Egyptian pyramid construction techniques

There have been many hypotheses about the Egyptian 1.2 Middle Kingdom and onward
pyramid construction techniques. These techniques
seem to have developed over time; later pyramids were During the Middle Kingdom, pyramid construction tech-
not built the same way as earlier ones. Most of the niques changed again. Most pyramids built then were lit-
construction hypotheses are based on the idea that huge tle more than mountains of mud brick encased in a ve-
stones were carved with copper chisels from stone quar- neer of polished limestone. In several cases, later pyra-
ries, and these blocks were then dragged and lifted into mids were built on top of natural hills to further reduce
position. Disagreements chiey concern the methods the volume of material needed in their construction. The
used to move and place the stones. materials and methods of construction used in the earliest
In addition to the many unresolved arguments about the pyramids have ensured their survival in a generally much
construction techniques, there have been disagreements better state of preservation than for the pyramid monu-
as to the kind of workforce used. The Greeks, many years ments of the later pharaohs.
after the event, believed that the pyramids must have been
built by slave labor. Archaeologists now believe that the
Great Pyramid of Giza (at least) was built by tens of thou- 2 Construction method hypotheses
sands of skilled workers who camped near the pyramids
and worked for a salary or as a form of tax payment
(levy) until the construction was completed, pointing to
2.1 Building the pyramids from quarried
workers cemeteries discovered in 1990 by archaeologists stone blocks
Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner. For the Middle Kingdom
Pyramid of Amenemhat II, there is evidence from the an- One of the major problems faced by the early pyramid
nal stone of the king that foreigners from Palestine were builders was the need to move huge quantities of stone.
used.[1] The Twelfth Dynasty tomb of Djehutihotep has an illus-
tration of 172 men pulling an alabaster statue of him on
a sledge. The statue is estimated to weigh 60 tons and
Denys Stocks estimated that 45 workers would be re-
quired to start moving a 16,300 kg lubricated block, or
1 Historical hypotheses eight workers to move a 2,750 kg block.[2] Dr R H G
Parry[3] has suggested a method for rolling the stones, us-
ing a cradle-like machine that had been excavated in vari-
1.1 Third through Fifth Dynasties ous new kingdom temples. Four of those objects could be
tted around a block so it could be rolled easily. Exper-
During the earliest period, pyramids were constructed iments done by the Obayashi Corporation, with concrete
wholly of stone. Locally quarried limestone was the ma- blocks 0.8 m square by 1.6 m long and weighing 2.5 tons,
terial of choice for the main body of these pyramids, showed how 18 men could drag the block over a 1-in-4
while a higher quality of limestone quarried at Tura (near incline ramp, at a rate of 18 meters per minute. This [4]
idea
modern Cairo) was used as the outer casing. Granite, was previously described by John Bush in 1977, and
quarried near Aswan, was used to construct some archi- is mentioned in the Closing Remarks section of Parrys
[5]
tectural elements, including the portcullis (a type of gate) book. Vitruvius in De architectura described a similar
and the roofs and walls of the burial chamber. Occasion- method for moving irregular weights. It is still not known
ally, granite was used in the outer casing as well, such whether the Egyptians used this method but the experi-
as in the Pyramid of Menkaure. In the early pyramids, ments indicate it could have worked using stones of this
the layers of stone (called courses) forming the pyramid size. Egyptologists generally accept this for the 2.5 ton
body were laid sloping inwards; however, this congura- blocks mostly used but do not agree over the methods
tion was found to be less stable than simply stacking the used for the 15+ ton and several 70 to 80 ton blocks.
stones horizontally on top of each other. The Bent Pyra- As the stones forming the core of the pyramids were
mid at Dahshur seems to indicate acceptance of a newer roughly cut, especially in the Great Pyramid, the material
technique at a transition between these two building tech- used to ll the gaps was another problem. Huge quantities
niques. Its lower section is built of sloping courses, while of gypsum and rubble were needed.[6][7] The lling has al-
in its upper section the stones are laid horizontally. most no binding properties, but it was necessary to stabi-

1
2 2 CONSTRUCTION METHOD HYPOTHESES

lize the construction. To make the gypsum mortar, it had 2.2 The writings of Herodotus and
to be dehydrated by heating which requires large quanti- Diodorus Siculus
ties of wood. According to Egyptologists, the ndings of
both the 1984 and 1995 David H. Koch Pyramids Radio- The unknowns of pyramid construction chiey center on
carbon Projects[8][9] may suggest that Egypt had to strip the question of how the blocks were moved up the super-
its forest and scrap every bit of wood it had to build the structure. There is no known accurate historical or ar-
pyramids of Giza and other even earlier 4th Dynasty pyra- chaeological evidence that denitively resolves the ques-
mids. Carbon dating samples from core blocks and other tion. Therefore, most discussion on construction meth-
materials revealed that dates from the 1984 study aver- ods involves functional possibilities that are supported by
aged 374 years earlier than currently accepted and the limited historical and archaeological evidence.
1995 dating averaging 100200 years. As suggested by
Historical accounts for the construction of the Egyptian
team members, We thought that it was unlikely that the
pyramids do little to point denitively to methods to lift
pyramid builders consistently used centuries-old wood as
the blocks; yet most Egyptologists refer to these accounts
fuel in preparing mortar. The 1984 results left us with
when discussing this portion of pyramid construction.
too little data to conclude that the historical chronology
Thales, according to the philosopher Hieronymus (3rd
of the Old Kingdom was wrong by nearly 400 years, but
century BC)[17] visited the Egyptian pyramids during the
we considered this at least a possibility. To explain this
7th century BC and by using the intercept theorem, also
discrepancy, Egyptologists proposed the old wood the-
known as Thaless theorem, measured their height and
ory claiming the earlier dates were possibly derived from
thus their volume. The rst historical accounts of the
recycling large amounts of centuries old wood and other
construction of these monuments came centuries after
earlier materials.[10]
the era of pyramid construction, by Herodotus in the 5th
There is good information concerning the location of the century BC and Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC.
quarries, some of the tools used to cut stone in the quar- Herodotuss account states:[18]
ries, transportation of the stone to the monument, level-
ing the foundation, and leveling the subsequent tiers of
This pyramid was made like stairs, which
the developing superstructure. Workmen probably used
some call steps and others, tiers. When this, its
copper chisels, drills, and saws to cut softer stone, such as
rst form, was completed, the workmen used
most of the limestone. The harder stones, such as gran-
short wooden logs as levers to raise the rest of
ite, granodiorite, syenite, and basalt, cannot be cut with
the stones; they heaved up the blocks from the
copper tools alone; instead they were worked with time-
ground onto the rst tier of steps; when the
consuming methods like pounding with dolerite, drilling,
stone had been raised, it was set on another
and sawing with the aid of an abrasive, such as quartz
lever that stood on the rst tier, and the lever
sand.[11][12] Blocks were transported by sledge likely lu-
again used to lift it from this tier to the next. It
bricated by water.[13][14] Leveling the foundation may
may be that there was a new lever on each tier
have been accomplished by use of water-lled trenches
of steps, or perhaps there was only one lever,
as suggested by Mark Lehner and I.E.S. Edwards or
quite portable, which they carried up to each
through the use of a crude square level and experienced
tier in turn; I leave this uncertain, as both pos-
surveyors.[15][16]
sibilities were mentioned. But this is certain,
that the upper part of the pyramid was nished
o rst, then the next below it, and last of all
the base and the lowest part.

Diodorus Siculuss account states:[19]

And 'tis said the stone was transported a

great distance from Arabia, and that the edi-
ces were raised by means of earthen ramps,
D
since machines for lifting had not yet been in-
A vented in those days; and most surprising it is,
B C
that although such large structures were raised
in an area surrounded by sand, no trace remains
of either ramps or the dressing of the stones, so
Thaless method (intercept theorem) to determine the height of that it seems not the result of the patient labor
Cheops pyramid of men, but rather as if the whole complex were
set down entire upon the surrounding sand by
some god. Now Egyptians try to make a mar-
vel of these things, alleging that the ramps were
2.3 Dierent kinds of ramps
made of salt and natron and that, when the river
was turned against them, it melted them clean
away and obliterated their every trace without
the use of human labor. But in truth, it most
certainly was not done this way! Rather, the
same multitude of workmen who raised the
mounds returned the entire mass again to its
original place; for they say that three hundred
and sixty thousand men were constantly em-
ployed in the prosecution of their work, yet the
entire edice was hardly nished at the end of
twenty years.
Diodorus Siculuss description of the shipment of the
stone from Arabia is correct since the term Arabia
those days implied the land between the Nile and the Red
Sea[20] where the limestone blocks have been transported
from quarries across the river Nile. Both Herodotuss and
Diodorus Siculuss writings are known to contain gross er-
rors of fact, and Siculus is routinely accused of borrowing
from Herodotus. Herodotuss description of slave labor is
one of the most persistent myths of the construction pro-
cess. Herodotuss accounts are known to be unreliable, it
is impossible to select his technique from historical doc-
uments as correct. However, these documents do give
credit to both the levering and ramp methods.
2.3 Dierent kinds of ramps
Example of a large straight ramp
Most Egyptologists acknowledge that ramps are the most
tenable of the methods to raise the blocks, yet they ac-
knowledge that it is an incomplete method that must be
supplemented by another device. Archaeological evi-
dence for the use of ramps has been found at the Great
Pyramid of Giza[21] and other pyramids. The method
most accepted for assisting ramps is levering [22] (Lehner
1997: 222). The archaeological record gives evidence of
only small ramps and inclined causeways, not something
that could have been used to construct even a majority of
3
From left to right: Zig-zagging ramp (Holscher), ramp utilizing
the incomplete part of the superstructure (Dieter Arnold), and a
spiraling ramp supported by the superstructure (Mark Lehner)
the monument. To add to the uncertainty, there is consid-
erable evidence demonstrating that non-standardized or
ad hoc construction methods were used in pyramid con-
struction (Arnold 1991: 98,[23] Lehner 1997: 223).
Therefore, there are many proposed ramps and there is a
considerable amount of discrepancy regarding what type
of ramp was used to build the pyramids.[24] One of the
widely discredited ramping methods is the large straight
ramp, and it is routinely discredited on functional grounds
for its massive size, lack of archaeological evidence, huge
labor cost, and other problems (Arnold 1991: 99, Lehner
1997: 215, Isler 2001: 213[25] ).
Other ramps serve to correct these problems of ramp
size, yet either run into critiques of functionality and
limited archaeological evidence. There are zig-zagging
ramps, straight ramps utilizing the incomplete part of
the superstructure (Arnold 1991), spiraling ramps sup-
ported by the superstructure and spiraling ramps leaning
on the monument as a large accretion are proposed. Mark
Lehner speculated that a spiraling ramp, beginning in the
stone quarry to the southeast and continuing around the
exterior of the pyramid, may have been used. The stone
blocks may have been drawn on sleds along the ramps
lubricated by water or milk.[26]
Levering methods are considered to be the most tenable
solution to complement ramping methods, partially due
to Herodotuss description; and partially to the Shadoof;
an irrigation device rst depicted in Egypt during the New
Kingdom, and found concomitantly with the Old King-
dom in Mesopotamia. In Lehners (1997: 222) point of
view, levers should be employed to lift the top 3% of the
material of the superstructure. It is important to note
that the top 4% of this material comprises 1/3 of the to-
tal height of the monument. In other words, in Lehners
view, levers should be employed to lift a small amount of
material and a great deal of vertical height of the monu-
ment.
In the milieu of levering methods, there are those that lift
the block incrementally, as in repeatedly prying up alter-
nating sides of the block and inserting a wooden or stone
shims to gradually move the stone up one course; and
there are other methods that use a larger lever to move
the block up one course in one lifting procedure. Since
4 2 CONSTRUCTION METHOD HYPOTHESES

the discussion of construction techniques to lift the blocks
attempts to resolve a gap in the archaeological and his-
torical record with a plausible functional explanation, the
following examples by Isler, Keable, and Hussey-Pailos
[27]
list experimentally tested methods. Islers method
(1985, 1987) is an incremental method and, in the Nova
experiment (1992), used wooden shims or cribbing. Isler
[28]
was able to lift a block up one tier in approximately
one hour and 30 minutes. Peter Hodgess and Julian
Keables[29] method is similar to Islers method and in-
stead used small manufactured concrete blocks as shims,
wooden pallets, and a pit where their experimental tests
were performed. Keable was able to perform his method
in approximately 2 minutes. Scott Hussey-Pailoss (2005)
method [27] uses a simple levering device to lift a block up
a course in one movement. This method was tested with
materials of less strength than historical analogs (tested
with materials weaker than those available in ancient
Egypt), a factor of safety of 2, and lifted a 2500-pound
block up one course in under a minute. This method is
presented as a levering device to work complementary
with Mark Lehners idea of a combined ramp and lever-
ing techniques.
2.4 Jean-Pierre Houdins internal ramp
hypothesis
2.5-ton block, to ready it for eight men to drag up the next
internal ramp. There is a notch of sorts in one of the right
places, and in 2008 Houdins co-author Bob Brier, with a
National Geographic lm crew, entered a previously un-
remarked chamber that could be the start of one of these
internal ramps.[35] In 1986 a member of the French team
(see below) saw a desert fox at this notch, rather as if it
had ascended internally.
Houdins thesis remains unproven and in 2007, UCL
Egyptologist David Jereys described the internal spi-
ral hypothesis as far-fetched and horribly complicated,
while Oxford Universitys John Baines, declared he was
suspicious of any theory that seeks to explain only how the
Great Pyramid was built.[36]
Houdin has another hypothesis developed from his ar-
chitectural model, one that could nally explain the in-
ternal Grand Gallery chamber that otherwise appears
to have little purpose. He believes the gallery acted as
a trolley chute/guide for counterbalance weights. It en-
abled the raising of the ve 60-ton granite beams that roof
the Kings Chamber. Houdin and Brier and the Dassault
team are already credited with proving for the rst time
that cracks in beams appeared during construction, were
examined and tested at the time and declared relatively
harmless.

Main articles: Jean-Pierre Houdin and Great Pyramid of 2.5 Limestone concrete hypothesis
Giza
Materials scientist Joseph Davidovits has claimed that the
blocks of the pyramid are not carved stone, but mostly
Houdins father was an architect who, in 1999, thought a form of limestone concrete and that they were cast
up a construction method that, it seemed to him, made as with modern concrete.[37] According to this hypothe-
more sense than any existing method proposed for the sis, soft limestone with a high kaolinite content was quar-
building of pyramids. To develop this hypothesis, Jean- ried in the wadi on the south of the Giza Plateau. The
Pierre Houdin, also an architect, gave up his job and set limestone was then dissolved in large, Nile-fed pools un-
about drawing the rst fully functional CAD architec-
til it became a watery slurry. Lime (found in the ash of
tural model of the Great Pyramid.[30] His/their scheme cooking res) and natron (also used by the Egyptians in
involves the use of a regular external ramp to build the
mummication) were mixed in. The pools were then left
rst 30% of the pyramid, with an internal ramp taking to evaporate, leaving behind a moist, clay-like mixture.
stones up beyond that height.[31] The stones of the exter-
This wet concrete would be carried to the construc-
nal ramp are re-cycled into the upper stories, thus explain- tion site where it would be packed into reusable wooden
ing the otherwise puzzling lack of evidence for ramps.
moulds and in a few days would undergo a chemical re-
After 4 years working alone, Houdin was joined by a action similar to the curing of concrete. New blocks, he
team of engineers from the French 3D software company suggests, could be cast in place, on top of and pressed
Dassault Systemes, who used the most modern computer- against the old blocks. Proof-of-concept tests using simi-
aided design technology available to further rene and test lar compounds were carried out at a geopolymer institute
the hypothesis, making it (according to Houdin) the only in northern France and it was found that a crew of ve
one proven to be a viable technique.[32] In 2006 Houdin to ten, working with simple hand tools, could agglomer-
announced it in a book: Khufu: The Secrets Behind the ate a structure of ve, 1.3 to 4.5 ton blocks in a couple
Building of the Great Pyramid,[33] and in 2008 he and of weeks.[38] He also claims that the Famine Stele, along
Egyptologist Bob Brier wrote a second one: The Secret with other hieroglyphic texts, describe the technology of
of the Great Pyramid[34] stone agglomeration.
In Houdins method, each ramp inside the pyramid ended Davidovitss method is not accepted by the academic
at an open space, a notch temporarily left open in the edge mainstream. His method does not explain the granite
of the construction.(see diagram) This 10-square-meter stones, weighing well over 10 tons, above the Kings
clear space housed a crane that lifted and rotated each Chamber, which he agrees were carved. Geologists
 5

have carefully scrutinized Davidovitss suggested tech- cient Egyptians, Hopkins was condent this could have
nique and concluded his concrete came from natural lime- been achieved with more practice.[45][46]
stone quarried in the Mokattam Formation.[39] However,
Davidovits alleges that the bulk of the soft limestone
came from the same natural Mokkatam Formation quar- 3 Great Pyramid
ries found by geologists, and insists that ancient Egyptians
used the soft marly layer instead of the hard layer to re-
agglomerate stones. Some research suggests alternate estimates to the ac-
cepted workforce size. For instance, mathematician Kurt
Davidovitss hypothesis recently gained support from Mendelssohn calculated that the workforce may have
Michel Barsoum, a materials science researcher.[40] been 50,000 men at most, while Ludwig Borchardt and
Michel Barsoum and his colleagues at Drexel University Louis Croon placed the number at 36,000. According to
published their ndings supporting Davidovitss hypoth- Miroslav Verner, a workforce of no more than 30,000 was
esis in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society in needed in the Great Pyramids construction. Evidence
2006. Utilizing scanning electron microscopy, they dis- suggests that around 5,000 were permanent workers on
covered in samples of the limestone pyramid blocks min- salaries with the balance working three- or four-month
eral compounds and air bubbles that do not occur in nat- shifts in lieu of taxes while receiving subsistence wages
ural limestone.[41] of ten loaves of bread and a jug of beer per day. Zahi
Dipayan Jana, a petrographer, made a presentation to the Hawass believes that the majority of workers may have
ICMA (International Cement Microscopy Association) been volunteers. It is estimated that only 4,000 of the
in 2007[42] and gave a paper[43] in which he discusses total workforce were labourers who quarried the stone,
Davidovitss and Barsoums work and concludes we are hauled blocks to the pyramid and set the blocks in place.
far from accepting even as a remote possibility a 'man- The vast majority of the workforce provided support ser-
made' origin of pyramid stones. vices such as scribes, toolmakers and other backup ser-
vices. The tombs of supervisors contain inscriptions re-
garding the organisation of the workforce. There were
2.6 NOVA pyramid building experiment two crews of approximately 2,000 workers sub-divided
into named gangs of 1,000. The gangs were divided into
In 1997 Mark Lehner and Roger Hopkins, a stonemason ve phyles of 200 which were in turn split into groups of
from Sudbury, Massachusetts, teamed up to conduct around 20 workers grouped according to their skills, with
a pyramid-building experiment for a NOVA television each group having their own project leader and a specic
episode. They built a pyramid 6 metres (20 ft) high by task.[47][48]
9 metres (30 ft) wide, consisting of a total of 162 cubic
metres (5,700 cu ft), or about 405 tons, it was made out A construction management study (testing) carried out by
of 186 stones weighing an average of 2.2 tons each. They the rm Daniel, Mann, Johnson, & Mendenhall in asso-
had a total of just over 3 weeks to build it, due to their ciation with Mark Lehner, and other Egyptologists, es-
lming schedule. 12 quarrymen carved 186 stones in 22 timates that the total project required an average work-
days. They were able to erect it using 44 men. They used force of 14,567 people and a peak workforce of 40,000.
iron hammers, chisels and levers (this is a modern short- Without the use of pulleys, wheels, or iron tools, they
cut, the ancient Egyptians were limited to using copper used critical path analysis to suggest the Great Pyramid
and later bronze and wood).[44] But they did experiments was completed
[49]
from start to nish in approximately 10
with copper tools, noting that they were adequate for the years. Their study estimates that the number of blocks
job in hand, only provided that additional manpower was used in construction was between 2 and 2.8 million (an
available to constantly re-sharpen the ancient tools. They average of 2.4 million), but settles on a reduced nished
estimated they would have needed around 20 extra men total of 2 million after subtracting the estimated volume
for this maintenance. Another short-cut taken was the use of the hollow spaces of the chambers and galleries.[49]
of a front end loader or fork lift truck. However, modern Most sources agree on this number of blocks somewhere
[50]
machinery was not and could not be used to nish the above 2.3 million. Their calculations suggest the work-
construction. They used levers to lift the capstone to a force could have sustained a rate of 180 blocks per hour (3
height of 20 feet (6.1 m). Four or ve men were able to blocks/minute) with ten-hour work days for putting each
use levers on stones less than 1 ton to ip them over and individual block in place. They derived these estimates
transport them by rolling them. For the larger stones, they from modern third-world construction projects that did
had to tow them. They found that by putting the stones on not use modern machinery, but conclude it is still un-
wooden sledges and sliding the sledges on wooden tracks, known exactly how the Great Pyramid was built.[49] As
they were able to tow a 2-ton stone with 12 to 20 men. Dr. Craig Smith of the team points out:
The wood for these sledges and tracks would have to have
been imported from Lebanon at great cost since there was The logistics of construction at the Giza
little, if any, wood in ancient Egypt. While the builders site are staggering when you think that the an-
failed to duplicate the precise jointing created by the an- cient Egyptians had no pulleys, no wheels, and
6 5
no iron tools. Yet, the dimensions of the pyra-
mid are extremely accurate and the site was lev-
eled within a fraction of an inch over the entire
13.1-acre base. This is comparable to the accu-
racy possible with modern construction meth-
ods and laser leveling. Thats astounding. With
their 'rudimentary tools,' the pyramid builders
of ancient Egypt were about as accurate as we
are today with 20th-century technology.[51]
Average core blocks of the Great Pyramid weigh about 1.5 tons
each, and the granite blocks used to roof the burial chambers are
estimated to weigh up to 80 tons each.
The entire Giza Plateau is believed to have been con-
structed over the reign of ve pharaohs in less than a
hundred years, which generally includes: the Great Pyra-
mid, Khafre and Menkaures pyramids, the Great Sphinx,
the Sphinx and Valley Temples, 35 boat pits cut out of
solid bedrock, and several causeways, as well as paving
nearly the entire plateau with large stones. This does
not include Khafres brother Djedefres northern pyra-
mid, Abu Rawash, which would have also been built dur-
ing this time frame of 100 years. In the hundred years
prior to Gizabeginning with Djoser, who ruled from
26872667 BC, and amongst dozens of other temples,
smaller pyramids, and general construction projects
four other massive pyramids were built: the Step pyra-
mid of Saqqara (believed to be the rst Egyptian pyra-
mid), the pyramid of Meidum, the Bent Pyramid, and
the Red Pyramid. Also during this period (between 2686
and 2498 BC) the Sadd el-Kafara dam, which used an
estimated 100,000 cubic meters of rock and rubble, was
built.[52]
4 See also
List of megalithic sites
Theories about Stonehenge
Seven wonders of the world
The Herodotus Machine
REFERENCES
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[2] Stocks, Denys A. Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology
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[13] an illustration of a large statue weighing about 60 tonnes
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[20] See also Strabo (17.1.34).
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8 6 EXTERNAL LINKS

6 External links
How to Build a Pyramid, Archaeology Magazine,
May/June 2007
Engineering the Pyramids - Materials Science and
Engineering @ Drexel University

Rope pull hypothesis - alternative hypothesis by

Heribert Illig and Franz Lhner

Collection of alternative construction essays

Did the Great Pyramid Have an Elevator? The
Structural Engineer, April 2009
The main problems / drawbacks of all ramp systems

3D Unveils Great Pyramids Mystery - illustrates hy-

pothesis of Houdin and Brier.
 9

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