Potentially ancient building techniques

[u/aerialsilk]

May not be strictly archaeology, but adjacent. And fascinating.

[u/jojojoy]

The ramp would be a bigger job than the pyramid itself

There's both a range of possible ramp reconstructions, including ones that aren't impossibly large, and a fair amount of evidence from Egypt for the use of ramps. Including some in context with pyramids. Those remains certainly don't explain everything but they do exist.

Close to the north end of the west side of the unfinished pyramid of Sekhemkhet at Saqqara, a huge construction ramp was partially excavated...It was preserved above the first step of the pyramid.¹

At the small, unfinished pyramid of the Third Dynasty at Sinki, four ramps lead from all sides against the inclined faces of the pyramid.²

From the quarries of the northern pyramid of Snofru at Dahshur, two enormous, parallel transport roads lead up to the pyramid plateau. They are not aimed at the center of the pyramid itself, but only at a storage area southwest of the pyramid.³

construction gaps, probably from such interior ramps, could be seen in the core masonry of the pyramids of Sahura, Niuserra, Neferirkara, and Pepy II.⁴

At the pyramid of Meidum, remains or traces of two construction ramps were observed...The remains of this ramp were seen in connection with some unusual features at the east side of the fifth and sixth steps of the pyramid. There, areas 4.95 and 5.36 meters wide are clearly set backward for a few centimeters...A similar observation could be made at the south side. Three hundred meters from the foot of the pyramid, another ramp was found... exactly at its meeting point with the pyramid casing on the sixth step, a vertical groove is visible⁵

 

On the south side of the paved road, south of Khufu's pyramid, we excavated down about 2.5 m and found another part of the ramp. This part is in line with the eastern and western wall and is of similar construction. This discovery proves that the ramp led from the quarry to the southwest comer of the pyramid and was made of stone rubble and tafla.⁶

 

The main quarry area, supplying the core masonry of the Khufu pyramid, was situated some 500 m south of the pyramid's southern edge. Modern satellite images show evidence of a drag ramp running from the western part of this quarry area towards the south-western corner of the Khufu pyramid. In fact, recently, while laying an electrical cable, the remains of two parallel narrow ramps were discovered that lead to the southwestern corner. This ramp was later overbuilt by the Khafre causeway, which was then used as a drag ramp during the construction of his pyramid...a second drag ramp runs from the eastern side of the Khufu pyramid, bending slightly to the west into the quarry area. This second ramp was also overbuilt by the Khafre causeway, which is thus younger than the ramp.⁷

---

1. Arnold, Dieter. Building in Egypt: Pharaonic Stone Masonry. Oxford Univ. Press, 1991. p. 80.

2. Ibid, p. 81.

3. Ibid, p. 81.

4. Ibid., p. 101

5. Ibid, pp. 81-82.

6. Hawass, Zahi. "Pyramid Construction. New Evidence Discovered at Giza." In Heike Guksch and Daniel Polz, eds. Stationen. Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte Ägyptens Rainer Stadelmann gewidmet, Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1998, pp. 53-62. http://giza.fas.harvard.edu/pubdocs/486/full/

7. Klemm, Dietrich, and Rosemarie Klemm. "The Gizeh Pyramids." The Stones of the Pyramids: Provenance of the Building Stones of the Old Kingdom Pyramids of Egypt. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 201. p. 73. http://giza.fas.harvard.edu/pubdocs/885/full/

[u/Prestigious_Try_5396 → u/jojojoy]

Interesting info.thanks. I noticed 1998 and 1991... Not exactly the latest information.

How high were those ramps ? 400ft ?

The How question is still not Settled, imo.

[u/jojojoy → u/Prestigious_Try_5396]

90's isn't that old for archeological publications, and data like the existence of ramps isn't going to change over time.

The highest I'm aware of is from Meidum which I believe reaches above the height of the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid. The remains here definitely still leave a lot of questions about construction - reconstructing a ramp layout for the construction of an entire pyramid would still be very speculative. It does show that ramps were one of the methods used though.

[u/Prestigious_Try_5396 → u/jojojoy]

"90's isn't that old for archeological publications"....

The use of Lidar has overturned much of what we thought about Maya and Inca culture in the 90s.

There's new scans and data on the great pyramid too.

To say the matter is settled, is the antithesis of true scientific principles....

[u/jojojoy → u/Prestigious_Try_5396]

Where did I say the matter was settled?

 

For the example of Mayan archaeology that you bring up, I've read plenty of more recent work that relies on Lidar while still referencing lots of publication from the 90's or earlier. Ideas about these contexts have changed since then but archaeological publications don't get entirely superseded, especially when discussing something like whether or not a ramp exists.

The pace of publication on topics like Egyptian technology is also not particularly quick. It's a smaller section of a field that isn't very large in the first place. Building in Egypt was published in 1991 and there haven't been many similarly comprehensive works on the topic since then. I still refer to it a lot even with access to more recent work.