Larry Bucaria: Building a pyramid
The ability of man to adapt natural sources of power to great advantage is what has separated us from our simian brothers. Instead of sitting in trees and catching insects, man has utilized forces of nature to enhance his existence and benefit his progeny.
We have used wind power for sailing ships and windmills; steam for engines; sensed the kinetic energy stored in a stick and stretched animal gut to power the bow and arrow; controlled geothermal energy for heat; employed animal power for transportation, plowing and wars; overused fossil fuels for myriad purposes and looked upon nature to gain some advantage. The list goes on and on in testimony to man's ability to adapt.
Gravity enabled the giant, granite loaded caissons to dig themselves deeply into the slimy bottom of New York's East river to reach bedrock for the Brooklyn bridge. Today technology has developed electricity-producing wave generators from the ocean shores; desalinization of salty sea water by use of the Sun and solar panels to produce cheap electricity. All of these realized by man's incessant search for a better life with the assistance of nature.
Ancient civilizations, without the advantages of modern machinery, accomplished mind-boggling achievements. The Egyptian epoch-making dynasties stand out as pearls of man's use of natural forces. Their legacy, as determined by their artifacts, include knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, architecture, building and creative art.
Their most prodigious contribution to man's adaptability is the construction of over 100 pyramids. These large edifices, most probably tombs for dead pharaohs, still mystify us as to how early Egyptians were able to lift huge carved stones to great heights with amazing accuracy. It is incomprehensible that these intelligent people would undertake a task as formidable as building pyramids without gaining the advantage of some power source of nature. A mental picture of thousands of people pulling and pushing gigantic stones up to great heights seems incongruous with the sheer genius we had come to identify them with.
I believe the gravity defying power of buoyancy was used extensively to build the pyramids.
Conventional wisdom by means of a series of academic guesses has concluded that these huge blocks were assembled by use of levers and/or ramps for sledges. The television program NOVA, went to great lengths in attempting to decide which method was used. The program was tedious to watch as tempers flared between opposing views, and in the end nothing was proved.
Probably both methods were used to a lesser extent, but neither could produce the gigantic megoliths we see today almost 5,000 years later. There have also been suggestions that specialized tools were provided by aliens from outer space. What separates fact from fiction?
I propose that another method, consistent with the adaptive genius of the Egyptians, was probably used. Hydro-elevators, or the lifting of huge blocks by buoyancy, could have been the main thrust of their massive accomplishments. The most formidable of the large pyramids, the Great Pyramid of Khufu, stands on the Giza plateau near Cairo, some 146.6 meters (481 feet) in height. It contains approximately 2,300,000 carved granite blocks with an average weight of 2.5 tons per block with others weighing in at 15 tons. It is 230 meters (755 feet)in length.
Estimates for completion time for the Great pyramid is generally thought to be 30 years; 2,300,000 blocks divided by 30 equals 69,000 blocks per year or 5,750 per month; divided by 30 yields 192 per day. A further division by 12 (hours) equals 16 per hour which is plausible if an efficient method of raising huge blocks existed then. These estimates are predicated on the use of only one hydro-elevator. The addition of more would have reduced the required hourly output substantially.
What exactly is a hydro-elevator? A hydro-elevator would consist of a vertically inclined water-tight wooden box-like shaft leaning against the pyramid's side and pitched on a 40-degree angle to match the slope of the pyramid. A floating pallet would be placed at the bottom of the shaft with a stone mounted on it. A water-tight door would then be closed and the shaft flooded. (The Egyptians had pioneered giant leaps in ship building, having developed mortise and tenon joints and water-tight seals and the use of acacia wood, which swells when wet. Their expertise in ship design pioneered many of the ships of their time.)
The pallet would then be lifted to the level of the water pumped in to whatever height required. Such a system seems entirely within their knowledge and capabilities. Methods of raising water to considerable heights using buckets attached to a rotating chain had been developed prior to Archimedes' water screw which was also designed to lift water.
The stone atop the pallet would then be unloaded at the desired level and put in place. The shaft would then be drained to a holding tank causing the pallet to return to ground level where it would then accommodate another stone. The holding tank would then be pumped into the shaft and the pallet would rise again. The holding tank could also be a duplicate hydro-elevator adjacent to the first. Multiple hydro-elevators could also be used to expedite construction.
The hydro-elevator(s) could be moved horizontally around the base as the pyramid grew. The use of reed boats by the Egyptians is a matter of record. They are still in use today. These buoyant boats were used to transport blocks from the quarries in instances where natural water routes were available. In other cases, shallow canals could easily have been dug. Reed boats can hold heavy loads due to their ability to entrap large amounts of air. Reed boat-like pallets could have been used to hold blocks in a hydro-elevator.
Is there room for the hydro-elevator theory in the arena of academic conjecture? I believe there is although I cannot prove it any more than any other existing theory can be proven. Conversely, neither can it be disproved. But it seems consistent with man's ability to utilize nature's powerful forces, in this case buoyancy, to facilitate their ambitions.
Man will always try to utilize great sources of power he observes in nature. Not to do so would place him back up the tree with the apes. Archimedes, Bernoulli and others have marveled at the power of buoyancy.
Has anyone thought of the Egyptians having done so also? Who knows? But someone has now.
Larry Bucaria is a resident of Framingham.