How Did the Egyptians Build Their Pyramids?

There are many theories about how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids, of which more than 100 have been discovered to date. It seems odd to think of “discovering” pyramids, but apparently fewer than 70 were included in the first modern attempt to catalog all the pyramids. How one loses 50 or so pyramids seems an alarming mystery. What else could be hidden away in the desert sands of Egypt?

The latest claim to unlocking the secrets of the Egyptians comes from Norway. Ole J. Bryn “believes that the Egyptians invented the modern building grid, by separating the structure’s measuring system from the physical building itself, thus introducing tolerance, as it is called in today’s engineering and architectural professions.”

Bryn’s solution to the problem recognizes a different problem from the classic one people have been arguing over. Bryn is trying to figure out how the architects coordinated placement of millions of heavy blocks of stone. His theory has nothing to do with how the stone was moved around.

Oddly enough, science really doesn’t know how the stone blocks were moved around. The most popular theories assume some sort of mud-brick and clay ramps were used to slide huge stones up toward the pyramids. One of the more intriguing theories is that the Egyptians may have cast limestone concrete blocks in place. Instead of lugging huge blocks of stone up the sides of the pyramids, they would only have to haul the materials for mixing concrete up there.

But what about the water required for making so much concrete? I’m not enough of an engineer to have any idea what would be involved in mixing so much limestone concrete in place.

One engineer claims that all these methods are impractical. Frank Steiger believes he has solved the problem but complains that no one will listen to him. Even Wikipedia seems prejudiced against his opinion (of course, Wikipedia seldom makes sense anyway).

A few years ago, Jean-Pierre Houdin proposed that at least one pyramid had an internal ramp. Some anecdotal evidence based on a desert fox surfacing high up the side of Khufu’s pyramid (along with a cavity matching Houdin’s description) is used to rationalize that Houdin may be on to something.

Mr. Steiger, however, asks how Mr. Houdin’s internal passageways would have been covered. Maybe the roofstones were cast in place as limestone concrete, or something.

Mr. Steiger’s description tries to be faithful to the wooden ramps that Herodotus mentioned. Herodotus, despite being named the “father of history” is often snickered at by historians and archaeologists. Why? Because he tells some rather fanciful tales. In fact, many of Herodotus’ stories are introduced as nothing more than local folklore — he doesn’t pretend that the stories are accurate or reliable. He just seems to pepper his narrative with interesting asides.

Where it is clear that he is not simply entertaining his reader with local legends, Herodotus actually has a very good track record for being accurate, or at least not very fanciful. One of the historical accounts that was long considered to be fanciful was Herodotus’ description of the Sauromatae, a steppe people living in or near what is now the Crimea in southern Ukraine. These people, close relatives to the Scythians, were characterized in part by their women warriors — women warriors whom, they claimed (in Herodotus’ account), were descended from Amazons who had escaped from Greek captors hundreds of years previously.

Historians don’t acknowledge the existence of the Amazons that ancient Greek writers mentioned very often. If they existed, the Amazons would have been a 2nd millennium BCE culture situated in Asia Minor near the southern shores of the Black Sea. There is a lot that we don’t know about that area, but there are so many stories of Amazons that one has to wonder why the Greeks made them all up. Greek mythology, however, is filled with tales of derring-do (and naughty-do) by heroes and gods and demigods. All these stories are intended to explain natural phenomena that the Greeks encountered as their culture expanded.

Hercules, Theseus, and other mighty heroes are conveniently assigned to a time frame around 1200 BCE — right before the fall of legendary Troy and the onset of the Greek Dark Ages. Those dark ages lasted about 400 years, long enough to transform the ancient Greek culture into a completely different civilization. Many peoples came and went during those 400 years, and some of those mysterious peoples even found their ways to Egypt and Palestine.

Herodotus and other writers mention an ancient war between the Greeks and the Amazons. The war apparently involved an invasion of Greece by an Amazon army and a subsequent counter-invasion of the Amazon homeland by a Greek force. It was this counter-invasion that led to some Amazons being captured and taken away as slaves. The Amazons overpowered their captors at sea, according to the account relayed by Herodotus, and they managed to bring their ships ashore on the northern shores of the Black Sea. Having no idea where they were, the Amazons made what life they could in the strange new land.

Scythian clans — upon discovering that these newcomers were unaccompanied women — supposedly chose young men to approach and court the women. Eventually the two groups merged together and formed a new tribe, the Sauromatae. They blended Amazon and Scythian culture.

Historians have some problems with this story, but one fact has proven to be very true: the Sauromatae really did exist and they really did have women warriors. Russian archaeologists confirmed this in the 1950s and the western world eventually learned about the burial mounds of these ancient women warriors. Score 1 for Herodotus, and take a point away from skeptical historians.

So that one account doesn’t prove that Herodotus was right about how the Egyptians built their pyramids, but it does help illustrate just how confused historians can be about what is and is not fact in ancient writings. Whether the Amazons existed or not doesn’t really matter. The Sauromatae existed and Herodotus provided very accurate information about them. But they were a relatively contemporary people for him. Herodotus lived about 1000 years after the last pyramid was built.

And here’s the funny thing about that last pyramid: it wasn’t constructed in the same way as its predecessors. In fact, it wasn’t even constructed for the same purpose.

If you go looking for a timeline of Egyptian pyramids, you’ll find many vague references to various dynasties. It is a custom of historical writers to refer to Egyptian dynasties as if they are timeframes that the average person comprehends. If I tell you that Khendjer Userkare lived and reigned during the 13th dynsasty, does that convey any sense of how many years ago he lived? No, but that is how many historical articles discuss Egyptian history. Is it any wonder historians are confused on the topic?

Historians don’t necessary like dates, but they could stop being cryptic long enough to say something like, “Khendjer Userkare lived about 3650 years ago. He was a member of the 13th Dynasty of Egypt, which ruled the country from 1715-1650.” That’s pretty simple, but try finding that out on most Egyptology sites. Good luck.

The 13th dynasty is not well documented. In fact, the 13th dynasty gets lumped into the Middle Kingdom period (with the 11th, 12th, and 14th dynasties) by some writers and into the Second Intermediate Period (with the 14th through 17th dynasties) by other writers. The Egyptian Middle Kingdom lasted from about 2080 BCE to 1640 BCE. The Second Intermediate Period began around 1773 BCE and lasted until about 1550 BCE. This is the period in which the Hyksos invaded and conquered northern Egypt. This is also the period in which some scholars believe that Joseph led the Israelites to Egypt.

If you’re going to talk about building pyramids, you need to keep all this stuff straight. One reason why the timing is important is that people have yet to come up with a plausible answer for why the Egyptians stopped building pyramids. The last major pyramid was built in the 1800s BCE at Hawara. Khendjer Userkare is the last member of the 13th dynasty known to have a pyramid (although his pyramid was not properly finished).

It is generally believed/assumed that Khendjer was a Semite (hence, one of the Hyksos kings). His reign is believed to have lasted no more than a few years. Khendjer may have died between 1738 BCE and 1698 BCE. Or he may have died around 1765 BCE. No one really knows and you’ll find more than one date for him (when you can find something more specific than “the 13th dynasty”, that is).

Ahmose, founder of the New Kingdom — who defeated the Hyksos — built the last pyramid. His pyramid was made mostly of sand and gravel and it did not last very long. There is a mound of dirt where the pyramid once stood. His pyramid was intended to be a monument, not a tomb.

By Ahmose’ time the Pharoahs were burying themselves in the Valley of the Kings. Modern thought holds that they stopped building pyramids because of grave robbers. Really, that’s a pretty flimsy reason. Maybe the real explanation is that the art of building pyramids had been lost. Through hundreds of years of wars and feuds, the Egyptians underwent some radical changes.

Why this is important to figuring out how the Egyptians built their pyramids is that it does serve to cast doubt on the credibility of Herodotus’ description of the wooden ramps. On the other hand, the Egyptians did manage to preserve a lot of records down to and past Herodotus’ time that were eventually lost in two fires at the city of Alexandria centuries later. Maybe Herodotus was on to something after all.

On the other hand, there is more than likely more than one technology involved in building pyramids. Over the course of 1,000 years the Egyptians learned to do all sorts of things. We know that at least a few of the pyramids did, in fact, have ramps leading up to them. Traces of those ramps still exist. But whether the Egyptians could or would build a ramp large enough to haul a stone to the top of the Great Pyramid is a matter of speculation.

We don’t know how the pyramids were built and we don’t know why the Egyptians stopped building them, although the constant warfare after the 1800s BCE probably led to a serious decline in Egyptian architectural ambitions. All we can say for sure is that the Egyptians went through a phase where they proved capable of construction that produced buildings which are still usable today.

As long as we don’t have to replicate their successes using their methods, we’ll be okay. It really doesn’t matter how the Egyptians built the pyramids. What is more important is that we not be so quick to assume that any one method works better than others. We’re still trying to figure all that out.