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BREAKING: New evidence of how the pyramids were built!

A very new scientific Documentary reveals a possible construction theory.

As an Egyptologists I am often asked: how could it be possible to create such monumental buildings in only 20 years (after historical sources) without the help of aliens? And indeed, who ever stood in front of the Great Pyramid of Khufu in Giza gets the certain feeling, that it is something that could only be created by supernatural powers. We just cannot imagine how the did it just with copper tools.

We have to be honest any way: we really don’t know, but all we can say that there is some evidence that verify certain theories, but sometimes they immediately must be discarded when we find new material that would add a special detail to the story and change the whole perception of what we believed is true. So it is with the pyramids.
Since there is no clarification about it, a lot of speculations and rumors, sometimes also based on a lack of knowledge, are going around.

But on a scientific level there is still a lot of work in progress. A new documentary aired by Channel 4 last week sheds a new and highly interesting light on how the pyramids of Giza could have been built - and I stress the word „could“, because it is one possible way.

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_{Image 1: A papyrus was found that could change history}

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The excavation team around Pierre Tallet from the french university Sorbonne in Paris discovered a papyrus in an ancient harbour in Wadi al-Jaref near the Red Sea, belonging to a high official named Merer. After 4 years of hard work Tallet deciphered and translated the highly fragmented document and found out, that this person have had to be an overseer of the boats that were shipping huge blocks of limestone on man-made canals through the Nile to the construction area on the Giza plateau – a distance of 500 miles. We know that the course of the river changed over the centuries and we assume that the Nile was very close to the pyramids in 2600 BC when it was built.

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_{Image 2: Example of a ceremonial boat that was found and reconstructed many years ago. Today on display in a museum in Giza in the vicinity of the Great Pyramid}

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Experimental archaeology

For some archaeologist from Egypt a theory was not convincing enough – they had to test, what the papyrus described in detail. This is called „experimental archaeology“ which requires, beside a lot of money, also a lot of enthusiasm to take such an effort. They re-engineered the special boat that should be able to carry very heavy limestome blocks along the nile. The most interesting part of this was, that the first test of seaworthiness seemed to fail at first glance. They led the wooden boat, with their planks hold together by ropes, onto the water and it appeared to be not leakproof. The water level within the bottom chambers raised alarmingly. But then, suddenly, it stopped by a fascination physical effect: the ropes of the planks were soaked with water and pulled them together very tight. The boat now was ready for a journey on the Nile - with a limestone block to carry on it.

My personal conclusion

Well, this is a fresh perspective on the commonly given explanations, that has to be considered as an important piece of the puzzle, especially since the papyrus is the very first written evidence of a detailed description of the workflow. But I for myself are far away from saying that the mystery „is solved finally“. The limestone block that was carved out of the quarries for that experiment had not even similar quality and the precision of that stones we know from Giza. And the boat was quite shaky. Maybe the Ancient Egyptians had fun of risky rides on the Nile, but I am sure they loved their lifes as well. So we need to continue our research to be sure … until we find new evidence. ;)

Here is a trailer of the documentary:

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Image sources:

Image 1: Screenshot from the trailer
Image 2: My own photographs, 2016