Once upon a time I had a whole conversation with a guy about whether the pyramids were made by aliens. He had an issue with the size of the blocks, so I explained how it was likely done-
Local quarry chips the blocks out of the rock, wedging them to fall directly onto rollers (logs).
Workers move rollers from the back of the block to the front while oxen pull the block itself slowly to the pyramid.
Block is slowly driven up a very long, gradual ramp to the work site, where it is wedged into place.
His gotcha response - where did they get the rope? So I had to explain that ropes have existed much longer than nylon.
Someone who thinks rope is a recent invention needs to, in the most literal sense, go touch some tall grass. If he can’t figure it out from there, it’s time to book an appointment at the neurologist’s.
Divide the heaviest block by the number of workers. Give each worker a rope made of ancient materials. It turns out that if you have thousands of workers, each individual only needs to lift 20 lbs. They could walk it in.
Two people can lift more than one? Did aliens bring the advanced mathematics of division to the Egyptians? The secret math only 19th century white men understood.
I was under the impression that they put the blocks on boats and floated them down the Nile to the correct location. If that’s not what they did, that’s what they should have done. Would be way easier than manually pulling the blocks
Yeah actually just last year some researchers found an ancient branch of the Nile running through the giza plateau which explains the location of a lot of monuments:
Once upon a time I had a whole conversation with a guy about whether the pyramids were made by aliens. He had an issue with the size of the blocks, so I explained how it was likely done-
His gotcha response - where did they get the rope? So I had to explain that ropes have existed much longer than nylon.
Someone who thinks rope is a recent invention needs to, in the most literal sense, go touch some tall grass. If he can’t figure it out from there, it’s time to book an appointment at the neurologist’s.
Maybe he could even try beating and twisting the tall grass.
Divide the heaviest block by the number of workers. Give each worker a rope made of ancient materials. It turns out that if you have thousands of workers, each individual only needs to lift 20 lbs. They could walk it in.
Two people can lift more than one? Did aliens bring the advanced mathematics of division to the Egyptians? The secret math only 19th century white men understood.
They got the rope from aliens from another galaxy, and did everything else themselves.
I was under the impression that they put the blocks on boats and floated them down the Nile to the correct location. If that’s not what they did, that’s what they should have done. Would be way easier than manually pulling the blocks
Yeah actually just last year some researchers found an ancient branch of the Nile running through the giza plateau which explains the location of a lot of monuments:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01379-7
That seems likely, now that I think about it. Although those barges must have been absolutely fucking massive.
Sometimes they like to complain about the length of such a ramp being unreasonable, but then they don’t think about it, even for a second: