You miss the point. An advanced technology like antigravity (presuming for now it is physically possible, which is greatly in doubt) or power drills would need a pletora of other technologies around it. If they have this pletora of other technologies, it is deeply unlikely they could have been defeated as they had by idiots wielding primitive iron blades. If they had drills so powerful, why don't we see egyptian firearms? Power stations? Aircraft? If they had antigravity, why did they build pyramids instead of towers?
Granite is corroded by certain chemicals. And the egyptians eventually did discovery iron toolworking. Diamond drill bits would be easy to preserve - why haven't we found any? And why did the almighty egyptians screw up with their early pyramids? The larger pyramids used softer limestone, not granite.
And they had much more than 300-500 men.
Ramps of such size were built by the romans during the seige of messina under fire from the defenders. Digging the dirt for such a ramp would not be easy, but it certainly would not be impossible. In fact, much more probably than antigravity.
Have you been to the great wall? They did not even have the benefit of relatively flat ground.
With rollers, pulling so much weight isn't that hard. 0.25 tons = 250 kilos, which is nothing, especially given the rollers. with a 5 degree incline, which is not neccessarily needed, the pullers only need to tackle a force of 213N, disregarding friction etc. Put it this way, I have hauled backpacks heavier than that. Your stats are also wrong. Each block weighed just 2.5 tons.
300 blocks of that weight would be managable, though difficult.
Even the 20 years is not that accurate. It came from a visit by the greek Herodotus, centuries later. It is not clear how accurate his account was. He also spoke of 100,000 slaves, which would be far in excess of the manpower required with antigravity.

try http://www.unmuseum.org/bldpyram.htm

What about gold plated cast iron? Where did you hear about that? Why would it not fit in with their theories? And a link for the granite block stuff?

Remember? tanA=a/b so b=a/tan A will give you base length for the ramp. Assuming the ramp angle was not more than 15 degrees and a= pyramid height let's assume 100 ft to make it easy. Then length of ramp from center of pyramid would be 100/tan15 = 373.2 ft. A fair distance. Now assume say 20 ft for the width of the ramp. So we have 1/2ba = 18660 sq.ft for side area and 18660 * 20 = 373200 ft³ for volume. That is assuming straight sides for the ramp, more likely they sloped outward. Still even with straight sides thats a considerable amount of material to be lugging about, and then tearing down. Volume for a pyramid is 1/3 base area*height. Assuming the sides slope at 45 degrees then it is 1/3*10000*100=1000000 ft³ Which means the ramp as presented would be about 37% of the volume of the pyramid. Betcha they spiraled around. If you can find the actual dimensions, volume and angles of the pyramids plug them in and see what you get. Safe bet it's probably worse.

Where did all of the great old technological artifacts go? They may have been slowly looted with passing civilizations. A lot of our modern machines are made of metals that were considered extremely valuable in ye olden days. Imagine primitive people happening across an abandoned city filled with strange iron objects. Unable to see their use, the people melt them down to make their own tools and weapons from. Also, I would like to point out that several Islamic scholars wrote that the pyramid was supposed to be filled with miraculous objects such as "bendable glass". Could these be the warped accounts of plastics in Egypt?

FZ, the 70 ton blocks I described were the ones used for the walls and the roof structure of the so- called King's Chamber. These were monolithic red granite blocks, the largest of which weighing approximately 70 tons. The average weight of these is estimated at about 30 tons. The granite was quarried 700 km down the Nile river from the pyramids.

The average block was limestone and did weigh about 2.5 tons. These were easily worked, could be maneuvered up a dirt ramp and pushed around using wooden levers (approximately 3 or 4 wooden levers of a manageable length and reasonable strength). But this is a far cry from working with 70 ton or even 30 ton granite boulders.

A ramp with just a 5 deg slope would need to be around 5000 ft long to reach the 460 or so feet to the top. If this wraped around the pyramid it would go 7 times around the length of the base and more wraps as it would rise because of the taper to the top. The width after the first complete wrap would need to expand from base to top to support the extra levels being added. If it could be only 20 feet wide it would require more than 20,000,000 cubic feet of dirt. All brought in, then carried away.

There is a lot about the construction of these we don't know.

Now, those large stones for the King's chamber are more problematic, but, they didn't need to go all the way to the top. A ramp would have been necessary to put thos in place, but they were only a little way up the structure. The pyramid itself would have supplied the majority of any ramp needed to put those in place.

Njorl

I have seen some shows, from a series out of the U.K. called Building the Impossible I think, that are quite interesting. In one they built a wooden submarine, yes it worked. In another they built what amounted to a burial chamber of the Egyptian style. To lower the capstone, several tons of rock, they simply filled the chamber with fine sand, shifted the capstone to the top and opened holes in the bottom of the chamber. Result? capstone lowered into place quite smoothly. Except for binding on a post a few inches from final position. A couple of whacks and jumping on a timber fixed that though.

Suggested reading, "The Ancient Engineers" by L. Sprague DeCamp

http://www.catchpenny.org/iron.html

I am willing to agree that the methods of construction were not supernatural. However, the accuracy of the workmanship (to within .01 inches even on inside radius cove cutting of perpendicular joints in granite), the manipulation and transport of enormous 30 to 70 ton blocks of granite over great distances (500 miles from the quarry in Aswan to Cairo. A method that they used for doing this has not to my knowledge been demonstrated), the discovery of cast iron in the pyramids, the ponderous size that a dirt ramp would need to be (although alternate ways of lifting the 2.5 ton blocks using wooden levers and props have been demonstrated that I find very likely methods, we have been taught that they used dirt ramps), lead me to believe that our current understanding of the pyramid builder's level of technology is inadequate and should be reevaluated.

This brings us back to the original point of this string: how did a Latvian immigrant who weighed a mere 100 lbs, quarry, transport and set into position a 28 ton block of Florida Coral? Or position a 9 ton gate so it has 1/4" of clearance and can be opened by pushing on one side with 1 finger?

When asked, the man said he understood the secrets of weight and leverage and that he understood how the pyramids were constructed. I believe he did. I believe that his monumental construction project is proof that he did. I believe that what we have been taught in school about the construction of the pyramids is at very least incomplete.

Let us say that someone said that they had a method to produce a Bose- Einstein Condensate, but has not been able to do it, and then someone else has done it, but is unable or unwilling to tell you how they did it. Which one would you believe possessed the knowledge of how to create the Bose-Einstein Condensate?

The simplest solution is there is a reason that the building of the Coral Castle was shrouded in secrecy; he had help. There is no reason to believe that he did it solo (except for his word), so it's far simpler to believe that he's a huckster rather than having the secret of antigravity.

Do you believe that David Copperfield can actually fly through the air and make the Statue of Liberty appear & disappear at his whim?

Hurkyl

Njorl

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Let us say that someone said that they had a method to produce a Bose- Einstein Condensate, but has not been able to do it, and then someone else has done it, but is unable or unwilling to tell you how they did it. Which one would you believe possessed the knowledge of how to create the Bose-Einstein Condensate?

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So what if the egyptians had iron? Bronze age civilisation does not mean that iron absolutely could not have been made. It could just mean that iron can be smelted, only in small amounts that made it impossible for normal use. (hence no evidence of other sites) The ability of smelting bronze is not that distant from getting iron, especially given the chance of trade with more advanced eastern cultures. Besides wouldn't they having limited iron technology undermine your claim that the pyramids could not be built with their technology. Now it sounds like the granite drilling can easily have been made with imported iron bits, and a crank/gear mechanism for harnessing the power of several slaves/livestock.
And iron is a long long way from antigravity.

Njorl

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Originally posted by Njorl...
Coral castle was built adjacent to a junkyard. Junkyards have equipment for moving large heavy junk, like wrecked autos. I have no evidence he used such equipment, but ... we are discussing Occam's razor.

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Which time? He built it and then moved it ten miles to its current location where he assembled it again.

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Originally posted by FZ...
Besides wouldn't they having limited iron technology undermine your claim that the pyramids could not be built with their technology...

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No. My main point is that we have not been told, or we do not know, the true level of their technology.

FZ, I originally brough up the suggestion of Coral Castle because it has been linked with the possibility of Anti-Gravity (he asked if there was a possiblity). I think it is far more likely that both the Coral Castle and the Pyramids were constructed using some form of conventional building technique. I just don't think that we know what the technique was yet.

Also, I don't wish to put down the Great Wall of China as an amazing achievement. No, I have never been there but I would like to go someday. They dealt with extremely complicated and dangerous conditions to build the only man made object visible from the moon. However, the construction of the Great Wall did not warrant the level of finish and close construction tolerances applied to the construction of the Great Pyramid. Working mainly with available materials they did not seek out specialty materials available only from several hundred miles away (it would not have been logical since the purpose was protection and fortification, not beauty). Smaller bricks and blocks could be used without jeopardizing the function. Which reminds me of one other interesting point about the Great Pyramid.

The so-called Sarcophagus in the King's Chamber, carved from a monolithic piece of granite thta is dark brown. It had to be built into the pyramid during construction because it is one piece and does not fit through the door of the room. It is made of a color of granite that is not found in Egypt at all. Guess where the color of granite that the Sarcophagus is made from is found? The Americas. Interesting considering their known level of technology would not have allowed them to have traveled to the americas.

Can you garantee that this granite can not be found or formed anywhere than the americas? Shouldn't plate tectonics theories make it plausible that some small amounts can indeed be found in africa/europe? It could have made it's way to Egypt by trade etc.
Can you acertain that the granite came from the americas? Making an assessment by just colour seems very inaccurate. It should be easy simply to perform tests for radioactive markers etc that would allow us to pinpoint the original location.

The iron point is that your theory that the egyptologists suppressed evidence is not only untrue, but irrational. It is untrue because you seem to interpret technological pronouncements as absolute law. Just because a civilisation is classed as stone/bronze age does not mean that they ABSOLUTELY had no technology greater than that. It implies that the majority of technology used is of the bronze age, that this is the level of acheivement practically useable. It is entirely conceivable that some regions had superior/inferior technology to others. It is also entirely conceivable that they had trade with more advanced neighbouring nations. It is hardly a closed, uniform and mathematical system we are talking about. It is also completely irrational WHY egyptologists would suppress these "because it doesn't fit with their theories". They simply recognise that this, given it's rarity as a signular case, is insignificant historically. If this was a new step, they would expose it as much as possible - after all, there is only so much to discover in egyptology and anything new that attracts waning public interest is a good thing.

Did the Egyptians use things like cranes? Probably. Hardly lost super technology though. In some parts of Egypt they still use the shaduf for irrigating fields, just as in the hieroglyphs. Simply a counterweighted pole with a bucket on the end. Scale it up and you've got a crane. Could they have used block and tackle? Maybe. Block and tackle are relatively easy to make when carved from wood. But there is no direct evidence that they did use them, at least as far as I know.
As for moving huge stones hundreds of miles, excuse me, there is a little ol' river called the Nile there. It is highly likely that they simply floated them downriver on papyrus rafts or such. On land simply "walk" the stones as worse case. There are people in Indonesia that walk huge stones, dare I say megaliths, as part of their funerary rites. Generally the entire village is involved. It is possible that the same technique was used to move the Easter Island statues in place. Heyerdahl did an experiment once and proved it could be done.
Given the technology that we know the Egyptians had and the will to do the work, It is entirely probable that these are the methods that they used. Look what the Romans, Greeks and Medieval Europeans did with not much better tools or materials.

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Originally posted by FZ...
It would be nice if you would include a link so that I can cross reference your points.

Can you garantee that this granite can not be found or formed anywhere than the americas? Shouldn't plate tectonics theories make it plausible that some small amounts can indeed be found in africa/europe? It could have made it's way to Egypt by trade etc.
Can you acertain that the granite came from the americas? Making an assessment by just colour seems very inaccurate. It should be easy simply to perform tests for radioactive markers etc that would allow us to pinpoint the original location.

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This came from one of Christopher Dunn's books, "The Giza Power Plant" pg 211. He was making the point that the granite could have been exposed to a meltdown that changed the color of Egyptian Granite used in the box. I am not convinced of that. Even if you do not agree with his power plant theory, his research on the construction methods used in the building is quite extensive. I am not convinced that the granite came from the Americas either, but this is one of the suggested locations. It may be available elsewhere as well. The question of why they used a different granite then the readily available (Although 500 miles away) red granite has baffled Egyptologists for years. To tell you the truth I just through that one in for fun. I believe that they more than likely found a source closer than the Americas. As for trading for the piece, this is highly unlikely. It would have weighed about 200,000 lbs before cutting. However, the box just enforces my original point, that we don't know much about the construction of the Great Pyramid.

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Originally posted by kleinjahr...
The Sarcophagus, put in place by magic or unknown technology? Not likely.
Imagine you're building a house. Now for some strange reason you have a huge piece of statuary that won't fit through the doors once the house is finished. Solution? Build the house around it.

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Exactly. My point was that it was not placed there later, say after the first known travels to the Americas, as placing it after the pyramid was built would have been impossible.

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Originally posted by kleinjahr...
As for moving huge stones hundreds of miles, excuse me, there is a little ol' river called the Nile there. It is highly likely that they simply floated them downriver on papyrus rafts or such.

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Experiments to do this with the 2.5 ton blocks ended poorly with the experimenters switching to a modern barge to haul the stones. I can't imagine what would happen with a 30 ton granite block or worse an 70 ton block.

There are drawings dating from the period showing the Egyptians moving a 60 ton statue on a sled using, I believe it was, 176 men and some animals. I know it could be hauled to the site eventually. And cutting it to within a tolerance of .01 would be very difficult if not impossible using hand tools made of copper and wood.

As for my theory on the cast iron. It could also mean that they had access to hardened steel, or other ferrous metals. The fact that this one piece survived can be attributed to the fact that it was buried in the structure of the wall inside of the plaster. Other pieces could have rusted away, been melted down for other uses, etc. Although it could be an isolated incidence of the material and not significant at all. My point is why don't they acknowledge its existence?

By the way FZ, have you been to the Great Wall? It sounded from what you said that you had done some hiking there.

http://www.evanwiggs.com/articles/table.html

This is a quote from the site:

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"Other items found also show incredible rock work. Tens of thousands of vases, bowls and other items made of diorite, basalt, quartz crystal and metamorphic shist, extremely hard rocks. Lines 1/150" were ploughed out of the rock and the lines were 1/30" apart.
Petrie says this about those lines:
"As the lines are only 1/150" wide it is evident that the cutting point must have been much harder than quartz; and tough enough not to splinter when so fine an edge was being employed, probably only 1/200" wide. Parallel lines are carved only 1/30" apart center to center."
What tools could to this? Also many of the vases had hollowed out internal shoulders! Some had extremely long fluted narrow necks with fat hollowed out bellies, microscopic vials, occasional strange wheel shaped objects cut out of metamorphic shist with inwardly curved lips planed down so fine that they were translucent. We absolutely could not duplicate this today!!"

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