremely straight and precise, such that the longest of them, referred to as the descending passage, which is 350' 0.25" long deviates from being truly straight by less than 0.25 inches, while one of the shorter passages with a length of just over 150 feet deviates from being truly straight by a mere 0.020 inches. These and the above statistics prove the pyramid to be literally the most accurately constructed building on the face of the earth despite having been created several millennia ago. All theories which sufficiently allow for this level of accuracy assume a level of technology approximately equal to or exceeding current technology, at least in the area of tool making and construction.
Click to expand...

This is rubbish. The precision of modern bridges etc. is much higher, and we have tools that can provide precisions several orders of magnitude better, so that part is simply false. Also, I suspect the information is false, especially the .02 inch figure. Alone erosion by age would make for a poorer surface definition of sandstone than that. Nevertheless, it doesn't take advanced instruments to achieve such precision.

Hans
 
Darat said:
Like this one: [qimg]http://farm1.static.flickr.com/31/61894166_d7066f4d49.jpg?v=0[/qimg]

(The local story is that to reduce costs they altered the design to make it a stepped pyramid.)
Click to expand...

Heh, I was just about to post that, my mum works in that building.
 
MRC_Hans said:
The Wiki quote:


This is rubbish. The precision of modern bridges etc. is much higher, and we have tools that can provide precisions several orders of magnitude better, so that part is simply false. Also, I suspect the information is false, especially the .02 inch figure. Alone erosion by age would make for a poorer surface definition of sandstone than that. Nevertheless, it doesn't take advanced instruments to achieve such precision.

Hans
Click to expand...
The channel tunnel rail link was built wwith an accuracy of ±25 mm horizontally and ±20 mm vertically. If it was built with the accuracy of the decending passage descriped above it would have been up to 10 foot out.
 
I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that the great pyramid was a few feet longer along one base length than along the adjoining one.

Didn't Eric Von Danniken (sp?) make claims like these about the pyramids? (The man who counted artistic depictions of skeletons as proof that aliens visited us, because how could ancient humans know what a skeleton looked like before x-rays?)

At any rate, could the ancients build a laser printer? A ballpoint pen? Launch men into space, fer chrissakes?
 
Heard another story way back, it was probably that one that started me out on scepticis'm. One of my teachers told about this man who had calcluated the measurements of the great pyramid. He had discoveret that phi could be found in all numbers (sidelenght = nnn*phi) and i thought wow, these ancient egyptians knew about Phytagoras & Co long before they were born. But then it dawned. If you use a wheel to make your measurements and that would have been a logical tool for them then phi IS present in all measurements.
Ohh well natural explanations are SO boring..

Actually they didn't build them off course, The pyramids was buildt by some Gauls with the gelp of the magic potion made by the famous druid Getafix.
 

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Sure we could build pyramids now if we wanted to, it is just that no one wants to spend tens of millions of dollars to make something that would be nothing more than the world's largest mausoleum.

Anyway, the main thing that bothers me so much about the pyramid guys is that seem to think that one day the Egyptians just woke up and decided to start building these huge pyramids. But what actually happened, is that the Egyptians started with very small tombs, then over the course of some 15 centuries, they gradually made them larger and larger, until the huge pyramids were the result. And apparently, they learned a great deal in the interim.

Such as, watch the angle and supporting materials, otherwise the pyramid may collapse.
Such as, make sure that the quarry used to produce the stones used to build the pyramid, can actually be shipped to the site of its construction.
Such as, build a ramp to make it easier to huff the stones to the job site.
Such as, use the organization and resources of a wealthy dictatorship to make it all happen within the lifetime of the pharaoh who is commissioning the job.
And so on.
 
Nathyn, I am no expert on the Pyramids (someone page Joshua Korsoi), but I have stood on the Great Pyramid (twice) and been inside the smallest of the three Giza Pyramids (along with visiting the Step Pyramid at Shakkra). So I can speak with a small amount of knowledge.

The stones are not perfect fits and show where the stonemasons and folks at the site had to do some interesting fitting and arrangements to get the thing to fit right. I'll try to download some of my pictures once I get home.

A massive achievement, a Wonder of the World, but nothing that intelligent people working together (it is now generally accepted in archeology that the Pyramids were not built by slave labor and that the workers were well-fed and looked after) to create a monument for their leader. And doing it using tools that were at hand and a brain that is not inferior to yours or mine.

IMHO of course.
 
luxordw7.jpg


What about this one? This is the best Pyramid yet, you can gamble inside this one (and get drunk for free).
 
I personally think the Luxor is one of the best-looking of the Vegas Casinos. I could do without the sphinx on front, but the simple pyramid with the mega-light on top is neat. When I was in Vegas for an interview (with Budcat Creations) the guy said that you can see the light reflect from the moon when it passes over in exactly the right spot. Not sure if that's true, but it is certainly a REALLY bright light!
 
As promised, a few shots of the pyramids, taken in 2004 by yours truly..

This is The Great Pyramid at Giza. Note that the stones are far from uniform and that the fitwas not always the best...

192045d234acc6a46.jpg


192045d234ad5beaf.jpg



The next three are from the Step Pyramid, an older one that, on a clear day, you can see from Giza (A clear day in Cairo..HA!)

Note the size of the stones in comparison with the Giza ones (the Step Pyramid pre-dates the Giza ones by about 80-100 years, IIRC) and how thefit is no more "perfect" that the Giza ones. But the evolution from Step to Giza is pretty clear.

IMHO as always...

192045d234adc0b9e.jpg


192045d234cf03f7b.jpg


192045d234cf7538b.jpg
 
Hutch said:
As promised, a few shots of the pyramids, taken in 2004 by yours truly..

This is The Great Pyramid at Giza. Note that the stones are far from uniform and that the fitwas not always the best...

(Cool pics deleted)

The next three are from the Step Pyramid, an older one that, on a clear day, you can see from Giza (A clear day in Cairo..HA!)

Note the size of the stones in comparison with the Giza ones (the Step Pyramid pre-dates the Giza ones by about 80-100 years, IIRC) and how thefit is no more "perfect" that the Giza ones. But the evolution from Step to Giza is pretty clear.

IMHO as always...

(Cool pics deleted)
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Kinda blows the "accuracy" woo out of the water.
 
MortFurd said:
Kinda blows the "accuracy" woo out of the water.
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Well bear in mind that the pyramids originally was covered with white limestone, a bit of this can be seen on top of the great pyramid. The inhabitans of Cairo has however used most of it for housebuilding (back BC i guess). The pyramids would have looke vastly different during King Tut & Co. :)
 
I think the question is: could the egyptians have built the golden gate bridge otr the empire state building?

Obviously not. So their alien help or magic clearly was pretty crap. I mean, some guys can travel light years but the best they can offer is how to make a pointless pile of stones to bury dead people in at the cost of thousands of lives. Gee I hope they come back soon.
 
Ove said:
Well bear in mind that the pyramids originally was covered with white limestone, a bit of this can be seen on top of the great pyramid. The inhabitans of Cairo has however used most of it for housebuilding (back BC i guess). The pyramids would have looke vastly different during King Tut & Co.
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Yes; the original effect from any kind of distance would have been of very straight, uniform, polished white sides. So not only could the squared blocks have been dressed in-situe, but the casing stones would have to have been. Rather easier to control the final shape when you consider this. There are South American stone walls made with simple tools that you can't fit a knife between; ancient masons were extremely skilled, extremely patient, and extremely motivated. Doesn't mean they were Xenu's poker buddies.

This is also very interesting re the blocks behind the facade:

http://www.cycle-of-time.net/Radiocarbon.htm
Apparently this pyramid (Khafre), along with the Great Pyramid, (which is even bigger) had gypsum mortar "slopped" on all these stones to "level, align and bond the stones". From Mark Lehner's 1995-6 report, we read that,

"The cores of the giant Giza Pyramids were built with great quantities of gypsum mortar slopped between the stones that the builders set with far less precision than the fine masonry of the outer casing."
Click to expand...
 
I haven't read all the replies, so apologies if this has already been pointed out, but the obvious response that that creationist canard is that 1) evolution does not require steadily increasing complexity, because there may be circumstances (see, e.g., cave fish) in which a less complex design has a survival advantage, and 2) in any event, "degradation" of human culture, even if real (and it's probably fair to say that there have at least been historical periods of decline and revitalization, regardless of whether we are currently in a period of decline) has nothing whatsoever to do with the biological complexity with which the theory of evolution concerns itself. So whether we could or could not rebuild the pyramid of Giza today is entirely irrelevant to the validity of the theory of biological evolution.
 
MRC_Hans said:
This is rubbish. The precision of modern bridges etc. is much higher, and we have tools that can provide precisions several orders of magnitude better, so that part is simply false. Also, I suspect the information is false, especially the .02 inch figure.
Click to expand...

given that the source was:

The Giza Power plant: technologies of ancient Egypt, by Christopher Dunn. published 1998 by Bear and company Pages 49 - 66

that seeems likely.
 
I don't get it. Those Egyptians were all HEATHENS. They can't have been superior to CHRISTIANS. They're all burning in HELL; have been for 4,000+ years.

They were pretty straight-laced heathens, too, probably rather more so than the majority of Christians today. Something's not right here.
 
Good craftsmen

Beeng a newbee I'm browsing through the forum and found this thread. Had to reply since I also visited the pyramids of Giza (heartely recommended). As shown by hutch's picturies, the accuracy of the main building blocks are.. not really that great. However in the main burrial chamber, there have been some crafty stonemasons at work. (I'm not allowed to post pictures yet). Very impressive, but nothing a master stonemason couldn't reproduce today. The pyramidiots have a lot in common with crop-circle believers. They all obviously flunked in geometry and never discovered what you could do with some simple string and a ruler (and some water in the case of the pyramids).
 
Panhead56 said:
Beeng a newbee I'm browsing through the forum and found this thread. Had to reply since I also visited the pyramids of Giza (heartely recommended). As shown by hutch's picturies, the accuracy of the main building blocks are.. not really that great. However in the main burrial chamber, there have been some crafty stonemasons at work. (I'm not allowed to post pictures yet). Very impressive, but nothing a master stonemason couldn't reproduce today. The pyramidiots have a lot in common with crop-circle believers. They all obviously flunked in geometry and never discovered what you could do with some simple string and a ruler (and some water in the case of the pyramids).
Click to expand...

Aaaannnnd don't forget Getafix and his magic potion ;)
 
Nathyn said:
I was arguing with a creationist, and they claimed that humanity is becoming less advanced as an argument against evolution. They cited the well-known linguistics study a while back in which asserted that human language overall is becoming less complex.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I missed this the first time through the thread.

What "well-known linguistics study"? No reputable linguist would make such a claim; few reputable linguists would consider the question to be amenable to study -- and the few who have studied such things, people like McWhorter, Juola, and Karlsson, have come to exactly the opposite conclusion.


I'd appreciate it if you could give me the citation he used....
 
MortFurd said:
The most interesting part, though, was the claim that the pyramids only look cool on the outside, and around the rooms and hallways. The guys doing the documentary claimed that the largest part of the volume of the pyramids is just rubble - boulders and the scraps left from trimming the nice stones. They built the interior walls and the outside walls of properly dressed and set stones, and filled the space between with packed junk.
Click to expand...

To the best of my knowledge, the Egyptian pyramids were all built of solid stone blocks of varying sizes. The technique you describe was used in the construction of the Mayan pyramids. The Mayan pyramids were also built bigger and bigger. They'd start with a small pyramid, decide they wanted to make it bigger, and build a new shell around the old one. Some of the pyramids have up to 7 earlier pyramids inside them.
 
Could we rebuild it?

Gentlemen, we can rebuild [it], we have the technology. We have the capability to make the worlds first Bionic [pyramid]. [The Great Pyramid of Giza] will be that [pyramid]. Better than [it] was before. Better. Stronger. Faster.
 
Ove said:
Heard another story way back, it was probably that one that started me out on scepticis'm. One of my teachers told about this man who had calcluated the measurements of the great pyramid. He had discoveret that phi could be found in all numbers (sidelenght = nnn*phi) and i thought wow, these ancient egyptians knew about Phytagoras & Co long before they were born. But then it dawned. If you use a wheel to make your measurements and that would have been a logical tool for them then phi IS present in all measurements.
Ohh well natural explanations are SO boring..

Actually they didn't build them off course, The pyramids was buildt by some Gauls with the gelp of the magic potion made by the famous druid Getafix.
Click to expand...

I think you meant "pi". Phi, the golden ratio, is a different number entirely.

I seem to recall a Nova special where some engineers decided to build a (miniature) pyramid using only the technology of the day. It was very interesting.
 
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