All about the construction of the pyramids. Why and how were the pyramids built in ancient Egypt

The majestic Egyptian buildings are impressive, so the question involuntarily arises: how were the pyramids built?

The pyramid is the tomb for the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. The pyramids were built from about 2700 to 1800 BC.

Having ascended the throne, each pharaoh began to build a pyramid in which, after his death, he would be buried. And the richer and more powerful the pharaoh was, the more powerful was his tomb.

Well, let's consider how all these great structures were built. For example, take the pyramid of Pharaoh Cheops (Khufu). This pyramid is called the "Great" because it is the most studied and largest of all the surviving pyramids.

Scientists calculated the total weight of the stone blocks that were processed and stacked by workers in a pyramid. It is 6.5 million tons! One part of scientists believe that the construction lasted 20 years and 100,000 people took part in it. Another part believes that even such an army of builders could not build a pyramid in two decades. Also, most likely the construction was not carried out all year round, but only during the flood of the Nile. The duties of the builders included that they had to be several tens of meters above the ground (the total height of the pyramid is 146.6 meters), and turn, lift and plant huge blocks weighing about 15 tons. There are 2.3 million similar stone blocks in the Great Pyramid. If we take into account that the builders worked ten hours a day, and the time of the Nile flooding in a year was 3 months, then the workers would have to put up four blocks in one minute! And within an hour, they would have already put up about 240 stone blocks! At such a high speed, precise calculation had to be used to maintain the geometry of the pyramid. But in the construction of the pyramid, such primitive mechanisms as ropes, levers and wooden rollers were used.

There are various hypotheses about how such heavy stone blocks were lifted to the site where the construction took place. For example, that the Egyptians poured bricks and soil, and a stone block passed through it to a given height. Most likely, the builders used several mounds to make it more convenient to lift stones from several sides at once.

But this hypothesis does not withstand heavy criticism. Those who think otherwise say that a plane that goes from the ground straight to the top of the pyramid at a slope of 1:10 would need an embankment of 1460 m. The volume of this embankment would be 3 times larger than the pyramid itself! This is eight million cubic meters against two and a half million. If the steepness of the rise is large, then it will be impossible to lift stones along it. For such an embankment - which is 1.5 km long and 150 m high - soil and brick will not serve as building material. Calculations have shown that such embankments will settle under their own weight.

Another hypothesis says that the builders used a spiral shape made of bricks. Such a plane requires less cost and material. However, scientists calculated and came to the conclusion that the spiral could end long before the top of the pyramid. And the corners of the structure would be the most difficult for them to do.

Now consider what technological solutions were used in the construction of the pyramids. Many hypotheses have been put forward on this question. Most contradict each other or are completely mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, none of them stand the test of strength. What can not be said about the pyramids that have survived to this day and are patiently waiting for the researchers to find answers to their riddles.

There are less and less unsolved mysteries on our planet every year. Continuous improvement of technology, cooperation of scientists various areas Science reveals to us the secrets and mysteries of history. But the secrets of the pyramids still defy understanding - all discoveries give scientists only tentative answers to many questions. Who built the Egyptian pyramids, what was the construction technology, whether there is a curse of the pharaohs - these and many other questions still remain without an exact answer.

Description of the Egyptian pyramids

Archaeologists talk about 118 pyramids in Egypt, partially or completely preserved to our time. Their age is from 4 to 10 thousand years. One of them - Cheops - is the only surviving "miracle" from the "Seven Wonders of the World". The complex called the Great Pyramids of Giza, which includes and, was also considered as a participant in the New Seven Wonders of the World competition, but it was withdrawn from participation, since these majestic buildings in fact, they are the "wonder of the world" in the ancient list.

These pyramids have become the most visited excursion objects in Egypt. They are perfectly preserved, which cannot be said about many other structures - time did not spare them. Yes, and local residents contributed to the destruction of the majestic necropolises, removing the lining and breaking out stones from the walls to build their houses.

The Egyptian pyramids were built by pharaohs ruling from the 27th century BC. e. and later. They were intended for the repose of the rulers. The huge scale of the tombs (some - up to almost 150 m high) should have testified to the greatness of the buried pharaohs, things that the ruler loved during his lifetime and which would be useful to him were placed here. afterlife.

For the construction, stone blocks of various sizes were used, which were hollowed out of the rocks, and later brick began to serve as the material for the walls. Stone blocks were turned and adjusted so that a knife blade could not slip between them. Blocks were stacked on top of each other with an offset of several centimeters, which formed a stepped surface of the structure. Almost all Egyptian pyramids have a square base, the sides of which are oriented strictly to the cardinal points.

Since the pyramids performed the same function, that is, they served as the burial place of the pharaohs, their structure and decoration are similar inside. The main component is the burial hall, where the ruler's sarcophagus was installed. The entrance was arranged not at ground level, but several meters higher, and was masked by facing slabs. Stairs and corridors led from the entrance to the inner hall, which sometimes narrowed so much that they could only be walked on squatting or crawling.

In most necropolises, burial chambers (chambers) are below ground level. Ventilation was carried out through narrow shaft-channels, which penetrated the walls. Rock paintings and ancient religious texts are found on the walls of many pyramids - in fact, scientists draw some of the information about the construction and owners of the burials from them.

The main mysteries of the pyramids

The list begins unsolved mysteries from the form of necropolises. Why was the shape of the pyramid chosen, which is translated from Greek as “polyhedron”? Why were the edges located clearly on the cardinal points? How did the huge stone blocks move from the place of development and how they were lifted to great height? Were the buildings erected by aliens or people who own a magic crystal?

Scientists even argue over the question of who built such tall monumental structures that stood for millennia. Some believe they were built by slaves who died in the hundreds of thousands building each. However, new discoveries of archaeologists and anthropologists convince us that the builders were free people who received good food and medical assistance. They made such conclusions based on the composition of the bones, the structure of the skeletons and the healed injuries of the buried builders.

All cases of death and death of people involved in the study of the Egyptian pyramids were attributed to mystical coincidences, which provoked rumors and talk about the curse of the pharaohs. None scientific evidence this is not. Perhaps the rumors were spread to scare off thieves and marauders who want to find valuables and jewelry in the graves.

The mysterious interesting facts include the short time frame for the construction of the Egyptian pyramids. According to calculations, large necropolises with that level of technology should have been erected in at least a century. How, for example, was the pyramid of Cheops built in just 20 years?

Great Pyramids

This is the name of the burial complex near the city of Giza, consisting of three large pyramids, a huge statue of the Sphinx and small satellite pyramids, probably intended for the wives of the rulers.

The initial height of the pyramid of Cheops was 146 m, the length of the side was 230 m. It was built in 20 years in the 26th century BC. e. The largest of Egyptian landmarks has not one, but three funerary halls. One of them is below ground level, and two are above the base line. Intertwining corridors lead to the burial chambers. On them you can go to the chamber of the pharaoh (king), to the chamber of the queen and to the lower hall. The chamber of the pharaoh is a chamber made of pink granite, has dimensions of 10x5 m. A granite sarcophagus without a lid is installed in it. Not a single report of scientists contained information about the mummies found, so it is not known whether Cheops was buried here. By the way, the mummy of Cheops was not found in other tombs either.

It still remains a mystery whether the Cheops pyramid was used for its intended purpose, and if so, then apparently it was plundered by looters in the past centuries. The name of the ruler, by whose order and project this tomb was built, was learned from the drawings and hieroglyphs above the burial chamber. All other Egyptian pyramids, with the exception of Djoser, have a simpler engineering device.

Two other necropolises in Giza, built for the heirs of Cheops, are somewhat more modest in size:

Tourists travel to Giza from all over Egypt, because this city is actually a suburb of Cairo, and all transport interchanges lead to it. Travelers from Russia usually go to Giza as part of excursion groups from Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada. The trip is long, 6-8 hours one way, so the tour is usually designed for 2 days.

The Great Buildings are only accessible to the public working time, usually up to 17 hours, in the month of Ramadan - up to 15 hours. It is not recommended to go inside for asthmatics, as well as people suffering from claustrophobia, nervous and cardiovascular diseases. You must take with you on the tour drinking water and headwear. The tour fee consists of several parts:

Entrance to the complex.
Entrance inside the pyramid of Cheops or Khafre.
Entrance to the Museum of the Solar boat, on which the body of the pharaoh was transported across the Nile.

Against the backdrop of the Egyptian pyramids, many people like to take photos while sitting on camels. You can bargain with camel owners.

Pyramid of Djoser

The first pyramid in the world is located in Saqqara, not far from Memphis, the former capital of Ancient Egypt. Today, the pyramid of Djoser is not as attractive to tourists as the Cheops necropolis, but at one time it was the largest in the country and the most complex in terms of engineering.

The burial complex included chapels, courtyards, and storage facilities. The six-step pyramid itself does not have a square base, but a rectangular one, with sides of 125x110 m. The height of the structure itself is 60 m, inside it there are 12 burial chambers, where Djoser himself and members of his family were supposedly buried. The mummy of the pharaoh was not found during the excavations. The entire territory of the complex of 15 hectares was surrounded by a stone wall 10 m high. Currently, part of the wall and other buildings have been restored, and the pyramid, whose age is approaching 4700 years, has been preserved quite well.

Ancient Egypt Zgurskaya Maria Pavlovna

How were the pyramids built?

This question haunts more than one generation of researchers. How did ancient builders raise huge stone blocks? In other words, what engineering solution was found by the ancient architects, who managed to lift and install millions of blocks in their place in a relatively short period of time? This is not an exaggeration: the pyramid of Cheops alone contains 2,300,000 of them. Limestone blocks weigh from 2.5 to 15 tons. From ancient times to the present day, many researchers have been looking for an answer to this question.

In the question of the construction of the pyramids, of course, one cannot do without the testimony of a visitor to Egypt in 425 BC. e. "father of history" Herodotus. He suggested that the pyramids were built using wooden machines that lifted blocks from ledge to ledge. “The method used was to build in steps, or, as some call it, rows or terraces. When the base was completed, the blocks for the next row above the base were raised from the base level by fixtures made from short wooden levers; on this first row there was another that raised the blocks one level higher, so that step by step the blocks were raised higher and higher. Each row or level had its own set of mechanisms of the same type that easily moved loads from level to level. The completion of the construction of the pyramid began from the top, from the uppermost level, continued down and ended with the lowest levels closer to the ground.

Herodotus' mention of "wooden machines" gave impetus to one of the lines of research. The Italian Egyptologist Osvaldo Falestiedi believes that the remains of one of these machines were found in the 19th century during excavations of the temple of Queen Hatshepsut. He was able to restore ancient device and it worked!

The car designed by Falestiedi resembles a cradle: a stone block tied with ropes is placed inside a wooden frame, which is swayed with the help of special wedges. With the help of such rocking, the inventor is convinced, the ancient Egyptians raised multi-ton stones. Falestiedi's discovery was tested by Japanese and American engineers and archaeologists, who confirmed the Italian was right. Now Falestiedi, together with engineers from Turin polytechnic institute is going to create a working model of a device that can lift stones weighing up to forty tons.

But not only Falestiedi was inspired by the words of Herodotus. American Ron Wyatt designed his own version of the lifting machine. The obvious simplicity of the device, the very principle of operation and many other properties of this design make this mechanism extremely similar to the one described by Herodotus and which was used by the ancient Egyptians when building the pyramids.

An interesting hypothesis is the version of "the oldest concrete in the world." In the 1710s, the Frenchman Paul Lucas claimed that the pyramids were lined with cement, not stone. The Englishman R. Pocock in 1745 suggested that the pyramids were like mountains lined with stone slabs. And in our time, the hypothesis of cement (concrete) lining and blocks made of concrete has been revived again. The thesis about the use of concrete in the construction of the Egyptian pyramids has been seriously put forward since 1979, since the II International Congress of Egyptologists in Grenoble; its main "adept" is the French chemist Professor Josef Davidovich. On this subject, he published the book "How the god Khnum took care of Cheops, the builder of the pyramid." At the same time, the Frenchman began to assert that some ancient Egyptian vases were not made of natural stone, but were produced using the “stone casting” method.

But these are all assumptions. Most Egyptologists believe that giant pyramid Cheops was built during the 4th dynasty from large precisely fitted blocks, and the next dynasty built primitive small pyramids from blocks of irregular size roughly cut in quarries that did not connect to each other and did not fit one to one. This style of construction can be called "primitive megalithic".

There is another chronological paradox: the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom, who had at their disposal only primitive, mostly stone tools, built pyramids allegedly from relatively hard limestone, and in the period of the Middle Kingdom, when bronze tools were already widely used, the main building material became relatively soft sandstone.

J. Davidovich defends the opinion that some of the Egyptian pyramids and individual temples were built from one of the varieties of the so-called natural or geopolymer concrete. Various petrified deposits, such as limestone or sandstone, can be considered as natural concrete. So from the streams of mud of volcanic or other origin, as a result of drying and setting, natural concrete arises. Whenever the mixing of sand and other mineral sediments with organic components (marine organics, microbial waste products, etc.) resulted in layers of petrification, we actually encountered natural concrete with organic additives. In the case of the Egyptian pyramids we are talking about the repetition of these natural processes with minor changes: due to organic additions to natural mineral materials dissolved in water, natural concrete with good properties is obtained.

At the same time, Davidovich refers not only to the results of his own chemical analyzes, but also on several ancient texts, according to which Pharaoh Djoser was instructed by some divine being to grind up blocks of rocks and mix them for the production of building materials.

Based on the results of the analyzes that Josef Davidovich carried out on samples of materials from three pyramids and from two quarries, he came to the conclusion that concrete was apparently used in the construction of these pyramids. In samples of material from the blocks of the pyramid of Cheops, the scientist found, for example, traces of zeolites. These substances in limestone natural origin do not meet. Zeolites arise mainly in the final stage of the hydrothermal process at high temperatures (up to 600 °C and above) and pressures up to several thousand atmospheres. They, as a rule, are found in volcanogenic strata, in which they fill voids and form tuff cement, i.e., they act as binders. The best binding (cement) qualities are exhibited by zeolites, which arose at not very high, but still elevated temperatures of the order of 250–300 °C. As a result of erosion of rocks of volcanic origin, zeolites enter rivers and are deposited in river silt. They are also found in large quantities in the Nile silt. Quantitative studies of samples of material from the pyramid of Cheops showed that the proportion of zeolites and other, as Davidovich puts it, "binding polymeric agents" in them is about 13%. The analyzes also showed that the physical parameters (density, porosity, moisture) of the samples were very different from the parameters of ordinary limestone.

Microscopic studies of limestone from quarries revealed the presence of calcium structures with clear crystal lattices at a constant density and, at the same time, calcareous fragments of shells. On the contrary, the building materials of the pyramid of Cheops contained, along with fragments of shells, impurities of lime, soda and substances organic origin. Density fluctuations and even inclusions of air bubbles were observed in them. In the samples from the quarries, the limestone shells and other “details” were intact, while in the pyramidal blocks they were damaged and crushed.

Davidovich's explanation for these differences is as follows: stone materials of shell rock softened in water from nearby dry channels were mixed with Nile silt and binders (soda, lime, organic additives) necessary for the formation of geopolymer concrete, and then this mass hardened. In addition, casting concrete blocks would explain the tight fit of the blocks. At the same time, it must be said that individual external blocks, according to at least visible from the outside, they are not at all so tightly adjacent to each other as the blocks of internal passages and rooms. The outer blocks of the pyramids are subject to the destructive influence of the forces of nature and "civilizational" forces. Unlike the blocks inside the pyramid, the outer blocks get very hot during the summer days and cool down very much at night. strong winds broken pieces are carried away, and the resulting cracks are used by tourists to get samples of pyramid stones as souvenirs.

The transportation of heavy blocks from the quarries to the Nile and from the Nile to the pyramid building site remains one of the major obstacles to a credible description of pyramid building technology. Modern Egyptology comes from a drawing on the tomb of Pharaoh Jehutihotep depicting the transport of a huge statue on a sleigh of massive logs pulled by hundreds of people. But it is one thing to transport a statue once, and another to organize the mass transportation of stone blocks, the number of which is in the millions. Egyptologists believe that the corresponding roads were paved with dried clay bricks and then watered over them to improve the sliding of the sleigh. However, with this technique, the road will be destroyed each time by skids, and its canvas will turn into a strip of mud. That is, after each transported block, it will be necessary to repair the road along its entire length, which could be measured in tens and even hundreds of kilometers. Geopolymer concrete technology explains how these difficulties were overcome.

But Zahi Hawass called the hypothesis about the use of concrete in the construction of the pyramids of Giza "idiotic and offensive." He was also outraged by the fact that he did not know how the rock samples got to French chemists who put forward the "concrete theory", without the permission of the Egyptian government. The chief archaeologist of Egypt is convinced that the pyramids are entirely built of blocks of limestone and granite. Proponents of traditional views on the technology of building pyramids, including Zahi Hawass, believe that the ancient Egyptians used only simple mechanical devices and transported blocks of limestone and granite from quarries.

For construction, ancient Egyptian engineers built a harbor 800 meters east of the recently discovered Cheops Valley Temple. This harbor was used to transport stone from other quarries in the country to the plateau, such as the granite used for the burial chamber of Cheops and the fine white limestone with which the pyramid was lined. The harbor was also used to bring workers from their homes in Memphis and other nearby cities. Food from farms on the banks of the Nile was offered as sacrifices for temples and used to feed the inhabitants of nearby cities, responsible for maintaining the cult of the deceased king. South of the pyramid of Cheops, the American Egyptologist Mark Lehner discovered a quarry in which stone was mined for its construction. The remains of a ramp made of crushed stone and silt were also found nearby. This ramp went from the quarries to the southeast corner of the Cheops pyramid. Most likely, blocks were raised along it.

A compatriot of Mark Lehner, a certain engineer by the name of Bush, expressed the original opinion that stone blocks were equipped with segments on both sides and thus turned from rectangles into cylinders. Bush successfully tested his method by rolling an almost three-ton cylinder down an inclined plane with the efforts of four people.

Another possible way Japanese researchers tried to demonstrate the construction of the pyramids. In 1978, they wanted to build a mere 11-meter pyramid, using a sloping mound and drags to lift stone blocks, but failed. The embankment turned out to be too steep to drag drags with cargo along it, and it was necessary to complete the pyramid with the help of modern technology.

Here, perhaps, are all of the methods known today, and any of them is in doubt for one more reason. Herodotus writes about 100 thousand people who worked for 20 years on the construction of the pyramid of Cheops. How were they placed on a site of only 5 hectares? Even if we assume that they were not all there at the same time, the crowding during the work was incredible. After all, people did not just stand, they worked and had to have free space for maneuvering. On the embankment and on the site itself, at the same time there should have been a lot of people pulling drags with blocks. This is indirectly indicated by the data of an experiment conducted in 1954 by British archaeologists. Studying the famous Stonehenge, they reproduced the transportation of one and a half ton stone blocks. Tied to a simple wooden sled, a block of 32 strong young men was barely dragged up an inclined plane with a slope of 4 °. Things improved when rollers began to be placed under the sled: it took only 24 people. From this it was concluded that 16 people are needed for 1 ton of block weight. Consequently, the Egyptians needed 40 people to transport a block weighing 2.5 tons along an inclined plane. And if we also take into account the number of stacked blocks, the drags had to continuously follow each other. In addition, to the complexity of transportation, one should add the laboriousness of making mounds, the volume of which could reach a quarter of the volume of the pyramid itself.

It is unlikely that other methods were easier: one way or another, tens of thousands of builders had to either crush tens of thousands of tons of limestone to produce cement, or roll millions of huge stone cylinders along an inclined plane, risking being crushed every second. And all this under the hot Egyptian sun.

Well, not aliens, in fact, built the great pyramids with the help of anti-gravity installations! True, there are a great many various pseudoscientific theories on this subject. But for obvious reasons, we will not consider them.

However, there is another theory based on hydroweightlessness. Recall that hydroweightlessness occurs when the force of Archimedes pushing the body out is balanced by the weight of the body itself. But equilibrium can come either when the body is lighter than water - it will float on top, or if its weight is equal to the weight of water - then it will hang freely in the water column, not rising to the surface and not sinking to the bottom. This second case is hydroweightlessness. However specific gravity stone is much larger than the weight of water. How could the Egyptians use hydroweightlessness? Could they have known and used the law later formulated by Archimedes to lift stone blocks? Here we ask ourselves one more question: what did the Egyptians know how to do by the time the pyramids began to be built?

They managed to complete the construction of networks of irrigation canals and protective dams. They used irrigated agriculture, learned to raise water with the help of water-drawing structures, pump it from one level to another. They have long used shaduf - a lever water-lifting device: a bucket was attached to one arm of the lever on a long stick, and a stone was attached to the other arm as a counterweight. The Egyptians knew water distribution structures such as shields and valves, transported Construction Materials along the Nile and canals on rowing and sailing ships made of papyrus or wood, they knew how to calculate the carrying capacity of their ships.

Based on this, it is quite possible to assume that the ancient Egyptians did not need to carry multi-ton stones on themselves, they could easily get by with a system of water locks from the foot of the pyramid to the continuously rising construction site.

But what about the specific gravity of the stone in this case? Perhaps the Egyptians could get around this problem by using floats made from tarred empty containers, boxes, and a system of locks for transportation. It is known that with the help of locks it is possible to transport goods along the ascending line. The water rising along with the load is drained through the same chain of locks located nearby. Without delving into complex calculations, one can refer to hydraulic engineers who calculated scientific opportunity such a way. So, this is theoretically possible. Ukrainian hydroengineer Alexander Grigoriev conducted a whole system of complex calculations and, based on them, claims that with mathematical point there is nothing impossible in the ancient Egyptian hydraulic lift.

One of the paintings of the tomb in Thebes depicts a boat with oars, in the boat there is a strange stepped structure, and all this is supported by a column of water. What is encrypted in the picture, what idea does it contain? Maybe lifting the boat through a system of locks?

And here is a quote from the works on the history of the construction of the pyramids and their creators by the Arab writer of the late XII century Ibrahim ibn Vazif Shah: “Then the king ordered the pyramids to be built and ditches to be dug into them, into which the Nile would penetrate until certain place and then turn and flow into some western regions and to Said.

However, not everyone is of the opinion that the "bricks" for the pyramids were unbearable. Zahi Hawass, from the height of his authority, claims that reports of big weight stone blocks - nothing more than speculation. According to him, the weight of the blocks from which the pyramids were built did not exceed half a ton.

And the French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin believes that he solved the mystery of the pyramids, putting forward the theory that the great pyramids of Egypt were built ... from the inside, not the outside. Scientists around the world for a long time could not understand how the ancient Egyptians were able to raise stone blocks weighing 2.5 tons each to such a height. Jean-Pierre Houdin denied one of the most common versions, according to which an external inclined ramp was used to build the Cheops pyramid. According to the scientist, this design should have been inside the pyramid. According to Houdin, to build the first 40 meters of the pyramid, the Egyptians first erected an external inclined ramp, and then built the same slope inside the pyramid, with which they built another 137 meters. “This theory is better than others because it is the only one that works,” said the French researcher. To prove his point, Houdin teamed up with a French company that builds 3D models for car and aircraft designers. Perhaps the results of this experiment will shed light on some of the secrets of the pyramids.

The researchers are also haunted by the mysteries of stone processing. For example, in order to carve out the internal cavity of a granite box from the chamber of the king of the Cheops pyramid, drills with diamond nozzles operating under a pressure of 2 tons were needed. With the tools with which these incredible products were allegedly created, it is physically impossible to even come close to their production. Many of the objects showed traces of processing methods such as sawing, turning on a lathe, milling and, most incredible, trepanning. This method is used to gouge a cavity in a block of hard stone, for which it is first drilled out and then the "core" is knocked out. There are spiral grooves on the stone - evidence that the drill penetrated the stone by 2.54 mm per revolution.

According to these technical data, it turned out that the ancient Egyptians drilled granite at a speed 500 times greater than what could be done at the end of the 20th century! Only possible method which explains all the discovered facts is the use of ultrasonic equipment. And this, in turn, means that we are dealing with another mystery.

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In this chapter, we will consider some of the mysteries of history, ancient structures and their relationship with global cataclysms that occurred on Earth in the distant past. One of the mysteries of our civilization is the pyramids of Egypt. So many books, monographs and articles have been written on this topic that one more Great Pyramid can be built from all these publications. This geometric body has turned into some kind of fantastic and mystical object, around which many legends, conjectures and fabrications have piled up. What, in fact, were these grandiose structures intended for and how were they built? The answers to this question are found in some historical sources, and the technology for building pyramids and other structures is depicted on the wall of Rekmir's tomb (mid-15th century BC) and it is not at all necessary to invent various fantastic hypotheses and guesses about the construction and purpose of the pyramids.

The Arab historian and geographer al-Masudi, who is called the Arab Herodotus, in his book "Washing of gold and placer precious stones"Specifically indicates what the pyramids were intended for:" One of the Egyptian rulers before global flood built two large pyramids. It is not known why they later received the name from a husband named Sheddat, the son of Hell, because they were not built by members of the kind of Hell, because they could not conquer Egypt, because they did not have the power that the Egyptians, who owned the spell, had. The reason for the construction of the pyramids was a dream that Surid (Pharaoh) saw three hundred years before the flood. He dreamed that the earth was flooded with water, and helpless people floundering in it and drowning, that the stars in confusion left their paths and with a terrible noise fall from the sky. And although this dream made a strong impression on the ruler, he did not tell anyone about it, but in anticipation of terrible events he called the clergy from all over his country and secretly told them about what he had seen.

The priests confirmed that a great calamity would befall Egypt, and only after many years would the land again bear bread and dates. The knowledge of the priests was orally passed down from generation to generation, according to Herodotus for 17 thousand years, and then recorded on papyrus. They knew what catastrophic disasters on Earth caused neutron star(Typhon) at its appearance in the solar system in the past.

“Then the ruler decided to build pyramids,” al-Masudi continues the story, “and ordered the prophecy of the clergy to be drawn on pillars and large stone slabs. In indoor areas pyramids, he hid treasures and other valuables along with the bodies of his predecessors. He ordered the priests to leave there written evidence about his wisdom, about the achievements of sciences and arts. Then he ordered to build underground passages to the very waters of the Nile. He filled all the rooms inside the pyramids with talismans, idols and other miraculous objects, as well as records made by clergy and containing all areas of knowledge, names and properties of medicinal plants, information regarding counting and measurements, so that they were preserved for the benefit of those who could understand them. ".

And in conclusion, al-Masudi reports that the pharaoh ordered to inscribe on the pyramids following words: “I, the ruler of Surid, built these pyramids in 60 years. Let the one who comes after me try to destroy them within 600 years! It's easier to destroy than to build."

Surid did not take into account one circumstance - a real pilgrimage to the pyramids of modern tourists, who, according to Egyptian scientists, will pull these colossal structures stone by stone (as a keepsake) within a hundred years.

The Arab scholar Abu Balkhi (IX-X AD) wrote that before the flood, the wise men, foreseeing a catastrophe, “built many stone pyramids in Lower Egypt in order to save themselves there during the impending death. Two of these pyramids were superior to the rest, having 400 cubits in height and the same in width and length. It was built from large polished blocks of marble, fitted together so tightly that the junction was barely visible. Seam cutters in production construction works would greatly facilitate the work of the ancient builders.

Neoplatonist Proclus, in his commentary on Plato's Timaeus, argued that the Great Pyramid was intended for observing the stars and was an astronomical observatory.

Pythagoras, who studied for thirty years in the Egyptian temples, has this important information, which the Egyptian priests told him: “The pyramid completes underground labyrinth, made up of long and strong vaults .... Trismegistus invented it to protect the beginnings of all human knowledge.

From the above information, we can conclude that the pyramids were originally intended solely to preserve the knowledge of civilization that existed in antiquity and to protect against various cataclysms - floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, meteorite falls, etc. In this most reliable bunker, which, according to experts, could not destroy and atomic bomb, which incinerated Hiroshima, it was possible to calmly survive any natural disaster.

In a later period, the pharaohs tried to use the pyramids as their tombs, but for some reason they refused to do so. And in none of these numerous structures were found the mummies of the deceased rulers of ancient Egypt, except for one dried corpse. It is possible that this is just a lost robber of the pyramids.

The Egyptians called the area where these colossal structures were located quite ordinary. Herodotus mentions in his writings: “Even these pyramids are called the pyramids of the shepherd Filitis, who in those days pastured his flocks in these places.” In a hieroglyphic inscription on a slab found at Abydos in Upper Egypt, with the text “Biography of the nobleman Una”, the pyramid of Pharaoh Mirenra is named completely incomprehensibly for our generation: “His Majesty sent me to Ibhat to deliver the sarcophagus“ The living chest ”together with its lid and the precious and luxurious top for the pyramid“ Mirenra is and is merciful ”Mistress” . In a later period, these huge structures were called "Steps to God." How were the pyramids built? The technology of building pyramids and various buildings is quite accurately depicted on the wall of Rekmir's tomb.

In the center of the drawing, three workers are shown pouring sand into buckets and passing it to two other builders, who pour this sand into the formwork. In the right upper corner one of them had a smoke break (by the way, archaeologists found smoking pipes and tobacco in one of the pyramids), and in the lower right corner of the image is another hard worker, who, bending over, drags already made bricks from the construction site (to the left), just like in our time. The most important part of the technological process of making stone blocks is drawn in the upper left corner, where two Egyptians scoop with jugs, from a pool surrounded by deciduous trees, some kind of black liquid, which the worker depicted on the right of the pool pours into a mold with sand. All this mixture, partially dissolving, then hardens in the formwork and turns into stone.

The American chemist J. Davidovich put forward the hypothesis that the Egyptian pyramids were made of ordinary concrete. The French architect J. Berto suggested that the "ancient cement" that was used in the casting of stone blocks was the Nile river silt mixed with sodium carbonate and others. natural materials. But the stone blocks of the great pyramids of Giza are practically homogeneous in composition, without inclusions of any impurities, and consist of shells of the simplest microorganisms - foraminifers. And it is extremely doubtful that this "cement" mixture can turn into a stone monolith. The Egyptians did build pyramids from the Nile silt, but practically nothing remained of these structures.

Most likely, in the manufacture of huge blocks of pyramids weighing tens of tons, an organic liquid with a high dielectric constant was used - the juice of a plant or tree. Moreover, the unknown liquid used by the Egyptians for the manufacture of blocks, selectively dissolved only some substances containing silicon, and only certain rocks.

As you know, if a substance is impregnated with such a liquid, then the molecular forces between the particles of this substance will weaken, due to electrostatic forces, by the value of its dielectric constant. The action of some well-known solvents is based on this principle. Of the inorganic substances, water has the highest dielectric constant (81 is a dimensionless value), Nitric acid(110), and from organic liquids N-Methylformamide - 182. For some emulsions and gels, it reaches (2000).

The mysterious solvent had no effect on organic matter. Although for builders and stone carvers who long time worked with this substance, its use had a detrimental effect. This is mentioned in the papyrus "Instruction of Akhtoy, the son of Duauf, to his son Piopi", which provides a list of various professions and occupational diseases of workers (a kind of labor code).

Wall Builder. I'm talking about the builder of walls. Illness tested... His strength has disappeared, his hands are as inanimate ( literal translation- died) from working on stone.
"Stonecutter. A stone carver is looking for a job in hard stone for everyone. When he finishes doing things, his hands are as if lifeless (died), and he is tired.

Similar properties, to dissolve rocks, plants and trees with the help of juice, could acquire in the process of evolution. It is enough to look at an ordinary pine growing on the slopes of the rocks, which literally penetrates the rocks with its roots, and in the almost complete absence of soil, it grows beautifully in such difficult conditions. The same properties are possessed by primitive mosses and lichens, which dissolve several microns of rocks per year to maintain their vital activity.

During the construction of the pyramids, the “maat tree” was extremely valued among the Egyptians, the number of trees of which was reported directly to the pharaoh, as evidenced by the numerous reports of the priests. Probably the sap of this tree was used as a miraculous solvent

The composition of this universal solvent was also known to the Indians. South America. In one of the caves next to the mummified corpses was found leather bag, from which an unknown black liquid flowed out and partially dissolved the stone floor of the cave.

Officer british army Colonel Percy H. Fawcett, who for a long time was engaged in topographic surveys in different countries Latin America, before disappearing without a trace in the tropical jungle during the last expedition, left diaries with amazing information. Fawcett relates the story of a traveler who made a five-mile trip through virgin forest along the Pyrenees River in Peru. His horse was lame, and the rider had to dismount and lead it on the reins. After traversing a dense thicket of low, fleshy-leaved shrubs, he found that his spurs were rusted almost through. Struck by this adventure, he showed the spurs to an Indian friend, who confirmed that it was the bush that "ate" his spurs and said: "These plants were used by the Incas for stone processing."

During the excavation of an ancient burial site, Fawcett and his comrades discovered a large clay bottle with the remains of a thick, black, viscous and unpleasant-smelling liquid. By negligence, the bottle broke, and its contents spread like a puddle on the stone on which it stood. Soon the liquid was absorbed into the stone, and it was covered with some substance resembling a clay-like putty, which was easily deformed.

In the Peruvian and Bolivian highlands of the Andes, a small bird resembling a kingfisher lives, which uses the leaves of an unknown plant to build its nests in sheer cliffs. The juice of this plant softens the strongest mountain minerals, and they simply remove the excess rock with their beak, thus gouging deep holes in the rocks.

This universal solvent is even sold in Peruvian antique shops nowadays! An Englishman (whose last name has not been released) working for hire in the mines in Peru told a press representative: “One day my friends and I decided to go on a day off on an excursion to the ancient structures of the Incas…”. On the way, they stopped at a local shop, and a carefully sealed antique clay bottle caught their attention, which they purchased at a rather high price, assuming that it contained old wine. The owner of the shop tried to explain something to the customers, but they did not understand anything, knowing the local dialect poorly. After the tour, friends decided to celebrate this event and opened the cork. Inside was a thick, viscous black liquid.

“Fortunately, we were alerted by the smell - sharp and unpleasant,” the Englishman recalled, “Only then we guessed to ask our guide, also from the Indians, what kind of swill was this? The guide took the glass that was brought to him, sniffed the liquid, turned pale and rushed to run. The engineer holding the heavy bottle dropped it from his hands in surprise. The shards scattered in all directions, and the strange contents spread over the stones. Before the eyes of the astonished friends, the liquid was absorbed into the stones and they “flowed” like melted wax.

The British asked local Indians about the origin of this liquid and tried to acquire another similar vessel, but to no avail. It was only possible to find out that their ancestors made a softening solution from the juice of a plant. The secret of preparing the liquid has long been lost, and only occasionally can you still find vessels with this wonderful liquid in the ancient ruins of ruined cities.

In 1927 during excavations ancient city Maya Lubaantune, located in the Honduran selva, the daughter of archaeologist Mitchell Hedges, Anna, discovered a skull made from a single piece of transparent colorless quartz. According to Hedges, the skull was at least three and a half thousand years old, and it was used by Mayan priests in religious rites. Soon crystal skull began to be called as the "skull of death", "skull of fate", or "skull of fate". Upon its detailed examination, precisely calculated and perfectly polished convex and concave lenses were found in the cavity and at the bottom of the eye sockets, optical prisms and light guides, which allowed the skull to be used as a kind of projector. When a beam of light was directed into the cavity of the skull, the eye sockets began to glow brightly and sparkle like diamonds. Cut out similar work arts even with the help modern instruments, especially internal cavities, is almost impossible. According to experts, it is possible to make such an object from the strongest quartz only if gradual removal mineral with an unknown solvent. Similar skulls are stored in the store british museum and at the Museum of Man in Paris.

In ancient Greece, sculptors probably also knew the secret of this liquid. Just look at the marble sculptures that the Greeks sculpted. Their perfection is amazing. It is impossible to carve the finest folds of clothing, hair, fingers in marble with a rough iron tool, when any careless blow could lead to marble chipping. It is known from the experience of stone carvers that when a harder material is interspersed under the cutter, the tool inevitably leads away with unpleasant consequences for the sculpture. Greek sculptors simply softened the marble with this liquid and sculpted their statues, unsurpassed in their perfection. In the future, the secret of this solvent was lost.

The Egyptians also used the unique properties of this liquid. Numerous inscriptions and relief images on the walls are not carved on stone, but simply squeezed out on a softened surface using the simplest stamps. The hieroglyphs on the walls of the pyramids, almost identical in shape and size, without traces or any stone chips confirm this assumption.

Even during the first finds of the mummies of the Egyptian pharaohs, it was noted that extremely narrow passages lead to the burial chambers. The stone sarcophagi in which the mummies rested are much larger than the passages that lead to these rooms. How were they brought there? Some Egyptologists believe that the sarcophagi were placed in chambers before the pyramid was built. Although it is quite possible that these massive stone coffins were simply cast on the spot in the burial chamber itself. One of the drawings found on the wall of the tomb shows the sequential process of making a sarcophagus. Moreover, in the figure, in the hands of the Egyptians, there are no any tools. They just shape it with their own hands. Next to them are two vessels on stands. And only at the final stage of work, a beard appears on the stone copy of the pharaoh, then the sarcophagus is polished and painted.

The universal solvent, or the plant from which it was obtained, the Egyptians could borrow from the Indians of South America. Perhaps between the two ancient civilizations there were even trade relations. In any case, tobacco and coca, which, as is known, grow only in the New World, the Egyptians smoked and sniffed. Svetlana Balabanova is a specialist in the detection of traces of narcotic drugs from the Institute forensic medicine at Ulm University, having examined the hair of the mummy of the Egyptian priestess Khenttawi, whose age was more than three thousand years, found the presence of traces of nicotine and cocaine. In 1992, Balabanova and her colleagues studied 11 Egyptian mummies and recorded traces of nicotine in all cases, cocaine in eight cases, and hashish in ten cases. And these drug addicts built the pyramids?

All Peruvian mummies examined by specialists also contained nicotine and cocaine. The presence of nicotine has been recorded in the mummified remains of the ancient Germans. The Egyptians of the New Kingdom seem to have even visited Australia. As part of the preservatives intended for the preservation of the tissues of corpses, the resin of the eucalyptus tree, which, as you know, grows only on the Australian continent, was found.

The Pyramid of Cheops (Khufu) is the largest of all existing and is composed of 2.3 million limestone blocks, each of which weighs an average of 2.5 tons. There are also huge stone monoliths weighing up to 70 tons. cut like this great amount blocks even with the help of modern stone-cutting machines is very difficult. The Egyptians were clearly unable to cut down such a huge amount of building stone with the help of copper tools from rocks, deliver it from the quarries, transport it across the Nile (since the quarries are located on the other side of the river) and raise them to a considerable height during the construction of the pyramid. There is an assumption that the Egyptians drilled pits in stone and, using wooden wedges moistened with water, split rocks into separate blocks, but with this method of their manufacture, traces of holes would remain on the surface of the blocks. In addition, any sedimentary rock is extremely heterogeneous and when they are cut or split, chips are inevitable. Any natural limestone is a layered sedimentary rock that is riddled with a network of cracks. It is impossible to obtain practically rectangular blocks with such methods. The quarries would accumulate such a quantity of chipped debris that a dozen more pyramids could be built from them. In addition, the total weight of the stone "laid" in the pyramid is 6.5 million tons. The pyramid, according to Herodotus, took 20 years to build. For the successful construction of this structure, it was necessary to deliver 890 tons of stone daily. This is approximately one train of 14 cars. Working 12 hours a day, builders must lift to a considerable height and install 30 blocks in one hour.

But granite, marble and alabaster blocks were still mined in quarries. Using this solvent, which softened the stone, the Egyptians simply cut the stones with copper tools like butter. right size and delivered them to the pyramids.

According to the technology for making stone blocks, which is given above, building a pyramid is a very simple matter. It is only necessary to pour sand into the formwork, which is more than enough around the construction site, and then pour liquid on top and wait until the sand hardens. Egyptian priest Gafir of Memphis told Pythagoras scanty information about the technology of pyramid construction: “Then, having boiled the binding matter, the stones were poured over ...”. In order to prevent the underlying blocks from dissolving, mats of papyrus or other organic material were laid between them, which rotted over time. Traces of mats, according to ordinary tourists, can be seen between the blocks on the side opposite the entrance to the pyramid of Cheops at a height of 50 meters. For this method of construction, it is not necessary to use a large number of lifting mechanisms, vehicles and a huge number of workers. Judging by one of the inscriptions on the pyramid of Cheops (according to Herodotus), “Egyptian letters indicated how many radishes, onions, garlic the workers ate,” then the number of main builders did not exceed 4000-5000 people, and not 100 thousand, as some Egyptologists say. The same Herodotus wrote that the construction of the pyramids was financed by a tax on the services of representatives of the most ancient profession: “Cheops, in the end, reached such wickedness that, in need of money, he sent his own daughter to a brothel and ordered her to get a certain amount of money - how much exactly, the priests, however, did not say. The daughter, however, fulfilled her father’s command, but also decided to leave a monument for herself: she asked each of her visitors to give her at least one stone for the construction of the tomb. From these stones, according to the priests, the middle of the three pyramids was built, which stands in front of great pyramid". Historical chronicles have preserved prices for the services of ordinary prostitutes, which did not exceed the price for a glass of beer. It is unlikely that these funds could build a huge pyramid.

The priests kept the secret of the composition of the universal solvent in the strictest confidence. After the construction of a pyramid or tomb in the Valley of the Kings, in order to preserve the secrets of technology and the secret of entering the tomb, the workers who took part in the creation of one of the wonders of the world were executed in the most cruel way, but in an honorable place - in the body of the Sphinx, so that they hurried to the other world and there they met with dignity his pharaoh. Ordinary criminals were simply executed in the fresh air.

In 1952, nomads who took refuge from a terrible sandstorm in the rocks of the desert of Southern Nubia noticed a huge human head peeking out from a sand dune. Returning to the Nile, they reported the find to the Egyptian Antiquities Service. An expedition of archaeologists discovered a giant sphinx 80 meters long and 20 meters high, and this stone colossus turned out to be hollow inside. Finding the entrance at a height of 15 meters, archaeologists entered the body of the sphinx and saw a terrible picture. Leather straps still hung from the ceiling, knotted with the remains of human legs. On the floor were hundreds of human skulls mixed with other bones. Those sentenced to death were hung by the legs and left hanging until the rotten body collapsed to the floor. To date, five more such sphinxes have been discovered. Suspended in the belly of a sphinx colossus upside down on leather straps, this is probably how the legendary pyramid builders ended their lives.

Gorshkova D.S. one

Egorova N.Yu. 1

1 Municipal educational institution "Secondary school No. 43", Tver

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Introduction

In the fall of 2017, Japanese scientists using muon scanning discovered a room in the pyramid of Cheops. This caused a new surge of interest in the pyramids. These majestic buildings are the first and oldest of the wonders of the world. They still raise a lot of questions in people. Who, how and why built the pyramids - these are the most important questions.

Egyptologists gave answers to them already in the 20th century, but one can still hear assumptions about the unearthly origin of the pyramids or about the huge growth of their creators.

The study of the History of the Ancient East is included in the 5th grade history program. In the lessons, the question of building pyramids is only briefly considered, therefore goal this message- to find out, as H.A. Kink, the author of the book “How the Egyptian pyramids were built”, explains - from what, how, with what tools the pyramids were built.

To solve the tasks set, the book of the candidate of historical sciences, Egyptologist Hilda Augustovna Kink "How the Egyptian pyramids were built" was used. Hilda Avgustovna carried out her research in the 60s of the XX century, but her book remains in demand to this day. It was republished in 2016 in the Academy of Basic Research series.

II. How the Egyptian pyramids were built

Construction equipment of the ancient Egyptians

The era of pyramid building begins with the tomb of Djoser (3rd millennium BC). The pyramid was usually the center of a whole complex of buildings - it was surrounded by temples, pavilions, tombs, altars and other structures. According to H.A. Kink, during the construction of the pyramids, the building practice of the previous period (V-IV millennia BC) was used - plant stems were coated with a mixture of silt and clay, wood or raw (unbaked brick) could be used.

The Egyptians believed in life after death, so the tombs for the dead were built in the same way as houses. They had sleeping rooms (crypts), pantries for food storage, rooms for washing, for servants. After the burial, the entrance to the crypt was walled up.

During the period of the Early and Old Kingdoms (see Appendix) in the region of the Libyan plateau, tombs could be carved into the rock. In the III millennium began to build pyramids of stone (Pyramid of Djoser). To mark the buildings, ropes and stakes were used, or square grooves were cut down. The Egyptians used such measures of length as the elbow, palm and finger.

The tomb had a ground and underground part. The ground part was built of raw brick and was from 3 to 6 meters high. This building is called mastaba. The crypt was underground. It was a granite box, which was first collected on the surface and numbered, so that later it could be correctly assembled below, and then lowered under the pyramid.

The dungeon began to be built with the construction of a well in the rock. Building materials were brought down the inclined stepped plane.

Large slabs served as doors in the pyramid. The stones were marked with red paint and indicated the exact location of certain details in the pyramid and the name of its owner. Since the name of the pyramid was found on the stones: "Cheops is the one who belongs to the horizon."

After the construction of the crypt, the ground part of the tomb (pyramid) was erected. The passage to the crypt began in the open air, and then led into the depths of the pyramid and was accompanied by various branches. This made him look like an anthill.

In the tombs, due to the mistakes of the builders, collapses were not uncommon. The ceilings between the rooms built one above the other could collapse under the weight of things or because of the fragility of the rock. Perhaps because of this, the builders had to abandon the construction of rock burial chambers. First, the crypts were placed flush with the earth's surface, and then in the thickness of the masonry (the pyramid of Cheops).

Features of masonry

Pyramids belonging to the first dynasty have a stepped shape. H.A. King believes that this shape is an imitation of the shape of a hill. 1 A stone in the III millennium was laid on the same mortar as a brick. But the mortar did not always hold the slabs firmly enough, and therefore the builders used the technique that was used in the construction of wood.

During the construction of the pyramids, the Egyptians had to protect them from the damaging effects of rainwater. In the pyramid of Djoser, the builders made the top of the steps not horizontal, but sloping. Thanks to this, the water on the pyramid did not linger, but cascaded down. On later pyramids, the stone for construction was chosen very carefully, so the stones fit so closely together that water could not penetrate inside. All the water that ran down was collected in ditches, which were connected to deeper ditches.

The value of wood in the construction of the pyramids

In the III millennium BC. wood was widely used in the construction of tombs. Ceilings, columns and their parts were made from it. Wood was also used to make tools - hoes, mallets. Ancient craftsmen made magnificent furniture from wood.

The felling of the forest, the hewing of logs, beams was carried out with copper axes. Boards were sawn with thin copper and small flint saws, which resembled a large knife in shape. With the help of such primitive tools, skilled craftsmen achieved a board thickness of 8 mm. Various recesses and cuts were made in the tree with a chisel-chisel from 9 to 30 cm long. 2

In the time of Djoser, veneered wood was used. Layers of plywood (up to 6 mm in thickness), tightly adjacent to each other, were connected to each other with wooden nails, drilling holes with a drill and a beam. The final processing of wood (grinding) was carried out using grinding stones.

For the manufacture of rounded roofs and niches in the walls, the Egyptians used bent wooden beams.

During the period of the Old Kingdom during the construction stone structures craftsmen widely used the traditions of wooden construction, so the walls and ceilings resembled wooden buildings. Giving such a shape to the stone was a very laborious task. Later, reaching more high skill, the builders fully mastered the processing of stone and refused to imitate wooden structures.

Mining and processing of stone

The first scientists who studied the pyramids of the Old Kingdom assumed that the tools for mining and processing stone were iron. 1 H.A. Kink believes that this is not the case. Soft rocks of stone in the III millennium were processed with the help of copper tools and sand. It was more difficult to process hard rock, for this, ferruginous sandstone was used.

Pyramids were built from soft coarse-grained quartz, only more valuable grades of stone were used for facing. The Egyptians also used alabaster and sandstone.

When working with stone, the Egyptians used copper chisels, wooden mallets, stone nodules, chisels, and other flint tools (axes, drills, knives, scrapers, picks, hammers), etc. At the same time, they continued to widely use flint, because. copper was very expensive, and flint tools were not difficult to make.

During the construction of pyramids and temples, various stone building forms were created (columns, beams, cornices, reliefs, statues, etc.). Such techniques as hewing, upholstering, polishing, and drilling stone were widely used. 1 The drilling process required special skill. This is evidenced by the fact that the hieroglyph meaning "drill", "artisan", "artist", "skillful", "skill", was an image of a drilling device. 2

The method of stone extraction throughout the entire III millennium remained the same, and the size of the blocks and the volume of stone extraction increased. The scale of the rock used can be judged from the calculations made by Napoleon Bonaparte at the end of the 18th century - the stone from the three Giza pyramids would be enough to build a wall around France more than three meters high and 30 cm thick. 3

Vehicles

Such a stone as granite and diorite was mined far away, on the opposite bank of the Nile and even in the Sinai, so it was delivered along the Nile in boats. Small stones were carried by hand, and large ones were rolled up. To do this, stone rollers-cylinders up to 80 cm long or stone balls were placed under the stone. But this required a smooth stone platform or road. They could also use a sled with two skids made of thick beams.

When laying stone, the Egyptians used devices that consisted of beams fastened with ropes with copper hooks to hold the blocks. Perhaps since the 4th millennium, builders have used wooden rocking chairs to lift stone from step to step. To install columns, statues and heavy ceilings, ancient builders used ropes, struts and wooden scaffolding. Facing blocks before laying were covered with a layer of a special solution, which not only bound the stones, but also served as a lubricant.

Making tools and building parts from copper

Copper for the manufacture of tools was mined by the Egyptians in an open pit in the Sinai. First, hammer-shaped and pick-shaped stone tools and copper chisels beat off, loosened, crushed rock rich in ore. Then they were smelted in round brick furnaces, which were heated with charcoal. And then they melted in clay crucibles with the help of blowpipes, which made it possible to achieve a high temperature (1053 ° C).

Molten copper was poured from the crucible into a mold, and after it solidified, the blanks were processed by forging. Axes, adzes, chisels, chisels, chisels, long rods with a diameter of 7 cm for door bolts, large staples for fastening building structures, and possibly claws for lifting devices were made by forging. Nails, hooks and other small connecting devices were made from wire stock. The points and blades were sharpened with the help of grindstones, small tiles, and whetstones. ancient master III millennium BC used the method of cold forging, were familiar with the technique of riveting and soldering.

According to H. A. Kink, little copper was used (10,000 tons from the 4th millennium to the 17th century BC). Firstly, this can be explained by the high cost of copper (farmers did not use copper at all). Secondly, copper was spent very economically (only those tools were made from it that could not be replaced by stone or wooden ones).

The delivery of copper to Egypt was also difficult and expensive. For this, detachments were equipped, consisting not only of specialists in the extraction of metal, but also of scribes and guards. Each expedition, according to scientists, could deliver only hundreds of kilograms of copper, and the costs of organizing such an expedition were so great that only the state could afford it.

Number of employees involved

in the construction of the pyramids

All work on the construction of the pyramid - the extraction and processing of stone, its delivery and laying in place - required a lot of money. physical strength, patience and endurance. For work, they used both the labor of skilled craftsmen (masons, sculptors, woodworkers, toolmakers, etc.) and unskilled workers (mainly the lower strata of the population of ancient Egypt were engaged in construction).

To establish the approximate number of workers, H.A. Kink used the work of Herodotus, who, retelling the legend about the construction of the pyramid of Cheops, indicates that every three months a hundred thousand people were involved in the construction of the pyramid. 1 Where this figure came from, scientists can only speculate.

So, for the construction of the Cheops pyramid, 2300 thousand blocks weighing 2.5 tons each were required. To move one such block required the efforts of eight people. 2 Perhaps all the workers were divided into groups. Thus, there were 12 thousand detachments, eight people each. A total of 96 thousand. In the season of work, they dragged 115 thousand stones. It turns out that the pyramid was built for about twenty years.

Workers were also required in the extraction of stone - about two thousand people were involved there. About two thousand more people were probably involved in the construction of the tomb and the processing of stone during laying. If these 4,000 are added to 96,000, then you get about 100,000 people involved in the construction of stone masses.

III.Conclusion

After reading the book by H.A. Kink “How the Egyptian pyramids were built”, we can draw the following conclusions:

Pyramids in Egypt began to be built in the III millennium BC. At first, they were used to build building practices V-IV millennia BC - equipped the tomb as a dwelling using plant stems, clay, wood and mud bricks. The tomb contained everything needed for the afterlife. The same traditions were used in the construction of stone pyramids. Ancient builders constantly improved their skills and sought to improve the design of the tombs.
For the builders, it was important not only to build a pyramid (giving it the shape of a hill), but also to make it strong and protect it from water penetration. To do this, the stones were laid in a special way and fastened with mortar.
During the construction of the pyramids, wood was widely used - in the interior, for the manufacture of tools, they even imitated wooden buildings in stone. Builders were able to refuse to imitate wooden structures only when they reached a higher level of skill.
Pyramids were built of soft stone, and expensive hard stone was used for facing. They processed it mainly with stone (flint) tools, and they achieved extraordinary skill in this, because they had to process a huge amount of stone.
The stone mined on the opposite bank of the Nile was delivered on boats, and then rolled up with the help of stone rollers and balls. When lifting the stone, scaffolding and rocking chairs were used. To improve sliding, the blocks were lubricated with a solution.
When processing stone, the Egyptians also used copper tools, but copper was very expensive, so it was used in small quantities only when it was impossible to replace the tool with a stone one.
The construction of the pyramids was very laborious, so the number of workers reached one hundred thousand, both unskilled and high-class craftsmen.

Thus, in the course of working on the message, it turned out that people could build such grandiose structures with the help of rather primitive devices.

Literature

Kink H.A. How the Egyptian pyramids were built / Editor-in-chief Yu.Ya. Perepelkin. Ed. Stereotype. - M.: Book house "LIBROKOM", 2017.

Application

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT

Kink H.A. How the Egyptian pyramids were built / Editor-in-chief Yu.Ya. Perepelkin. Ed. Stereotype. - M.: Book house "LIBROKOM", 2017 - P.35
Kink H.A. How the Egyptian pyramids were built / Editor-in-chief Yu.Ya. Perepelkin. Ed. Stereotype. - M.: Book house "LIBROKOM", 2017 - P.49
Ibid., p. 58
Kink H.A. How the Egyptian pyramids were built / Editor-in-chief Yu.Ya. Perepelkin. Ed. Stereotype. - M.: Book house "LIBROKOM", 2017 - S. 72
Ibid., p.74
Ibid., p. 84
Kink H.A. How the Egyptian pyramids were built / Editor-in-chief Yu.Ya. Perepelkin. Ed. Stereotype. - M .: Book house "LIBROKOM", 2017 - S. 104
Ibid

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