The Greek historian Herodotus instead depicts Khufu as a heretic and cruel tyrant. In his literary work Historiae, Book II, chapter 124–126, he writes: "As long as Rhámpsinîtos was king, as they told me, there was nothing but orderly rule in Egypt, and the land prospered greatly. But after him Khéops became king over them and brought them to every kind of suffering: He closed all the temples; after this he kept the priests from sacrificing there and then he forced all the Egyptians to work for him. **So some were ordered to draw stones from the stone quarries in the Arabian mountains to the Nile, and others he forced to receive the stones after they had been carried over the river in boats, and to draw them to those called the Libyan mountains. **And they worked by 100,000 men at a time, for each three months continually. Of this oppression there passed ten years while the causeway was made by which they drew the stones, which causeway they built, and it is a work not much less, as it appears to me, than the pyramid. For the length of it is 5 furlongs and the breadth 10 fathoms and the height, where it is highest, 8 fathoms, and it is made of polished stone and has figures carved upon it. For this, they said, 10 years were spent, and for the underground chambers on the hill upon which the pyramids stand, which he caused to be made as sepulchral chambers for himself in an island, having conducted thither a channel from the Nile.
Among the items recently found were hundreds of fragments of papyri. Some of these were inked with records that were the logbooks of a group of some 40 workers who were crew on a boat during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu. They record the transport of limestone blocks along the Nile River and then through a series of water-filled basins, using terms such as “Khufu’s Lake”. At the base of the pyramids, workers unloaded the rock to cover the outer layer of the Great Pyramid, then, the boat crew would head back to a quarry for another load of rock.
This is very interesting but he is asking about pulley systems. A block and tackle is a pulley system that gives a mechanical advantage in lifting something.
There's a lot of evidence to show that a small team of skilled craftsmen could have used water channels and animal skin floaters to lift the blocks into place.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 2 years ago
Also, boats!
schmidtster@lemmy.world 2 years ago
Were block and tackles a thing in that time too?
fossilesque@mander.xyz 2 years ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khufu
roseannechambers.com/ancient-boats-and-enormous-b…
Rodeo@lemmy.ca 2 years ago
This is very interesting but he is asking about pulley systems. A block and tackle is a pulley system that gives a mechanical advantage in lifting something.
ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social 2 years ago
There's a lot of evidence to show that a small team of skilled craftsmen could have used water channels and animal skin floaters to lift the blocks into place.
Here's a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1y8N0ePuF8