Three different pyramid ramp proposals, by Uvo Hölsher (left), Dieter Arnold (center) and Mark Lehner (right). They suggest that water or milk would have been used to lubricate wooden sleds strapped with stone blocks, similar to a scene from the Middle Kingdom tomb of Djehuti-hotep (~1900 BC). ![]() ![]() Meanwhile, Giza archaeologists Zahi Hawass and Mark Lehner believe the material evidence most clearly points to a spiral ramp that would have twisted up the exterior of the pyramid, either resting against the structure or on a large earthen mound. Late German Egyptologist Uvo Hölscher believed the Egyptians employed a short ramp that zig-zagged all the way up the face of the pyramid, while Dieter Arnold, the German archaeologist who wrote the famous Building in Egypt (1991) believes a long ramp was used, but that it cut through the center of and was partially composed of the pyramid itself. Three types of single, straight pyramid ramps to build that could have been used in the construction of the ancient site. Since then, this idea has largely been discredited due to lack of evidence, and other theories have taken its place. Many Theories for the Pyramid Rampīy the end of the 19 th century, Petrie had carefully measured the Pyramids of Giza, particularly the Great Pyramid of Khufu, and determined that the likeliest manner of their construction was using a single, long ramp, with a smaller zig-zag ramp near the summit. ![]() This idea was first mentioned two millennia ago by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who recounted what the Egyptians told him about the pyramids: "It is said that … the construction was undertaken with the help of ramps of earth, since at that time cranes had not yet been invented." (Library of History 1. ![]() As famed Egyptologist Flinders Petrie records in his The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh (1883): “The means employed for raising such masses of stone is not shown to us in any representations.” The brightest minds in the world still wrestle with competing ideas, offering educated guesses based on incomplete evidence.Įvery theory begins with the inclined plane, or the pyramid ramp. The mystery of how the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt were built continues to elude scholars, even in the 21 st century.
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