How did egyptians build the pyramids?

Answer 1

The actual mode of building is still hotly debated today and agreement is reached on a very few matters. The link below will give you a very good overview regarding all aspects and can be use regarding the Great Pyramid of Giza and most like pyramids.

Although it is not precisely understood how the pyramids were constructed, it is widely understood that simple, effective tools were used to quarry the stones, move them to the construction site and place them in desired locations. It was a monumental undertaking, estimated to take 20 years per pyramid, involving the mechanics of moving huge masses of building material, mind boggling logistics and a labor force of thousands. Pyramid construction was the most massive building project in all of history.

The Aztecs, Mayans and ancient Egyptians had one thing in common: They built pyramids. Egyptians set the standard for classic pyramid design, massive monuments with square bases and four smooth sided triangular sides rising to a point. The construction involved highly skilled masons and various other tradesmen as well as thousands of laborers, many of whom died during construction. The crafts people lived in a specially built town where they were provided with houses, food, clothing and even medical care.

The construction was an enormous drain on both the economy and manpower resources of the civilization. Thus, the pyramids became smaller and less extravagant as time passed. It is estimated the construction period lasted from 2700 B.C. to 1700 B.C.

Every time a new pharaoh ascended the throne, construction on a pyramid began. The new pyramid would be the pharaoh's final resting place for eternity. The construction site was laid out after engineers found a suitable location with a good foundation, which was excavated and levelled by the workforce. They used copper and stone cutting tools to carve out large stone blocks from the quarries. These large pieces were transported from local quarries using wooden sleds that were dragged by gangs of men and oxen. Transportation from remote quarries was accomplished with barges.

How the large stones were raised is uncertain. There is evidence that earthen ramps made of mud brick and rubble were used at an inclined plane during the first stages of construction. These were built up as the pyramid progressed upward and then removed as the pyramid was finished downward. The large blocks were dragged on sledges to the needed height. The exact configurations of the ramps are unknown.

Pyramid construction followed exact measurements and calculations performed by the priests who know the secret of mathematics. Skilled masons had precision tools with which they ensured the stones were smooth and fit together perfectly. The workers were coordinated to bring all the materials together to accomplish the pyramid's construction. There is no documentation available on how these great artefacts were actually built. However, human stamina, ingenuity and a stunning degree of intelligence and no doubt cruelty were certainly critical to the pyramid's monumental construction.

They don't. There are much better ways of building now. The actual usable square footage of them things was small.

The Egyptians made the pyramids out of stone in a triangular shape using a cedar sled.

Some say the Egyptians summoned aliens to help them but really the Egyptians built it with ramps and blocks and they were big because the pharaoh wanted to be remembered

Answer_2">Answer 2

There are three main regions where pyramid building took place, the Middle East (notably Egypt); meso-America; and China. In the first two, the buildings are mainly of stone, and in China and Egypt, adobe is a common construction.

In each case they were constructed to commemorate people who considered themselves to be important.

There are several other countries that have pyramids, so one must conclude that they are a natural shape in which to build.

Shortly after ascending the throne in 2589BC, Pharaoh Khufu commanded his overseer of works to prepare a burial place in keeping with his status as a god-king, a pyramid tomb far grander than anything that had been built before or since. A site was chosen on the Giza plateau west of the Nile across from his capital at Memphis. The site was surveyed and levelled to provide a foundation for Khufu's Great Pyramid.

As the slaves cut the first stones for the pyramid from nearby quarries, thousands more began building the causeway, erecting storehouses and digging a canal to link the foot of the plateau to the Nile. Meanwhile scribes, the Pharaoh's project managers, dispatched orders for more supplies.

A town was built for the crafts people where they were provided with houses, food, clothing and even medical care. Less comfortable accommodation in the form of barracks was provided for the paid workers.

Through Khufu's reign, the construction site teemed with workers of all kinds hard pressed to complete the monument before the king's death. Khufu and his architects did not make it easy for them. The royal planners decided to enlarge the structure several times and relocate the burial chamber from beneath the structure to its inner reaches. Day after day, year after year, the quarries rang with the sound of hammer and chisel on stone. Through the dust the naked bodies of quarry slaves stand out dark against the yellow stone. After the stone blocks are hacked out of the quarry face they are lowered onto sledges. A note of each load is taken down by a scribe.

From dawn to dusk, naked slaves dragged sledges loaded with stones each weighing about 2.5 tons each to staging areas at the base of the pyramid. Here the skilled masons chiselled the blocks to prescribed dimensions, smoothed the sides and squared the corners. Slaves then reloaded the sledge and began hauling them slowly up the ramp that spiralled around the emerging structure. The noise here was one of chanting slaves and the rumble of heavy sledges. Water is poured under the blades of the sledges to ease their passage.

When the sledges reached the working level teams of workers called setters shifted the blocks from the sledges into their designated positions. Toiling below were the tool makers, cooks, porters and guards under the watchful eyes of the scribes.

Other workers were employed in maintaining and extending the ramps as the pyramid grew. Rows of labourers are seen breaking up waste material from the quarries, mixing them with the desert tafla clay and loading the finished mixture into baskets. Individual baskets are loaded onto the shoulders of workers for delivery to the ramp builders on the pyramid.

Barges made from papyrus reeds deliver fine limestone from Tura just across the river and granite from Aswan over 400 miles upriver. Some of the granite stones from Aswan weighed up to 70 tons. Copper chisels were using for quarrying limestone but harder stones such as granite required stronger materials. Balls of dolerite, a hard, black igneous rock, were used in the quarries of Aswan to extract hard granite.

These dolerite "pounders" were used to pulverize the stone around the edge of the granite block that needed to be extracted. Teams of 60 to 70 workers would pound out the stone. At the bottom, they rammed wooden pegs into slots they had cut, and filled the slots with water. The pegs would expand, splitting the rock. The blocks were then slid onto the barges and then floated down the Nile to the Giza site.
Egyptian pyramids are amongst the oldest stone buildings in the world. They were built nearly five thousand years ago. These ancient tombs are also among the world's largest structures. The biggest is taller than a 40-story building and covers the area occupied by Lincoln's Inn (about 13 acres; 5.3 hectares). Men built these huge structures without the help of equipment such as cranes and bulldozers. The ancient Egyptians used tools of copper, a softer metal than steel. Wooden wedges to help prise the stone from the quarry face and levers to help put the stones in place were also used in building the pyramids. Building a pyramid was dirty, difficult and dangerous work. It required meticulous planning and organization.

Slaves

To complete the Great Pyramid at Giza, one stone block was quarried, shaped and placed in position every two minutes for 20 years. It was this dangerous, hard and monotonous work that was done by slaves.

Two varieties of stone were used, limestone and granite. The limestone which made up the bulk of the pyramid was quarried locally. The granite had to be brought from the quarries at Aswan to where the pyramid was being built. They were transported on the Nile River in massive reed boats. The average weight of one of the pyramid's stone block is two and half tons. Some of the Aswan blocks, however, weighed up to 70 tons. To complete the Great Pyramid at Giza, one stone block was quarried, shaped and placed in position every two minutes for 20 years. It was this dangerous, hard and monotonous work that was done by slaves. This was an era of slave labour and none were more expert in directing their slaves than the ancient Egyptians.

Building plans showing how the pyramid was built have never been found, experts use present knowledge about construction to make some intelligent guesses. The Ancient Egyptians were an ingenious people. You cannot help to be impressed by the fearlessness the ancient builders exhibited in taking on such a colossal project.

The limestone blocks were cut out in the quarries close the pyramid site. Most of these blocks were roughly cut to size. Only where precision was needed were they dressed and trimmed by skilled masons to exacting standards. Once the limestone blocks quarried they were hauled on sledges along a causeway by gangs of slaves. Water was poured around the sledges to help them slide.

A spiralling ramp of mud, brick and rubble was used to haul the blocks to the level where building was going on. Once at the working level the blocks were man-handled off the sledges into position by levers and brute force by further gangs of slaves called setters. Once relieved of their load the hauliers would then make their weary way back down the ramp to start the whole process again.

A canal connected the pyramid site with the Nile. Here granite brought down from Aswan and fine limestone from Tura was unloaded. These were special stones that involved a lot of preparation in their quarrying, dressing and transportation. A vast amount of labour: of quarrymen, masons and of course slaves.
I'm not quite sure so can someone please answer it.

There are many beliefs as to how the Great pyramid and other typical pyramids were built. Some scientists think that massive ramps were built to have hundreds of men haul 2-ton limestone blocks up the sides of the Great pyramid. The problem is that the ramp would have to be a mile long to be able to reach the top of the pyramid at an angle (8% max.) so that men could actually haul a block of limestone up it! There is not enough space on the Giza plateau for a mile-long ramp. Plus the construction of the ramp might have been more than the pyramid itself!

Another theory is that a spiral ramp was used. However, if you used a spiral ramp, you would not be able to be certain that the four sides would meet at the top. The corners would not be able to be built until the final stage of construction! You would also not be able to use the four corners, edges, or foot line for your calculations.

One last theory is that there were wooden cranes that were used to lift the blocks into place. However, there is a problem. There was simply not enough forests and lumber in Egypt to supply the needs of all those cranes. And importing all the wood would be impractical. Another bigger problem is that there was nowhere to put all of these cranes. The blocks at the top end of the pyramid were not big enough to support hundreds of cranes. So, it seemed that there was no theory as to how the pyramid was built. Or so it seemed.

Jean Pierre, a French architect that abandoned his work to study the great pyramid and the mystery as to how it was built, has a different theory than all the rest. Pierre thinks that an external ramp was used to build the first third of the pyramid. Then, the ramp was torn down and blocks from it were used to build the rest of the pyramid using the internal ramp. This is probably the most reasonable explanation so far and it has considerable evidence piled up in favor of it.

Shortly after coming to the throne the Pharaoh would command his overseer of public works and architects to prepare a burial place in keeping with his status as a god-king. The chosen site was usually one on the edge of the cultivated land in an already established pyramid field. The royal survey team set to work marking out the site. Great care was taken in orientating the site to the four points of the compass and in levelling the site to provide a foundation for the pyramid. When the slaves had cleared away the sand and rubble highly skilled masons were called in to level the foundations. This was done by cutting a grid of channels and filling them with water. The rock was then cut back to the water level to make it perfectly flat. Finally the water was drained away and the channels filled with rubble. Some of them were free men doing particular tasks such as masons, tool makers, carpenters, scribes and supervisors. Many of course were unskilled slave labourers. The slaves could expect to be fed and watered but little else. They are all naked, too low in status to wear clothes. Through the Pharaoh's reign, the construction site teemed with workers of all kinds toiling in the hot sun to complete the monument before the king's death. Day after day, year after year, the quarries rang with the sound of hammer and chisel on stone. After they had cut deep enough to define a block, they packed the riven rock with pieces of porous wood. A slave boy pours water on the wood in the hole. The wood expands so fast that the block splits out with a crack. After the stone blocks are extracted from the quarry face they are lowered onto sledges. A mark is made on the stone by a scribe. This aided them to place the blocks in the pyramid just as they came out of the quarry ensuring a better fit than random blocks without further finishing. From dawn to dusk, slave gangs drag the sledges loaded with stones each weighing about two tons to staging areas at the base of the pyramid. Most of the stone blocks proceed up the ramp without future handling. Only a fraction of the stone blocks needed to be cut to precise dimensions by the masons. The slaves begin hauling the loaded sledges slowly up the clay and rubble ramp. Whether it was a single long or spiralling ramp depends on the size of pyramid. The noise on the ramp was one of chanting slaves, the rumble of heavy sledges and the swish of the overseer's lash. Years of experience ensured that the overseer never missed his mark, as its thong wrapped around the naked body of a slave. Boys pour water under the runners of the sledges to reduce friction to ease their passage up the ramp. When the sledges reached the working level teams of slaves called setters shifted the blocks from the sledges into their designated positions using simple levers, brute force and experience gained from years of hard labour. Once the stones had been delivered the hauling gang would make their weary way down the ramp carrying their sledge, in order to make the same back breaking journey up as they would several times a day. Other slaves are employed in maintaining and extending the ramps as the pyramid grew. These ramps are made of rubble, bound together with desert tafla (a type of clay) and laid with planks to ease the passage of the sledges. Rows of slaves are seen breaking up waste material from the quarries, mixing them with the desert tafla clay and loading the finished mixture into baskets. Individual baskets are loaded onto the shoulders of slaves for delivery to the ramp builders on the pyramid. Granite came from Aswan located 400 miles to the south. Granite was used for the lining of the burial chamber and the internal passage leading to it or in some instances the lower courses of the pyramid. These blocks were the largest in size used on the structure, for example, some of the granite stones used on the Great Pyramid at Giza weighs up to 70 tons. Copper chisels used for quarrying limestone could not be used, a harder material was required. Balls of dolerite, a hard, black igneous rock, were used in the quarries of Aswan to extract the hard granite. This is a place of great heat, dust and noise a hellish place to be sent to work. These dolerite "pounders" were used to pulverize the stone around the edge of the granite block that needed to be extracted. Teams of slaves pound away for weeks in order to expose enough stone for the block to be extracted from the quarry. At the bottom, they ram wooden pegs into slots they have cut, and fill the slots with water. The pegs will expand and split the rock with a resounding crack much more impressive than anything heard with the softer limestone. Long lines of slaves, their bare bodies covered in the dust of the quarry and gleaming with sweat, drag the loaded sledges along a causeway to the river. Here the great stones hewn with so much effort and suffering will be loaded onto barges and floated down the river. At any one time as many as 30,000 workers may have been involved on this massive project. Some of them were professional craftsmen most however were slaves.

The skilled Egyptian architects used only the simplest tools, but had the vast manpower of thousands of laborers, many of them slaves, and many undoubtedly perished during the construction.

(For a quote on the subject, see the related link)

(For more information, see the link "Building the pyramids" below)
Thousands and thousands of people moved one big boulder at a time
Sand and mud. They would take sand and build blocks and stack them in a triangular prism way and then smear it down with mud to smooth everything out. With thousands and thousands of master craftsmen, artisans, laborers and slaves. rolling logs, ramps made of earth, ropes, muddy slides - for sliding along huge slabs of rocks.
It is possible that the Egyptians had the Israelite Children to build the pyramids, during the time that they were enslaved. (Exodus)
Egyptian pyramids are amongst the oldest stone buildings in the world. They were built nearly five thousand years ago. These ancient tombs are also among the world's largest structures. The biggest is taller than a 40-story building and covers the area occupied by Lincoln's Inn (about 13 acres; 5.3 hectares). Men built these huge structures without the help of equipment such as cranes and bulldozers. The ancient Egyptians used tools of copper, a softer metal than steel. Wooden wedges to help prise the stone from the quarry face and levers to help put the stones in place were also used in building the pyramids. Building a pyramid was dirty, difficult and dangerous work. It required meticulous planning and organization.

Two varieties of stone were used, limestone and granite. The limestone which made up the bulk of the pyramid was quarried locally. The granite had to be brought from the quarries at Aswan to where the pyramid was being built. They were transported on the Nile River in massive reed boats. The average weight of one of the pyramid's stone block is two and half tons. Some of the Aswan blocks, however, weighed up to 70 tons. To complete the Great Pyramid at Giza, one stone block was quarried, shaped and placed in position every two minutes for 20 years. It was this dangerous, hard and monotonous work that was done by slaves. This was an era of slave labour and none were more expert in directing their slaves than the ancient Egyptians. The slaves were naked too low in status to be given clothes.

In the minds of the Ancient Egyptians the pyramid form served a very serious purpose. Ancient Egyptians had a strong belief in life after death. The pharaohs wanted their bodies to last forever, so they had pyramids built to protect their bodies after death. Each pyramid housed a pharaoh's preserved body. It also held the goods he would need in his next life to continue living as he had when he was alive. Granite doors, false passages and fake burial chambers were built in an attempt to confuse and stop robbers from robbing the pyramids. In spite of these precautions, all pyramids were robbed of their treasures by around 1000 B.C.

Building plans showing how the pyramid was built have never been found, experts use present knowledge about construction to make some intelligent guesses. The Ancient Egyptians were an ingenious people. You cannot help to be impressed by the fearlessness the ancient builders exhibited in taking on such a colossal project.

The limestone blocks were cut out in the quarries close the pyramid site. Most of these blocks were roughly cut to size. Only where precision was needed were they dressed and trimmed by skilled masons to exacting standards. Once the limestone blocks quarried they were hauled on sledges along a causeway by gangs of slaves. Water was poured around the sledges to help them slide.

A spiralling ramp of mud, brick and rubble was used to haul the blocks to the level where building was going on. Once at the working level the blocks were man-handled off the sledges into position by levers and brute force by further gangs of slaves called setters. Once relieved of their load the hauliers would then make their weary way back down the ramp to start the whole process again.

A canal connected the pyramid site with the Nile. Here granite brought down from Aswan and fine limestone from Tura was unloaded. These were special stones that involved a lot of preparation in their quarrying, dressing and transportation. A vast amount of labour: of quarrymen, masons and of course slaves.

Answer 2

Egyptian pyramids are amongst the oldest stone buildings in the world. They were built nearly five thousand years ago. These ancient tombs are also among the world's largest structures. The biggest is taller than a 40-story building and covers the area occupied by Lincoln's Inn (about 13 acres; 5.3 hectares). Men built these huge structures without the help of equipment such as cranes and bulldozers. The ancient Egyptians used tools of copper, a softer metal than steel. Wooden wedges to help prise the stone from the quarry face and levers to help put the stones in place were also used in building the pyramids. Building a pyramid was dirty, difficult and dangerous work. It required meticulous planning and organization.

Two varieties of stone were used, limestone and granite. The limestone which made up the bulk of the pyramid was quarried locally. The granite had to be brought from the quarries at Aswan to where the pyramid was being built. They were transported on the Nile River in massive reed boats. The average weight of one of the pyramid's stone block is two and half tons. Some of the Aswan blocks, however, weighed up to 70 tons. To complete the Great Pyramid at Giza, one stone block was quarried, shaped and placed in position every two minutes for 20 years.

It was this dangerous, hard and monotonous work that was done by peasants conscripted during the inundation of the river Nile when work was not possible in the fields. The Pharaoh was able to call upon this pool of labour for months at a time without disrupting the national economy and without having to provide more than basic subsistence.

In the minds of the Ancient Egyptians the pyramid form served a very serious purpose. Ancient Egyptians had a strong belief in life after death. The pharaohs wanted their bodies to last forever, so they had pyramids built to protect their bodies after death. Each pyramid housed a pharaoh's preserved body. It also held the goods he would need in his next life to continue living as he had when he was alive. Granite doors, false passages and fake burial chambers were built in an attempt to confuse and stop robbers from robbing the pyramids. In spite of these precautions, all pyramids were robbed of their treasures by around 1000 B.C.

Building plans showing how the pyramid was built have never been found, experts use present knowledge about construction to make some intelligent guesses. The Ancient Egyptians were an ingenious people. You cannot help to be impressed by the fearlessness the ancient builders exhibited in taking on such a colossal project.

The limestone blocks were cut out in the quarries close the pyramid site. Most of these blocks were roughly cut to size. Only where precision was needed were they dressed and trimmed by skilled masons to exacting standards. Once the limestone blocks quarried they were hauled on sledges along a causeway by gangs of labourers. Water was poured around the sledges to help them slide.

A spiralling ramp of mud, brick and rubble was used to haul the blocks to the level where building was going on. Once at the working level the blocks were man-handled off the sledges into position by levers and brute force by further gangs called setters. Once relieved of their load the hauliers would then make their weary way back down the ramp to start the whole process again.

A canal connected the pyramid site with the Nile. Here granite brought down from Aswan and fine limestone from Tura was unloaded. These were special stones that involved a lot of preparation in their quarrying, dressing and transportation. A vast amount of labour: of quarrymen, masons and of course the long suffering peasants.

Answer 3

They definitely did not use the slaves but payed workers.