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181 Comments
- latrosicarius, on 11/16/2008, -9/+312of course it was in a secret room... do you honestly think they would just leave stargates laying around?
- jpinsk, on 11/15/2008, -19/+300Buried because we already know that the aliens did it.
- Rudy165, on 11/16/2008, -13/+95I sure do hope Brendan Frasier is involved.
- Sornos, on 11/16/2008, -1/+82Thanks to Dr. Jackson's work we can all be assure of this.
- threon, on 11/16/2008, -2/+781 - Cut out a block of rock
2 - Round off the corners to form a cylinder
3 - Roll cylinder up ramp to its final location
4 - Reshape the cylinder into a block and fit into place
5 - ???
6 - Prophet! - hackiavelli, on 11/16/2008, -1/+71It's not. A fit man using a pallet jack can easily move a ton by himself with nothing more than muscle.
Obviously the Egyptians didn't have the benefit of pallet jacks and a nice, smooth surface to use them on but they did have manpower (200,000 workers by some estimates) so even a rudimentary rolling system would have been effective.
And keep in mind the Egyptians had been building pyramids for around two centuries when they begin the truly massive projects like the Great Pyramid of Giza. Systems for moving the blocks would have long been developed and improved upon.
What really impresses me about the pyramids is the amount of accurate stone work done. Anyone can provide grunt power. An army of skilled stone workers who can quickly cut out large, accurate blocks is impressive. - kurough, on 11/16/2008, -1/+59This may be the answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCvx5gSnfW4
More info here: http://www.theforgottentechnology.com/ - diggydougie, on 11/16/2008, -0/+55Because that is really really heavy. And they are speculating that they didn't have wheels. It's like dragging a truck around without the wheels up a hill. And also it's non-productive work. The manpower required would be needed to grow crops and such. Slave or not.
I'm guessing that they would be laughing at our speculations if they were around today. There are a lot of things that we do today that the non-initiated would think impossible, but the craftsman who knows the tricks of the trade find very simple. - SqlByte, on 11/16/2008, -2/+37Can someone please explain to me why is it impossible for Egyptians to move two million 2.5-ton?
- andrewlotta, on 11/16/2008, -0/+33I don't know if I remember correctly, but I sort of remember years ago their was a TV special, and supposedly Egyptologists (or whoever) were going to enter a pyramid live on TV - they managed to open a door but found another wall that they would need to decode.
This was MANY years ago, I am 18 now, and it had to be when I was around 12 or 13 (I remember the oddest, most useless *****.)
Is that related to this? - diggydougie, on 11/16/2008, -3/+33Just ask Geraldo. When you find the secret room and open it up, on TV, there will be nothing inside.
- chrisduser, on 11/16/2008, -0/+29Multitasking Fail.
- Mawds, on 11/16/2008, -0/+26Indeed
- phybere, on 11/16/2008, -6/+32Huh? I've always been under the impression they were cut at a remote site and hauled in.
Also the pyramids are made of limestone, not really something you can "pour" - ASSASSYN360, on 11/16/2008, -5/+31With slave labor.
- Sornos, on 11/16/2008, -0/+24I remember. They had a little robot and everything. I wonder what happened to it.
- MacSuxWindozSux, on 11/16/2008, -2/+26Don't listen to them. Listen to this.
They know how many blocks there are.
They have a record stating it was built in something like 20-30 years.
It works out to around a block placed every minute or so for that 20 or so years non stop.
(Unwritten rule that they couldn't move several blocks at a time because it would make the theory more plausible, and thus make it harder for people to earn PHD's with ***** pyramid theories.) - swgc5, on 11/16/2008, -6/+29Way to ignore the Goa'uld!
- xieodeluxed, on 11/16/2008, -0/+23http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0
- gregdigg, on 11/16/2008, -0/+22Wrong story.
- inactive, on 11/16/2008, -2/+238000 years from now, humans will reject this for our own mighty buildings, saying, when they look at the sears tower, that aliens built it. Mystery is liked. It's what attracts students to these studies.
While archeology is wonderful, it is nothing without mystery.
I say if you have a room in the sears tower, make a puzzle that calls you an emperor. ;) Your name may be the next Ramses. - LedZepAddict, on 11/16/2008, -2/+22Yes, and you're a genius ...
- celotil, on 11/16/2008, -3/+21Actually, the same basic ideas that move huge tonnage of blocks around can be used to make the perfect stones, and who knows how many imperfect stones were taken off site because they were chipped or cracked in the process.
Example A - right angles.
We all know, or at least I'm assuming that anyone with half a brain and a decent education knows, about Pythagorus' Theorem - 3, 4, 5 - and about, considering how simple the idea is in itself, how it may have been thought up before Pythagorus.
So, if we want to make a right angle in something we simple measure the depth as 3, the width as 4, and make the diagonal reach across the two. Rotate the triangle upwards 90 degrees and you've got a box, perfect on all sides.
How do you actually make the perfect box, or block? With any semi-soft stone, such as sandstone, you can take two pieces and rub them together to make a flat surface on both. If you were to set up two boulders of sandstone on rollers, side by side, you could roll these back and forth and eventually end up with two flat surfaces. Rotate the blocks by ninety degrees and repeat.
You do this until the block is just the right shape that you want, templated by a big piece of papyrus you lay on the surface of the stone and check that the stone matches the tiny holes you've punched through.
Example B - Layout.
Moving the stone is as simple as smoothing it. You use rollers, and you can also use balancing.
Let's say you wanted to rotate ten tonnes of stone throughout 90 or 180 degrees. What's the easiest way? Balance the stone on it's central point, easily located with two bits of strings reaching across the diagonals and one little apprentice, with the stone being lifted on a simple wedge jack for easy access underneath.
You can also use balancing to move the stone. You simply place the small fulcrum off centre, just a smidge off-centre, and spin the block around. Use a wedge and a second fulcrum and through a series of shifting and rotating, the stone ends up in place.
These archeologists who continue to puzzle over how such things as the pyramids were built have obviously never had to tackle a seemingly complicated, but in reality simple, engineering problem. They need to go back to school and study basic mechanics, without all the computerised *****.
(In case anyone was wondering, I thought this up in ten minutes, and I'm drunk. I'm a Trades Assistant. It's my job to come up with simple solutions to complicated problems that wanna-be engineers present me with.) - Torx, on 11/16/2008, -1/+19Egyptian slaves are to the Great Pyramids as Indian slaves are to Dubai
- OrangeTang85, on 11/16/2008, -5/+22I think I prefer the the concept where the giant sections were poured in place like cement bricks, I mean humans are lazy, only makes sense... http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=60452
- passedoutghost, on 11/16/2008, -0/+17I remember that too.I think they were exploring a narrow shaft in the Great Pyramid.
I did a quick google search with the key words: great pyramid 2001 robot shaft and first link was:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/rob ...
The end of the shaft was just a dead end. - innocentsinner, on 11/16/2008, -0/+17I love how 5-6 years is MANY years.
- WELLDOITLIVE, on 11/16/2008, -1/+17Fraser
- sockpuppets, on 11/16/2008, -3/+18Yes, the second commenter said that. Perhaps if you agreed with him you could, oh... I don't know, give him a thumbs up?
- Firespray1138, on 11/16/2008, -2/+17Dugg for Stargate.
- DifferentAngle, on 11/16/2008, -0/+1460*24*365*30 minutes / 2,000,000 blocks = 7.884 minutes/block (from the article)
- Hegemony, on 11/16/2008, -0/+13If the Sears Tower isn't being taken care of in that time frame, it won't really be around to wonder about anymore. A few hundred years of no upkeep in that climate and it will come down.
- subterfuge, on 11/16/2008, -1/+14"It works out to around a block placed every minute or so for that 20 or so years non stop."
source please - Jacolyte, on 11/16/2008, -0/+13Not even woodland critters?
:( - dhughes, on 11/16/2008, -0/+11 I think it was on the Discovery Channel (of course) where I saw a demonstration of a crane lifting a block of several tons, the bigger blocks are not able to be lifted by any modern crane and the amount of time it would take with a modern crane would still take years.
An interesting theory is the blocks are a type of concrete, poured in place using forms. The secret of concrete was lost, the Romans re-discovered which was lost again until the 1800's when it was re-discovered yet again.
@ hackiavelli I've seen a man who can do that (Discovery Channel again) he puts hard points under the blocks and "walks" them, adds weights to one end, then rotates it 180 degrees. He is able to move a very large multi ton block a foot or two by himself each rotation.
- Executor89, on 11/16/2008, -1/+12Did the architect make a deal with Anubis to get this info?
- RobotBuddha, on 11/16/2008, -0/+10Heck, I say that about every world event.
- bmw112208, on 11/16/2008, -2/+12I don't think sarah palin has a shot in 2012 either.
- Richie311, on 11/16/2008, -4/+13Cool, but i wanna kno now.
- hackiavelli, on 11/16/2008, -0/+9Egypt might be desert but the Nile was some of the richest farming land in the ancient world. It was the bread basket of the Mediterranean. It's regular, abundant supply of food (famine withstanding) was a major reason Egypt became such a powerful nation to begin with (and why other ancient Mediterranean states were always looking to control her).
There are also carvings of the Ancient Egyptians moving objects several magnitude larger than any stone they would have moved for the Great Pyramid. They used sledges and lubricants. There's also good circumstantial evidence they may have had a special rolling system. - IphtashuFitz, on 11/16/2008, -0/+9Interesting theory. That video clip on the website was pretty interesting to watch as well. The interior passageway theory certainly seems to make sense. And I suppose the builders could have simply filled up and sealed the passageways once the top of the pyramid was completed. By filling them in completely once they were no longer needed it could very well create the illusion of a solid interior to scans performed via x-ray, etc.
- TheMikeMiller, on 11/16/2008, -0/+9Here is a small excerpt. This is the only theory that makes sense, but then egyptologists aren't engineers or chemists...
"The pair used X-rays, a plasma torch and electron microscopes to compare small fragments from pyramids with stone from the Toura and Maadi quarries.
They found 'traces of a rapid chemical reaction which did not allow natural crystalisation . . . The reaction would be inexplicable if the stones were quarried, but perfectly comprehensible if one accepts that they were cast like concrete.'" - celotil, on 11/16/2008, -0/+9I was just going to say that even if you believed in the Anti-Christ, that's not the way he's supposed to appear. And the Nephilim were hedonistic sensualists, so what the hell would they want with huge piles of useless stone?
- passedoutghost, on 11/16/2008, -1/+10Apparently. Could you have done it any faster?
- chrisj33, on 11/16/2008, -0/+8I don't know why xkcd always gets submitted. Terrible comic imo.
- passedoutghost, on 11/16/2008, -0/+8When I was a kid I thought he was the most badass Egyptologist around. Then I grew up and found out mummies don't come alive and I can't shoot at mummies because my professors wouldn't be too happy.
- jayrok, on 11/16/2008, -0/+8Because Lindsay Lohan's life must be analyzed in detail first!
- Beatmiser, on 11/16/2008, -3/+11Everybody knows they were built on Rock and Roll. ((Like this City))
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