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Comment by Zev | Hacker News Reader

I'm always amazed by the Egyptians. They cut enormous obelisques(sp?) out of solid rock, rolled them onto enormous barges, floated them down the Nile, then erected them (pun intended) with nothing more than rope, sweat, logs and dirt. Pretty awesome stuff really.

Also, a three mile long ramp.

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A three mile long ramp made of dirt. I said they used dirt. Dirt.

I like to ask my students how they think the Egyptians did stuff like this. They usually guess something like "a wooden thing with rope and they pulled it up." It's hard to comprehend how much effort Egyptians put into their projects. Building an enormous ramp and then tearing down an enormous ramp? That's a lot of shoveling.

When you have a large number of slaves lots of things that would normally be impossible suddenly becomes easy.

However egyptologists today believe that slaves weren't the force behind building pyramids etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramid_construction_t...

Except that they have found archaeological evidence that shows that ramps were used to build some pyramids, such as the Great Pyramid of Giza[1].

And from your wiki page: Most Egyptologists acknowledge that ramps are the most tenable of the methods to raise the blocks...

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/great_pyramid...

Why "except"? My point was that the workers were not slaves. Ramps are certainly the most probable aid in construction.

Hm, not sure. When I posted, I think I may have had you and bloomshed mixed up. He was expressing some skepticism about a ramp being used to build pyramids. Sorry about that!

I didn't mean to sound like I was being skeptical about ramps. Ramps make the most sense, especially the enormous three mile ones that lead right to the top level of the pyramid being built. I love big ramps made of dirt!

Egyptians also used the "build an earthen ramp to get the heavy stuff up, then clear the dirt away after you're done" strategy to build their ridiculously awesome temples. Any History Channel fan knows that.

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