Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
this approach on the grounds that such pyramid building involved special problems
and hence special procedures. Certainly installations have been suggested for pyra-
mid building, which no one has proposed were used in the construction of normal
buildings, e.g. hydraulic installations. Ot en these suggestions were expressed far
removed from Egyptological scholarship. However there is one connection where
special installations for pyramid building emerge from within Egyptology. h is
connection is the passage in Herodotos (II.125) recording what the guides told
him about the mode of construction of pyramids. Since these accounts were two
thousand years
ex post facto
, they are not necessarily of any circumstantiality. h e
point is simply that they refer specii cally to pyramid building. Nowhere does
Herodotos (or any other ancient author) refer to the mode of constructing normal
buildings, e.g. temples, in Ancient Egypt. Accordingly some modern investigators
have attempted to interpret Herodotos' remarks without feeling bound to justify
their interpretations as of general use in Ancient Egyptian monumental building
construction (and thus based on the study of Ancient Egyptian building).
h ese modern interpretations proceed on the assumption that the guides' remarks
indicate that the pyramids were built using the previously erected (stepped) struc-
ture to facilitate the continuing process of construction. Also they assert that the
guides' remarks indicate some form of clean lit ing of blocks was employed. As
for the i rst of these assumptions it is a common place; as for the second it is by
no means a necessary assumption. h e guides told Herodotos that the blocks were
raised up from one (previously erected) step in the construction to the next higher
step by using a device consisting of short pieces of wood. It is quite possible to
see these terms as referring to the process of levering—either denoting the levers
themselves or, more probably, wooden baulks assembled as chocs to prop up the
blocks at each lit . Supposing that Herodotos' remarks indeed refer to devices
for clean lit ing, two recent proposals for such “machines” are: O.M. Riedel,
Die
Maschinen des Herodot
, Vienna, 1980, and F. Abitz, “Der Bau der Grossen Pyra-
mide”
ZAS
119, 1992, pp. 61-82. h e former depends on capstans. h e latter is a
contrivance with a counterweight mounted on a frame providing for both horizontal
and vertical motion, i.e. it provides for lit ing into position blocks with sharply
bevelled faces. It may be possible to build pyramids with these machines, but there
is no corroberative evidence for their existence in antiquity.
h e upshot of these general remarks may be summarised as follows. Obviously
the
modus operandi
of any signii cant activity evolves in the interest of economy
(of time and material). It would appear that to construct a true pyramid in massive
stone masonry the utmost economy is ef ected by arranging the delivery of mate-
rial and the working platforms inside the structure, so that no additional material
and time is required by way of building installations and eventually disposing of
them. If the work of construction is carried on from outside the pyramid structure
Report by
Herodotos
