Stuff You Should Know - How Egypt's Pyramids Work

Episode Date: July 7, 2015

Pyramids can be found in ruins around the world, but no civilization perfected the feat of engineering like Pharaonic Egypt. Learn about the mysteries that still surround these giants. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Just a Skyline drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's doing plenty of voices all of a sudden, she's like we're eight years into this gig and we're going to start doing impressions. I don't know if it's an impression, it's more just a silly, silly, dumb voice. Maybe she's taking a stand up class or an improv class. Are you taking an improv class? Jerry says yes.

She keeps going and singing. It's not a comedy improv class though, it's a business improv class just to make her sharper in meanings. And they have gotten much more enjoyable these days. Her PowerPoint presentations are like one-third jokes now. But our equipment rental has gone up purchases because she drops the mic a little too hard. Keep replacing those mics. So Chuck, everybody knows about the pyramids, great pyramids at Giza.

Turns out there's pyramids all over the world. And there's a distinct thread on the internet that suggests that all these pyramids are connected in Mesoamerica, China, Egypt, Memphis, Greece, Memphis is in Egypt. Not Memphis, Tennessee. Yeah, Memphis, Tennessee. Well, it's one of these new pyramids. Oh, gotcha. A neo pyramid.

Yeah, it's a basketball coliseum. Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah. The pyramid. Sure. What is it? A mud island or something? A different town.

A mud island is in Memphis. Well, the idea is that all of these cultures, ancient cultures, were visited by the same aliens that said, built some pyramids. Yeah. Here's how to do it. We'll help you out. And that's just almost certainly not true. Yeah.

I feel safe in saying, as much as I like to believe in kooky things, I don't believe that the aliens built the pyramids. I don't believe that either. And there's a couple of good arguments against it. For one, it really diminishes the incredible skill of the ancient engineers who came up with this and the workers who constructed them. Yeah. It's like...

The architecture, the... Yeah, sure. Right. Surely they would need some advanced alien civilization to come down and tell these dumb-dumbs what to do. And then another point that I ran across that kind of explains against that is that if you...I think it was on rational wiki or something like that, they basically said, go out in your garden and try to build a waist-high mound of dirt.

They said, you're going to just naturally, after even one or two attempts, start forming a pyramid, a mound shape. Yeah. And their whole jam, the whole idea is that pyramids evolved independently, just from trying to build a massive earthen structure. Yeah. And there you go. Pyramids were pyramids evolved separately around the world.

I was laughing because, as soon as you said that for some reason, I pictured you in your backyard covered in dirt, just screaming, like, Yumi, it's not going well. Call somebody. Check the rhombus off the list. Done. Hold up. And Yumi's on her phone like, what? Are you okay?

You're cute. Keep it up, dummy. So a pyramid. Who wrote this one? Is this... Craig Freudenrich, PhD. Yeah. He's written some good ones for us.

I've learned to not second guess his articles. Sure. You know? Yeah, no. He's good. And you throw a PhD at the end of your name. Right. You're not allowed to second guess it after that.

No. I might just start doing that. Nobody checks. You know? Call me Dr. Chuck. Charles Bryant, PhD. Yeah. All right.

A pyramid is a geometrical solid with a square base. Not necessarily. And four equilateral triangular sides, the most structurally stable shape for projects involving large amounts of stone or masonry. Exactly. It's a very, very stable shape. Yeah. And one thing I read that said, why did the Egyptians build pyramids?

The very easy answer is because that's what they knew how to build. Yeah. Well, yeah. They were good at it. And if they would have been better at building something else, they probably would have built something else. Well, yeah. And also, it took until the, well, about the 20th century before we started using materials

and developed materials that you could build a very tall structure out of that didn't require you build a pyramid. Right. Because you have to have a pyramid to build something very high when you're using something like stone blocks or something like that. Yeah. You keep setting stuff on top of each other and it's going to become structurally unsound once it's all leaning in on each other.

Yeah. And the prevailing sentiment among archaeologists and anthropologists who study this kind of stuff is that pyramids are ultimately the natural conclusion or evolution from just earthen mounds that they think originally were the first stabs at what ultimately became pyramids. They were looking basically at the pyramid of Khufu in Giza. Yeah. And they, I think there's also probably symbolic, some symbolism going on with pyramids coming

to a point toward the sky in the case of, let's say, Central America with the mines and the Aztecs. There were more religious temples. So that is okay for that. Right. And if in case of Egypt with being a tomb, it also makes sense that it would point toward the heavens. But with Egypt specifically, they believe that the symbolism behind a pyramid is that

it symbolized this mound that the earth was created from in Egyptian cosmology. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. So the other couple of other distinctions between Egyptian pyramids and, let's say, Central American pyramids were generally wider but smaller, I guess not as tall. And they built those over hundreds of years, whereas the great pyramids in Egypt were built over the course of, they don't know for sure, but probably 20 or 30 years.

So I think that that's true in some cases, but I ran across something that suggested that at Teotihuac Tan, they would build pairs of pyramids like every 20 years. Oh, really? Yeah. So I don't know if that's the case across the board, but I think that they weren't quite the massive public works that Egyptian pyramids came to be. Yeah. Well, in Central America, they were also more located in Aztec and Mayan cities, whereas

the Egyptian pyramids originally were located away from cities. And I remember, I think it was just last year that I saw that mind-blowing picture of the other side of the great pyramids of Egypt, how the city runs right up to the front door, basically. And if you ever look at an aerial view, I'd just never seen one until like a year ago. I was like, wow, I just thought it was literally in the middle of nowhere. And there's a huge city just right in front of them. Yeah.

And well, it makes sense though, if you think about it, especially if say in Mesoamerica, they were temples, well, temples were for like public use. So you'd want it kind of convenient. If your pyramid was used as like a tomb, humans traditionally like bury their people slightly away from, you know, their city center. So it makes sense that it would be on the outskirts of Cairo rather than in it. Yeah. That makes sense.

The first tombs in Egypt for the pharaohs were just flat, boxy buildings. They called them mastabas, which is Arabic for bench. And then they started building those on top of each other, sort of in the, you know, they get a little smaller, but they still remained flat on top. They didn't come to a point like a pyramid. Yeah. Those were step pyramids. Yeah.

And it's really strange because the whole thing was so, these pyramids are so, so old. Yeah. And you think of them just like being, you know, spanning thousands of years in the way of construction and planning and all this stuff and all the number of pharaohs that must have been involved when actually Egypt's pyramids were built within a 700 year period. Yeah. And basically just for like five pharaohs or so. Yeah, that's not too bad.

Yeah. There was like a, there's a burst and then nothing and then another little bit and then nothing after that. Right. Because it was hard labor. It was hard. Yeah. It was hard getting labor there.

It was hard. It was very expensive. Yeah. It's hard getting those rocks there. Right. And they also think, remember I said that Khufu's pyramid, the most famous pyramid in the world, the one at Giza, the tallest one. Yeah.

And that was the pinnacle of pyramid building and they think that after that is pyramid started to get smaller. Did you like that? I did. Totally unintentional. I know. They think that as pyramids started to get smaller. It actually represents a shift in Egyptian thought where worship went from worshiping

the pharaoh to worshiping Ra and other gods so that the deification of the pharaoh diminished in size and you can see that reflected in the smaller size of the pyramid. Literally. Yeah. Interesting. That makes sense. I never heard of that. Love it.

I love it too. So the great pyramid of Khufu, which you just mentioned, is the biggest at 146 meters high with a 230 meter square base and oh, just about six and a half tons of rock. Six and a half million tons. Oh, what did I say? Just six and a half? Yeah. Maybe that would just be a couple of the rocks.

Yeah, I think the average size rocks were 2.5 tons each. Yeah. The model was 6.5 tons. These things have stood at the test of time to say the least. They have worn away some, obviously, but look at them. They still look great. Yeah. They were built like four to 5,000 years ago.

What's really interesting that I didn't realize before was that when you saw these things like in the first year that they were completed or right when they were completed, they were blinding white. Oh, really? Yeah. So you can see like the steppy outline. They used to be covered so that the sides and the pinnacle were smooth, totally smooth. Covered in polished limestone.

So it was like a gleaming white standing out against the bright blue sky. Wish there were photographs of that. Yeah. It would have been pretty neat. But over time, that limestone is eroded away or being removed or whatever. And so now you can kind of see the substructure. But what we see is like the external sides of the pyramid were actually meant to be covered with polished limestone.

Wow. Yeah. I bet that was something else. And again, we're talking about like how spectacular a feat this was, engineering-wise. Things were built, you know, 4500 years ago, let's say. The Kufu pyramid, Kufu's pyramid. He was a pharaoh. His pyramid was the tallest building in the world until the 20th century.

That's crazy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, that just shows you that it was hard to build things tall. Yeah. It's not like people didn't want to. No, they wanted to. I think man is always striven, strove, stroded, strove to build things super tall, you know?

To really reach up to the heavens and punch God in the eye. Yeah, that's right. That's why they want to build it tall. That's right. The very first stepped pyramid, the Sakara, was completed in 2620. And that was for the pharaoh, Joseph, not Gozer. It seems pretty close to that. It's so close.

I want it to be Gozer. He would have been almost contemporaneous to Gozer, I would guess. Yeah. So this one had six levels and they attempted another one, another six level step pyramid, but that one didn't work out so well. So we're going to talk about a couple of learning projects, basically. Yeah. And you've heard of the very famous Egyptian mathematician, Imhotep.

He's actually credited with coming up with the idea of taking those mastabas, those bench-like squat buildings, and stacking smaller and diminishing versions of themselves to create that first step pyramid, that first ziggurat. That was his idea. Oh. And... Who? Bubba Hotep?

No, not that. That was a good movie. Imhotep. Imhotep. Yeah. I had no idea, by the way, that Bruce Campbell was doing an Evil Dead TV show. Is it on? Yeah.

It's coming super soon. I had no idea how this escaped me. I had no idea either. Yeah, I'm pretty excited, though. Ash is back. The only way it could be better is if it came on right after the Muppets, the new Muppets TV star. I hope you had a pretty good night.

That'd be like the A-Team Night Writer pairing. Was that... were those back-to-back? I think they might have been. I was never in the Night Writer, so I turned it off after A-Team. I wasn't a Supes Night Writer fan, but all right, let's go with Love Boat, Fantasy Island. Great. Maybe the best two-hour pairing in TV history. I never really watched the Fantasy Island.

Love, Love Boat. I wasn't allowed to watch Fantasy Island. Oh, no? Well, no. I had the word fantasy in the title. Gotcha. We don't want that. Right.

No, I think it was dark and it wasn't necessarily for kids, but now when I look back at it, it was so silly. Yes. Like, I can't believe I wasn't allowed to watch this. Well, the whole premise of it is just fairly unbelievable. Yeah. But at Mike family, they were probably like, no, it's all about sex. Right.

Everyone's fantasy will be about sex. And Ricardo Montabon is clearly playing the devil. Yeah. With this little smaller minion. Yes. Yeah. Tattoo. All right.

Where were we? Oh, we were talking about pyramids. It didn't work out so well. Another one was the, I want to say medium, but it's the Miedem pyramid or the Miedem. I've also seen it spelled M-E-Y-D-U-M, which makes it easier. It's like madem. Madem. Madem.

It was constructed in 2570 and it had seven steps heading toward eight, but it collapsed. It collapsed. And then there's the bent pyramid, which didn't collapse, but they basically just miscalculated the angle and it started to, they basically had to change the angle after like the first third of it was built or two thirds was built. Yeah. And then once we have dozers, gozers, step pyramid in Sikara, that's the first real inkling of that pyramids are coming.

That's right. After that, we had the Pharaoh, oh, what is his name, Snifuru. Snifuru. And Snifuru was the one who kept having really bad luck with pyramids and it was because he was very ambitious, but he was also dealing with architects and engineers who were still figuring this out as they were going along. Yeah, sure. So he had to put up with the one that collapsed.

Yeah, the madem. Yep. And then he had to put up with the bent pyramid. Yeah, which still looks good. Did you look it up? Yeah, it's great, but you can tell like it's not the way it's supposed to look. Not perfect. And I can imagine like a lot of engineers probably lost their lives with these failed

projects, you know, because Snifuru or Snifuru, he was fine with like capturing people and forcing them to work and he did a lot of underhanded things to build himself a tomb. And the problem was is failed attempt one, how many decades did that take? Yeah. Failed attempt two, how many decades did that take? So finally, and they're like really freaking out at this point, like if this guy dies and we don't have him a tomb, like this is about as bad as it could get because remember we haven't converted to worshiping raw yet.

This guy's our raw. So we're displeasing our God and we can see his expression. Oh yeah. His displeasure. Yeah, he's like, all I want is a straight pyramid like everybody else. So finally they hit on it. They build him the red pyramid and it is the first genuinely successful pyramid. And he died happy, I guess.

Yeah. And I assume was entombed there. Yes. I think so. I don't know. I didn't run across that. Yeah. Where he is.

I bet he was. Otherwise that would have been, I mean, what a waste of time. Well, that's the thing. With these pyramids, we still have very little understanding about some really important stuff. Yeah. And one of the reasons why is because say like in Khufu's pyramid, Khufu's never been found in there.

They think it's Khufu's pyramid, but his body's gone. Yeah. And I would guess it's probably the same thing for Snifiru, Man, he's got a tough name to say. Tomb Raiders, buddy. Yeah. Possibly. Probably.

All right. Well, I think that you seriously wet the listener's appetite with that tease. So let's take a little break and come back and really get into Khufu. Hey, friends, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba, who got the idea to Airbnb the Backyard Guest House over childhood home, now the extra income helps pay her mortgage.

So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Mangesh Atikala, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to

look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in, and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop, but just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology?

It changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, buddy. We might as well just go to the Big Daddy and break it down. Okay. Kufu.

Break it down for me, fellas. K-H-U-F-U. Also known as Chiops. Oh, yeah? Yeah, that's what the Greeks called them. So that's why the pyramids also called the Pyramid of Chiops. I never heard that. Part of the Giza Pyramid complex, and like we've mentioned, the Big Daddy of them all,

it was built for Sniperu's son, Kufu. And the other two little guys were built for Kufu's son, Khafre, and the grandson, Minkau Ray. I'll bet it's Minkau Ray. Minkau Ray. Yeah. Usually those vowels are split into like a different part of the word. Minkau Ray.

Am I making any sense? Sure. You are to me, but I know what you're trying to say. I speak Chuck. That's right. So it is the largest and most elaborate and the one where we've learned the most from basically in its construction. Still has a lot of secrets, man.

Oh, sure. A lot of secrets, including how they built it. Yeah? No idea. Well, let's talk about the insides first. Okay. Let's. Sorry.

The guts. Yeah. First, you have your primary burial chamber. That's the king's chamber. Mm-hmm. And that's where the tomb is. That's where the sarcophagus is. Body in there?

No. Nope. What else is inside Chuck? Hieroglyphics that, say, tell stories of life at that time. Right. You know? Like little TV shows on the wall. Yeah.

Um, the queen's chamber, a little smaller, but not for the queen. Is that right? That's right. They call that a misnomer. Yeah. Um, apparently people who stumbled upon it or entered it years and years on after the pharaonic dynasties had died out, um, misinterpreted it. And that when they were building this, they were worried that Kufu was going to die.

So some of the first things they did were building burial chambers. And then as he lived in the Pyramid, kept going under construction, they built in a newer, better burial chamber. Yeah. And so there's ultimately three burial chambers, and he's in the king's chamber supposedly. That's where sarcophagus is. That's right. Uh, you have weight relieving chambers.

These are above the king's chambers, and they are structural, um, basically to distribute weight and to keep everything from collapsing in on the king. Yeah. Because that would be bad too. Yeah. They're like these long slabs, and then there's a gable. So there's like long, rectangular slabs. I think, uh, there's four or five of them maybe.

And then a wooden gable. Is it wooden? I thought it was rock. Oh, is it rock? And the whole thing is, is like all that pressure that's pushing down toward the center of the triangle, it takes it and just kind of deflects it outward away from that hole in the, inside the, the, um, the pyramid. The feet of engineering.

Yeah. Um, the gallery is a big passageway with a vaulted ceiling. Um, do you understand what the corbelled ceiling is? Yeah. So you know, like if you have a, like a breakfast bar, those two things that come out and hold it up, those are corbells. Okay. So they had these things that are like corbells going up, and basically it says here that

it forms like a primitive arch. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Um, you have passageways connecting everything, uh, because you have to get around. You have an air shaft where they think the, uh, the spirit of those entombed there would rise through to the heavens. I guess the idea is you don't want to fully enclose a, uh, a tomb or a pyramid. Yeah.

Just gotta let the soul out. Sure. Let it creep out. Uh, what else? Uh, well, of course the, the exterior rocks that have eroded away. Sure. Um, apparently the reason why we're quite sure that all of these things were aligned with limestone rocks is because, uh, cofferies, tomb, uh, Senefuru's, Sneferu's great grandson.

Yes. There's still some limestone rock on the top. Oh, nice. That hasn't fully eroded. Man. After all these years. Yeah. So these are the things that have been found over the, over the years of exploring these

pyramids, right? But what really kind of surprised me was that there's a lot of stuff that is still being found. There's a lot of parts inside of the pyramids that they're like, what is this? Or, uh, why is there a door in this passage with some copper handles? What's beyond it? Now, is this because they haven't fully excavated? Yeah.

Okay. So they're still doing this. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know his name, but the former head of Egypt's antiquities before the revolution. Um, I can't remember.

He's like super like science educator guy. They call him Egypt's Indiana Jones. Oh, okay. I thought you were going to say Neil deGrasse Tyson. He's like Egypt's Neil deGrasse Tyson. Okay. Uh, he could host Cosmos if you wanted to. He, um, he is, he's been walking around lately saying, Hey, there's plenty of undiscovered

stuff in these pyramids. They have a very loose grasp of the structure of them so far. Well, and it's tough to get in there to do the work. Um, I know the permitting process and is a rigorous obviously. So it's, it's, it's hard. I know this guy we're going to talk about later that has a new theory on how they're built. He's having a hard time getting in there to prove it.

Yeah. But luckily they're starting to use robots more and more to explore it. And that's starting to yield some, some interesting stuff. Huh. Did not know that either. All right. So this, um, if you're going to build a pyramid, uh, you don't just say, let's get a bunch of rocks and start going first.

Like any building you need to do a survey and excavate the land because they learned pretty early on that you're the land that it's on and the foundation is super, super duper important. Yeah. That's, I think one of the reasons the first one collapsed is because they didn't do the foundation. Right. Yeah.

And again, this is kind of in part how impressive the, um, Kufu's pyramid is. What did you say it's, um, it's base was it is a, uh, 230 meter square base. Yeah. It's level within less than an inch. Yeah. That's remarkable. So you get the, the vizier, the master builder involved and they do have some theories on how they did this leveling.

Um, one was that they, uh, poured water onto the site and water is the great leveler and they would level the, the material above it, above that water line, wait for the water level to drain, I guess, and then just continue removing material until it was flat. Great idea. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, you know, self leveling concrete is way more soupy than, uh, like regular concrete. Sure.

Because it's going to find, if it's watery, it's going to find its own level. Right. All right. Uh, and then another way that they may have done it is so they found that, um, their post holes at regular intervals of I think 10 cubits and a cubit is the distance from the, your elbow inside your arm to the tip of your middle finger. Yeah. So every 10 of those, they, there would be a post hole and they think that possibly they

laid out the foundation site as they were excavating into a grid pattern and hung plumb bobs from these lines. Yeah. And that's just like a weight that looks like, um, like a, in a long gated brass top. Yeah. And it hangs down and, and where it hangs is the level point. And then you can excavate down to that, that reference point and then you know everything's level if all of your plumb bobs are touching the same ground.

Yeah. That's still like, if you go to build a backyard fence yourself, you're going to use these same techniques today. Right. It's pretty neat. My money's on the water excavation. Yeah. They, they, uh, we already know that they dug canals from the Nile toward the Giza pyramid

sites. Sure. Why not just build a little further and flood the area as needed to excavate, you know? That makes sense. That's, that's a minus. But first Chuck, they had to figure out because these pyramids are all oriented along, um, north-south, east-west, right? Yeah.

They run parallel to these axes. So like they're, they're, I believe they're facing true north. This was pre-compass. It was pre-north star. Yeah. The north star wasn't even the sky there then. Um, instead they had to follow some of the circumpolar stars and they were doing things like measuring shadows to calculate where true north was.

And then once they calculated true north, they could use right angles to determine where south-east and west were. That's amazing. And then once they had that, then they had to start doing the, planning out the site in a grid and excavating everything down. That's right. Uh, using cubits and, um, hands was the other unit of measurement, which is, uh, if you say something so many hands wide, it's the width of your hand, uh, with your thumb along

the side. Yeah. And they still use that to, um, measure horses or to describe horse height. Yeah. Like 20 hands high. Yeah. That's a, that's decent height. Is that a big horse or a small horse?

20 hands. I think that might be like a giant freak of nature horse. Really? Yeah. I usually hear like 14 or 16. Oh, okay. Hey, that's off to the triple crown winner, right? Yeah.

American Pharaoh. Whoa. Which by the way, Pharaoh is misspelled in his name and they knew it early on, but they were like, well, we're just going to leave it like that. Sure. Um, so Pharaoh. Yeah. Pretty neat.

History. That was pretty great. Did you watch? Um, I did watch that and you know, I'm not into horse racing, but I knew what was coming on and I was like, well, it's only a few minutes. Yeah. So I just don't watch any of the other stuff of the two hour broadcast. Yeah.

And I just turned it on to hear that call, you know, it's always great here in a good horse racing call. That thing led. Oh yeah. Whole way. Yeah. That was really no doubt. And I love that jockey.

Yeah. Cause he had, he had had several attempts, right? At the trip. Uh-huh. He raced a California chrome last year. Yeah. That's right. And, uh, couldn't pull it out in this year.

He did. Good for him. Yeah. Uh, all right. So let's, I guess we should talk about how they actually build these things now. You got to get rocks there. That's the first step. Yeah.

And some of the rock did come from Giza, like the rocks, the pyramid structure itself was made largely of limestone. Yeah. And there was limestone quarries around the Giza site, but they also had to get rocks from elsewhere. Yeah. And then they think came up the river from Aswan. Uh, they have alabaster from Luxor, uh, basalt from the Fayum depression, which I didn't

see where the basalt was used. I didn't either. The basalt or however it's pronounced, basalt, is it not? I don't know. Okay. Um, and of course, you know, they don't have iron at this point, so they're not using iron to cut. They're using copper and stone cutting tools to shape these things.

Yeah. They don't get them there, which is, you know, I think the neatest thing about the pyramids is over the years is trying to figure out how they did it all because they didn't leave a record. Um, you know, it's just been this great mystery for architecture and archeological nerds to try and figure out. Yeah. So the first step is like, all right, well, how did they get all these rocks there to

begin with? So, um, again, these rocks were on average about two and a half tons per rock. Yeah. So they didn't just lift them and carry them. You know, the Egyptians were familiar with the wheel, but the wheel would have been totally useless in the sand at Giza. Yeah. Um, so they figure, I think the general sentiment of how they moved rocks, especially ones from

local quarries at Giza was, um, by sled and rope, and they had, um, maybe 10 men or fewer if they could, um, pull these, uh, two and a half ton rocks on sleds toward the site. So that's how they would have moved them from the quarry. If they were moving them from like Luxor or elsewhere, they would have put them on rafts. And again, they dug canals from the Nile toward the Giza construction site. I bet people loved being on that duty, like the raft one. Well, yeah, like just get it on this barge and float it. Sure.

And the other guys were like, are you kidding me? I have to pull this thing on a sand sled. And then there's another way that, um, that they think they may have put them on little quarter circle sleds, strapped them around it and just kind of twisted them like you would twist a beer keg. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense too.

I would guess flat sleds. Although I, why does it have to just be one or the other? Well, that was what I was wondering when I was reading this, it could have been a combination of methods. Yeah. Like these guys are sled masters. So let them do that. Right.

They can just roll the beer keg or two in their day so they can try that method. Yeah. They've also theorized about wooden rollers like logs and things. Makes sense. Makes sense. The only problem is, um, timber was not a local commodity. Yeah. That was, that would have been widespread enough to supply this thing and it would have been

very expensive. Well, which is another reason, uh, because they have some super weighty timber on the interior of these pyramids and they also have wondered about that. I think it's probably cedar from Lebanon. That's what I kept coming across. Yeah. The wood that they were known to have used was from Lebanon and it was cedar. Lebanese cedar.

I bet that's good stuff. Yeah. I bet it was expensive back in the day. Um, so when it comes to actually building the pyramid itself, you've got, let's say you've managed to get all the rocks here, um, you know what? We'll take a break and we will talk a little bit about some of the competing theories right after this. Hey friends, when you're staying at an Airbnb, you might be like me wondering, could my place

be an Airbnb? And if it could, what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba, who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home. Now the extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it, but you might have an Airbnb too. Find out what your place could be earning at Airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment

I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. We rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop.

But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, you got all your rocks. You're the foreman. You're the, what's it called? The... The vizier. You're the vizier on site. Who, by the way, Khufu's vizier was his brother. Oh yeah?

Yeah, and if you were a vizier, like you were pretty well respected and you got your own little step pyramid tomb yourself. Sure. Yeah. So let's say you're that person. You've got your little hard hat on. You've got all these rocks. How do you...

What are the theories? They use like a pulley. They use a crane. Well, there are a lot of competing theories and they do involve cranes. They involve ramps and none of them have been proven. So let's talk about like the ramp one, man. They figured out that with a ramp, you can't have a... When you're dealing with two and a half ton stones, and this is from How to Build a Pyramid,

which is from, I think, a 2007 article in Archeology Magazine. Yeah, Bob Brier. It's a really good article. It is. It's a great article. But he points out that you really can't have a grade of more than about 8%. So if you're using a straight ramp leading up to the pyramid site, as this thing gets taller and taller, and you eventually hit 146 meters, to maintain just an 8% slope,

you would have to have a mile-long ramp at that point. Yeah. And they said that's not very likely because that would have been just as big of an undertaking as building a pyramid. Yeah. It would have taken about as long to build. And the timber, like you mentioned, a lot of timber, which they didn't have tons of. And they would have built it up over time because you can't just have 146 meter ramp

to start off with, and then drop the blocks in place below. You would just slowly build up the ramp. But eventually, it would just become too unwieldy to have a mile-long ramp. Yeah. And we're not the first people to question this. I mean, thousands of years ago, people, historians were trying to figure it out as well. Herodotus in 450 BC said that they use machines, but no one really knows what he meant by machines. Thanks a lot, buddy.

It could be a crane. And then 300 years after that, Deodorus of Sicily said the construction was affected by mounds, which would be ramps. So that's why these are the two longest-standing competing theories. The problem is these Greeks came along thousands of years after the pyramids had already been built. It's not like they witnessed the construction. Yeah.

They were just guessing as well. Yeah. So with Herodotus or Herodotus, you know, I don't know. I've seen his name in print so many times, but I don't think I've ever heard it. I'd say Herodotus sounds good. Let's say that. His idea of these machines that have been taken to mean cranes, we know that the Egyptians were familiar with cranes and used cranes, and that you could use cranes to build a

substantial portion of the pyramids. The problem is, as you got closer and closer to the top, the ledge you were dealing with is, say, about 18 inches, and you can't support a crane like that. So they thought potentially that if they did use cranes, they'd use series of small cranes that would just kind of hand off, like basically a bucket brigade of cranes handing off one rock after the other. They were like levers, and they were called, they use these, they were called shadoofs. And if you look up shadoof and image it, they would use it to get water out of the river

and stuff. Oh yeah. And it was basically like just a lever that someone would pull on one end or it would be weighted and dip down into the water and then pull up a bunch of stuff with a bucket, I guess. Yeah. A bunch of good Nile River water. Yes.

So like you said, that theory is not very well accepted these days. The crane? Yeah. Oh, not for completion, at least. Right, right, right. Yeah. And again, like why just use one method if something makes this part faster and then you have to switch to this other part faster?

Clearly, these people had the smarts to pull off this incredible feat of engineering. So I would think that they wouldn't have tunnel vision. Yeah. And that they would probably be willing to use different techniques. So it's possible that the cranes were used to build the base. They'd have pyramid vision. So with the ramp, so the big long ramp is probably out. They had another theory that, well, maybe it was like a ramp that just wound up and

around the pyramid. Yeah. The mountain road is cut into the side of the mountain. Exactly. That sort of makes sense, too. It does. The big problem with that is that the mound outside of the pyramid covers up the corners. As you're building it, and as you're building it, you really need to be able to measure

the corners pretty frequently. Because if you don't, then those corners may not come together at a point at top. And Sneferu is going to be very mad. That's right. So that one to me is probably the least likely, the external ramps that enclose the site. Agreed. And maybe I'm a bandwagon here, but I just read this article that you sent. And so I'm going with Jean-Pierre Houdin's theory that there were ramps, but there were

an external ramp that didn't need to be that long. Then once they got to the point where the grade was too much, they used that ramp, cannibalized it, and then had an interior ramp to finish it off. So the thing about an interior ramp is that you would be able to leave the exterior corners exposed. You'd be able to build inside. You'd be able to keep it at 8% grade tops. And you wouldn't have to build this huge, massive public work that was as big as the

pyramid itself, like a 146-meter mile-long ramp. It would explain how you would build the whole thing without cranes because you're just getting closer and closer and closer to the inside, the interior of it, as you're building up. The only problem is, Chuck, is if there's an interior ramp, how would you possibly remove that? You wouldn't. It would be enclosed in the site. So obviously this has been debunked, right?

Well no, it hasn't. Nobody believes, and others have gotten on board, that there is still an interior ramp in there. What? But that was my question. Have they not explored enough of this to find this thing? No. Okay.

And actually there was a 1986 survey by, I think, a French team, and they found some anomaly that they couldn't explain, so they just ignored it, basically. And it wasn't until 2000 that Jean-Pierre Houdin's father, Henri Houdin, who is an engineer himself, just happened to be chatting with one of these guys from the 1986 survey. And the guy said, like others, it's an anomaly, and he described it to him, and basically what he described as far as the udans are concerned is this internal ramp. Yeah. They were like, what is it?

Ah, it's an anomaly. It's like a big well-worn ramp. Right. Seven-degree slope. Who cares? And supposedly the way that they first discovered this was that a fox popped out of an undiscovered crevice, or previously undiscovered crevice, toward the top of the pyramid, or halfway up.

Yeah. And they're like, how did this desert fox get up there? Probably did not climb all this way up. They think he probably went into another undiscovered hole toward the bottom, and then used the ramp and came out the top. And that is further evidence that there's a ramp in there. Yeah. There is another little piece of evidence that they point to.

There was a notch, a corner notch from the ramp used for turning the blocks. And it is exactly where, two-thirds of the way up on the northeast corner, right where Houdin predicted there would be one if you were to use this kind of ramp. He's like, there should be a notch right there, and there was a notch. Yeah. I think we're the inside, right? Yeah. Okay.

Pretty neat. They used something called microgravimetry. I don't even understand how it works, do you? No. It's a surveying method. It's magic. Right. And basically what it does is it enables them to measure density.

Yeah. So, like, if you're measuring a part of the pyramid and it's just solid rock, it's going to be very dense. If you find a part of the pyramid that's kind of this open tunnel, like a ramp, it's going to be less dense. So, I think that's from that 1986 survey where they turned up the anomaly that they ignored. Oh, using that.

Okay. Gotcha. That's the impression I have. Yeah. One other thing that was a very long-standing myth, thanks to our friends the Greeks who just made stuff up, apparently, 2,000 years after the fact, was that it took about 100,000 slaves to build the pyramids at Giza. Yeah.

It took about 100,000 slaves. Forced into labor and it took 100,000 of them. Probably not true. No. Supposedly, thanks to Harvard archaeologist Mark Lainer, he conducted a 2002 survey and he found evidence to quite the contrary. Yeah. And then later on in 2010, just a few years ago, they found tombs of workers discovered

and they basically said, like, the way that they were buried and entombed like slaves would never have been honored in this way. Plus, there's lots of evidence they were really well-fed. Yeah. They said that 21 cows and 23 sheep per day was what these people were eating. So they're eating a lot of meat. And a lot of fish too. Yeah.

A lot of fish. A lot of fish. A lot of bread. They found evidence of, like, basically industrial-scale bakeries to bake bread for the workers. Oh, really? Uh-huh. And there was evidence of basically permanent occupation there that said that there were probably between 2,000 and 4,000 workers on hand at any time.

But that may be 30,000 total over the 20 years constructed the pyramid. Yeah. I saw the word they had worked out somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 that worked in three month shifts. And they said, you know, while they weren't slaves, they said it was tough stuff. Like there was evidence of arthritis and bad backs and all the things inherent in pyramid building. Yeah.

So it wasn't like, you know, it was easy going. But it makes sense that, you know, if you want these things built, you have to have a strong workforce, which means you have to take care of them and feed them. Right. You know? Yeah. Pay them. Pay them.

Pay them and fish. Pay me. Yeah. That's what they said. Yeah. At the end of every shift. That's right. Is there anything else?

No, man. That's Egyptian pyramids. Pretty neat. Uh, yeah. If you want to know more about pyramids, type that word in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said search bar is time for listener mail. I'm going to call this Australian radio show. Just talking about us.

Did you see this? No. So there's a show, apparently the biggest radio show in Sydney called the Kyle and Jackie O Show. Okay. Did you see this or hear it? No, I haven't been to, I flew through Sydney once for like 10 minutes and I didn't have a chance to listen to the radio.

I mean, did you see the email? No, I didn't. Okay. It's the second time you made me admit that. Sorry. Hey guys, I've been listening to you for years and I adore you both. I also listened to the Kyle and Jackie O Show, which is the biggest radio show in Sydney. That was a good Australian.

Thanks. I love them too. I have to say though, I'm quite disappointed in them because the female co-host Jackie found out about your podcast and took the piss on the air. I think that's Australian for, gave us a hard time, gave us the business and then proceeded to share the information you gave in a podcast. If you want to hear it, it's from the June 18th episode and it is a podcast as well, about 12 minutes in.

It's actually about nine minutes in and they talk about it for about six minutes. What do they say? Well, here's, I hope Jackie O is listening. You seem awesome, Jackie O, because she sort of made fun of us, you know, that we're nerds and stuff like that and that we just ramble, but you could tell she was getting in the show because she even said, I'm starting to get addicted and she starts reciting facts from the show. It's too late for you, Jackie O.

This Kyle guy is the equivalent of one of our morning radio show hosts here in the states. Does he have like one of those bike horns that he squeaks a lot? He might as well. He's like asking about the show and she's like, well, you know, like how Keller works and he's like, how Keller works, like what do you mean he said, that pencil's yellow. I want to buy a yellow pencil. Podcast over. He's like, clearly this guy is not on our team.

Well, I don't want to, he's not on our team, Chuck. Okay. I don't want to insult the guy, but he insulted us. He certainly didn't seem to get it. We that there could be more to color than as a yellow pencil, right? That was a pretty good, uh, oh man, what was the guy, what was the band manager from Fly of the Concord's name? Mary.

Yeah. That's a good Murray. Kyle equals Murray. So, uh, Kyle's just doesn't get it. Um, he, he said it sounded awful. They played a bit of it and talked about it a lot and I don't remember licensing that to them. Well, and at the end she, she basically said, you know, what I'll do is keep listening and

then what they say in 45 minutes, I can just break down for you guys in three or four minutes of bullet points. Okay. I'm pretty sure that Kyle and Jackie, I've just started an international flame war with us. Uh, so to continue the, um, email. Oh yeah. They clearly don't get it guys.

So let me apologize on behalf of your other Aussie fans. Uh, you guys have added so much to the quality of my life and I credit you both for getting me through periods of intense anxiety where I could not function without having you both in my head distracting me from my own thoughts. I can guarantee you Kyle has never been told that. No, I still adore you now that I'm better and I can safely press pause sometimes without even hyperventilating. Uh, thank you for all you do.

Please never stop doing it. And that is Laura. Thank you, Laura. And, uh, she said PS, I went on a date with a guy last week who looked exactly like Chuck and I have to admit that is the main reason I agreed to go. Did he sound like Chuck? Wink, wink, three X's. Jeez.

Is that hugs or kisses? Uh, that is up for debate, but I say X's are kisses and O's are hugs. Real. Yeah. I asked her how the date went. She was like, well, I'm not going on a date. Number two. I got you.

So I was like, well, they can all be me. We had a good laugh. We had a good laugh. We needed a t-shirt that says that. Yeah. They can all be Chuck. Uh, hats off to you, Jackie. Oh, because you seem to get it, um, clearly my lady.

Oh, wait, Jackie. Oh, I thought you were talking about. No, Laura. Laura definitely gets it. Right. Jackie seems to get it. She's starting to get it. Kyle does not get it.

I don't think Kyle ever will, man, and I'm okay with that. Me too. Uh, if you want to tell us about how somebody in your locality is talking smack about us or not getting us or whatever, or you just want to say hi, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com and as always join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com.

I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all and now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times.

It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.