Yannis Gourdon / IFAO
The origin of Egypt’s pyramids, one of the world’s most iconic architectural works, is becoming less and less mysterious. But the methods used by the ancients are surprising nonetheless, due to the complexity they had for the time.
There are around 2.3 million stone blocks, each weighing between 2.5 and 15 tons, stacked to an impressive height more than 4 thousand years ago. The biggest, the Great Pyramid of Gizawas originally 147 meters high.
“There is still a debate among scientists about the exact method to lift these heavy blocks to such great heights,” he says. Eman Ghoneim, professor at the University of North Carolina, in the USA, cited by
But, for some years now, light has been emerging, or at least there is a path pointed out by Roland EnmarchProfessor of Egyptology at the University of Liverpool: plunder.
The researcher and his team made an important contribution andfound a ramp cut into the rock at a quarry in Hatnubin the eastern desert of Egypt, which served as an important source of alabaster used in the pyramids.
The slope of the ramp was greater than expected: more than 20% (previous estimates suggested that ramps in Ancient Egypt were no more than 10%). The team was studying inscriptions in the quarry dating back to the time of the construction of the Great Pyramid, suggesting that a similar ramp could have been used in its construction.
“If you don’t have a very steep ramp, then A ramp of such enormous proportions is needed to reach the top of the Great Pyramidand that it would be a greater engineering feat than building the pyramid itself,” says Enmarch.
Frank Müller-Römeran archaeologist at the Institute of Egyptology and Coptology in Munich, developed a theory about how the pyramids were built, which takes into account the construction time (which in the case of the Great Pyramid did not exceed 20 years), the tools and construction methods available in the time and the engineering principles.
Different ramp designs were proposed, such as a spiral shape, straight ramps that go up each side or inclined paths inside. However, Müller-Römer believes that several ramps, arranged along the exterior of the structure, would have been used on all four sides.
“My theory offers a coherent solution to the construction of the pyramids in shortest possible time“, he guarantees.
This theory does not exclude the use of other instruments, such as levers, cranes and pulleys. There have even been those who have proposed that the Egyptians used a hydraulic lifting system, as suggested by one this year led by Xavier Landreau and published in Plos One.
Now, Professor Eman Ghoneim and a team of researchers have focused on understanding how they were transported to the location both workers and materials from the pyramids.
Using satellite images, they discovered a ancient branch of the Nile with 64 kilometers in length. Segments of this river flank 31 pyramids, which suggests they were active during the construction of the pyramids.
Our discovery gives us an idea of the transportation method for the massive blocks used in the pyramids,” says Ghonheim.
“Over time, the Nile River moved and the arms disappeared because they silted up. There is still an area in the higher and lower courses that needs to be mapped and that is what we are looking for now”, he says. “We don’t have the full picture yet.”
Between 2011 and 2013, Pierre Talletprofessor of Egyptology at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, and his team fragments of logbook papyri that detailed workers’ activities of the Great Pyramid of Giza, in Wadi al-Jarf, near the shores of the Red Sea.
Enmarch considers these documents to be the most important discovery of his 30-year career in the study of Ancient Egypt, as they dispel the strangest theories, such as the involvement of extraterrestrials.
“They demonstrate that it was a large logistical undertaking, but also a construction project“, he states.
“In recent decades, we have had an increasingly better idea of what must have happened,” he says. “I’m sure archaeologists will continue to find really fascinating things,” he concludes.
