How did the ancient Egyptians built pyramids? | The evolution of human artistic creativity | Facts

 It's easy to see why people are so fascinated with the Egyptian pyramids. There are a lot of mysteries surrounding their construction. You probably don't believe the conspiracy theories that say they were built by aliens, but they weren't built by slave labor, either. So how did people 4,000 years ago create some of the largest, most iconic structures on Earth? 

Creating visual art is one of the defining characteristics of the human species, but the paucity of archaeological evidence means that we have limited information on the origin and evolution of this aspect of human culture.

There are more than 100 surviving pyramids but the most famous is the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt - standing at over 450 feet. Many wonder how the ancient Egyptians would have been able to build such huge structures using 4,000-year-old technology.

The largest and most famous of all the pyramids, the Great Pyramid at Giza, was built by Snefru's son, Khufu, known also as Cheops, the later Greek form of his name. They found the best engineers and architects to help design and build the monuments. Most of the pyramids were built as tombs - the final resting places for Egypt's royalty who took all their worldly possessions with them.

Its volume is about 2.6 million cubic meters, and its original height was 146.6 meters. Pyramids did not stand alone but were part of a group of buildings which included temples, chapels, other tombs, and massive walls. Although the magnificent pyramids did not protect the bodies of the Egyptian kings who built them, the pyramids have served to keep the names and stories of those kings alive to this day.

There has been speculation about pyramid construction that Egyptians had copper tools such as chisels, drills, and saws that may have been used to cut the relatively soft stone. The hard granite, used for burial chamber walls and some of the exterior casing. Workmen may have used an abrasive powder, such as sand, with the drills and saws. Knowledge of astronomy was necessary to orient the pyramids to the cardinal points, and water-filled trenches probably were used to level the perimeter. 

It’s believed in excess of 2.3 million limestone blocks were used in crafting the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Blocks made from granite weighed as much as 50 tons each. The Pyramid took over 23 years to complete, with calculations suggesting work crews would have laid an average of 12 stones every hour during the time frame.

Over the life span of the project more than 100,000 people were employed, with a peak workforce of at least 1000. The Great Pyramid draws as many as 14 million visitors each year and pours almost $9 billion into the economy.

Evolution Of Ancient Technology

All of our modern things, however, are based on older technologies. And those were based on still older ones. Ancient people didn’t necessarily have steel or wheels or electronic communications. Yet they built monuments even bigger than Stonehenge. They raised huge stone heads on Easter Island. And ancient Egyptians built the pyramids with huge mystery rooms inside.

Scientists detect mystery void in Great pyramid of Giza: Using high-tech tools normally reserved for particle-physics research, scientists have found a large, hidden void inside Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza.

In the most general sense, technology consists of knowledge about how to modify our environment, passed from one generation to the other. At a popular level, Technology is synonymous with progress, particularly because of the rapid advances that have occurred in some cultures during the past few centuries. But technological change has a much longer history and recent developments may not be a good guide to the broad span of human history. An understanding of how technology arises and the circumstances under which it becomes complex remains a central question in human culture.

Facts about Pyramids

1) The Great Pyramid of Giza is 481 feet tall

The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest building in the world for 3,800 years! The Lincoln Cathedral in Lincoln, England, which was completed in 1311, was the first building to surpass the height of the Great Pyramid.

2) Great Pyramids in alignment

The structures were arranged deliberately so each of these corners pointed directly to the Temple of Ra at Heliopolis, and in concert with the constellation Orion. Pharaohs of the 4th Dynasty believed themselves directly descended from Ra, so by angling their pyramids perfectly their tombs were a natural part of the daily life cycle of the sun at the heart of their religion.

3) The Pyramid texts

On the walls of the burial chamber the Pyramid texts were found; magical spells in hieroglyph form meant to help King Unas’ soul leave his body and commence its journey to the afterlife. The oldest known religious texts in the world, pyramid texts have been hugely influential in learning about pharaohs and the roles and the responsibilities they had in everyday life. The Unas Pyramid texts also provide the first reference to Osiris, the god of the Underworld.

4) Professional construction teams

The Great Pyramids were built by workmen, not slaves, despite the claims of famous Greek historian Herodotus in his writing. Entire towns were built alongside the pyramids, where families often worked on the pharaoh’s amazing building projects while waiting for crops to grow.

5) Ancient Air conditioner 

Another interesting fact about these extraordinary structures is that despite the harsh fluctuating temperatures of day and night, the great pyramids maintain a constant inside temperature of 20 degree Celsius.

6) How were They this Accurate 4500 Years Ago?

The Egyptians used two constellation align their pyramids in a north-south direction. One was big dipper and the other is the small dipper. The tombs are aligned in north-south with an accuracy of up to 0.05 degrees. This happened in an era where modern-day precision tools were not even imaginable!

7) Whopping Weight of Great Pyramid

The Great Pyramid of Khufu weighs around 5750000 tons. The Great Pyramid is made of an estimated 2.3 million blocks of stone, and each block weighs 2267.96 kilograms (2.5 tons) approximately.

8) The pyramids of Giza have shrunk

The pyramids of Giza do not stand as tall as they did when they were first constructed.  They are about 455 feet tall today. The pyramids have undergone erosion that has happened for at least four millennia. This has seen the stones on the structure reduce in size to 25 feet.

9) The interior of the pyramid has three chambers

The pyramids were designed as tombs. The Great Pyramid, therefore, contains three burial chambers that were intended to house Khufu and a storage of goods and treasures that he was to take with him in the afterlife. These have been studied multiple times but their purpose is yet to be known.

10) The Curse Of Pharaoh Protected The Pyramids

While the Sphinx was meant to protect the dead pharaohs from spiritual disturbance as they transit to gods, the curse of Pharaoh is said to have offered protection to the pyramids. This might be a reason why many archeologists and researchers looking to unveil the mysteries of the pyramids have been stuck with bad luck and sometimes literal death. Some experts say that the illnesses are caused by bacteria, but the Egyptians know for sure that it is more than that.