Archaeologists have discovered a diary of one of the "foremen" who erected the Great Pyramid of Cheops, and confirmation of his testimony.
There are plenty of ancient Egyptian papyri. It would seem that among this great multitude there should have been at least one with the mention of the Egyptian pyramids, towering on the Giza plateau. But there are none. Not a single papyrus. Why? It is still not clear. Perhaps, having revealed this secret, scientists will figure it out on the other - they will finally find out how the Egyptian pyramids were actually built. Especially the largest of them is the Pyramid of Cheops, the so-called Great Pyramid.
In 2013, archaeologists were incredibly lucky. In a cave located next to the ruins of the port of Wadi al-Jaraf on the Red Sea - one of the oldest in the world, experts from Egypt and France discovered papyri hidden by someone, which turned out to be the oldest ever found.
Fragment of the diary of the "foreman": papyrus with hieroglyphs.
The papyri, consisting of many fragments, as the subsequent transcript showed, was a diary kept by a certain Maret. He was a kind of foreman who oversaw part of the work on the construction of the Cheops pyramid - under his leadership were 40 elite workers.
Another snippet.
Maret described in detail the progress of the work and revealed at least one of the secrets of the construction.
The pyramid was faced with limestone blocks weighing approximately 2.5 tons each. They were most likely cut down on the other bank of the Nile in the Turu quarries. Granite blocks, much heavier, were mined even farther - about a thousand kilometers from the Giza plateau. But how were they delivered to the construction site?
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The "foreman" assures that the blocks were transported on water by boats. Calcareous - they were placed one at a time, transportation took 2-3 days. For granite blocks, several boats were tied up - they arranged something like a raft.
The ancient Egyptian foreman assures: the blocks for the pyramids were transported by boat.
And the most important thing: according to Maret, the boats approached the very base of the pyramid under construction. For this, channels were dug to her. What some scientists have long assumed by themselves, but others did not strongly believe.
And recently, the words of the foreman were confirmed. The famous American archaeologist-Egyptologist Mark Lehner discovered one of the underground channels through which water was supplied to the pyramid.
Archaeologist-Egyptologist Mark Lehner found a canal through which water was supplied to the pyramid.
By the way, with his diary, Maret refuted the recently popular hypothesis that the blocks were not cut out somewhere in the distance, but were cast into the formwork right at the place of laying. That is, they were made from some kind of ancient Egyptian concrete. No, it is written in hieroglyphs: cut down.
Unfortunately, the "foreman" never revealed the main secret - how were the cut lime and granite blocks placed in the pyramid? How were they dragged to this or that height? Perhaps the answers will be found in some other diaries. And the one led by Maret refers to the time of completion of construction - in fact, to finishing work. And who knows, maybe the "foreman" did not consider it necessary to dwell on the method of lifting already laid blocks.
REFERENCE
Long-term construction Egyptian
The pyramid of Cheops was built for about 20 years. And even all 23 years. And it was built between 2560 and 2540 BC, 146 meters high (now 139 is crumbling).
The pyramid of Cheops is considered a wonder of the world - the only one that has survived to our time.
The architect of the Great Pyramid is Hemuin, the vizier and nephew of Cheops, who bore the title of "Manager of all Pharaoh's construction projects."
Maret reports that the vizier Ankhaf, the half-brother of Cheops, who had the title "Chief for all the works of the Pharaoh", supervised the construction.
The mystery of the construction of the Egyptian no one particularly worried about 2 thousand years. The first to be amazed and puzzled was the Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt in 450 BC. And he said that the Egyptians lifted the blocks with wooden jacks that resemble cradles. It was with Herodotus that all kinds of hypotheses were put forward. There are hundreds of them. There is even an assumption that the blocks were lifted using kites.
This is roughly how Herodotus imagined machines for lifting blocks.
Modern scientists have not yet settled on any one hypothesis. The flow of ideas continues. Although the most reliable version is considered to be the use of inclined planes - a kind of ramps along which the blocks were dragged, possibly using pulleys and ropes.
According to the most common hypothesis, the blocks were dragged along inclined planes.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY