Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Emails re how the pyramids were built

Someone sent me an email recently with their personal theory about how the Giza pyramids were built.

In general I should probably explain that I receive a two or three "how they built the pyramids" emails a month. They are usually well thought out and presented, as far as I can tell, and their authors seem universally nice. But there really is nothing I can do with them on this blog and as I don't have any civil engineering knowledge myself so it is impossible to comment sensibly. The only useful thing I have to say is that at this moment in time there is no evidence to favour one entirely plausible theory over any other. There have been some viable theories, and many of them are (I am told) entirely possible in engineering terms. But there is not suffient data to confirm or deny that any single one of them was the one employed.

Vincent Brown very helpfully provided a series of posts on his Talking Pyramids blog about some of the best regarded theories about pyramid construction. All I can suggest, at this moment in time, is that if you have a theory about how the pyramids were built you should check it against the existing theories on Vincent's site and if someone hasn't already come up with it, perhaps set up your own website promoting your own theory. Here are the links (thanks Vincent!):

http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-egyptian-pyramids-built/
http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-egyptian-pyramids-built-part-2/
http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-egyptian-pyramids-built-part-3/
http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-ancient-egyptian-pyramids-built-part-4/
http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-egyptian-pyramids-built-part-5/
http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-egyptian-pyramids-built-part-6/

To the person who emailed recently with their theory, I so sorry but I have lost the email somewhere in the labyrinthine ghastliness of my laptop's email folders. If you're reading this, I cannot recall if you were asking me a specific question. Do feel free to email again if I can help with something specific.


1 comment:

Vincent said...

Hi Andie,

Here are the links to the series of articles I wrote:

http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-egyptian-pyramids-built/

http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-egyptian-pyramids-built-part-2/

http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-egyptian-pyramids-built-part-3/

http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-ancient-egyptian-pyramids-built-part-4/

http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-egyptian-pyramids-built-part-5/

http://www.talkingpyramids.com/how-were-the-egyptian-pyramids-built-part-6/

At the bottom of each one are links to related articles.