Scientists Discovered Egyptian Secret To Moving Huge Pyramid Stones

The question of just how an ancient civilisation — without the help of modern technology — moved the two-tonne stones that made up their famed pyramids has long plagued Egyptologists and mechanical engineers alike. But now, a team from the University of Amsterdam believes they have figured it out, even though the solution was staring them in the face all along.

Scientists Discovered Egyptian Secret To Moving Huge Pyramid Stones

It all comes down to friction. See, the ancient Egyptians would transport their rocky cargo across the desert sands, from quarry to monument site with large sleds. Pretty basic sleds, basically just large slabs with upturned edges. Now, when you try to pull a large slab with upturned edges carrying a two-tonne load, it tends to dig into the sand ahead of it, building up a sand berm that must then be regularly cleared before it can become an even bigger obstacle.

Wet sand, however, doesn’t do this. In sand with just the right amount of dampness, capillary bridges — essentially microdroplets of water that bind grains of sand to one another through capillary action — form across the grains, which doubles the material’s relative stiffness. This prevents the sand from berming in front of the sled and cuts the force required to drag the sled in half. In half.

Scientists have allegedly discovered the way in which the Ancient Egyptians transported their large cargo. It is said that the Egyptians would use sleds, and water, to transport the cargo from one place to another.

So how did the scientists discover the method of transportation? Well in addition to records, they also conducted experiments. As a press release explains:

The physicists placed a laboratory version of the Egyptian sledge in a tray of sand. They determined both the required pulling force and the stiffness of the sand as a function of the quantity of water in the sand. To determine the stiffness they used a rheometer, which shows how much force is needed to deform a certain volume of sand.

Experiments revealed that the required pulling force decreased proportional to the stiffness of the sand…A sledge glides far more easily over firm desert sand simply because the sand does not pile up in front of the sledge as it does in the case of dry sand.

Interesting stuff...

a reply to: daaskapital

this however also requires a water supply to the route quarry > pyramids

and begs the question - does the energy expended creating the wetted haulway exceed the energy saved by the reduced friction of the wetted haulway ?

the lab experiment is fine as a demonstration of concept - but a real life experiment would be awesome - see how many 2 ton blocks an army battalion could move over a 1 mile course / day - and how much water is actually needed

So they have discovered how they managed to do something impossible to modern man.
To ask, what sort of hard wood would they use for the sleds? You cant use palm trees for that.
Also, what did they "discover", if all they have is yet another (shoddy) theory?

Not directed at you OP, just thinking out loud.

a reply to: Yusomad

try reading the OP source :

a guy at the front of the sled is shown pouring liquid into the sand. You can see it in the image above, just to the right of the statue’s foot.

the theory [ as I understand it ] assumes that the bloke on the prow of the sled is indeed decanting an urn of liquid into the path of the sled runners - and experimentation determined that this would indeed reduce sled friction by 50%

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: daaskapital

this however also requires a water supply to the route quarry > pyramids

and begs the question - does the energy expended creating the wetted haulway exceed the energy saved by the reduced friction of the wetted haulway ?

the lab experiment is fine as a demonstration of concept - but a real life experiment would be awesome - see how many 2 ton blocks an army battalion could move over a 1 mile course / day - and how much water is actually needed

I know what you mean.

In my opinion, it would be ideal to create the wetted haulway rather than drag the cargo on dry sand, simply due to the amount of force it would reduce. As the article states, the artwork posted above depicts a man standing on the front of a sled, pouring water into the sand in front. Perhaps that is how they operated in transporting the cargo...

As you said though, operating in such a way would require a large water supply...

---

I do agree that a physical demonstration would be epic!

Thanks for commenting,

Daas.

a reply to: ignorant_ape

How much would reduced friction help you if the sled is not strong enough (hence the strong wood remark) to support whatever you put on it? If the sled becomes crushed because palm trees are not "real" wood, how is reduced friction going to get you anywhere?

BTW, try and read whatever you respond to? Thanks.

Now let them figure out how the Baalbek stones were moved.

originally posted by: Yusomad
a reply to: ignorant_ape

How much would reduced friction help you if the sled is not strong enough (hence the strong wood remark) to support whatever you put on it? If the sled becomes crushed because palm trees are not "real" wood, how is reduced friction going to get you anywhere?

I'm fairly sure the Egyptians traded with a lot of civilisations...so it would be worth looking into the type of wood of which they were trading and purchasing.

originally posted by: Yusomad
So they have discovered how they managed to do something impossible to modern man.
To ask, what sort of hard wood would they use for the sleds? You cant use palm trees for that.
Also, what did they "discover", if all they have is yet another (shoddy) theory?

Not directed at you OP, just thinking out loud.

Great points. I think the OP's explanation is a fail.

Yes, and are these the same Egyptian scholars who refuse to date the pyramids any later than 6000 years because that would contradict the teachings of Islam?

Also, even though many of the blocks were about 2 tons, some of them were much more than this, like 15 tons, would this method work for those ones? If not, wouldn't it be logical that the same method to move the very heavy ones was used to move the 2 ton ones?

originally posted by: Yusomad
So they have discovered how they managed to do something impossible to modern man.

Why is it impossible for us to do it??

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul

originally posted by: Yusomad
So they have discovered how they managed to do something impossible to modern man.

Why is it impossible for us to do it??

Im not here to educate you, or anyone.
There was a group of japanese scientists that tried to build a puny pyramid in the 80s-90s, they failed miserably.

Should you not have an inkling about the thread topic before you post in it?

a reply to: daaskapital

If its that straight forward then do an exact trial to represent it, same number of slaves and large block. Try a oblisek that weights 5 00 tonnes. Big claims needs a big test. Yes that's right the weight of 500 motor vehicles, lets see this fantasy theory work. I bet they cant drag it 1 yard

originally posted by: Yusomad

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul

originally posted by: Yusomad
So they have discovered how they managed to do something impossible to modern man.

Why is it impossible for us to do it??

Im not here to educate you, or anyone.
There was a group of japanese scientists that tried to build a puny pyramid in the 80s-90s, they failed miserably.

Should you not have an inkling about the thread topic before you post in it?

It seems that some would like to keep the true secrets of the pyramids hidden from modern man, and propagate falsehoods to keep us in the dark.

Hey, hey. Let's not shoot the messenger, shall we?

I'm only providing some information here...lol.

Seriously though. As has been pointed out, we won't know if this works until we actually do some proper tests. With that said, the theory does make some sense (hell, we have evidence in the artwork above)...it's just matter of proving that the larger blocks could actually be transported on such sleds.

a reply to: daaskapital

You heard the man give him some room.
To me it does not, its the same they have been pushing since the 80s when I was in school, sleds and liquid, that or ramps, which would need more material than the pyramid itself...
Im all for testing tho, let them show us how wrong we are.

This is very interesting, thank you for posting it! How do they get the stone blocks or monuments into the sled?

a reply to: daaskapital

originally posted by: Yusomad
a reply to: daaskapital

You heard the man give him some room.
To me it does not, its the same they have been pushing since the 80s when I was in school, sleds and liquid, that or ramps, which would need more material than the pyramid itself...
Im all for testing tho, let them show us how wrong we are.

Thanks!

Yeah, there are definitely some inconsistencies. I don't think any one of us can come to a proper conclusion until someone actually gets there and sufficiently tests it though.

one thing they may have overlooked.....Egypt wasn't as much of a desert back when they built the Pyramids.. in fact it was quite Lush.
Trouble with Scientists is they over think things. Maybe they need to ask a builder how they would do it??

My guess would be lots of muscle power and fulcrums.

a reply to: daaskapital

The picture seems to me to show a large statue actually moving on water (though its not that clear on tghe screen, I am looking at the wavy lines beneath the statue and the group of pullers. However, that would make them look like walking on water etc - Ooh!

It doesn't go as far as shoing how they raised the stones after this. Especially to get them on the sledge and up the pyramid. I know we have been excperimenting on the tv with wooden poles, greased and rolling the stones along them, which is a bit haphazard.

I do think that there is some kind of political decision to hide our past from us and hogwash it. The pyramids seem to me, because I though you couldn't date stone, to have been built thousands of years ago and simply carved in situ by the ancient Egyptians for their own Pharoah's glory. Something isn't right about any of the theories that keep getting put in place, they don't quite fit.

So how are the people pulling the cargo over wet sand not getting stuck in it themselves? Can people pull a two ton load through wet sand with nothing but ropes and their feet?

Did they run that experiment?

And maybe this helps to explain the transport from the quarry to the construction site, but how about the actual construction themselves? How does wet sand get a 60 ton block to fit perfectly over the kings chamber.

I'll believe it when I see them use this method in action.