Re: Pyramid stone?

As I recall, some years ago a group, I think English but not sure, had a TV
documentary in which they tried and suceeded in building a small part of a
Pyramid using ramps and so on, just to demonstrate that it could be done and
was in fact reasonable. Their conclusion was that with sufficient manpower
it was possible. I think they created ramps not as a single ramp but sort of
along the sides of the pyramid, using an existing stone layers as a base for
the ramp to get up to the next layer. That way they did not create one huge
ramp, but a number of small ones from one layer of stone to the next. This
if course left wide steps up the sides, which then had to be filled in from
top down..

Back to the basic question, I read somewhere the outer layer was supposed to
be limestone, nuce and white and very visible.

Gordon Thompson

"Eric Stevens" <eric.stevens@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ouqbd1534u1pi9pf7rteuektkgfr4pj8gq@xxxxxxxxxx
> On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 03:25:54 GMT, Philip Deitiker
> <Donevenask@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >"stevewhittet" <whittet@xxxxxxxxxxxx> says in
> >news:UqGdnWws9LeXVEjfRVn-hw@xxxxxxxxxxxx:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> "Philip Deitiker" <Donevenask@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> >> news:0D_Ae.415249$cg1.78205@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >>> "stevewhittet" <whittet@xxxxxxxxxxxx> says in
> >>> news:D_ednV9X0cK3w0nfRVn-jw@xxxxxxxxxxxx:
> >>> ...
> >>>
> >>> > The issue is how to lift the stone. You could build it into
> >>> > the Queen Mary and then after you launch your ship raise the
> >>> > water level until the deck with the stone on it is at the
> >>> > right height, but that's probably not an optimum system
> >>>
> >>> I was going to mention that.
> >>
> >> Please do.
> >>
> >> Like you, many other posters to this group understand concepts
> >> like angle of repose, mudslide and bearing, but find the
> >> efficient construction of a pyramid using bronze age technology
> >> a daunting task.
> >
> >Its not daunting at all, trying to remove the solanoid from the
> >starter of a 1990 oldsmobile without removing any other engine
> >components, now that's a daunting task.
> >
> >I listed how to build a road that would carry at least 60 tonns when
> >carried on the appropriate jig, a road that could be easily made in
> >the late stone age if neccesary. The road was based on the most
> >widely available material sand, larger grads of sand and cut stone
> >18" square by 4" thick. Two layers. You were talking about a crane,
> >all a crane would need easily is for someone to excavate the mud down
> >to the compaction layer ...
>
> Compaction layer? What do you mean by 'compaction layer'?
>
> > ... fill it in with sand at least 4" thick, pack
> >the hell out of it lay down the same stones, in this case I would
> >make the sand between the stones layers about 5 mm. And I would make
> >the stone layers about 5 layers thick. The footing should come out
> >from the base of the crane starting at 1 foot wider and extend at a
> >45 degree angle to cover about 3 feet. The only problem I see is if
> >the crane is sitting on silty sand or organic clay which goes deeper
> >than say 5 feet until it reaches the non-compressible layer one might
> >have to dig a deeper hole.
>
> Non compressible layer? What do you mean by 'non compressible layer'?
>
> > The most recent building they built here went down 35 feet off
> >surface grade for the botton of the pier cones, that would be for a
> >15 story building made of concrete superstructure.
>
> Must be a damned good subgrade. Did it have an excavated basement?
> >
> >> For those of us who enjoy playing the engineer and can run the
> >> numbers, the question is how might we, with all we know about
> >> technology best approach this scope of work, given the limit
> >> that we can't introduce means and methods that hadn't been
> >> invented when the pyramids were built.
> >
> >Don't pontificate ...
>
> Haw!
>
> > ... building a road bed for a 60 tonne rock is not a
> >problem ...
>
> But building a road bed for t h o u s a n d s of 60 ton rocks most
> certainly is a problem.
>
> > ...I gave you a method for building a road that can handle 10
> >times that weight, 100 times that weight if the weight is spread out
> >properly. 2 inches of reinforced concrete on an inadequate bed can
> >carry 60 tonnes of stone at least once
>
> A a one-block pyramid? I thought you were more ambitious than that.
> >
> >> What is the optimum system for raising the stones? Surely not
> >> building a ramp
> >> which requires placing more stone than is required for the
> >> pyramid to begin with?
> >
> >The romans built a ramp up the side of Massada, where is the pyramide
> >they built there? Nasa expends a single fuel tank every time it sends
> >a rocket into space, it used to expend over 90% of the vehicle in a
> >saturn V rocket. Aside from that the stones in the road bed could be
> >recycled, used over 3 pyramids, therefore there total cost would be
> >1/3 of a pyramid.
> > Aside from that, this was not issue at hand, the question is
> >whether a person with early iron age technologies build a pyramid
> >ramp capable of carrying a 60 tone block.
>
> Do you mean to say that you really don't know that the Egyptians of
> the pyramids had not even reached a bronze age technology, let alone
> an iron age technology? With a few conspicuous exceptions, all they
> had was copper.
>
> >In fact there are places
> >where all one would have to do is carve the surface of the ground and
> >the roadbed already exists of sand stone or limestone.
>
> Not an easy task when all you have to do the job is copper saws using
> sand as an abrasive, or pounders made of diorite.
>
> >Thus the
> >simple answer to the question is find a place where the ground is
> >already sufficiently hard to carry the stone. Then next issue is then
> >how to make ground that isnt to hard, harder, and I explained that it
> >is relatively easy using stone chips and sand of different grades to
> >arrive that teh compaction one wants, and with sufficiently large
> >stones build a road bed. There was not call for extraordinary
> >engineering. The third issue is building a ramp. The road bed is not
> >the issue here either. Push force by ground walking humans would
> >hardly suffice, however with enough rope pack animals can be gathered
> >to pull the stone up the face of the pyramid.
>
> Resistance = mu1 x W1 where mu is the coefficient of friction and W
> is the weight to be moved.
>
> Traction = mu2 x W2.
>
> Therefore mu1 x W1 = mu2 x W2.
>
> If the coefficients of friction are similar then so to is the mass of
> the traction. That is, 60 tons of block requires 60 tons of slaves. At
> 12 slaves to the ton, that is 720 slaves to move one 60 ton block.
> Things get harder once you take the effect of gradient into account.
> >
> >> Value engineer as many different solutions as you care to for us
> >> and tell us the relative merits of each.
> >
> >Value engineering does not propose that aliens from outer space
> >carried stones simple because the engineer in question doesn't know
> >how to build a road.
> > I can give you a very simple example. I had an area on the side of
> >my drive way the frequently flooded, I wanted better drainage, but
> >the drain pipes with holes in them are thin and flexible, So I dug a
> >trench for a 4 inch pipe made of plastic, about 1 foot dee, the pipe
> >was wrapped in pipe wrap and buried in sand. On top of the sand which
> >was packed with water I added a layer of concrete fiber board, on top
> >of that a thin layer of sand and 8" x 16" x 2" stones and level and
> >on top of this decorative stones. All and all a non-steel reinforced
> >structure of 3.5"thick. Not to mention the fact I commonly carry 1/2
> >to 1 tonne of materials in the back of my truck and I frequetly park
> >it on that pad. We can assume that there is a tonne of weight spread
> >over 1/2 square feet and the stones have not budged even 1/4 inch
> >height from where they were originally placed.
> > But I was not talking about a bed that was 3.5" thick with small
> >capping stones, and with soft clay and a flexible pipe underneath. I
> >was refering to a road bed that was a foot thick with larger capping
> >stones and build on a homogeneous sand foundation with no hollow or
> >collapsable areas underneath. So far as yet even in the worst rain
> >my truck has not sunk into the ground or the pipe did not collapse.
> >The thing about sand is this, once you packit, it distributes the
> >weight around the objects, for example soft clay or pipes, thats why
> >its a good idea to pack pipes in sand versus clay.
> >And since sand is widely availalbe on the giza plateau and many
> >objects were carried from the nile, meaning water you have both
> >components in one place to create a packed roadbed even before you
> >add the topping aggregate or stone.
> > If you don't believe that such simple materials can be used to make
> >a road bed you simply have never tried to construct such a road.
> >To put this in a way you can understand, the ValueJet flight that
> >left Miami had a fire and failure and it plunged into the swamp in
> >florida and it disappeared into the swamp, like plunging a knife into
> >warm butter. That swamp when dried out is essentially what houses in
> >houston are built on, Down the road I measure about 8 feet of soft
> >organic clay going down to the non-organic zone of noncompressible
> >material. And yet people build roads, even service roads with a few
> >inches of aggregate on top of this clay. Part of my driveway are 2"
> >thick and its 53 years in age. If you then took the same plane and
> >flew it into crushed granite, what you would have is a impact crater,
> >probably 2 or 3 feet deep with a debris feild around the impact site.
> >There would be no bodies to recover. The difference between clay and
> >compacted sand is there is no lubricant, once the sand is packes with
> >lubricant, and the lubricant is removed it is effectively as hard as
> >a rock, and one can add hardeners such as calcium hydroxide (widely
> >used in the early iron age) and if available volcanic ash to make the
> >sand mortar.
> >
>
>
>
>
> Eric Stevens
>


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