In 1999, Henri Houdin, a retired French civil engineer, was watching a television documentary on the construction of Egypt's ancient pyramids. He had supervised many dam and bridge projects, and much of what he saw on the show struck him as impractical. "It was the usual pyramid-building theories, but he wasn't satisfied as an engineer," says his son, Jean-Pierre, an independent architect. "He had a sparkle in the brain. 'If I had to build one now, I would do it from the inside out.' "
Jean-Pierre Houdin realized he could test the feasibility of his father's idea through computer-based 3-D modeling. That's what he set out to do, taking for his model the Great Pyramid at Giza. His inquiry grew into a passionate quest to solve a puzzle that has baffled humankind for ages: how exactly was the Great Pyramid built? Houdin thinks he's figured it out, and that his father was onto something.
The Great Pyramid rose 4,500 years ago on the Giza plateau, just outside Cairo, to house the tomb of the pharaoh Khufu (called Cheops by the Greeks). Covering 13 acres and originally 481 feet high, it survives as the last of the "seven wonders" of the ancient world. Its technical precision amazes modern architects and engineers, especially in light of the available resources. The pyramid's 2.3 million limestone blocks, most weighing more than two tons, were cut and hauled into place without the benefit of wheels, pulleys and iron tools.
After visiting Khufu's pyramid around 450 B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus surmised that 100,000 slaves spent 20 years building it. Many modern Egyptologists view that time frame as reasonable. But the notion that slaves did the work—long a myth of schoolbooks—has been discredited. Researchers now regard Egypt's pyramids as huge public works projects, to which all households in the kingdom provided workers, food and supplies.
Various studies have analyzed logistical movements, labor organization and the use of wooden sledges, ramps, levers and other devices to help explain pyramid construction. Some studies suggest that the work force may have been a fifth or a tenth of Herodotus' estimate. Yet the overall process by which the workers assembled the Great Pyramid remains a mystery.
To make his 3-D models of pyramid construction faithful to methods of the past and prevailing knowledge in the field, Houdin consulted with Egyptologists. Five years into the project, Dassault Systèmes, a French software company that makes 3-D models for cars and airplanes, stepped in to offer support. The company's software engineers spent 5,000 hours helping Houdin compile 3-D computer simulations to verify his ideas.
"The objective was to say, if we had to build the pyramid today using Jean-Paul's theories, would it be possible?" says Mehdi Tayoubi, a creative director at Dassault. "We found it would be."
Houdin announced the results of his study, which has not yet been published in a scientific journal, in March at a press conference in Paris. Members of the audience donned 3-D glasses to follow Houdin "inside" the Great Pyramid as he explained his view of how it was built. (His father, now 84, attended the event.)
As Houdin sees it, the process worked like this: First, workers used a conventional straight ramp to haul and assemble the large stone blocks for the pyramid's base layers, up to 141 feet; at that level, nearly three-fourths of the structure's total volume would be complete. That took about ten years. Next came construction of the interior King's Chamber—a separate engineering challenge because its ceiling incorporated granite beams weighing up to 60 tons each.
In the final stage, Houdin contends, the builders reached the steep upper layers of the pyramid by means of spiraling internal ramps, or tunnels. Stone blocks from the external ramp, he believes, were cut smaller to fill the top spaces. "At the end you have no waste," he says. "That's why we never found any remains at the site."
I understand the theory of the internal ramp but in the drawing i notice an external ramp leading up to the structure. how does it move inside after that level has been completed? Do they leave a doorway for the blocks then close it in after all the rest of the stones are in place?
Posted by Kevin on December 1,2007 | 08:29PM