Usimare Setepenre Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The amount of work necessary to quarry, cut,
> shape, transport, and haul the stones was
> precisely how the twenty year estimate was arrived
> at. Might I suggest that you read the scholarly
> works of Egyptologists such Mark Kenner and
> Miroslav Verner, as well as Houdin's monograph
> itself if you want to know just how very capable
> it is to build Egypt's many pyramids using copper
> and wooden implements, manpower, and ramps. There
> is even some evidence in the form of ox bones
> which suggests draught animals may have played
> some role in hauling the stones, which would have
> reduced the work load significantly as one ox is
> the equivalent of ten men in strength. Though
> admittedly, the use of large draught animals would
> only have been feasible for the construction of
> the lower third of the Great Pyramid which used
> four external ramps. The corridor for the internal
> ramp would have been too narrow for oxen.

So we replace ten men with one oxen.. How does this solve the logistical problems?
Breeding, feeding, husbandry to name but few.
You're simplistically replacing one problem with another.

You say that your "internal ramp" can only accommodate one oxen, Where is the evidence for your "internal ramp that can only accommodate one oxen" ??
Even if the "one oxen internal ramp" did exist, there's still a major problem with your hypothesis.
Maybe for the return journey the oxen rode a sled down the pyramid side due to the impassable one way traffic in the one oxen internal ramp!
Maybe the oxen were also constant and unending food supply for the men working aloft.
With the productivity of 1 block/three minutes they'd need all the protein and calories they could get!


>
> Regardless, the construction of the Great Pyramid
> within a mere twenty years was more than possible
> for the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom. Some
> scholars have even reduced the amount of time and
> manpower to 10 years and 10,000 men respectively.
> Though this would admittedly seem too low an
> estimate to me personally.

Three million blocks in twenty years equates too...

3,000 000/20 = 150,000 blocks per year.
150,000/52 = 2885 blocks per week.
2885/7 = 412 blocks per day.
412/24 = 17 blocks per hour.
17/60 = 0.286 blocks per minute.

That's about one block every three minutes, twenty four seven for twenty years. No coffee breaks.
If we're only working daylight hours that rate of production needs to double.
One block quarried cut and fitted every one minute thirty seconds.
Fuelled by ascending oxen?

Here's a simple production engineering problem for you.
If a single block train .. block + ropes + men measures 20 meters long + distance between block trains say 5 meters resulting in a block train pitch of 25 meters, at what speed would each individual block train have to travel and maintain in order to deliver a block every three minutes??



>
> Now let me ask you a question. Has any fringe
> writer with advanced knowledge of the tools and
> construction techniques of antiquity ever
> investigated if it would have been possible to
> build the Great Pyramid using Bronze Age
> technology? Because the only fringe theorists of
> whom I am aware that have delved into these
> matters, are amateurs, authors, and men with
> philosophy degrees.

Please define "advanced knowledge"..
Is there more than the archaeological record suggests?
If so, where is it?

What metallurgy in quantity was available to the 4th AE?
What other materials in quantity were available to the 4th AE?
What precision measuring instruments were available to the 4th AE?
What mathematics was available to the 4th AE?

I'm a retired engineer. Hence my scepticism.. Still delving.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 13-Jan-18 15:45 by Jon Ellison.