Metric vs. other measurement systems - chart

[mklotz]

The Great Pyramid is “huge”, the Empire State Building is “huge”, but relatively speaking a London Bus is quite small.

There's "huge" and there's "really huge". Your comment made me look up some volumes...

Surprisingly, the pyramid is about 2.5 times the volume of the building; 92E6 ft^3 vs 37E6.

If the interior of the pyramid is really composed of blocks of stone*, that represents one helluva lot of rock chipping.

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* An engineer (as opposed to archaeologist) has pointed out that even rough forming of the supposed interior blocks should have produced a pile of swarf roughly as big of the pyramid itself, yet no evidence of such waste has ever been found on the plateau or in the Nile. He believes the interior is composed of rock spoil, perhaps from the blocks that formed the surface of the monument. I don't buy his theory but the missing spoil pile is a genuine issue.

[Toolmaker51]

There's "huge" and there's "really huge". Your comment made me look up some volumes...

Surprisingly, the pyramid is about 2.5 times the volume of the building; 92E6 ft^3 vs 37E6.

If the interior of the pyramid is really composed of blocks of stone*, that represents one helluva lot of rock chipping.

---

* An engineer (as opposed to archaeologist) has pointed out that even rough forming of the supposed interior blocks should have produced a pile of swarf roughly as big of the pyramid itself, yet no evidence of such waste has ever been found on the plateau or in the Nile. He believes the interior is composed of rock spoil, perhaps from the blocks that formed the surface of the monument. I don't buy his theory but the missing spoil pile is a genuine issue.

Maybe the Pyramids and surrounding desert are misconstrued. I hypothesize desert IS THE SPOIL, and Pyramids mere sculptures.

[mklotz]

Maybe the Pyramids and surrounding desert are misconstrued. I hypothesize desert IS THE SPOIL, and Pyramids mere sculptures.

Interesting hypothesis but applies more to the Sphinx than the pyramids.

The Sphinx is apparently a natural rock out-cropping that was carved way, way back. It's still one of the biggest puzzles of the Giza plateau. Some archaeologists believe it was carved into an image of a lion by stone age natives long before the appearance of the Egyptian culture (it still has lion paws). Only later was it reshaped into the image of an Egyptian king. Which king is also an issue. Some folks think it represents Khufu, the builder of the great pyramid. Hard to tell since the only confirmed image of Khufu is a tiny 3" statue in the Cairo museum.

Also, if you examine the interior of the pyramid, there is evidence of carved, individual blocks of stone, not in situ rock carved to look like blocks. But the real kicker is the burial chamber itself. The sarcophagus is too big to fit around the corner between the ascending and descending passage so it must have been placed in the chamber before the structure above it was constructed. It's granite so it wasn't carved from the surrounding limestone bulk of the pyramid.

What amazes me is the fact that, despite centuries of searching, nothing depicting the construction of the pyramids has been found. Modern folks like us are in awe of the pyramid; the folks alive during its construction would have been positively dazzled. If you had worked on it, wouldn't you want the fact recorded on your tomb walls so the gods knew you were a dedicated worker? OK, we can't expect the ephemera of that age to still exist, but the fact that a bunch of folks who liked to chisel all manner of stories into rock suggests that some hints about how they did it should appear, not so?

[Philip Davies]

Interesting hypothesis but applies more to the Sphinx than the pyramids.

The Sphinx is apparently a natural rock out-cropping that was carved way, way back. It's still one of the biggest puzzles of the Giza plateau. Some archaeologists believe it was carved into an image of a lion by stone age natives long before the appearance of the Egyptian culture (it still has lion paws). Only later was it reshaped into the image of an Egyptian king. Which king is also an issue. Some folks think it represents Khufu, the builder of the great pyramid. Hard to tell since the only confirmed image of Khufu is a tiny 3" statue in the Cairo museum.

Also, if you examine the interior of the pyramid, there is evidence of carved, individual blocks of stone, not in situ rock carved to look like blocks. But the real kicker is the burial chamber itself. The sarcophagus is too big to fit around the corner between the ascending and descending passage so it must have been placed in the chamber before the structure above it was constructed. It's granite so it wasn't carved from the surrounding limestone bulk of the pyramid.

What amazes me is the fact that, despite centuries of searching, nothing depicting the construction of the pyramids has been found. Modern folks like us are in awe of the pyramid; the folks alive during its construction would have been positively dazzled. If you had worked on it, wouldn't you want the fact recorded on your tomb walls so the gods knew you were a dedicated worker? OK, we can't expect the ephemera of that age to still exist, but the fact that a bunch of folks who liked to chisel all manner of stories into rock suggests that some hints about how they did it should appear, not so?

You could read about the papyri discovered by Pierre Tallet.

[mklotz]

You could read about the papyri discovered by Pierre Tallet.

I have already read about Tallet's discoveries. Merer's papyri provide considerable detail about his tasks transporting limestone from Tura to the pyramid building site. However, since he and his men were apparently not involved in the actual construction, no detail about the construction engineering is provided.

How were the blocks processed once delivered? What was done with the spoil? And the most important question, how were the blocks raised and delivered to their eventual resting place in the structure? The Egyptians loved to keep written records; papyri and ostraca include everything from grocery lists to love letters yet no one seems to have thought building the biggest structure on earth important enough to deserve documentation. This absence suggests to me that their religion somehow convinced them that it was bad juju for the king to leave a record of how his tomb was built.

[Toolmaker51]

The Egyptians loved to keep written records; papyri and ostraca include everything from grocery lists to love letters yet no one seems to have thought building the biggest structure on earth important enough to deserve documentation. This absence suggests to me that their religion somehow convinced them that it was bad juju for the king to leave a record of how his tomb was built.

IF boiled down, could other than intended spectacle, pyramid were large safes; to hold the contents indefinitely? That scant records exist is part of that security.
A big old Mosler safe is for sale on craigslist, one of those double door bank grade +5,000 pound beauties. It's in good cosmetic condition but size reduces customer interest. 3 years ago it was $4,500, the average going rate. Last week the owner who knew the combination, passed away.