Pyramid expert will visit Cal Poly

SanLuisObispo.com (Patrick S. Pemberton)

In “The Histories,” Greek historian Herodotus speculated that it took 100,000 slaves to build the Great Pyramid at Giza.

While that theory held for centuries, Craig B. Smith had his doubts.

“Those numbers seemed out of reason to me, so I decided to take a look at it using the modern tools we use today on large public works projects to develop a detailed breakdown of the labor involved in each step of the construction and put that all together and from that figure out what the work force was and how long it took.”

His estimates suggest Herodotus was way off the mark.

Yet, they don’t diminish the astonishing achievement of the Great Pyramid, which, he argues, took 30,000 workers—including 5,000 skilled workers—to build about 3,800 years ago.

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