From: ayoub@globey.cs.wisc.edu (Nabil Ayoub)
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology
Subject: Re: moving pyramid blocks
Date: 11 Nov 92 22:26:27 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin, Madison

In article <1992Nov11.181920.12542@b8.b8.ingr.com> anthony@panzer.b17b.ingr.com (Anthony Shipman) writes:
>Although I missed the episode of NOVA, I have been interested for many years
>about how these massive stone blocks were moved. If the Egyptians could build
>these huge pyramids, it seems they could come up with better ways to move the
>blocks than pushing them along the ground, whether on wooden rollers or not.
>
>A few years ago I saw a documentary on the Jerusalem temple that seems like a
>good possibility for moving the Pyramid blocks, also. I can't remember if the
>show was talking about Solomon's or Herod's temple, but the method the ancients
>apparently used was to cut the blocks as huge stone cylinders, then roll them to
>the spot they wanted, then cut the cylinder on-site into the shape they wanted.
>Sounds pretty nifty to me. Any comments?

Sounds nifty but not economical. As an engineer, I'd like to put things
in numbers. By a simple geometry exercise, one can easily realize the 
amount of stone that has to be removed. Assuming the best possible way
of shaping (a square with its 4 sides on the circumfrence of the circle
- or the cross section of the cylinder), about 36.3 % of the stone had 
to be removed. To give you a better picture, the waste that had to be 
removed is about 57 % of the current size of the pyramid. For the case 
of the Cheops/Khufu Pyramid, this waste could be of the size of the 2nd
or Khafra' pyramid but it could not have been "recycled" due to the shape
of the removed stone.

If my great great great grandparents (the Ancient Egyptians) were smart
enough to align the Pyramid exactly with the four directions, then I think
they would not make this project such an economic disaster! I think this
method is highly unlikely from an non-archaeological point of view. What
do the experts say ? I believe there should have been evidence (drawings,
etc..) of such a process. I can also assume the difficulty in cutting
out these huge cylinders from the quarries, while in the program they
have shown evidence of cutting stones as cubes or slabs.

Nabil


PS. The area of a cirle = 3.142 * R * R
    The area of the largest square that can fit in the circle = 2 * R * R

    % waste of original = (3.142 - 2)/3.142 = 0.3633 or 36.33 %
    % waste of   net    = (3.142 - 2)/2.0   = 0.5708 or 57.08 %

    Slightly lower "inefficiencies would be obtained by trying to fit more 
    than one square/rectangle but they will still be big enough to make it
    prohibitive.

          .-------------------------------------------------------------.
         /  Nabil Ayoub                        ____/   __  /    ____/  /
        /  Engine Research Center             /       /   /    /      /
       /  Dept. of Mechanical Engineering    ___/    __  /    /      /
      /  University of Wisconsin-Madison    /       /   |    /      /
     /  Email:ayoub@erctitan.me.wisc.edu  _____/ __/   _|  _____/  /
    '-------------------------------------------------------------'