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Pyramid Construction - Theory 1
CANAL LOCKS AND BUCKET CHAIN PUMPS.
SYNOPSIS: Tradition has the great Pyramids of Egypt built entirely with slave power. But Egypt had canals, both for irrigation and transportation. This paper includes one theory of how WATER POWER could have been used to build a pyramid, including transporting huge blocks of stone to the very top of a pyramid.
SUMMARY: The best way to transport heavy stones is with a "high Canal" leading to the base of a pyramid. Once there, the power of falling water could be tapped by some sort of water wheel (turbine) and bucket chain (pump) to gradually pump water to the very top tier of a stepped pyramid. And, once the top step is flooded, the water can be released sequentially through a hundred separate locks, winding their way in steps all the way around the pyramid, with each lock lifting another batch of stone blocks one step upward on their journey.
CANAL LOCKS & HEAVY LIFTING:
The Egyptians lived with annual flooding, and used boats and rafts daily, through the entire spring flood, as a necessity of life. Farmers (must have) learned early that the easiest way to move heavy dirt from field to dikes was with by water. And that very heavy loads could be lifted by tying floatation (reeds) to it, building a dike around it, and flooding the area with water.
They had canals; they had canal locks. We know this as a certainty. We also know that there were several periods in ancient times when higher rainfalls probably caused intermittent lower tributaries to the Nile to flow annually. (These tributaries are just dry washes today, but could have provided a source of water for a "high canal", far above the level of the Nile, during the winter and spring of wetter years.) An inherent objection to this theory is the fact that for a canal to be high enough to benefit pyramid construction, it must be taken off the Nile very far upstream.
Since most forced labor in ancient Egypt probably occurred during the flooding season, when fields could not be worked, an enterprising Pharaoh could take advantage of this happy coincidence of several months of "high canal" water transportation and water power during the months when peasant labor was available.
A most ancient way of moving dirt in Egypt is to float it on a reed mat. Just as the water begins rising, a farmer can pile still dry dirt onto reed "coracles", and allow the rising water to lift it to where he wants to build the base for a house platform or a dike. The same could be done with heavy blocks of stone, using bundles of reeds lashed to each side to form effective "pontoons". This eliminates even the necessity of initially lifting blocks of stone unto wooden barges. For it is an impossibility for ancient Egypt to have crafted sufficient wooden vessels to transport the mass of the pyramids. Papyrus reeds, however, if not soaked for too long of a time, can be used for many cycles of transportation.
The mechanics of floating stones (easily) dictate that the stone float just barely below the surface of the water (to minimize required canal depth, and to make the sp.gr. = 2 stone weigh only half as much), and the reed bundles stick up sufficiently above the surface to prevent danger of sinking. A pair of well oiled leather straps can extend half way around the stone, each extending from a pontoon to a point half way under the stone. The strap from each side can be connected by a wooden pin through two loops. A rope connected to these pins can be used to pull the pins, and allow a floating stone to be deposited precisely in a location, perhaps directly into a hole on a step of a pyramid!
A more creative load rigger might even conceive of a "zero clearance" binding system, allowing the stone to float just inches off the bottom, and not have the binding strap or ropes snag underneath the stone when the load is dropped. We would tend to do it with metal clamps grabbing the stone, or with a high strength strap wrapped around the top perimeter of the stone. And we tend to think ancient peoples didn't have the technology for these solutions. But they were experts at making animal harnesses (leatherwork), binding together boats with ropes, and utilizing wedges in creative ways.
This mode of transport creates predictions. For it to work well, pyramid workers need to be able to walk in the "pond" atop the pyramid. I predict that (if this method is used), the height of the common stone plus half its width will be less than the height of the average man's shoulders. (The average man can only work efficiently in shoulder deep water, with an optimum depth closer to chest deep). The straps below the stones cannot be too long, or they will get trapped between stones. This creates a preference for stones that are not too deep, or too wide, but can be of arbitrary length.
A zero clearance binding system for the stones allows either deeper stones or shallower water. If I had to bet on it, I would guess they had invented a method of binding the stones to papyrus pontoons without the benefit of straps under the stone.
BUCKET-CHAIN-PUMPS:
A purely mechanical method of lifting water to great heights did not exist in the ancient world, according to classical interpretations of history. For it to work even tolerably well required the invention of some sort of water wheel and a continuous bucket-chain-pump. (Note, bucket chains can use ropes, rather than chains, and water wheels can use pots, rather than blades).
But, still, this requires two inventions a millennium or two before their supposed invention.
Never-the-less, we KNOW ancient Egyptians used tripod cranes to lift water (by human or animal power) from a low canal to a "high canal" for irrigation purposes. The tripod crane essentially served as a lever, as a long handled, counterweighted dipper. We also KNOW that they routinely utilized ropes to pull water jugs and water bags up hill. And we KNOW that they understood the concept of counterweights, rollers, and crude pulleys (though not necessarily wheeled pulleys).
We also know that many ancient inventions did not make it to the level of the common man, or become permanently part of a culture. Just because it wasn't preserved does not mean it never existed.
We can reasonably assume that a "high canal", well beyond the flooding range of the Nile, would be a great "royal asset", and not a possession of common people. This is largely due to the strategic military and transportation importance of such a waterway, well beyond the "natural" boundaries of the nation. Methods of pumping water (mechanically) will first allow the penetration of canals into regions that otherwise cannot have canals. This is a royal prerogative, so it would not be unusual for the pumps themselves to be reserved for royal purposes, and later be lost to history.
While automatic operating "high water head pumps" are not (quite) necessary for the construction of a pyramid, they make it many orders of magnitude easier. So much so, that their existence can (almost) be assumed. Other water powered/water lifting devices are possible, perhaps some that we are not even aware of, since they were supplanted by better devices. There are some dozens of devices which we think could not have operated in ancient times, because of the absence of one way valves, or other related automatic switching devices. And we forget that a slave can be used to operate a valve, tip a bucket, or move a water nozzle, rather than inventing an "automatic" system for doing things.
Reciprocating lifting devices, powered by water flowing into a bucket, and then being dumped, were very definitely NOT beyond the capacity of the ancients, even though they were not commonly used. If bucket-chain-pumps were not possible, one could always postulate a large number of stages of reciprocating lever type pumps, operating automatically. Or, if not automatically, being operated by a slave that merely had to redirect a water spout or engage a "cam" that would tip a large water bucket.
THEORETICAL EVIDENCE FOR WATER LIFTING:
All pyramids show evidence of flat terrace construction. (All the stones in one level lie on an exceptionally flat plane, as if determined by water level in a pond.) If no hydraulic leveling of any sort took place, there would be a serious advantage to an uneven interlocking step layup or random layup of the blocks, rather than building in discrete, perfectly level layers. Patterns lending themselves to ramps and staircases would be superior.
A peculiar piece of evidence favoring at least the existence of canals in the region of the great pyramid is the peculiar water weathering of the bottom of the Sphinx. Experts have concluded that the weathering was typical of prolonged exposure to more water than was typical in Egypt in recent millennia. IF the region of the Sphinx (at the base of the pyramids) was a flooded pond during pyramid construction, the wicking of water upward into the stones could have caused the more rapid deterioration we see in the lower body of the Sphinx.
Others have postulated that the Sphinx was built during a time when the climate was still wet, near the end of the last ice age. Human engineered flooding, as a side effect of pyramid construction is a FAR more viable theory. This could be tested for by the presence of excessive salts and alkalis in the stone, just above the highest flooded zone. The deterioration should stop abruptly at a layer, with that layer showing residual salt and alkali traces, especially deep in the interior, from years of water wicking upward, and then evaporating.
Archeology indicates the total absence of ANY sloped ramps of stone (inside the pyramid) that would be useful in construction by the "brute force" techniques. A "spiral ramp" around the perimeter of the pyramid would have "almost" worked, but it would have left signs in the stonework. And the total absence of any evidence of dumping of the vast amount of dirt and brick required to build a sloped ramp to the top of the pyramid.
Terracing of farm fields was well known in the region, and closely paralleled the construction of older and newer rubble filled pyramids. Field terracing, in irrigated regions, almost always corresponded to flooding fields, and creating terraced lakes with stone barrier walls.
IF water flooded tiers were built, it can be PREDICTED that stones deep in the interior will have clay between the stones, particularly in the vertical joints, which could be easily tested by sonar reflection properties. (Gaps between the stones act as a barrier to sound transmission, far more than does well packed dirt). Sonar measurements should indicate whether or not the pyramid tiers were flooded. Clay (or bitumen!) filling of the cracks is REQUIRED to prevent the precious water from leaking. If hewn stones are to form a pond, they need a water resistant gap filler. Clay performs this function better than mortar, in most cases. And, if water is reasonably abundant, making a mud slurry and walking it into the cracks of a shallow mud pond is quite efficient at sealing the pond.
It should be noted that the Biblical record of the Tower of Babel specified bricks laid together with BITUMEN! This seems peculiar, unless perhaps it performed some water sealing function. One clear possibility is the description of a tower built of an exterior of fired bricks laid in bitumen, and a central core of water packed clay. If the top of the tower were kept flooded, workman walking over the wet mud over years of construction would pack it to maximum density. Only, in this case, it could be wet soupy mud that needed to be transported to the top by buckets, rather than water and stones. The muddy "pond" on top of a growing tower would allow easy transport of materials by shallow draft boats, as well as performing the water settling function. This would allow construction of a very steep walled tower (far steeper than a pyramid) IF a chain-of-buckets type pump could carry all of the materials to the top. When crumbled, such a tower would give the impression of having been made (mostly) of mud bricks, when in reality it was mostly made of mud carried to the top in buckets!
The chain-of-buckets could also lift small rubble, to fill a rubble filled pyramid, having only an outside casing of stones. But once a REAL pyramid was to be built, it was necessary to use the water, by way of a hundred canal locks, to lift the stones to the top of the pyramid.
Water transportation completely eliminates the obvious objections to the brute force technique of building. For instance, the old observation that palm tree trunks wouldn't last one day, when used as rollers for moving large blocks of stone. Or the fact that there is virtually no evidence of living quarters for the number of slaves that would have been required to lift the stones into the great pyramids. Or the fact that the huge dirt ramps postulated for the construction don't seem to have any nearby dumping ground. Or the fact that most of the stones are just a bit too heavy to be manhandled continually by rational numbers of slaves.
(NOTE: the average sized pyramid stone can be completely surrounded by men, and that number of men are completely incapable of even budging it without the use of levers or other force multiplying equipment.) Large stones (such as obelisks and temple pillars) can indeed be moved with rollers and ropes, and clearly have been. But the scale of effort is beyond what is rational to be repeated a million times! There is good reason (but bad logic) behind the crazy theories of space alien technology being used to build the pyramids. Moving stones of this size by brute force was right at the edge of the technology of the day, almost on the scale of our sending men to the moon. It was possible, but ridiculously difficult and expensive. It was done once, or twice, or several dozen times, to demonstrate the power of a Pharaoh. But not to move a 2.3 million stones!
IF the pyramids were stacked up by slave power, the average stone would have been cut smaller. It seems likely that the average size stone would be designed to be optimized for the method of transportation. IF that transportation was by canal, and ponds atop the pyramid, the limiting dimensions were the depth of water that a slave could walk through without drowning, the useful width of the canal, and the length of the shortest lock or bend in the canal.
It is permissible, when transporting blocks up a series of locks, for the water level to reach double the normal level of the individual pyramid step. This is required to move one step upward. But there is no reason why slaves had to walk through that deeper water, when there was a wall alongside to walk on, and when only one lock at a time was flooded.
SMALL CONSTRUCTION CREWS:
As pyramid height increased, more and more blocks had to be moved to the present top tier of the pyramid. The labor of doing so consisted of operating locks, starting at the top, and sequentially winding down the pyramid. A single crew of a six men would be quite capable emplacing perhaps a dozen stones at the top, and then work their way down the lock system, lifting a dozen more blocks, each one step upward, in their ascent to the top.
Thus, in one day, six men could both lift and set a dozen blocks, to a level near the top of the pyramid. Toward the bottom, things were more efficient, and each lock could hold vastly more blocks traveling upward, and the workload per crew was decreased. A "lifting crew" of 2000-3000 men total could quite reasonably serve to both lift and emplace all the blocks in a pyramid. Each small crew could make just a single trip up, and down the pyramid each day. Near the base, almost all the labor is in setting the stones, and a small crew could set many dozen blocks, since their day isn't "gobbled up" by moving blocks through a hundred locks.
QUARRYING STONES:
This theory postulates that a canal extends all the way from stone quarry to pyramid. In some cases, the Nile River, at flood stage, would have to be used to transport stones down river, or across the river, and a canal with locks would be needed to transport the blocks up to the pyramid site.
If water is available at the quarry, it can assist in quarrying, even if mechanical water power isn't physically used. This is because there are many clay containing (soft) layers between the hard limestone layers. If the immediate area around a stone to be quarried is saturated for some time, the soft stone can be dug out, and the hard stone becomes somewhat easier to abrade with a pick.
The secret to successful quarrying is to undercut the hard layers, digging only through the soft clay beneath the good stones and above the good stones.
One particularly efficient method is to "drill a hole above and below the hard layer, using the natural thickness of the layer to determine block size. If the "drilling" procedure scores the stone above and below, it tends to create natural breakpoints for the stone blocks when the cliff face collapses. The back face of the block will then "naturally" break parallel to the cliff face, and can be squared up later with pick work, while the freshly broken stone is still in a somewhat damp and "green" condition. (It hardens over time, with exposure to the weather.)
This "crude" quarrying technique, though effective, is extremely reliant on locating naturally occurring layers of hard stone of the proper thickness between layers soft enough to work with essentially Stone Age tools.
QUARRYING TOOLS:
A reasonably efficient "drill" for soft wet limestone (clay bearing) can be made with a fire hardened shaft of wood, with sharp flint tool tips at the ends. If it is scraped, and not hammered, flint is quite efficient at scraping through wet limestone. To work well, the drill hole should be "flooded", so that jetting of water occurs that washes the grindings out of the holes.
A reasonably efficient scoring tool is a flint tipped mattock, used for scraping, rather than for hammering. Then, after the flint has lost its best edge, the same tool can be used for chipping and hammering, till the flint is useless.
To work well, flint tools require wet, soft, and low silica limestone. Any natural hard abrasives in the stone will render quarrying impossible, or nearly impossible, with stone-age technology. With enough motivation, a few stones can be carved, even out of solid granite. But quarrying of millions of huge stones requires the quarry workers to take some kind of shortcuts.
Granted, technically the Egyptians utilized copper extensively. But copper is even more useless in carving stone than are stone tools. The exception might be if the copper is utilized as a more efficient "holder" for flint, or even harder stones. A wooden shaft, with copper tip holding flint tools is well within the technology of the Old Kingdom. Over time, as the copper "loosens" its grip on the flint, a workman can use another flint to hammer it tight again. Since copper has excellent work hardening properties in such cases, a well maintained copper head might last for some time. Then, when a new flint or wood shaft is needed, the copper can simply be annealed in a camp fire, and new parts inserted and hammered into place in a hot camp fire.
What is amazing is that there is no evidence on the stones or in existing quarries that the Egyptians even used the Roman technique. (The Roman technique of quarrying was to drill small holes, insert dry wood wedges, wet them, and let expansion create an "irresistible force" to break the stones.) Old Kingdom Egyptian quarries show no evidence of techniques beyond digging trenches and leaving pick marks.
It appears that the Egyptians would need a parallel mechanism to create an "irresistible force". One mechanism would be to undercut or "over-cut" the stone, digging out the shallow clay layer in between hard stone layers. Then insert dry wooden poles with flint "inserts" that press on the stone in straight lines when the poles are moistened. The resulting stress concentration MIGHT break stones along straight lines, without the need for drilled holes in the hard stone.
One thing is certain, until the Bronze Age, no prying tool the Egyptians could have built could have facilitated the even breaking of stones of several tons each. Neither copper nor wood has the required strength. And copper wedges do not work well, or last long when abraded against stone, even limestone.
SOFTENING OF STONES:
What is difficult to reconcile is how so many quarried blocks of such large size could have been hewn in a 20-year period of time. Davidovits postulates that the stones were CAST IN PLACE, much like concrete, but using other chemical reactions. (see Pyramid Theory #3)
A less radical proposal might be the "softening of stones". Some relatively common stones that are quarried in their damp and "green" state, are considerably softer than they become after drying and exposure to the weather. It should be investigated whether particular local stones at known quarry sites become softer after being kept damp for several months or years.
Many stones get soft, flexible, tough, or crumbly upon prolonged exposure to water. It is less often recognized that some of these same stones become hard and durable again, after prolonged drying and exposure to the elements. I have seen flagstone that was extremely flexible and soft enough to mar with a hardwood tool, when wet and still "green" in the quarry. Yet the same stone, set in a floor for a year or two, becomes a hard durable floor surface, IF it doesn't crumble or de-laminate in the first year of use.
Perhaps the Egyptians practiced patience beyond ours. Perhaps they soaked their stones for a year before quarrying, and let the quarried blocks set for a year before incorporating them into a monument.
And, perhaps the addition of even a small quantity of an alkali to the soaking water, over a long period of time, could have softened the stones, literally turned their binding cement to a gel, so they could be easily carved. Then, simply letting them sit in the weather could have hardened back to a useable condition. A close parallel might be in the lime pits used for curing leather. The same treatment, over time, might soften some stones enough that they could be worked, even with hard wooden tools.
Extremely porous stones exhibit another peculiar effect, when quarried in a totally "wet" condition. A surface strike from a hammer or pick can generate local internal water pressure that can exceed the local tensile strength of the stone, and cause a small piece to "spall" off at the strike point. The same porous stone, when struck dry, acts extremely "tough", taking a "dent" but without breaking. Seeking out stones with just the "right" level of porosity, then quarrying them wet, might allow Stone Age hammer and pick work to dig through the stone at a rate higher than modern experiments indicate as possible. This method of carving wet stone with hydraulic pressure generated by hammer blows to its surface may be labeled as "hydraulic recoil", utilizing hydraulic pressure inside of the stone to promote its localized fracture.
"Hydraulic Recoil", inside the stones, could explain how exceedingly tough stones (when dry) could have been quarried without modern techniques. I have noticed that certain desert conglomerate rocks, rocks that appear quite durable when dry, can be carved with a pick when wet, particularly by digging a trench in them with a bit of water in the bottom. Localized spalling by "hydraulic recoil" seems to be a property of stones that have an abnormally high level of internal porosity (relative to the "cement phase"), and a tensile strength abnormally lower than the compressive strength.
A shock wave, traveling through a saturated stone with the proper porosity and tensile strength properties, may locally exceed the tensile strength of the stone. A hammer blow at one point on a wet stone surface can collapse the local pores, forcing the water, under pressure, deeper into the rock. This can generate a local tensile failure, causing the hammer blow to take out a chunk of rock with a spall pattern typical of a shock wave traveling from inside of the stone.
NOTE: The Sphinx was apparently carved out of a stone, in place. If water or chemical solution softening was employed, it is possible that the moisture used to finish up the top parts of the statue could have caused the visible water deterioration of the lower parts of the structure.
CONCLUSION:
Water power (canals and locks) COULD solve the transportation problems for constructing a pyramid of quarried stones. The requisite hydraulic engineering could have logically developed in a land of irrigation and canals, and been carried to extremes to build the most impressive structure the technology would allow.
The presence of water at the quarry sites could have also improved the prospects of quarrying with stone or copper age tools. Even modest softening of the softer clay bearing layers between harder bedded limestone layers could have immensely simplified quarrying. But it is also possible that very prolonged soaking, with or without additives, could have turned otherwise solid stones into softer, more easily quarried materials.
TESTS for this theory might include satellite photo analysis looking for canal remains at the appropriate level for the base of the canal. And physically testing for softening of pyramid stones when soaked for prolonged periods in water, or alkali solutions. And Physically testing for "hydraulic recoil" type of fracture when the saturated stones are struck by a hammer.
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