I don't believe the means proposed here is in any way inconsistent with first building a stepped core. The steps would serve two primary functions with this proposal. First it would limit lifts to 81' so that 100' long ropes could be used and second it would allow being able to build nearly to the very top. Without steps they are limited to the height (along 70 degrees) that corresponds to the distance across the top of the pyramid plus the length of the crew. There's still a lot of pyramid above this height. Anything above the highest they can pull stones must be finished from other positions and require extensive additional rigging and inefficiencies.

Using Stave Clayton's means even exactly as presented would reduce the total work to build it by at least 70%. The means introduces a few problems of course but nothing real world ancient Egyptians couldn't have solved.

It is counterproductive to fixate on any single piece of evidence in reverse engineering the pyramids. This is because so much of the high grade evidence is either gone or masked by a massive difference in how the builders thought and how we think. Much of the low grade evidence has suffered the same fates. Until such time as we start having an overall theory of construction we can't even determine the quality of any given piece of evidence or whether it is "evidence" at all. This is how we got where we're at; Egyptologists just assumed it must have been "ramps' so all evidence was seen only in these terms. In reality inclined plane technology is very high tech (at least at one end in this case).




Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03-Mar-20 14:26 by cladking.