Archae Solenhofen wrote:

> Oh ok, I see so now it's no trace of ramps on the pyramids
> themselves. Yes that is correct they would have removed the
> ramps completely to allow the casing to be properly attached.
> But there are traces of ramps on the Plateau that the pyramid
> is built on, right?

They built on this plateau for many hundreds of years. All large projects in the history of man have employed some ramps. The fact that some ramps remain on the Panama Canal doesn't mean it was built with ramps.

> So you say.... does not seem to bother the people who have
> studied the Great Pyramid in detail from coming up with
> plausible ramp designs for its construction.

I find this one of the most distressing aspects of this whole thing. Obviously we all see what we expect to see but one would think someone would have pointed out that this king is no longer clad by now.

> I like
> switchbacks, as well as that proposal by the Klemms' as shown
> in Frank Dörnenburg new book.

I like the switchbacks as well and it's one I've not been able to demoloish yet.

Your link here is fascinating and reminds me how dense I can be. I've put lots of thought into possibilities and this one never occurred to me. Remarkably it looks like it's never been proposed before either. It's a great idea but unfortunately it's simply impossible for this to have been the means. Nothing would leave more distinct traces on the face of the pyramid. These lines would be readily visible along nearly their entire lenght. Also filling these gaps as they backed down would be a huge task; possible probably but a huge task.
>
> Well, the block size does decreases as they go up. The ones at
> the top, or at least what is now about 15 levels down since the
> rest are missing, are really not that big. In fact many of them
> look like irregular masonry fill of varying sizes. Did not need
> much of a ramp or any other means to get them up there....
> every look into how people quarry Carrara marble and then move
> the large blocks from the quarry in past ages, often quite
> perilous.

Average layer thickness doesn't decrease significantly toward the top though there is a huge decrease in the thickest layers.

It is the stones at the top which require the most work to lift because they are higher. Using smaller stones might mean that stone is easier than a large one but this just means you'll need to make more trips. If ramping were the means of moving these stones to the top and it was easiest to make stones huge rather than making more trips then why would the stones get smaller at the top? Surely they could have made just as big a ramp where the pyramid was 80' across as when it was 440' across.

I would say these facts are not consistent with any form of ramp.