Epigraph: “No one has ever been able to practically prove that the most important evidence of secret knowledge, the great pyramid of Khufu, was built exactly this way and with the help of what is customary to talk about as indisputable and supposedly proven. She, like many monuments of antiquity on the land of Egypt, is exactly the paradox that stimulates thought, hones logic, poses questions and makes us look for answers to them. It itself is a stimulus to development, an artifact of progress. " (Dmitry Nechai "Ancient Egypt. X-files")
Inception
This text was born from the author's speeches on the local forum, and therefore, wherever possible, material is used as much as possible accessible to an inexperienced reader. Where I have used electronic publications, links to pages are not given. Localization of a passage can be done through a search engine: in particular, this is why there are so many citations. In addition, it is necessary to compare various statements literally, at the level of shades of meaning and reservations of their authors, which also required abundant quotations. Hyperlinks to online sources are given at the end of each quotation, for which the last two words before the closing quotation marks are highlighted.
In methodological terms, I would like to note the "lack of language" of the topic - not a single written source of the Ancient Kingdom found in the object under consideration or containing direct information about its construction that is at all representative for a real clarification of the indicated problematics. This allows us to correctly consider the declared problems outside the knowledge of the language, which in its own way makes the task easier. More precisely, it translates it into a different aspect of consideration and allows you to preserve the correctness of historical research.
The methodological leitmotif of this work is the consistent use of common sense in the study of particular problems of the construction of the Great Pyramid in the way declared in school textbooks - practically by hand, using only the means of small mechanization. The uniform process of construction of the First Wonder of the World, habitually "explained" in this way, under the influence of such criticism, breaks up into fundamentally disjoint semantic pieces, and therefore I consider the classical point of view adopted at one time without sufficient grounds.
Times and names
Promotional video:
Object names: "Khufu Horizon" is a self-name. Now we call it "The Pyramid of Cheops" (as the name of the pharaoh sounded in Greek) or "The Great Pyramid of Giza." They also say about her "The first wonder of the world." Official dating: XXVI century BC, the era of the Old Kingdom, IV dynasty according to Manetho (Khufu is its second ruler).
Quality of the era
Taking the basic official dating, I argue that the construction of the Khufu horizon according to the official chronology took place in the Eneolithic, copper-stone, and not at all the Bronze Age, as many believe by default. For example: "Do not stupidly persist in the assertions that this is the work of slaves armed with bronze tools." (the author's spelling is preserved) And further: “… blocks weighing up to one hundred tons and ideally correct geometric shape were carved and processed with the help of bronze tools, … why has no one still thought of examining the surface of these blocks for the presence of traces of bronze on them there must be a great crowd. " (Dmitry Nechai "Ancient Egypt. X-files")
On the other hand: "Early Kingdom Egypt lived in the Copper-Stone Age." ("History of the Ancient World" under the editorship of I. M. Dyakonov, V. D. Neronova, I. S. Sventsitskaya, Moscow 1982, Book 1 "Early Antiquity", lecture by I. V. Vinogradov, p.. 99)
And now about the next era of the Old Kingdom that interests us: “there were no significant changes in the instruments of production in comparison with the Early Kingdom; as before, various stone tools, wooden hoes, sickles with flint teeth, and a primitive wooden plow were widely used. (op.cit, p. 102)
"The brass tool was of great value at this time." As you can see, not a word has been said about bronze for the Old Kingdom. In addition, if we pay attention to the "great value" of copper items, then it is clear that they are usually not used otherwise than as decoration (see below about the images of the Chalcolithic).
“In Egypt, during excavations, many flint knives, scrapers, drills were found dating back to the 3rd dynasty. In the burial structure of one of the first kings of this dynasty, flint drills left by stonecutters were found by hundreds. Flint blades were found in town houses from the same period. Many flint tools have come down to us from the subsequent times of the Old Kingdom. Stone cutters had stone drills, despite the rivalry of copper. In a number of cases, stone and wooden tools did not even have any rivals. During a series of work, the cutter was driven with a wooden mallet, copper and gold were forged with a stone clamped right in the hand. Stones were hammered into a hard stone that did not lend itself to processing with copper. The stone was also polished. Note that, again, not a word is said about bronze in this passage. She simply does not yet exist under the kings of the IV Manetho dynasty of interest to us. And you must agree, it is important to look at what tools were used to carve 2.5 million cubic meters of stone (or 2.3 million stone blocks) into the pyramid's body according to the traditional “school” concept of building the Great Pyramid.
At the end of this part, we will analyze only one paragraph from the generalizing three-volume course of lectures. If the First Wonder of the World exists, then it must be somehow pragmatically explained, and here is an example of such inverted logic: “the changes were, apparently (honest slip of the tongue - A. Ch.), mostly quantitative. Only a sharp increase in the production of copper tools could (or something else! - A. Ch.) could lead, for example, to great changes in the construction business - the beginning of an unprecedented hitherto (abruptly, from an empty place, without the normal gradual accumulation of the corresponding traditions - A. Ch.) construction from soft limestone. " ("History of the Ancient World" 1982, Book. 1, p. 102) Ie. this passage should be understood in such a way that these tools themselves were not found in nature, but they had to exist, according to the author of the lecture, in much larger quantities than before,otherwise, the pyramid of Cheops will somehow fall out of the Marxist-positivist logical constructions somehow completely indecent … It turns out that under the really existing "Khufu horizon", like a thorn in the eye of the progressive linear progress of mankind, we are driving the economic possibilities of the Eneolithic era?
Once again, I would like to note the already outlined contradiction more clearly: on the one hand, we have the Eneolithic and the Great Pyramid on the other. How can one explain their position in the time of the official chronology without some kind of logical intermediary?
"Eneolithic …, Chalcolithic, Copper-Stone Age, the era of transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age." Only. As we will see below, copper is a very imperfect material that has not been replaced by stone. And progress was only outlined in the fact that without copper there would be no bronze in the future. We all came out of the Marxist school of history, which often lacked common sense: it was replaced by schematics.
“THE COPPER AGE, the transition period from the Stone to the Bronze Age (4-3 thousand BC), otherwise called. … Eneolithic … Stone tools predominate, but copper tools appear. The main occupations of the population are hoe farming, cattle breeding, and hunting. Social relations are a tribal system. " ("Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary" fourth edition, M., 1987)
How to combine the meaning of the last sentence with the following: “Ok. 2630-2152 BC e. The era of the construction of large pyramids in Egypt … Ok. 2575-2467 BC e. IV dynasty of Egyptian rulers. A strong centralized state that allowed the construction of the great pyramids of Giza (Cheops, Khafra and Mikerin) - the first of the seven wonders of the world. The cult of Ra, declared the father of the pharaohs, becomes the state religion. " ("Wikipedia" article "The Old Kingdom"). Does doubt creep in at the level of common sense, is it possible at all or not?
According to the quality of the Copper Age, the builders of the pyramids must live in wicker huts and fish with bone harpoons, and they unexpectedly built a wonder of the world from scratch. How? Is everything here so certain, as stated in our school history textbooks? Let's dig into the details.
Compare, for example, so that the Great Pyramid does not stick out from the “Eneolithic landscape” of Marxist historical logic, the brilliant pre-revolutionary professor B. A. Turaev in the first volume of his classic "History of the Ancient East" in 1911 simply bypassed the question of building the pyramid of Khufu, although he spoke in great detail about the Egyptian funeral cult. And in such a context, it would simply be necessary to be more detailed, but he did not fake it.
A little about the features of source study of the era in question
Regarding the large number of copper tools in Egyptian tombs: "From the tombs of the Old Kingdom, a large number of different copper tools and their small models have come down to us, but various stone tools, wooden hoes, sickles with flint teeth, and a primitive wooden plow were still widely used." ("History of the Ancient World" 1982, Book 1, p. 102)
“However, copper tools belonging to the period of the Old Kingdom were also found in significant quantities: various knives and cutters, tesla, axes, saws. Most often these are not real tools, but small copper similarities of them, apparently made for the sake of economy. These tools were supposed, according to the ideas of the ancient Egyptians, to serve the dead man buried with them in the "other world", and they accurately reproduced the real copper tools. Such sets, packed in boxes, are also depicted on the walls of tombs. It also shows copper tools in action - in the hands of the craftsmen."
Let's pay attention to the words "… apparently for the sake of economy …" - how simple everything is in history! Especially when we modernize it in the American manner, substituting the current system of values into the brain of an ancient man. And the latter is not at all universal …
As for the copper tools, their models and planar images in the tombs of nobles and smaller "foremen of the pyramid construction" - when interpreting this fact, it should be perceived through the prism of the Egyptian funeral cult, which deeply penetrated the consciousness of the Egyptians, and perhaps the relationship with "that light" and it was (as it might seem somewhat strange to modern materialistic man) the goal of their civilization. For them, in general, the main thing is to incarnate, it seems that their whole life was devoted, at least the life of a representative of the high society there. Well, given the effect of "culture diffusion", we can safely assume that the leaders were imitated by the rest of the people.
So: what will be drawn in this world, molded in the form of toys - in the next world will be revealed in its natural form. So they drove a fictitious set of expensive and prestigious items at any cost. So do not delude yourself about the real number of copper tools in that era, drawing conclusions from their images and models. Despite the fact that the latter were generally made of clay, but imitated any material, including copper.
For comparison, it should be noted that about the same ideas about the afterlife exist among modern Chinese - it is enough to take a model of something with you to the next world, and this thing will appear there in full size and in quite working condition. Modern Chinese even specially for this purpose burn money specially for the deceased - in the "next world" will be rich.
Copper properties
Well, we have the Copper-Stone Age. What are the qualities of copper tools in terms of stone processing? Cold forging is primordial for copper - the development of this metal by primitive mankind began with it: “This metal is found in nature in its native form more often than gold, silver and iron. Once they found a nugget that weighed 420 tons. " ("Wikipedia" article "Copper) Therefore, initially there was cold forging, namely cold forging: flattening of a nugget at natural temperature. It is still used today along with other methods: cf. GOST, s for "cold-rolled sheets and strips".
"Technology. The first acquaintance of a person with copper occurred through nuggets, which were mistaken for stones and tried to process in the usual way, hitting them with other stones. Pieces did not break off from the nuggets, but they were deformed and they could be given the necessary shape (cold forging). " ("Wikipedia" article "Copper Age") Cold forging is fine, but how far is it technologically from creating "forged" saws from a single ingot for sawing limestone with sandy abrasive and "special hardening" (see below).
By the way, about hot forging - overheating for processing copper is bad: the mechanical parameters of "annealed" copper are worse than deformed, cold-forged (compare the parameters of the table "Basic physical and mechanical properties of copper") - cold forging keeps a copper product three times stronger and more elastic, than after heating. This thesis is confirmed by modern recommendations: "You cannot forge a joint at temperatures above 500 ° C, since copper at such a temperature has low strength and can crack."
Copper is generally ductile and works well at low temperatures: "Pure copper has high … ductility … Copper has excellent cold and hot pressure workability, good casting properties …" about the softness of copper: “Copper has been used as an artistic material since the copper age (jewelry, sculpture, utensils, dishes). Forged and cast items made of metal and alloys are decorated with chasing, engraving, and embossing. The ease of processing M. (due to its softness) allows craftsmen to achieve a variety of textures, thoroughness of detail, and subtle modeling of the form. " The above description is adequate for the material of artistic handicrafts, but in no way for the manufacture of tools, especially for stone-making,and even on an industrial scale. Wed in the same place are images of modern artistic copper products.
"It does not differ in hardness either: copper, however, is harder than gold and silver, but one and a half times softer than iron (3.0 and 4.5, respectively, on a 10-point scale)." limestone for the Great Pyramid with golden tools.
There is no reception against scrap, if there is no other scrap
I imagined the main tool of the orthodox pyramid-building concept - a crowbar, a crowbar (an absolutely irreplaceable thing for the final assembly of blocks into the pyramid's body when building it by hand) in a ritual "Pharaoh's" performance - it should definitely be something golden. Such a thing would have looked somehow very stylish in Egyptian and simply had to be in the not plundered burial of Tutankhamun. It is strange why traces of it with fire during the day are not visible in the indicated archaeological complex. In addition, in my opinion, there would simply be a myth in which the pharaoh himself lays the first stone in the body of a pyramid or temple.
To lay 2.3 million (think about the figure !!!) limestone blocks meter per meter with a small scrap in the body of the pyramid should have been, with the classical concept of building a pyramid by hand, the most massive construction tool.
Where is it depicted, is it a weapon? What did he look like then? And with all the love of the Egyptians to sketch everything, everything, everything - there is no image of it. Or maybe this softest and most elastic, cold-forged copper scrap was found somewhere as at least a clay model or full-size in its natural form, albeit a single one? It is clear that a lot of time has passed - the local residents would have had time to mostly dispose of it. But isolated copies had to remain. And they are not. In this case, it seems, the "argument of silence" loudly cries out about the inconsistency of the whole idea of constructing the investigated "Khufu horizon" by hand.
About copper tools with humor
"You can imagine what heaps of copper tools the Egyptians had to exude during the Old Kingdom, literally rolling mountains of stone!" - the authors of the cited page have a truly bright sense of humor. However, they did not go from humor to the sarcasm of denial of the "school" concept of building the Cheops pyramid, which would be logical.
In fact, copper tools in Egypt, as elsewhere in the Eneolithic, were used for completely different purposes: “Copper tools undoubtedly found great application in woodworking craft. The entire population needed wood products everywhere and every day. First of all, wood was needed in agriculture, as well as for the manufacture of ceilings, poles, doors in buildings, in the construction of ships and the manufacture of household items. (ibid.)
“The copper tools were soft; it can be assumed that they were made somewhat harder by strong forging; the action of saws and drills was strengthened with hard sand. " (ibid.) As you can see, here the author honestly made a reservation regarding forging ("we can assume") and we have just a virtual reconstruction to fill the voids of archeology and metalworking technology.
If you think about it, then we are in general a pearl. Where is he from? It seems that I found the original source of this quote, which is still circulating on the net in many texts: “It is known that blocks of this stone (limestone during the construction of the Great Pyramid - A. Ch.) were cut with copper saws, which were made from ingots that were subjected to strength special forging. " ("History of the Ancient World" 1982, Book 1, p. 102)
Nothing more specifically is said about this: what kind of "special" forging is this? How does it differ from "general", non-special? Is it hot or cold, this very "special" forging? Let me remind you that everywhere we are talking purely about copper. It seems to me that on a subconscious level, the author of the quoted fragment adjusts the facts to the necessary materialistic explanation of the construction of the Great Pyramid by hand.
Copper is, first of all, cold forging from a nugget, practically smearing it into something suitable for the household. Therefore, we have before us a process purely individual for each nugget. This is not mainstream technology. If the nugget is very hot, it, copper, begins to crumble (see above). Therefore, before bronze (which solved exactly this problem of the unreality of a tool with such a working edge), copper was used mainly as a toy, decoration, which is confirmed by a typical set of archaeological complexes (see below in the pictures).
Thus, it should be repeated that the appearance of copper did not in itself constitute a revolutionary breakthrough in the manufacture of tools. It is revolutionary exclusively post factum in the aspect of the future appearance of bronze, which, naturally, could not have taken place without the confidently mastered copper.
About copper saws according to Arnold
Descending deeper and deeper to the primary sources of unverified "evidence" about the fact that the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom sawed limestone using a copper saw with quartz sand as an abrasive, I seem to have found the very bottom, the primary source. Apparently, this is WMF Petrie. Dieter Arnold, Building in Egypt; Pharaonic Stone Masonry, New York and Oxford, 1991, chap. VI "Tools and Their Application" in the section "Sawing Tools" we read that "Since the width of its [saw] was no more than half a centimeter, the use of flint teeth on a metal frame is excluded. Sawing soft stone was not problematic and was apparently performed frequently; but sawing hard rock was a rare occasion. " and further, the most important: “Petrie suggests that the saw blades that were used for the sarcophagus of Cheops must have been 2.4 meters long. They probably had no teeth and were used with sand as an abrasive. Stokes' experiments added to Petrie's ideas that the cutting force would not be sufficient if quartz sand was not used. Nevertheless, the loss of metal had to be significant, and the method was so expensive that it could only be used for royal monuments. Unfortunately (for my opponents - A. Ch.) saws of this length (2.4 meters !!! - A. C.) were not found in Egypt. " and nowhere in the ancient world during the Chalcolithic era. Unfortunately (for my opponents - A. Ch.) saws of this length (2.4 meters !!! - A. C.) were not found in Egypt. " and nowhere in the ancient world during the Chalcolithic era. Unfortunately (for my opponents - A. Ch.) saws of this length (2.4 meters !!! - A. C.) were not found in Egypt. " and nowhere in the ancient world during the Chalcolithic era.
W. M. Flinders-Petrie is the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His famous publication of museum items dates back to 1917 (WMF Petrie “Tools and weapons: illustrated by the Egyptian collection in University College London, 1917). Therefore, we have before us at least a ninety-year delusion that has not yet been verified by anyone, passing from book to book, from online article to article. No one even wondered if a copper saw could even be two and a half meters long. This is technically unrealistic given the properties of copper!
Maybe everything is simpler - after all, the laser beam is also "toothless" and cut 2.4 meters in the stone for him is not a problem. So where is the more real explanation: not thought out by anyone from the point of view of elementary common sense of a century ago by Sir Petrie and his followers or by modern "ufologists"? Who is inadequate about the elementary common sense in history?
Wed wonderful photos of Andrey Sklyarov based on the results of stone processing in Ancient Egypt in the article by Andrey Moiseenko "Who built the pyramids for the Egyptians?" Is this also done with copper saws and drills?
The same can be said for longitudinal saws for woodworking. They appear quite late in general - already in the developed Iron Age during the excavations and subsequent reconstruction of the early medieval Norman settlement in York (England) they did not yet exist. There, at first, the log was split lengthwise into three parts with wedges, the central bar was processed with axes, cutting out a thick and high-quality board for shipbuilding. The sides had an auxiliary purpose, for example, for the walls of dugouts. How long would a woodworking rip saw be made of copper? Not much less than the notorious 2.4 meters of the same material, and therefore appeared only in the advanced Iron Age.
Chalcolithic images
The Copper-Stone Age is a stage phenomenon, i.e. almost all primitive tribes in their development pass it. This is basically one level of development of the productive forces in terms of basic characteristics. Therefore, it would be quite correct to compare the figurative series of different cultures located on this horizon of the development of productive forces in order to understand the participation of copper instruments of production in the life of the then aborigines.
As we will see later, a typical Eneolithic is when there is a lot, a lot of flint (very sharp, quite strong, easily recoverable working tips from a material very common everywhere, tested by life itself), and also much less drilled pebbles and sharpened bones. At the same time, paradoxically, there is very little copper, which is very, very expensive for the inhabitants of that time and therefore is used mainly in “objects of prestige”, sacred and representative-imperious, and not at all as tools, and even more so for stone processing in industrial scales. Copper is just a mark of a bright technological future, the promise of the onset of the Bronze Age.
Tribes of the Caucasus during the Eneolithic period. We see flint tips and only one primitive copper knife. There are many more pictures, but there is very little copper on them. This is a typical Eneolithic in the steppe, Tripoli and throughout Western Europe.
Eneolithic of Tatarstan: solid drilled pebbles and flint tips, copper has not survived at all.
Before us is the Trypillian culture, which is very widespread geographically. Let's look at the level of development of the productive forces on a typical Eneolithic set of things: here are ceramic jugs, created without a potter's wheel (sic), but richly decorated. Primitive figurines of the goddess of fertility and very little copper (awls, fishhooks and jewelry). Everything is very primitive and economical regarding the material used. Also typical things of Trypillian culture and reconstruction of the life of the settlement of that time. Mostly there are primitive pottery and bone and stone, which is to be expected.
And here is the weapon. Before us are 8 flint and 1 pebble tips. This is a completely typical set of weapons for the Eneolithic era. Weapons of the Copper and Bronze Ages do not evoke associations with cutting down 2.3 million stone blocks with approximately the same hatchets.
A combination of 6.5 kg, unexpected for a modern person. gold jewelry and symbols of power in the burial of a noble person from Varna 5-6 thousand BC There are also stone tips and, as it is seen with the naked eye, not a piece of copper. Paradoxical as it may seem at first glance, this is just normal for the Copper-Stone Age. (Ivan Bakalov "Nai-staroto gold in the light"). See also interesting details of the burial and its entire depiction.
This is the fashion of the Copper Age: "… young women dressed beautifully and in some ways their manner of dress was similar to modern fashion for teenagers: they also wore short tops and short skirts, and decorated their hands with many bracelets." Let's imagine the wives of the designers of the Great Pyramid in such clothes.
But for comparison, the next stage in the development of technology: bronze - already looks solid. However, decorations are again an order of magnitude more than tools of labor (36 decorations and 1 tool - a hammer or a hatchet, and the arrowhead at the bottom right is generally a bone, which for some reason we often forget for the Eneolithic Age). And such a distribution is typical for an era when copper, and then more practical bronze for processing and use as a tool, is still very, very expensive. And if only for this reason it is used mainly as decoration, and by no means as stone tools.
Let's look at small bronze jewelry:
Here are some interesting bronze pendants and others, more graceful:
But the things of the Balanovo culture (the Bronze Age of Chuvashia) - here again we see more drilled pebbles than bronze. It is clear that this statement is even more true for the previous Eneolithic period.
Thus, the general historical context of the practical absence of copper tools in the Eneolithic era makes it consistent that they were absent in Egypt of the Old Kingdom in the quantities postulated by my opponents required to build the Khufu horizon by hand.
Natural resources
What exactly were the simple transport and lifting devices made of, the rigging so necessary for the construction of the “hand-to-hand” Great Pyramid in the Chalcolithic era according to the official date? Strange, but this question is somehow bypassed not only by official Egyptologists, but also by alternative researchers.
"… impenetrable thickets of Nile reeds - papyrus - and acacias along the banks, vast swamps of the low-lying Delta …" "Acacia groves, still vast, to some extent made up for the constant lack of construction timber." ("History of the Ancient World" 1982, Book. 1, p. 99)
Well, the Lebanese cedar is the most coveted type of industrial wood in the Middle East in ancient times. Ebony from the south is not considered here as an expensive fun purely for non-production purposes. And in general then people were very idealistic and thought less about production than they do now. It is no accident that historians pay attention to "… the central position in the Egyptian culture of religious beliefs and cults …" (BA Turaev "History of the Ancient East" Volume 1)
“Egypt was not rich in minerals. The main asset of its subsoil was a variety of rocks (granite, basalt, diorite, alabaster, limestone, sandstone). Many metals were absent, which led to the expansion of the Egyptians in the southern and northeastern directions: in the Sinai Peninsula they were attracted by copper mines, in Nubia and in the Arabian Highlands - by deposits of gold and silver. Egypt and neighboring regions did not have reserves of tin and iron, which delayed the onset of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Nile Valley. This remark about the delay in the onset of the Bronze and Iron Ages in Egypt is especially valuable.
Wood
1) The soft and expensive imported Lebanese cedar, which, as is known from the epic of Gilgamesh, in Mesopotamia (which is correct for comparison, since there is the same level of development of society as in Egypt of the Old Kingdom) was used exclusively for temple construction, and certainly not for the construction of a sled for transporting stone blocks.
From the Epic of Gilgamesh, Table 2:
In those distant times, it was impossible to create a name without the photogenic manufacture of tools. It was more appropriate to block some large span, for example a palace or a temple, and thus go down in history. By the way, Gilgamesh is the same age as the Great Pyramid by its official dating - “In 2675 BC. Gilgamesh achieved the independence of the city of Uruk. Hegemony over Lower Mesopotamia passed to Gilgamesh. " ("Wikipedia" article "Gilgamesh")
“Lebanese cedar… An evergreen coniferous tree. In favorable conditions it reaches a height of 40-50 m with a trunk diameter of up to 2.5 m … The wood is red, strong and aromatic, light and rather soft … Lebanese cedar grows rather slowly. " ("Wikipedia" article "Lebanese cedar")
Not only is its wood quite soft, although easy to transport, but it grows slowly, i.e. its reserves are not fully recovered during felling. In addition, it grew in rather hard-to-reach mountainous areas. All this suggests that this material is expensive and even theoretically could not be used in the mass construction industry of Ancient Egypt (compare the notorious 2.3 million limestone blocks in the body of the "Khufu horizon").
Dieter Arnold, op. cit. in the section "Sledges" we see a photograph (Fig. 6.36) of a well-preserved wooden sled (1.73 x 0.78 m) from Lebanese cedar. The sleighs were found south of the pyramid of Senusret I and were used to transport the sacred object. This ruler ruled from 1971 to 1926 BC. e., the Middle Kingdom, i.e. 600 years later than the construction of the Great Pyramid, but as a technological reality, such sledges can be considered permanent. The author emphasizes that "… these sleds were never used as real transport, since the lower part of his skis does not contain any signs of wear …" the color scheme somehow does not really fit into the context of general construction works. In extreme cases, I remember a pink tank from the movie "Inhabited Island" …
Naturally, in any production, especially in construction, sleds made of such expensive and soft foreign material from the point of view of common sense simply could not be used. Small number of expeditions to the “country of the cedar” simply could not provide such material for the large-scale “construction of the century”. And as we will see below, there was simply no other suitable tree for the construction of such a sled in Egypt at that time.
At the beginning of the chapter on sleighs, the cited author says that as early as 1929, at the Carrara quarry, a twenty-five-ton marble block was loaded onto a lizza sleigh. And then the most interesting thing: "… They were constructed of oak, stone oak or beech, had 6-12 meters in length and were pulled by at least 14 pairs of harnessed bulls …" I wonder where the oak could appear in industrial quantities during the Old Kingdom in Egypt (where it never happened before and in the immediate vicinity) for the manufacture of a large number of sleds? After all, according to my calculations, 320 blocks had to be delivered to the construction site on a continuous basis per day; according to the newfangled scheme, when they worked only during the flood of the Nile 3 months a year (see below) - 958 per day. There are 2,300,000 stone blocks in our pyramid, and the builders worked directly on it for 20 years (Herodotus "History" v. 2, 128). According to the first scheme, 2,300,000 blocks: 20 years: 12 months: 30 days = 320 blocks. According to the second scheme, respectively, 2300000: 20: 4: 30 = 958 blocks per daylight. When calculating, we take an administrative month of 30 days (as in Sumer at that time and a year of 360 days).
Let each sled be used more than once per day - even if they brought one block three times, there should still be at least 100 of them on the construction site at the same time according to the classical scheme and about 300 according to the new one. I do not consider the question of how many trips such drags would be enough. And the closest oak at that time grew at least in the depths of the European continent and these places were then completely wild and uninhabited. No oak expeditions have been reported. I'm not even sure that there was a separate hieroglyph for "oak", i.e. whether the Egyptians of that time were familiar with this particular type of wood.
Then a natural question arises in full growth: with the help of what vehicle were the standard limestone blocks transported over land for the construction of the Cheops pyramid? I don't even want to raise a question about larger monoliths.
2) Acacia, which originally grew on the Nile, especially in its delta, is not at all what we would now call "commercial wood" ("Acacia (Latin Acacia) … belongs to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the legume family (Fabaceae) … "(" Wikipedia "article" Acacia ").
This is what an adult plant looks like. Tell me, is it convenient to cut boards out of it with a longitudinal copper saw 2.4 meters long?
3) The date palm, as a business wood, looks quite dull. For firewood, it is still somehow suitable, but no more. Its "The trunks are covered with the remnants of leaf petioles, on top with a dense crown of feathery leaves … When tapping the trunks of the P. p., Sugar juice is obtained, from which wine is prepared, sugar is evaporated." And this is how it looks:
On the page https://www.istorya.ru/articles/heops.php there is a drawing "Possible ways of constructing the Egyptian pyramids." The question remains - what materials are the mentally reconstructed devices depicted there made of? Isn't it their tree? And then the question is: from what kind of the above?
Above is a complete list of all the main autochthonous plants of Egypt at that time, which could have at least some relation to the construction industry - nothing else grew there. And information about all expeditions for something foreign, which in ancient Egypt took place under the patronage of the state, was necessarily recorded. However, apart from the delivery of the cedar, there are no traces …
Ancient Egyptian ropes
Dieter Arnold, op. cit in the section “Ropes” we read that: “The handling of building materials, especially stone, depends on the availability of ropes strong enough to allow all kinds of maneuvers. Unfortunately, our knowledge of ancient Egyptian ropes is limited as very few specimens have been collected and even fewer have been studied. Naturally, all transport and installation work in the context of the traditional view, in particular, and the construction of the Great Pyramid by hand, without strong ropes of good quality and length is simply impossible.
The main question: what did the ancient Egyptians use to make such strong ropes that made it possible to drag huge boulders, steles, statues, etc.? The most suitable plant for making good ropes from natural fibers is Cannabis sativa, from which hemp ropes are made. From the article on hemp, we can conclude that:
1) The culture of hemp for making ropes is only 2.5 thousand years old, but we are interested in the period especially in 4600 years ago, - therefore, the adherents of the classical theory of the construction of the Cheops pyramid “hand-to-hand” did not get into the temporal interval.
2) Distribution area - it would be quite correct to say without details that it extends much north of Egypt. During the time of the Romans (by the way, it was with the help of hemp ropes that their fleet gained an advantage over their contemporaries), hemp grew in the territory of present-day Macedonia, but not further south. So with the area of distribution, we also do not fit into the topic.
"Dum palm, reed, flax, esparto grass, halfa grass and papyrus are mentioned as materials for making the ropes." (Dieter Arnold, ibid.). Let's take a closer look at the plants mentioned in the aspect of making ropes for construction work.
1) Hyphaene, doom palm. Now they use only its fruits, nothing is said about its fiber at all, which is typical as an “argument of silence” in the context of making ropes of interest to us.
2) Phragmites, reed. It looks like a reed, but of a different family. "Wickerwork, mats, some types of paper are made of reed, reed can be used as fuel, used to make wind musical instruments." And this is his appearance. It is not at all associated with the possibility of making ropes, even of the lowest quality. It seems that the author of the enumeration placed reed as a raw material for making ropes in Ancient Egypt solely due to a misunderstanding: it's like making ropes from reeds in early medieval Suomi. I see here a simple lack of common sense in the initial comprehension of the facts.
3) For comparison, from the material on flax: https://www.brez.ru/len_volokno.html we see that in modern conditions, ropes from flax are not made at all, and from this we can conclude that they are of very low quality compared to hemp.
4) Stipa tenacissima, esparto grass - something like feather grass. Nowadays, esparto is used as a raw material for the manufacture of fabrics (for example, artificial silk), as well as for the production of paper. As you can see, not a word about ropes …
5) Desmostachya bipinnata, halfa herb. Indeed, grass is grass. It is known as "kusa" in the Vedic tradition. This is generally a type of sedge growing in a bunch. Now let us imagine at least a 25-ton stone block or obelisk, which is dragged on sledges made of an incomprehensible tree species on ropes made of this very grass. Use your imagination and common sense …
6) Papyrus: “… Papyrus is a very tall (up to 4-5 m) plant with almost leafless shoots up to 7 cm in diameter … Papyrus blooms in late summer. The fruits are brown in color, resemble nuts … "(Wikipedia article" Papyrus (plant) ") The grass is marsh grass:
“Naturally, small diameter ropes were more common, but thick ones were also found. Papyrus ropes, possibly from the Ptolemaic and Roman eras, were found in 1942 and 1944 in the Tura cave, had a circumference of 20 cm and a diameter of 6.35 cm … A giant piece of 19th dynasty tackle was found in Deir el-Bahari, she had a diameter of 6.8 cm. (Dieter Arnold, ibid.)
Let's pay attention to such a feature of these ropes, as their huge, unusual for a modern person, thickness - a rope with a diameter of 6.5 cm. It is almost impossible to grasp normally with your fingers and therefore the palm will slide off all the time, it will be impossible to effectively apply all your strength to such equipment. However, nothing is said about the fact that some devices were found (or examined in the images) to work with such thick-inconvenient ropes. There is only the assumption of the cited author that such adaptations should have taken place. So should or were there? Again, logic inside out.
We have already met this logic “from the answer at the end of the book of problems” in the question with copper saws and so on. And here it is again at the quoted author: "… There is no question that the Egyptian builders used very strong ropes to move such heavy monuments as colossal statues and obelisks …" This is a purely deductive assumption. And yet it is inductive, from facts, is not substantiated by anything. Therefore, unlike the author, I have questions, because I am not going out of the need by all means to adjust the ancient methods of construction visible to the naked eye under the supposedly “their” finished result - “Khufu horizon”. I want to see if it's really possible to use primitive technologies at all and have such a brilliant result as the First Wonder of the World that has survived to this day.
It seems very doubtful whether it is possible to drag 2,300,000 stone blocks on such grass ropes in 20 years … It would not be work, but an Egyptian execution - every half hour to repair a torn and unwoven equipment, not very high quality made from completely unusable raw materials. This would disrupt the work schedule in a terrible way - cf. the need to supply such a huge number of stone blocks “from the wheels”: again a question of common sense and the ability of an unbiased observer to present the investigated action in full and at the same time in detail on a specific, very limited, construction site.
Sorry for the liberty, but with such equipment, the homeland of the mat, as a way of expressing one's feelings when performing general construction work, should have become Egypt, not Russia!
Returning to the exhaustive list of raw materials for making ropes in Egypt of the Ancient Kingdom, I would like to note the obvious for an unbiased observer: construction ropes based on them could not be of any quality and, in extreme cases, could amaze the observer with their capabilities one-time, but they were not suitable as reliable daily equipment for the volumetric "construction of the century" for 20 years according to Herodotus.
“We have, however, only literary sources (sic - A. Ch.) to confirm the existence of such ropes: references to the highest quality ropes 1000 and even 1400 cubits (525-735 meters) long, which were to be used on a royal sailing boat. (ibid.) Note that we are talking about a royal boat, an exceptional ship, and it is precisely because of its extraordinary nature that the described case was recorded in writing. In terms of construction issues, we need a story about everyday reliable ropes.
Then Dieter Arnold gives the estimates of a certain Engelbach, and: “As for the size of the ropes required to roll the obelisk on rollers, we can get rough calculations …” (ibid.) He examines a specific transportation operation and sees that in his opinion there are more than 40 the ropes simply cannot be arranged there - there is not enough room for workers. The weight of the object is known and then Engelbach calculates that each rope has a load of 6.5 tons. In order to withstand it, in his opinion, the diameter of the rope made of palm fiber should be 18.4 cm. “Apparently, such a rope should be new and from a very good palm tree.” Well, yes - otherwise it would burst immediately. Again, the logic inside out: it should have been, but not was in fact. Again, we adjust reality to our ingenuous-positivist perception of it, and then conscience does not torment for little children,who will read it all in their school history books.
Think about it - the diameter of the rope turns out to be gigantic, completely impenetrable. It seems to me that Engelbach carried out the classic thought technique reductio ad absurdum in relation to himself. Such a thickness of the ropes does not fit into common sense - people with hands capable of grasping such a rope simply do not exist: the postulation of a race of giants at the construction site of the "Khufu horizon" will take us very far - much further than transmitting the secrets of concreting from Atlantis. Dieter Arnold, it seems to me, understands this and therefore assumes, cautiously immediately expressing doubts about Engelbach's construction: "If such ropes were used, then a special loop was needed." (ibid.) It seems that such a "burlak" loop or strap has not been found in the ancient Egyptian material, and it is also not visible in the available images.
To extricate himself from the situation, Arnold further writes: “In contrast to the reconstruction of such powerful ropes, there are calculations where they are 85-90 meters long and have a circumference of 18 cm and a diameter of 6 cm. With a normal working load of 6-7 tons and a resistance limit in 20 tons. Such ropes were used in modern navigation before the introduction of synthetic ropes. Again, a little incorrectness - the indicated ropes were made from high-quality hemp, and then from any material that was not very suitable for this. Let's compare like with like.
In conclusion of this chapter, a fragment from the book. G. Hancock, R. Bauval "The Riddle of the Sphinx, or the Keeper of Being" M., "Veche", 2000, p. 44, where we are talking about the estimates of engineer Jean Leroux-Kerisel: “He tried to assess the possibility of delivering to the site 70-ton blocks that were used in the construction of the so-called Tsar's chamber. According to his calculations, such work could be done, albeit with great difficulty, by teams of 600 men, lined up on a fairly wide embankment, arranged at the side of the pyramid. From this it follows that to drag out the blocks of the Temple of the Valley, brigades of 1,800 people would be required. However, how can you harness 1800 people to move such a relatively compact cargo (the size of the blocks does not exceed 9 meters x 3 meters x 3.6 meters)? Moreover, since the length of the temple walls does not exceed 40 meters,how to organize the efficient work of such a team in a rather limited space? Taking the minimum distance between people in a line to be equal to three rues (90 centimeters), we get that no more than 50 people could stand in each line. That is, in order to drag a 200-ton block, it would be necessary to build all these 1,800 people in 36 ranks, harness them in a special harness and force them to pull in unison. " A madhouse, not a construction site!A madhouse, not a construction site!A madhouse, not a construction site!
This conclusion is also confirmed by AndRay in the first post of the "Hand-to-hand pyramid construction" branch in the old LAI forum: it turns out that "… the area of the pyramid section under construction coincides in order of magnitude with the area occupied by workers to lift building materials on it"
Was there a boy?
Are devices made of the above materials possible, if they are faced with the ultimate task of transporting and lifting two hundred ton boulders to the mounting height? This question is best answered by an extensive quote from the book. G. Hancock and R. Buval "The Riddle of the Sphinx …" pp. 41-2: “For loads heavier than 50 tons, special cranes are required. There are only a few such cranes in the world today that could handle 200-ton limestone boulders. Usually they are of bridge or portal type and are mainly used in factories and in cargo ports, where large machines and equipment such as bulldozers, armored vehicles, steel sea containers are lifted. Their structural elements are made of steel, they are equipped with powerful electric motors, but most of them have a lifting capacity of up to 100 tons. In short, the task of building a temple from 200-ton blocks would be very unusual and difficult even for modern specialists armed with modern lifting and transport equipment.
Currently, there are only two jib and counterbalanced overhead cranes in the United States that can handle loads of the order of 200 tons. One of them was recently taken to a construction site on Long Island to install a 200-ton boiler at the plant. The boom of this crane has a length of 67 meters and is equipped with a concrete counterweight weighing 160 tons, which prevents the crane from overturning. Before raising the boiler, a team of 20 had to prepare the site for 6 weeks.
And, finally, a huge technical problem in the construction of a copy of the Temple of the Valley would be the task of lifting hundreds of such loads, and in the specific conditions of the construction site on Giza."
If, nevertheless, the ancient Egyptians dragged blocks along the embankment by hand, then two questions arise: how to really place the embankment on the construction site and what material should it be? Wed op. cit., p. 43: “… the maximum slope of the embankment, along which significant loads must be hauled by people by hand, can be 1:10. Thus, in the case of the Great Pyramid, the initial height of which reached 147 meters, the length of such an embankment would have to be one and a half kilometers with a mass approximately the same as that of the pyramid itself … the terrible weight of 200-ton blocks excludes the use of an embankment made of a material less durable than limestone, from which the temples themselves were built."
About the builders of the pyramid
In modern historiography, there are three main points of view on who exactly were the people who built the "Khufu horizon" by social belonging.
1) Boris Aleksandrovich Turaev, a brilliant pre-revolutionary professor, did not narrowly touch on this issue at all in his classic work (History of the Ancient East, Vol. 1). True, in a broader context, he believed that: “… in Egypt there existed a free bourgeoisie, engaged in handicrafts and trade, and the serf peasantry. The position of these two classes of the population, taxable and subject to corvee, is portrayed in literature in gloomy colors. So it turns out that, in his opinion, the pyramid was built by serfs from among the local population in a state of corvee? According to the similarity of external features, many Western researchers considered Ancient Egypt a feudal society.
2) The view on the question posed, familiar to us from Soviet and modern textbooks, was born in the discussion about the Asian mode of production in the early 1930s. To student B. A. Turaev Vasily Vasilyevich Struve was given a "social order" to find slave-holding relations in the ancient East and thus glorify the foresight of the founders. On the basis of Sumerian material, only on the basis of a repeating sentence in one or two large summary plates for a long period of time, he suggested (and soon this assumption was already spoken of as proven without additional justification) that in the temple economy of Sumer of the era of Kings III dynasty of the city of Ur, there was a layer of workers who were employed in this economy all year round, all 360 days and received allowance there for the entire time of work,This is what the very few and nowhere else repeated sources examined by Struve were devoted to.
“… Vasily Vasilyevich showed that in the latifundial farms of the era of the III dynasty of Ur, two categories of workers worked: one - all year round, and the second - only about four months a year, during the most intense agricultural work. At the same time, the amount of allowance received by workers for their work was not the same. Those who worked in latifundial farms all year round received relatively much less than those who worked only four months a year. (see bibliography of the topic in note 4)
Then the conclusions, which were purely preliminary even for Sumer (taking into account the laconicism of the repeating fragment, the specifics of the design of the numerals in the Sumerian cuneiform, and the complete absence of other sources to confirm this assumption) were, with an accuracy of one to one, extended to the Egyptian material. It should be noted that by education V. V. Struve was precisely an Egyptologist, although he was generally a researcher with broad professional interests. He emphasized that slavery in the classical form took place in the Ancient East, but the number of "classical" slaves was relatively small.
Those. according to V. V. Struve turns out that it was the huge crowds of dependent people such as the Spartan helots or the Cretan Mnoites who built the structure of interest to us during the performance of labor service.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union said “it is necessary”, the Internet answered “there is” - and until now this point of view, compatible with the data of Herodotus (see below), is widely circulating on the Internet. Now it is adhered to, for example, by the authors of the quoted by me Gumilevik: “A characteristic form of the organization of labor in field cultivation during the period of the Old Kingdom was workers' detachments who worked at sowing and harvesting. As far as can be judged from the scenes of agricultural work and the inscriptions to them. - without filling the gaping source-study voids from the side, in this case from the history of Sumer, on the basis of only Egyptian tomb images with few comments (these historical sources strongly resemble modern comics), it is impossible to say anything definite on this topic at all. Taking into account the generally not activated common sense of the audience, the incredible vitality of V. V. Struve.
3) In our time, doubts have arisen about the large number of workers from construction brigades of dependent people on the construction of the pyramid. The grounds are as follows:
- a) “According to the Greek historian Herodotus (490 - 425 BC), construction continued for another twenty years, about 100,000 people worked on the construction of the huge tomb of Cheops … The data on the number of workers are questioned by many modern researchers. In their opinion, there would simply not be enough space for such a number of people on a construction site: more than 8,000 people would not be able to work productively without interfering with each other. " (Chapter 2) The last consideration is also essential for my reasoning - from the point of view of common sense in history, I have long believed that the Giza plateau is not rubber. Based on this premise, a recent hypothesis was put forward about the work of small teams of professionals or seasonal workers accustomed to such work.
- b) About 100,000 people permanently employed in construction according to Herodotus - cf. the number of killed and captured in the internecine wars of Upper and Lower Egypt at about the same time: "The internecine wars in the North ended with the final victory of the South under the king of the II dynasty, Hasekhemui, who brutally suppressed the last uprising in the Delta. Symbolically depicting his victory over Lower Egypt at the foot of his two statues, he cites them into the figures of the enemies who fell in this last battle - about 50 thousand northerners. " ("History of the Ancient World" M. 1982, Book. 1, p. 101)
“The founder of the IV dynasty, King Snefru, made a long campaign in Ethiopia, killing 7 thousand Nubians and taking 200 thousand head of cattle; after a campaign in Libya, he brought 1100 Libyan prisoners and new flocks to Egypt. (op. cit., pp. 109-10) As we can see, the numbers of the prisoners are rather modest. In light of this, Herodotus' number of 100,000 permanent workers is unlikely: the scale of the number of prisoners even in the most successful wars and the huge contingent of pyramid builders does not agree. The inconsistency of scale works here in favor of the theory of a small contingent of builders of our pyramid.
Then it is logical that the thought follows that it was not crowds of non-professionals who worked all the time of the year, but small brigades of professionals + free peasants worked there during the flood of the Nile without prejudice to their household. This is the last point of view on the human aspect of the problem of building the Great Pyramid.
It is most fully expressed here: “… 3. Who worked on the construction of the pyramid?
Almost everyone wanted this job, which means that it was not bonded, but voluntary labor. This was due to two reasons: each participant in the construction during the work received housing, clothing, food and a modest salary. Four months later, when the waters of the Nile left the fields, the peasants returned to their villages.
In addition, each Egyptian considered it his natural duty and a matter of honor to participate in the construction of the pyramid for the pharaoh. After all, everyone who contributed to the fulfillment of this grandiose task hoped that a particle of the immortality of the god-like Pharaoh would touch him. Therefore, at the end of June, endless streams of peasants rushed to Giza. There they were housed in temporary barracks and formed into groups of eight. Work could begin. Having sailed on boats to the other side of the Nile, the men went to the quarry. There they cut down a stone block, hewed it out using sledgehammers, wedges, saws and drills and received a block of the desired size - with sides from 80 cm to 1.45 m. Using ropes and levers, each group installed its block on wooden runners and on them she dragged him along the log deck to the bank of the Nile. The sailboat transported workers and a block weighing up to 7.5 tons to the other side. (chapter 3)
On the other hand, I personally had purely technical doubts already in the newly voiced newfangled point of view: let us read what Herodotus writes in his “History” book. 2, 128 that the Egyptians prepared a construction site with a road for about 10 years and then built the pyramid itself for 20 years. None of the modern historians question this information.
2.3 million limestone blocks with seasonal work of 4 months (just the time of the flood of the Nile) by the forces of free people and taking into account 8 hours of night (southern nights - even gouge out the eye), when work was physically impossible to carry out, each such seasonal sixteen-hour working day it was necessary to transport and assemble 958 blocks into the body of the building (see the calculations above). Those. exactly 60 blocks had to be brought in and assembled by hand per hour, i.e. one block per minute!
Now imagine the size of the construction site and imagine yourself as a foreman. How many decaliters of beer a day did you have to drink to supervise such work? A question for the imagination as above in the question of a permanent burst of low-quality ropes and an extremely tight work schedule.
Let us pay attention to the usual stream of assumptions in the already familiar spirit of my opponents: “But on the same tomb reliefs, the market for small exchange is sometimes depicted, the participants of which were, apparently, also toilers of the noble economy. There was a brisk trade: grain, bread, vegetables, fish were exchanged for fish hooks, shoes, mirrors, beads, and other handicrafts. The measure of value was grain or linen. The presence of such a market can be explained by the existence of a certain surplus of food products among some of the workers, and also, probably, by the existence of a lesson system in handicraft production. The production rate was, apparently, close to the full productive capacity of the worker, but, having completed his lesson, he probably could have made additional products,which were already considered to belong to him personally and could be exchanged on the market."
Let's pay attention to the words "apparently", "probably", "apparently" and "probably" (and this is all for a fragment of text of 672 characters) - they speak in the best way possible about the degree of study of the socio-economic relations of Egyptian society during the Ancient Kingdom., researched according to "tomb comics" + Marxist analogies, transferred "with a pistol to a temple" from Sumerian material 80 years ago. This also directly applies to the conclusions made about the builders of the pyramid: see above with reference to … heops.php chapter 3, a team of 8 people is mentioned, which from the very beginning accompanies the building block from the quarry itself to laying the block in the body of the structure. Where did this figure 8 come from? Maybe from numerology, where does it have the meaning of "double completion"? However, the authors do not explain this in any way …
How long does it take for these eight workers to cut a standard limestone block at the quarry? Nobody said a word about it.
Well, let's say they dragged it to the construction site. But how will 8 people be able to lift a standard block weighing 2.5 tons along an artificial embankment to the installation horizon?
Otherwise, how was it raised at all? The dubiousness of wooden lifting mechanisms for multi-ton blocks has already been mentioned above. Many of these doubts also apply to the “small” blocs. This especially applies to rigging, given the volume of construction and the obviously low quality of the ropes.
How long did it take to transport one such unit by 8 people?
How many of these mini-crews had to work to keep up with the incredible density schedule of delivering and installing 958 blocks per daylight?
At first, the authors of the new concept hinted at 8000 professionals on the construction site, and then, a little illogically, forced each mini-team to go through the entire technological chain from the quarry to the installation without specialization. Again it turns out somehow contradictory …
If someone wise to answer these "childish" questions, I would admit that the traditional "school" point of view of building the "Khufu horizon" by hand has a right to exist. But first, let him answer.
About harmony and dissonance
I am able to mentally imagine a situation of contrast, when a person lives in a post-war low-rise building, built by captured Germans, covered with slate on an eternally flooded light strip foundation with frogs and mold directly under the floor; with a toilet in the yard and without hot water, with a wood-burning stove, and at the same time he is building a skyscraper in a neighboring metropolis an hour away by train from his place of permanent residence. At the same time, this person has a very bad and old refrigerator, no washing machine and vacuum cleaner, no PC and nowhere to connect to the Internet, but he has a gas stove on imported cylinders and a completely new TV set, though without a cable network and without a plate. At his place of residence, his cheap mobile is always in the zone of unstable communication, but he has it.
But I cannot understand when a person lives in a semi-dugout, covered with reeds, using primitive ceramics in his household (made even without using a potter's wheel, which is a stage-by-stage and universal sign: a reliable sign of savagery) and stone and bone household items, and This builds the pyramid of Cheops, which, in terms of the complexity of design and construction, is at the level of construction of that very skyscraper from a modern metropolis, and in some ways even surpasses it.
The same correspondence would be expected in the system of measures and weights, standards and tolerances - people on the farm, in everyday life, cannot live in the most natural copper-stone age, and “at work” exist in the world of a developed industry with adequate requirements: a after all, everyone is amazed looking at the amazing precision of the fit of the stone blocks of the "Khufu horizon". The imbalance in the cultural levels of the existence of the same person “at home” and “at work” in this case is too large and the effect would be like hiring low-skilled guest workers for the construction of new Moscow high-rises, where there is a massively poor quality of work, which already affects security issues of future residence. These newcomers from Central Asia are not used to modern industrial requirements and labor discipline, as they live in one-story houses,finished according to the standards of the 50s of the last century and are accustomed to the viscous siesta time of existence in the shadow of the eternal oriental bazaar. So they are not able to accept the new threshold of quality purely organically and actively use it in their work. This is the cultural level of personnel development, there is no getting away from it: you cannot jump over generations of accumulating experience and traditions in months. In this example, the gap in development levels is 50-60 years, but there, in Egypt, the era of the Old Kingdom? The gap imho by orders of magnitude will be poorer.you cannot jump over the generations of accumulating experience and traditions in months. In this example, the gap in development levels is 50-60 years, but there, in Egypt, the era of the Old Kingdom? The gap imho by orders of magnitude will be poorer.you cannot jump over the generations of accumulating experience and traditions in months. In this example, the gap in development levels is 50-60 years, but there, in Egypt, the era of the Old Kingdom? The gap imho by orders of magnitude will be poorer.
Practically the same was said by tsilin at the LAI Forum in post # 8 on the Pyramids - Tombs of the Pharaohs branch: “If the pyramids were built by the pharaohs ….d."
Let us compare at least the complexity of designing a pyramid with cavities, chambers, corridors, which are often not located at right angles to the horizon. What about the most accurate star orientation? For example: “When scientists mapped the position of the Cheops pyramid, it was found that the diagonal of the pyramid gives its absolutely exact direction along the meridian, and the accuracy of this direction to the theoretical North Pole reaches 4 minutes 30 seconds. It turns out that the designer of the pyramid achieved a greater accuracy than that which was observed during the construction of the Paris observatory. The meridian passing through the pyramid of Cheops divides the surface of the sea and land into two equal parts, counting America and the Pacific Ocean, and the latitude passing through the center of the pyramid divides the entire globe into two equal parts to the amount of land and water. " Wedon the accuracy of the orientation of the structure also in the book by G. Hancock and R. Buval "The Riddle of the Sphinx …" on pp. 54-5, 64-5.
Or about the adjustment of the blocks in the same place on p. 52-3: “Until the 14th century, all Arabic commentaries spoke of the Great Pyramid as an architectural miracle, the facing of which sparkled under the bright sun of Egypt. The entire surface (8.8 hectares) was lined with blocks 2.4 meters thick, weighing about 16 tons each, and "they were so tightly fitted to each other that it seemed as if everything was made from one piece from top to bottom."
Several surviving blocks can still be seen at the base of the monument. Examining them in 1881, Sir W. M. Flinders-Petrie noted with surprise that “the average width of the gaps is 0.5 millimeters; and, accordingly, the curvature of the stone surface and the deviation of the shape of the block from the square does not exceed 0.25 millimeters at a length of 1.9 meters - an accuracy comparable to that of the straight edges of most modern optical systems."
And this superbly oriented structure with respect to the stars and the cardinal points was invented and created by the Eneoliths? Yes, here only continuous astronomical observations should have lasted for several centuries, or even more. In addition, and this is a very important condition: with this approach, the entire planet had to be represented as a whole, i.e. navigation should be extraordinarily developed, and cartography of the corresponding level along with it. As you can see, I am not even talking about the desirability of having a constellation of satellites in a near orbit.
Results and prospects
As you can see, criticism from the point of common sense on the important details of the general picture of the construction of the "Khufu horizon" with the help of only small-scale mechanization allows one to doubt the solidity of the two-hundred-year-old orthodox "truth" that came exclusively from philological circles, about the very possibility of building such an object on such a poor technological basis. The engineers of the topic under consideration did not touch literally until recently, and it was at the mercy, I repeat, exclusively of the most closed caste of oriental philologists - Egyptologists. The latter try to bypass this topic altogether, because normal, inexperienced people immediately speak to them head-on about aliens, etc., which immediately forces the Egyptologists to abruptly stop the conversation. It's like talking to a Japanese scholar about karate in the 80s - they ran away from this topic headlong then, without even listening to the interlocutor.
To remove this moment of "inadequacy" of the critic himself, the author of this article went from a completely different angle: I tried to consider the details of the concept of my opponents from the point of view of common sense. For example, I talked about the astronomical number of blocks that needed to be laid in a day of work; the absence of traces of copper mounts; noted the absence of a bronze instrument as such in the era under consideration; spoke about the fundamental impossibility of creating a saw 2.4 meters long from copper; showed in full growth the problem of low-quality ropes and a lack of durable wood for a large number of sledges and so on. - as it seems, before me, no one bothered to look so consistently and massively on such simple things on the proposed material. At least keeping in mind a wide range of potential readers.
This is all negative. But how was it, this very pyramid, was still built?
There is still a very unusual answer to this question, previously inaccessible to readers by outrageous, visible facts that are gaining more and more weight: the Egyptians were not built at all and it happened 11,500 years ago, long before their appearance in the Nile Valley (G. Hancock, R. Buval “The Mystery of the Sphinx … , p. 99). Perhaps the same Atlanteans or another highly developed earthly civilization? This explains the traces of stone-cutting and drilling mechanisms that are far superior in power and portability to modern ones. That the use of mass concreting technology, of course, also does not cancel.
However, even among alternative researchers, the growing “Atlantean trace” has its opponents: for example, I. S. Dybov "The myth of Atlantis, or is it worth believing Plato?"
Author: ANDREY ANATOLIEVICH CHIRIKOV
