Steve Clayton Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> cladking Wrote:
>
> > There were two cliff face counterweights.
>  They
> > could easily handle the required capacity.  
>
> I would like to see how that worked. Did it use
> water?

Yes!

Like all the stone lifting equipment these were linear funiculars, I believe. They had various equipment to move stone horizontally but the lifting was done with counterweights full of water. Rather than being laid out on adjacent tracks as modern funiculars these were laid out along a line so the cars went back and forth ("to and fro"). The counterweight went straight down the cliff face in a due northerly direction and pulled stones up from the quarry due north. There were two such cliff face counterweights as a redundancy. If one had a mechanical failure or an accident the other had sufficient capacity to take up the slack. One was at the NE corner and the other was 100' east of it. As the work progressed the main pyramid counterweight could even be pressed into service to pull stone up from the quarry.

There are several very well evidenced counterweight runs. The one in question here (the eastern cliff face counterweight) pulled stone just to the east of the queens pyramids. This run was 30' wide and stacked about 15' deep in tura stones. The top was polished and greased. When the stones got to the top they were flipped and let down onto the causeway where your funicular operated. It pulled stone to the mason's shop only yards away on the east side of the pyramid.

The counterweight went 300' down the cliff face pulling stones about 300'. This is why ancients reports said that stones flew a bowshot (300') at a time. The stones hugged the ground like the fledglings of swallows which is why the builders said the stones flew like the fledglings of swallows. Indeed, almost everything they said was meant 100% literally. We merely misinterpret it. It sounds fantastic so we believe it must be religious and magical mumbo jumbo. It is not!

I'd be happy to go over the extensive evidence for these funiculars again if anyone is interested.
 
> > But you are ignoring the evidence and the ruins
> of
> > a second causeway just to the east of the
> queens
> > pyramids that obviated the need for hauling the
> > stones down to the river.  
>
> We just reviewed that so called causeway. It only
> resembles a path, with 3? foot walls in one
> location. Calling it a Causeway is inappropriate.
> Wasn't it just a small cut, one in which the road
> has cut through. Was there stone on the this so
> called causeway?

That "ramp" along it is irrelevant. It could have been used to move a few stones but it was not part of the main route. It may have been a footpath for men walking back to the quarry or it might have even been built long after as a footpath. There is what might be an hydraulic elevator along its path but there's not enough data to know and Egyptology filled it with concrete I believe so we might never know. I believe a small fraction of the water (1/ 64th?) was channeled to the quarry for dust suppression.

As the project wound down the cliff face counterweight were no longer needed so their last job was to cannibalize themselves. The stones of the causeway were hauled up and cut into casing stones.

They wasted nothing. When they were done the scrap and debris was all thrown into the bottom of the quarry. Equipment was dismantled and repurposed. The water was diverted to the G2 catchment.


I believe the height of the steps reflects the actual water pressure on each pyramid. In other words the 81' 3" steps of G1 show the water had sufficient pressure to get to this altitude.