Raising blocks
Experts have also talked a lot about the methods by which individual stone blocks were raised into position. Since the Egyptians made no use of block and tackle methods, or cranes, it is usually assumed that wooden and bronze levers were used to manoeuvre the blocks into position.
'...it is usually assumed that wooden and bronze levers were used to manoeuvre the blocks into position.'
The level of structural engineering was incredibly high in the internal chambers of the Great Pyramid. Indeed, the roof of the so-called Grand Gallery was the Egyptians' earliest attempt at corbel-vaulting on a colossal scale. The architects surmounted particularly difficult logistics in the creation of the corridor leading up to the main burial chamber of the Great Pyramid (the so-called King's Chamber). The corridors in other pyramids are all either level or sloping downwards, whereas this one slopes steeply upwards, which would have presented problems when it came to blocking the passage with granite plugs, after the king's body had been placed in the chamber.
It is clear from the fact that the plugs in this 'ascending corridor' are an inch wider than the entrance that the plugs must have been lowered into position not from the outside, as was usually the case, but from a storage position within the pyramid itself (perhaps in the Grand Gallery). It is also clear that the design had to allow the workmen who pushed the plugs into position to be able to escape down a shaft leading from the Grand Gallery to the 'descending corridor', through which they could exit.
Published: 2002-10-28
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