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How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid?

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Re: How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid?

#31

Post by Ozzie_osman »

8bitsrule wrote: post #10

I'd be interested in seeing whether some of the new dating methods could be used to scientifically date the Pyramids. Because there's more than one reason to think it might be -a lot- older than 4,600 years ... an anecdotal number. For one easy reason, you don't just build one from scratch without a lot of experience. A lot of artifacts of that period are -way- too impressive for the same reason. Where's the evidence…

The timelines are pretty well-established. https://www.ancient.eu/timeline/pyramid/

It did take decades of years for pyramid-building to improve (possibly longer), but the date of the Great Pyramids is known with pretty high confidence and aligns with particular dynasties and rulers.

The big ambiguity is around the actual techniques that were used to transport the material and build the pyramids, not around the timeline.

Re: How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid?

#32

Post by hinkley »

obastani wrote: post #5
mehrdadn wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think of the cathedrals, temples, mosques, etc. that have been built all over the world, where the people who started the work knew they wouldn't live to see it finished, but that didn't dissuade them. That's mind-boggling. Why would building a cathedral/mosque/temple take longer than a lifetime (or half)?

Not an answer to your question, but the Sagrada Famila [1] began construction in 1882, and is projected to be completed around 2030. It's an immense (and beautiful) structure. Just want to point out that it's not just a matter of the buildings being built a long time ago; this kind of long-term construction is still happening today.

That said, Christopher Wren was in high demand for designing churches after the Great Fire, So he made a deal: I will design you a church but no steeple (yet). Once the backlog of churches cleared he designed the steeples, and some churches had a 20 year gap.

Even pre-industrial London could crank out enough churches in a dozen years to keep a celebrated architect booked solid. But that’s an exceedingly dense urban era, capable of supporting a large array of skilled labor.

Re: How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid?

#34

Post by masnao »

est31 wrote: post #9
burlesona wrote: post #2

This is very cool to see. The main takeaways for me were: 1. It's easy to underestimate what is possible when you limit thinking to a short timescale. I think of the cathedrals, temples, mosques, etc. that have been built all over the world, where the people who started the work knew they wouldn't live to see it finished, but that didn't dissuade them. Or conversely, it's easy to overestimate the difficulty of someth…

There is a star trek episode where they encounter a civilization which has built a benevolent AI a long time ago and has since lost capabilities to do much more than give commands to the AI. Our society has managed to write down some things like math for example so our knowledge as species won't be lost if mathematicians suddenly died. But it's harder to find permanent storage for the more skills based human activiti…

there's also john titor, the early internet small celebrity that traveled back in time because the future society run on some old obscure 8bit computer and they run out of parts

Re: How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid?

#35

Post by AlotOfReading »

8bitsrule wrote: post #10

I'd be interested in seeing whether some of the new dating methods could be used to scientifically date the Pyramids. Because there's more than one reason to think it might be -a lot- older than 4,600 years ... an anecdotal number. For one easy reason, you don't just build one from scratch without a lot of experience. A lot of artifacts of that period are -way- too impressive for the same reason. Where's the evidence…

Archaeologists realized long ago that there were other methods of dating things and that they corroborate. IEEE isn't exactly a cutting edge archaeology journal, so hopefully we can forgive them for not explaining this in a popsci piece.

There's also about a century of prior art demonstrating the evolution of pyramid construction from Djoser through Khufu.

It's fine to question popsci narratives, but it seems a bit premature to call them fairy tales before you've looked at the relevant wiki page.

Re: How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid?

#36

Post by masnao »

rrmm wrote: post #28
GuiA wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree with you, with the one caveat that Youtube is not operated with long term accessibility in mind. Videos routinely are removed by their creator, or get taken down for silly reasons. And one day Youtube will disappear as well. Archive the channels you care about - they might otherwise be impossible to find in a few decades, or a few years. Youtube-dl is one of my favorite pieces of software. Digital artef…

This is a very unsolved problem. It doesn't take much foresight to anticipate a Library of Alexandria v2.0 around the corner. Certainly, we can and should individually archive what's important to us, but more generally (archiving information for the next 1000 years say), I dunno. I hope someone will figure it out.

"there was a library in the distant past that held the entirety of human knowledge. but all was lost when the ancient people who built it lost their 3rd-party cookie trade route to the European invaders"

Re: How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid?

#37

Post by smabie »

mehrdadn wrote: post #3
burlesona wrote: post #2

This is very cool to see. The main takeaways for me were: 1. It's easy to underestimate what is possible when you limit thinking to a short timescale. I think of the cathedrals, temples, mosques, etc. that have been built all over the world, where the people who started the work knew they wouldn't live to see it finished, but that didn't dissuade them. Or conversely, it's easy to overestimate the difficulty of someth…

> I think of the cathedrals, temples, mosques, etc. that have been built all over the world, where the people who started the work knew they wouldn't live to see it finished, but that didn't dissuade them. That's mind-boggling. Why would building a cathedral/mosque/temple take longer than a lifetime (or half)?

I mean, look at Petra. Some of that stuff must have taken centuries.

Re: How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid?

#39

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

8bitsrule wrote: post #10

I'd be interested in seeing whether some of the new dating methods could be used to scientifically date the Pyramids. Because there's more than one reason to think it might be -a lot- older than 4,600 years ... an anecdotal number. For one easy reason, you don't just build one from scratch without a lot of experience. A lot of artifacts of that period are -way- too impressive for the same reason. Where's the evidence…

> For one easy reason, you don't just build one from scratch without a lot of experience. A lot of artifacts of that period are -way- too impressive for the same reason. Where's the evidence for prior art of that calibre?

Snefru, who was the Pharoah before Khufu (which is the one that build the Great Pyramid) provides a nice example of failure and progression.

He first started with the Meidum Pyramid. This pyramid collapsed during construction.

The he did the Bent Pyramid. This is like it's name in that the angle changes as you go up the pyramid.

Finally, he did the Red Pyramid which looks like what we think of when we think of a pyramid.

So yes, even right before the Great Pyramid, you can see evidence of a learning process.

This article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneferu#Building_projects provides a nice summary with pictures.

Re: How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid?

#40

Post by umvi »

Areading314 wrote: post #38

This analysis ignores friction in the calculations for energy/manpower needed to construct the pyramid. I wouldn't put much stock into these results

Yeah they just calculate the potential energy as if workers can move limestone blocks with perfect efficiency in frictionless conditions. It wouldn't surprise me if it took 2-4x its potential energy (or more) to move any given block into place.
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