Cubit

A text only post, and about history, afield from fauna and flora, sort of...and grim, so dear readers, a caution to read on...



Stopped off at the Dollar store to get some of those little wooden craft blocks...and they were gone...I have a package, but one package isn't enough...one package isn't enough to build a model Great Pyramid!

I've gotten diverted...I know what I was reaching for in the last post, and maybe can still get there...

Anyway, everyone has an idea on how the Pyramids were built...looking about I found the Nat Geo take that the Great Pyramid was built with a spiral ramp, not a ramp going around the outside, but one inside the courses...I thought on this, and let fly a comment:

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yes..my thought too, and they would have filled in the entire ramp...it's gone, except maybe the stones used to close the ramp are different...maybe that is what is showing in the sunlight...the seven degree discoloration...the ramp was on the stone courses...then coming down the limestone capping stones were added...I don't think it was a corridor...more like switch backs going up a mountain...they could have used switch backs too on the pyramid blocks themselves, though the interior ramp looks to be seen in those discolorations...no need for external mud ramp...switch backs going up all four sides at once on the stones themselves...then the capstone work coming down...more than one way to build a pyramid!

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Nat Geo has it the spiral ramp is still there, a hidden corridor going up the Pyramid...they seem to gloss over the possibility that the ramp would have been closed in, making it a seamless part of the Pyramid...actually, Nat Geo glosses over a lot of things...like the Egyptians are known to have used exterior ramps...there is still one remaining at Karnack...when Napoleon saw it there was still a block on it...it was like the Egyptians picked up and left the Pylon they were working on unfinished and the ramp in place...

there is one wall painting depiction of the Egyptians moving a huge statue...it's on a sledge being pulled by a small army...there's another wall painting, a relief actually, showing this, but it's not Egyptian, it's from Nimrod, an ancient town near modern Mosul in Iraq...(what remains of Nimrod has been bulldozed by the assassins...this in the news)...here's a page that has the Nimrod (Assyria) relief (it is only known from the drawing made by the Englishman who found it, it was too fragile to transport, and while re-covered with soil, back filled, for safety, it seems to be gone)...page also has how a full sized light house was moved in modern times...

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Moving Large Objects

http://www.catchpenny.org/movebig.html

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to work with stone the Egyptians had copper core drills, and copper saws, and here's is page about their tool usage...

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Ancient Egyptian Stoneworking Tools and Methods

http://www.oocities.org/unforbidden_geology/ancient_egyptian_copper_slabbing_saws.html

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being diligent and doing my homework!...so after seeing a lot of different ideas, I refined my own...stones quarried with copper tools, moved on sledges,  elevated with ramps, ramps that are interior to the Pyramid as opposed to being on its outside...I don't know how they lifted the really big stones into place...for irrigation they have a simple fulcrum, a shadoof, and maybe that was the design for the stone moving machines Herodotus reports!

There are many ideas about how the Pyramid was built, and many back and forths!...I happened on this one this afternoon, and it diverted me completely, but not so much for its take on the Pyramid, but for a link it has to the author's uncle (both deceased) who was held a prisoner of war by the Japanese after the fall of the Philippines...the soldier, a US artillery Captain, kept a diary...most of the entries are just one line or two, so not too long to read through the years from 1942 to 1945...

here's the diary:
http://www.fsteiger.com/gsteipow.html

here's the nephews Pyramid page:
http://www.fsteiger.com/Pyramid.html

Even Isaac Newton studied the Pyramid...

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Newton had an obsession of establishing the value of the "cubit" of the ancient Egyptians. This was no mere curiosity. His Theory of Gravitation was dependent on an accurate knowledge of the circumference of the earth. The only figures he currently had were the inaccurate calculations of Eratosthenes and his followers. With these figures his theory did not work out.

Newton felt that if he could find the exact length of the Egyptian "cubit", this would allow him to find the exact length of their "stadium", reputed by others to bear a relation to a "geographical degree". This measurement, which he needed for his theory of gravitation, he believed to be somehow enshrined in the proportions of the Great Pyramid. Thus, he would have the necessary measurements for his Theory of Gravitation.
http://www.gizapyramid.com/newton.htm

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and here I find myself reading about Cubits, and recalling Q*Bert!...a video game where a toon hops up a pyramid of cubes, or not, depending on one's skill!...and I'm back on track...or hop!

a unit of measure might be something that would radiate out with the Ten Tribes, or the Trojans...from Jerusalem, from Egypt, from Sumer, from somewhere...:)

more tomorrowmorrow...

DavidDavid