Oluwatosin Adebayo

Scientists Finally Explain How Pyramids Were Built

Consider the Great Pyramids to be one of the original Seven Wonders of the World and the only one that remains standing today. However, in ancient Egypt, it was believed that kings were chosen by the gods to act as their intermediaries in the afterlife, and that they would eventually become gods themselves. The pyramid complex was constructed to ensure that the king had everything they would require in the afterlife, and it included a pyramid, a palace, and temples. The king's tomb, which was located inside the pyramid, was filled with numerous items, including food, furniture, and gold vessels. some weren't finished though since the construction took a while and not every Pharaoh lived long enough to see the end of the construction and now let's talk about the construction itself the biggest of the Pyramids of Giza is as tall as a 40 story building so how on Earth did they manage to build a structure that massive 5,000 years ago long before machines and other equipment appeared well let's figure it out so pharoh k Fu ascended the throne around 2575 BCE and his Architects started the construction of the oldest and biggest of the Pyramids of Giza he figured that over 2 million Limestone blocks had to be used to build the Pyramid each weighing around 2 and 1/2 tons around the weight of a rhino the architect wanted to finish the construction in 20 years to make it possible a stone had to be carried and pushed into place every 4 minutes 24 hours a day 7 days a week and 365 days a year except leap year so obviously a lot of workers were needed to make it happen many believe that it was enslaved people who worked at the pyramids construction site but that's not true workers came from all over Egypt to contribute to the project all in all around 25,000 of them the Egyptians were doing all kinds of work starting with manual labor and crafting tools to administrative work they all worked around 10 hours a day they were housed and wellfed and they were overall living a more comfortable life than an average Egyptian could afford at that time supposedly the builders lived in a nearby temporary City and were a highly organized Community with a strong leader the pyramids seem to be designed to align with the points on a compass and their sides symbolized the Rays of the Sun but back at that time there were no compasses ancient Egyptians figured out out the directions themselves and with amazing Precision to align the pyramids they used two constellations the construction site was arranged on the West Bank of the Nile River this also had a symbolic meaning just like the sun sets in the West Life sets in the west as well the second Pyramid of Giza was for kufu son Pharaoh kafer it's a bit smaller but this one has the famous noseless statue of the Sphinx of course originally it had a nose I would tell you what happened to it but it's still a mystery and no one knows for sure sphinxes have the body of a lion and the head of a human they were considered guardians of important areas this famous Sphinx also pronounced Sphinx has the head of pharaoh Coffer and is guarding his pyramid facing the sunrise the Sphinx is one of the biggest and oldest statues in the world originally it not only had a nose but was also painted scientists have discovered traces of the red color of its face so most likely the Sphinx was painted red there are also remains of yellow and blue color on its body the statue definitely wasn't boring till around 1800 the Sphinx was buried up to its shoulders until an adventurer with a team of 160 men dug it out but let's get back to the construction the workers of course needed stone blocks there were two main places where people could get these Stones One source was near the building site, but the fossil-lined yellow stone was only fit for the inside of the pyramid; the limestone blocks for the outside had to be transported eight miles distant on 30-ton sleds, and it didn't seem too difficult to pull them. cutting off a block of limestone wasn't the biggest challenge when it was soft and could be split relatively easily, but after being exposed to the air, limestone hardens, so the most difficult part was shaping the blocks. This step was crucial because the slightest errors could cause the entire pyramid to collapse. The sand mixed with the appropriate amount of water was fairly slick, and ten people could move a sled even with a rock weighing so much.