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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?

#91

Post by close04 »

readams wrote: post #11
mehrdadn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I... just can't wrap my head around this. Is it that they actually take that long with enough people, or they have too few people working on them?

They're specifically using old-style techniques to build it, and doing a sort of fund-as-you-go structure where donations finance the construction. This is combined with the fact that the building is really complicated and every block has to be custom-carved into a unique shape. There's also likely an element of not really wanting it to be done since the construction itself is a big part of the draw of the building f…

And yet the author of the present article would simply judge it by weight and say "with certainty" it must have taken only a fraction of the time.

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

#92

Post by onion2k »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #79
onion2k wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the workers had weekends either. Weekends didn't exist until the Industrial Revolution, which was ~4300 years after the pyramids were finished.

Isn't the sabbath a "weekend"?

I think the term 'weekend' has connotations of not being religious, but sure, maybe weekends were invented earlier than the Industrial Revolution if the definition is generalized to 'a day when you don't work at the end of the week'.

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

#93

Post by strokirk »

spyckie2 wrote: post #47

I love stuff like this. I've always wanted to find a community that collaborates to determine as much as possible the rough range of the total cost, either in man hours, dollar amount or other metrics, of things we see, know, and interact with every day. I think it is even more interesting if you try to estimate the cost of the research the thing depends on (which greatly scales up the complexity but also the fun of…

I really hoped those would exist! But they don't. :(

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

#94

Post by scld »

close04 wrote: post #88
Balero wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Also: I've been to Giza. It's hot and dry as all hell. Humans are going to be far from perfect labor machines in that climate" The climate 4500 years ago was very different in this area, and the world in general. For Egypt and the middle east it was generally a little cooler, but much wetter. When we are looking back into history, even only a couple of hundred years it is important to remember that the climate, and…

The analysis is only about the effort to lift one cubic meter of stone to an arbitrary height a number of times until you reach the mathematical equivalent of a "pyramid's worth", and then divide this by the average human work capacity. That's it. No other theoretical or practical aspect was considered. No friction, no logistics, nothing else. The conclusion is that it took 900 men 20 years to lift one 2.6t cubic met…

Well, the graph in the article says 3600 men for 20 years.

900 to lift the stones 900 to place and finish them (horizontal movement?) 1500 to cut the stone 3300 design/support (logistics?)

The details are below the fold.

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

#95

Post by jiggawatts »

noneeeed wrote: post #89
jiggawatts wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bizarrely, for me, seeing Khufu's ship in person was far more memorable than the pyramids themselves. The pyramids are just... piles of rock. Sure, they're big and impressive, but no more. Without using your imagination, you can't see how they were built, what life was like at the time, or what the technology was like. The ship was incredible, to my eyes at least. My partner wasn't interested, but she never studied e…

On a smaller scale, that reminds me of the clock at Wells Cathedral ( https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co1347/... ) for 1392. The Cathedral is a great example of its kind, but for me the clock was a lot more interesting. Although that might be bacause I've been to dozens of medieval cathedrals so they do kind of blur into one. I'd like to visit the Pyramids, but I'm more interested in the insides.…

That style of clockwork reminds me strangely of the Doctor Who episode The Girl in the Fireplace (1), with the clockwork robots, which in turn is the same kind of "odd" feeling I get from Khufu's ship, or steampunk in general (2).

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_in_the_Fireplace

2) https://i.imgur.com/eSsrlSh.gifv

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

#96

Post by westurner »

> The potential energy of the pyramid—the energy needed to lift the mass above ground level—is simply the product of acceleration due to gravity, mass, and the center of mass, which in a pyramid is one-quarter of its height. The mass cannot be pinpointed because it depends on the specific densities of the Tura limestone and mortar that were used to build the structure; I am assuming a mean of 2.6 metric tons per cubic meter, hence a total mass of about 6.75 million metric tons. That means the pyramid’s potential energy is about 2.4 trillion joules.

In "Lost Technologies of the Great Pyramid" (2010) and "The Great Pyramid Prosperity Machine: Why the Great Pyramid was Built!" (2011), Steven Myers contends that the people who built the pyramids were master hydrologists who built a series of locks from the Nile all the way up the sides of the pyramids and pumped water up to a pool of water on the topmost level; where they used buoyancy and mechanical leverage by way of a floating barge crane in order to place blocks. This would explain how and why the pyramids are water tight, why explosive residue has been found in specific chambers, and why boats have been found buried at the bases of the pyramids.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0045Y26CC/

There are videos: http://www.thepump.org/video-series-2

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt_DvKGJ_QLYvJ3IdVKXU...

I'm not aware of other explanations for how friction could have been overcome in setting the blocks such that they are watertight (in the later Egyptian pyramids).

AFAIU, the pyramids of South America appear to be of different - possibly older - construction methods.

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

#97

Post by pedrovhb »

idoubtit wrote: post #69
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

This analysis ignores many physical constraints and archaeological facts. It's an amusing exercise with little connection to the real world. Archaeologists are accustomed to this "pyramidomania" that almost always forgets to examine the facts before building up theories.

"First, assume all cows are spherical..."

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

#98

Post by haihaibye »

scld wrote: post #94
close04 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The analysis is only about the effort to lift one cubic meter of stone to an arbitrary height a number of times until you reach the mathematical equivalent of a "pyramid's worth", and then divide this by the average human work capacity. That's it. No other theoretical or practical aspect was considered. No friction, no logistics, nothing else. The conclusion is that it took 900 men 20 years to lift one 2.6t cubic met…

Well, the graph in the article says 3600 men for 20 years. 900 to lift the stones 900 to place and finish them (horizontal movement?) 1500 to cut the stone 3300 design/support (logistics?) The details are below the fold.

There's no accounting for inefficiencies applying human labor to moving massive stone blocks into a really high pile.

Has the author ever done physical labor?

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

#99

Post by credit_guy »

habosa wrote: post #82

That was definitely interesting but doesn't feel fully thought out. That's how much energy it takes to move the blocks vertically into their position, ok. What about horizontal movements to bring the blocks from the quarry to a staging area to their final place? Also there doesn't seem to be any consideration of logistics time. Were the 900 men always perfectly positioned to apply their energy to the project? Did the…

That's right. Here's a more reasonable estimate that I found on bbc [1]

"All archaeologists have their own methods of calculating the number of workers employed at Giza, but most agree that the Great Pyramid was built by approximately 4,000 primary labourers (quarry workers, hauliers and masons). They would have been supported by 16-20,000 secondary workers (ramp builders, tool-makers, mortar mixers and those providing back-up services such as supplying food, clothing and fuel). This gives a total of 20-25,000, labouring for 20 years or more."

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/pyramid_build...

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

#100

Post by [deleted] »

onion2k wrote: post #66
lorthemar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. I was searching for this comment. It's extremely unlikely that a work year was 300 days thousands of years ago. But I don't think the workers had weekends either. So, might be more than 100 days but still should be roughly 3 times than the article shows.

I don't think the workers had weekends either. Weekends didn't exist until the Industrial Revolution, which was ~4300 years after the pyramids were finished.

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