The construction of the Pyramids

For a long time archaeologists and historians have had a debate on how the pyramids were built, each one of them has a theory of his own and tries to prevail on the others, making us lose very useful and important knowledge. Here are some theories.

Ramps for the construction:

One of the main problems that the pyramid builders had to solve was to lift the heavy stone blocks up to the necessary height. The method used by the ancient Egyptians was to use ramps and inclined planes of raw bricks and crushed stone along which the blocks were dragged, after they were put on the transport sleds

As the pyramid grew in height, the length of the ramp and the width of its base were increased to keep a constant pending (about 10%) and to avoid that the ramps should collapse.

Probably there were many ramps that went up the pyramid on different sides. There are many theories about the arrangement of the ramps necessary for the construction. If we start from the idea that first a pyramid in steps was built inside the pyramid, probably the ramps were connected from a level to the other instead of leaning at a right angle to the wall of the pyramid.



Other ways of lifting

The sizes of the ramps and the quantity of the material necessary to build them have stimulated the research to solve the problem of lifting the construction blocks. The one proposed by L.Croo, uses the principle of the “shaduf”, actually the Egyptians used it to lift water. Some types of oscillating elevators, wood mechanisms similar to cradles, are known, some have thought they were used to lift a stone block, that once loaded was lifted, sticking some wedges in the curved part to make it oscillate upwards.

Geometry problems:

A mistake, even small, in the slope angles of the facades of the pyramids would have caused a big mistake at the peak corners.
The principles of the construction of the pyramids are known, but the exact procedures and the techniques used are still unknown.


Some measures show an accurate use of

for example
height of the Pyramid of
 perimeter of the base
Khufu=--------------------
2

The mathematical knowledges of the Egyptians were enough to get a result similar with the calculation.

Shortly other theories