Clues Reveal How Ancient Egyptians Built the Great Pyramid

Hello everybody and welcome to Ancient Architects. Please subscribe now to get the latest ancient history news and independent research from around the world. The pyramids are arguably the greatest structures ever built by human hands. Thousands of years old, still standing mightily above the Giza plateau, yet to this day, with all the research that's gone into them, there is still no consensus as to how they were built. But maybe, one of the reasons we don't get close enough to finding out is because some of the details we're working with are actually incorrect. Pyramid experts and enthusiasts tell us the Great Pyramid is made up of 2.3 million large blocks of stone, the vast majority being limestone, but some of them are granite, and that these blocks were all accurately cut and fitted together to build the incredible monument, that's aligned so precisely to the cardinal directions. And although some of the granite blocks do weigh a lot more, it's often quoted that on average, the 2.3 million pyramid blocks each weigh around 3 tons. Armed with this information, you often see people make calculations like this one I found on the internet. Assume workers work 12 hours per day, 7 days a week, each year. 12 x 7 x 52 weeks each year equals 4,368 working hours per year. 4,368 hours x 20 years equals 87,360 total working hours. 2.3 million blocks divided by 87,360 equals 26.4 blocks accurately cut and put into place to form the core of the Great Pyramid every hour, or one stone blocks at every 2.27 minutes. But Houston, we have a problem. Yes, we do have a big problem, and that's before we even start trying to understand how the pyramid was built. Because everybody seems to be making an assumption. One almighty assumption. And the more it's repeated, the more it's accepted as a fact without even being questioned, that the Great Pyramid was built using 2.3 million blocks of large cut stone, each weighing on average around 3 tons. Writing in 2007 in the Great Pyramid Ancient Egypt Revisited, Egyptologist John Romer said King Khufu's quarrymen cut some 5 million tons of limestone for his pyramid. He says there is a theoretical total of 2,080,000 2-ton blocks in the Great Pyramid. But why does he say this? Well, the pyramid is a roughly square base we can measure. We know its shape in 3 dimensions, and we also know the size of the passages and chambers inside. By simply walking around the pyramid and looking at it without its casing stones, we can see the rough size of the blocks used for the core masonry. We also know the rough height of each individual course of masonry. You can therefore crunch the numbers and come up with the hypothetical number of blocks that were used to build it, and 2.3 million is the number often used. And from that number comes all of the calculations that end with the seemingly impossible conclusion that one cut block had to be set every 2-3 minutes to get the job done. And this happened over 20 years. Wow. Each block had to be cut out of the quarry, then it had to be carefully shaped by stonemasons, dragged to the construction site, had to be set accurately next to adjacent blocks, and then the process had to be repeated 2.3 million times, with the work getting more and more difficult as the structure rose in height. No wonder it remains a mystery. So what if the Great Pyramid does not contain 2.3 million blocks of cut and dressed stone precisely fitted together? From everything we've learned from looking at Ancient Egyptian architecture, some basic takeaways are a. The architects were incredibly smart people, b. The Egyptians were masters of construction, and c. They were efficient. Khufu's architect is believed to have been the Great Hemiunu, grandson of King Sneferu, and nephew of King Khufu. In his tomb he is described as a hereditary prince, sealer of the King of Lower Egypt, and he had the titles King Sun of his body, Chief Justice and Vizier, Greatest of the Five of the House of Thoth. So, to be the architect of the Great Pyramid, the brains behind the project as Hemiunu is assumed to be, we would expect his tomb to be magnificent, and although it may not look it today, evidence suggests it was. His tomb is labelled Mostaba G4000, one of the largest private Mostabas at Giza, so maybe this Mostaba can reveal some clues as to how he fulfilled a project as ambitious as the Great Pyramid. That was my thinking this past week. The Great Pyramid has been studied more than any other structure in the known world, but the tomb of the man the experts call the Great Pyramid Architect rarely gets a look in. There is a severe lack of pictures and diagrams on the internet, and the best resource is the digital Giza archive, which does show a number of views. Although it is an important funerary structure, today it's not in the best state of preservation. Ancient looters have ransacked the Mostaba, stone has been ripped away and reused, and the damage is clear for all to see. Hermann Junker was the archaeologist that excavated the tomb in the early 20th century, and his documentation, although in German, is available online. Google Translate does come in useful. The Mostaba has a somewhat complicated history, with clear evidence that shows the original plan had changed, with the Mostaba expanding in size on its northern, southern and eastern sides, but it's the poor state of preservation that we actually have to thank for understanding what it's made from. Like the Great Pyramid, it too was cased in fine chura limestone, and as Junker notes, this shell of limestone was of the best quality, so finely worked that the joints almost disappear. On the three expanded sides, the space was filled with large heavy and irregular blocks. Today a lot of this stone has gone, and so the original core of the original Mostaba can be seen. The masonry of this inner structure is made of cut and somewhat regular blocks of limestone, stacked neatly to give the structure shape and strength. The walls of the internal spaces are also made of cut blocks of fine limestone, and these show perfect joints. But where the outer layer of core masonry has fallen away due to damage, we can see irregular blocks of limestone, of all different shapes and sizes. It's what you could call rubble, and according to the excavation reports, this rubble is mortared. The solid outer core layer gives the false impression the same type of stonework runs all the way through the structure, but it doesn't. So why? Because Hemiunu and the Egyptian builders were smart and efficient. You don't need to have perfect stonework to create a structure that will stand for millennia. You just need a solid framework, and then you can backfill the Mostaba with rubble, with the addition of mortar to bind it all together. What you're left with is a solid mass, perfectly shaped, and if it's not attacked by looters, the structure will stand the test of time. Here we can see a model of the Old Kingdom 5th Dynasty Mostaba of Pernab, located at Saqqara, and the model shows there were casing stones on the outside, a skeleton made of cut limestone blocks, stone lined internal spaces, but the bulk of the structure is packed with rubble. For Old Kingdom Mostabas, having a core made of rubble is actually quite normal, and so I have to wonder, why don't we assume the same method of building was also used for the Great Pyramid? Well, maybe to some extent it was. Look at this schematic view of the Pyramid of Senesret I, taken from Dieter Arnold's book Building in Egypt. As he says in the text, quote, the 12th Dynasty provides two examples of stepped cores that apparently do not have a layered structure but consist of accumulated masses of rough blocks or field stones, with a stepped outer face. End quote. Regarding the Senesret Pyramid, he says, quote, the core has an additional system of walls radiating from the center. End quote. Look at this profile view through the outer edge of the pyramid. We can see the fine casing stones, then we have a stepped outer core of cut masonry, and then inside, here we can see the rough blocks and field stones, what you could call rubble. The internal structure of the Great Pyramid may be a little better than this 12th Dynasty example, but if the Great Pyramid did have a similar construction style to this pyramid, and also the Old Kingdom mastabas, then would this have sped up the entire building process? The idea of using masses of irregular stone for the Great Pyramid's core has been speculated before, by famous architect Jean-Pierre Houdin. Previously, he split the structure of the pyramid into a. the facing, the finely cut chura limestone blocks, b. the backing masonry, which is the carefully cut limestone blocks and what we see today on the outer surface of the pyramid, and c. the core masonry, which he describes as roughly dressed local limestone blocks and residual materials, and these are bound with a gypsum mortar. This is the so-called rubble, although maybe a better word could be used. When we say rubble, we don't mean rubble like what we see at a modern day demolition site, but undressed rock of varying sizes, some enormous boulders and some small, rock that may not have been cut and shaped. But as stated, this rubble, as I'll continue to call it, was mortared in place. According to Jean-Pierre Houdin, as the pyramid rose in height, the chura limestone facing blocks were first set, then the well-dressed local limestone was set behind it, blocks of varying sizes, and then the core of the pyramid was filled with rough blocks and these had been sent from the quarry without any dressing. But it's worth saying that some people do disagree with such an idea. According to John Navarre, creator of the Egyptian travel blog, the Great Pyramid is not filled with rubble and he uses the modern day entrance known as Almamoon's Tunnel to try and prove his point. He says the tunnel goes through solid rock and not rubble. He also says, when you're in the passageways and chambers, you can look up and see solid blocks above and around you when you're quote, smack dab in the middle of the monument, end quote. He does admit that the second point is flawed, and it is, because even in the known rubble-filled mastabas, internal passages were lined with well-dressed masonry to give the spaces a fine finish. The same would certainly be the case for the Great Pyramid. But what about his first point, inside Almamoon's Tunnel? Well this led me to a video by Night Scarab, link below, called How to Build the Great Pyramid in 9 Months, Not Aliens, and since it was published in August 2023, it's had an amazing 384,000 views. Not bad for your first video on a new channel, and it is a fantastic video, and I would urge you to watch it. The owner of the channel has done some analysis on the Almamoon Tunnel by looking up as he travelled along its length. He notes an alternating pattern of A rubble and B squarish blocks. I'll play a clip from the video. You can see the rubble, the undressed stone of varying shapes and sizes, and you can also see the transitions to the cut masonry, and I think he sells the point he's trying to make very well. Next time I go to Egypt, as I enter the Great Pyramid, I'll certainly point my torch and camera up and try and film the tunnel in greater detail. From looking at the Almamoon Tunnel, Night Scarab believes the Great Pyramid could well have a masonry framework, which is around 7 cubits wide, with pockets of rubble being around 15 cubits in width. From this, he made a rough estimation that around a quarter of the Great Pyramid could well be pure rubble. And again, when we say rubble, we don't mean small bits of rock you can move by hand, but undressed stone of varying sizes. Some huge and some small, rubble that can be placed into the masonry framework for bulk, of course with the addition of mortar to bind it together. But aside from the rubble inside the pyramid, the blocks that were used for the outer core are also not as big as many speculate. Yes, some are the large, full-sized, possibly 3 ton blocks of limestone. But looking at this view, and you can see that as well as full-sized limestone blocks, many of them, or even the majority of them are actually much smaller. So, in summary, far from being made of 2.3 million blocks of cut and dressed limestone, each weighing around 3 tons, it looks as though a large chunk of the pyramid's core masonry is made up of a. more manageable sized blocks of limestone and b. what could be a huge amount of rubble. But how could this help the pyramid builders? Why does it even matter? Well, in this video I'm not speculating exactly how the pyramid was built, the engineering methods employed, the amount of people required and how long it took. I'm just trying to present information about the possible materials that were used, because this is important and it should be the starting point. Because if they did use rubble, it would certainly be beneficial. It means there is less quarrying and processing. It would just require collecting the material from the quarry, which could be done in tandem with the quarrying that was undertaken. As we can see from looking at these pictures of Egyptian quarries, there are plenty of stones and boulders just lying around, by-products of both natural weathering and erosion, and of course the ancient quarrying itself. But as well as up the first stage of the pyramid building process, the gathering of materials, using rubble would also save time when the material gets to the pyramid. You don't have to set the rubble in place with accuracy and precision. Once the rubble gets to its destination, you could place it into its designated space with the addition of mortar. It doesn't matter what the size and shapes of the blocks are, just as long as the space is filled. Of course, whether you use cut blocks of stone or rubble, it won't speed up the transportation of the material. 3 tons of rubble still weighs the same as a 3 ton block. It still all has to get to the building site. But as stated, it would speed up some of the elements of the building process. So is there any more evidence of rubble being used inside the Great Pyramid? Well, Naya Scarab shows the interior of the notch on the northeastern corner of the pyramid, famously entered into by Bob Breyer and shown on the Khufu Revealed documentary. When Breyer entered this notch, it was extremely dark, but Naya Scarab adjusted the levels and brightness and we can now see that as we enter the pyramid's core, the blocks of limestone are Yes, they are generally large and boulder sized, but they do have an irregular shape. They're not perfectly cut and dressed, and they're not fitted together with any accuracy and precision. It's like they were collected from the quarry as they were found. So it looks as though the pyramid architect made the job of building a pyramid more efficient by not quarrying and cutting 2.3 million 3 ton blocks of stone. Instead they used a. cut blocks of limestone of varying sizes and b. a large amount of irregular blocks, also of varying sizes, to material I'm calling the rubble. And this really shouldn't be too surprising, because we can see this in other pyramids as well. Let's take a quick look at the Bent Pyramid, thought to be the work of Khufu's father, Sneferu. Although a lot of casing stones still remain today, beneath it, the quality at the core masonry is certainly questionable. We don't see an array of perfectly cut 3 ton blocks, we see stones of all shapes and sizes mortared together. And here's another view, again showing limestone blocks of varying shapes and sizes, and some of it could be classified as rubble. So, the point I really wanted to make with this video is before we regurgitate something we've heard someone else say, that the Great Pyramid is made up of 2.3 million blocks of cut stone, each weighing on average around 3 tons, let's first find out if it's true, before we even attempt to try and understand how the pyramid was built, and what I've hopefully shown is that there is reasonable doubt. The visible stonework can reveal clues on how it was built and the diversity of the materials. We also know there are voids inside the pyramid, no not just the big void that was picked up by the Scanned Pyramids Project in 2017, but smaller voids filled with sand and rubble, as noted around the Queen's Chamber and Horizontal Passageway. In fact, I would even question the idea that these are voids at all. When Giovanni Caviglia lifted the limestone slab at the foot of the niche in the Queen's Chamber, he found sand and rubble going down at least 3-4 feet. A void has also been detected to the north of the Queen's Chamber and west of the Horizontal Passageway, and when this was drilled a few decades ago, all that was found was sand. So, we have evidence that beneath and behind the masonry in the heart of the Great Pyramid, there is a large quantity of sand and rubble. Was it used to fill voids as some say, or was it simply the construction material that was used in the heart of the pyramid, the bit we never see? The Great Pyramid may be a perfect structure in so many ways, the way it aligns to the cardinal points, its sheer size, the intricate interior, the fact it's still standing today and safe to go inside, but did the pyramid builders really cut millions of blocks of stone and stack them neatly together? Well, looking at the way the so-called pyramid architect built his own mastaba, I would say it was unlikely.