this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
175 points (93.1% liked)

World News

38578 readers
2224 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Believe it or not, no aliens were likely involved! Just some very smart humans and a massive amount of labor.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

For the record we do understand how they built it.

They used log rollers, ropes and lots and lots of people hauling. They brute forced it… which, the reason our trucks can’t haul that much has far more to do with the weight on the suspension and fuel efficiency. They said fuck-all to efficiency and literally threw bodies at it.

That said, We do sometimes need much heavier loads

It’s a fairly common solution- the Moai heads on Rapa Nui (easter island) and stone henge also come to mind. In the case of Egypt, they used a sled (or sled and rollers.)

For getting it up the face, they used packed earth ramps that they later removed. Actually, we still use this technique in construction today. (Specifically to get vehicle access up otherwise too-steep slopes)(and again, threw bodies at it. Lots and lots of bodies.)

There’s really only a few things that are impressive about the pyramids. The first is the sheer ego it took to order it built. Then there is the celestial alignment between all of them. And finally the sheer scale of the project and vast amounts of human labor that went into it.

What they determined is that the river allowed the blocks to be floated much closer than previously thought (even today barges are superior to trains, never mind trucking.)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I lot of people look at this and say its just too much material for it to have happened.

But we know of projects that have used more man power. The London to Birmingham railway line took 5 years to build and moved more material than the great pyramid and we know exactly how that was done. The size of individual pieces does add complication, but the absolute quantity and manpower is not unexplainable.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, it's a failure of imagination, probably combined with wanting to believe.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if there’s a bit of not wanting to believe what people can accomplish if a massive number of us all teamed up to do something.

Because then they’d feel guilty for not getting up out of their armchair and going to support whatever cause they claim they’re supporting from the comfort of home.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Armchair activism is indeed a scourge.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There's a new theory that the ramps were actually internal. I like it because it means they don't need to bring a lot of extra material and manpower to the site just for the ramps since they're built into the structure of the same material.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I've also heard of this. It seems to me that this theory should be easy to confirm with some sort x-ray or radar or lidar or something, so that we can see the shape of the structure beneath the superficial layers...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

We do sometimes need much heavier loads

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

They said fuck-all to efficiency and literally threw bodies at it.

Well, given that they didn't have trucks, that's a little unfair. Animals or people with ropes was the most efficient solution.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I swear that I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I have a lot of doubts.

What kind of ropes and wooden sleds, manufactured in 4000 BC, can move 80 ton stones? There are tensile limits...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

So, each rope only needs to be too strong for the individual worker to snap. Obviously, that's pretty easy, even with the worst natural fiber cordage - fibers are strong. Then they meet in some way, and ultimately attach to the wooden sled. The exact math for that is not straightforward, and we don't really know how they tied it off, but it's not an unusual amount of load for a large wooden structure. Assuming the sled measured 100 meters^2^ (80 tons was a special block worthy of an oversize sled), that works out to less than a ton per square meter, and a tree with 1m^2^ cross section at the trunk can weigh several tons without even considering the wind load on the foliage, which will be larger yet for most species.

80 tons is a lot, but it's not a lot a lot. Thousands of tons are pretty common if you're talking about ships, for example. Even the wooden ones; honestly wood is an underrated material.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I don't know any specifics, but a bunch of ropes divides the force on each one. A bunch of ropes, plus people pushing from behind, would probably be enough force to overcome static friction without exceeding tensile limits on any one rope.

[–] VirtualOdour 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah people really forget how recent an invention good rope is, It's not like they could just order a few hundred meters on ebay. Making all that rope would probably be more effort and expense than a lot of the stuff that people write of as too complex for them to have considered, like temporary canals or raise and drop sledding.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Rope braiding is pretty fast. Especially if you're an ancient Egyptian woman who's done it full time for decades. They had hemp, which is the same stuff that rigged up the giant sailing ships of later on in history.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You’re right, I s’pose.

But it gets back to… was it really worth doing? It’s a monument to a single man’s ego.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Well, what else are you supposed to do when you're overlord of the only empire in the known world? Something for the peasants? /s

Yeah, sorry, that was just a nitpick. All the rest I agree with.