These stones were mostly removed from the great pyramid just 700 years ago. After an earthquake people began removing them for a few centuries to build other things until they were all gone. The great pyramid had its casing stones for 85% of its life.
Edit: I highly recommend "history for granite" on youtube.
its amazing how we look at historical constructions and assume thats always how it looked.
You are right, The Pyramids used to be shining white beacons of marble, but the stone was.. "repurposed" for building after the end of the pharos.
Medieval castles too, all anyone sees today are grey, bare rock, dingy, cold, drafty castles.. But when they were new? before photographs and film? They were plastered white, and filled with rugs and tapestries that made them beautiful, stunning, and warm.
Never been in the "we" category here, it's just so obvious that ruins of any kind and even just old-ish (like within 200 years) buildings rarely look like they were supposed to. It's disturbing and sad that most people can't seem to realise that by themselves.
When kids were shown the white marble buildings in ancient Rome on TV and history books and whatnot, and then end up thinking that's how it was, instead of with colourful paint - if that is disturbing to you, you must have been a rather recent arrival on earth, no?
Why not? Just because they haven't been yet? Historical significance? Blah, blah blah. I'm sure the people who made them would want it. And I bet it would increase tourism. We take this shit way too seriously.
I think a politician already meantioned bringing them back to force immigrants to fight to the death. So uh, think I'm going to play it safe and say no until the details are more flushed out
I would object because of the bureaucracy. It would cost less to make a new one. Then you could do both. And in 5000 years we might get new alien conspiracies about why we have two sets of pyramids in two different time periods.
From what I understand the polished limestone is accurate for many pyramids, but the gold pyramidion seems to be more of an edge case on some smaller pyramids.
A gold top wouldn’t even be visible from the ground on a large polished white pyramid.
A gold top wouldn’t even be visible from the ground on a large polished white pyramid.
The point of pyramids was of religious nature, it was to be closer to the sky and allow dead pharaohs to go in their version of the after life so it's likely that the gold wasn't to be pretty but for a religious something
Also, i wonder if it was a gold alloy and not pure gold
"... and were sometimes covered with plates of copper, gold or electrum."
(electrum is an alloy of gold and silver IIRC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramidion
Which makes a lot of sense, gold was and is very expensive
"Plates of" especially makes sense. And you do recall correctly, electrum is a natural alloy, which means they wouldn't have had to create it from scratch.
You are close but gold is conductive. And souls are capable of traveling through such conduits. Especially gold. It is a direct conduit into the sky where they can go back to doppelpopulous to worship Queen doppelpopolis of the doppelgangers.
I believe it’s generally accepted that they were usually capped with electrum, not gold. Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of mostly gold and silver, with some copper or platinum and other metals.
I guess, because that way it easier conveys the point of ‘it's a cube with 23 meters side’, which makes sense as it's easier to imagine than just an arbitrary amount of cubic meters.
They posted an image of this capstone with the text "actual capstone in the Cairo museum."
It is a genuine capstone, or pyramidion, from a pyramid, one of very few that survives intact to the present day. It's black basalt, still beautifully polished and inscribed. It's just not from the Giza pyramids, it's from the Black pyramid at Dahshur, tomb of Amenemhat III. This is 12th dynasty, centuries later than the 4th dynasty necropolis at Giza, but it does give us an idea of what the pyramidion of Khufu's pyramid might have been like. Knowing Khufu, his was probably granite. He had a thing for granite, the entire King's Chamber of his pyramid is lined with it.
The article I linked doesn't give any sense of scale, Amenemhat's pyramidion is 1.85 meters tall and weighs 4.5 metric tons. No problem for the mega masons that built the rest of the actual manmade mountain it would rest upon, but still a far cry from a 100 foot tall chunk of gold.
Imagine being the first person to realize that the Empire is dead and you can just fucking climb up there with your buddies and take that gold cap lol.
I think one of the purposes of the pyramids was to be a sort of ancient beacon. The stone reflected the sun and moonlight, making it pretty tough to get lost. In the days of no GPS or electricity, I'm sure this was of great importance.
Have you ever been playing Minecraft and wandered too far from base before building a bed and just had to abandon that base until you find it by accident later? Imagine that IRL and you can't just build a new base real quick
Though given that the white columns and statues of ancient Greece were originally painted in bright colours, can we be sure that wasn’t also the case for the pyramids, at least while the civilisation that built them was maintaining them?
It's the newest and smallest of the three pyramids of the Giza necropolis. Where Khufu and Khafre's pyramids were cased top to bottom in polished white limestone, Menkaure's pyramid is cased several courses up in red granite, then the top 2/3 of the pyramid's height in limestone. I've seen a theory put forward that the upper limestone was painted red to stand out among the larger megaliths.
Kind of reminds me of Pete Conrad, commander of Apollo 12. The Johnson Space Center in Houston has a grove of trees grown from seeds flown in space, each is planted for an astronaut who passed away. During the Christmas season they're lit with white lights...except for the tree planted in Conrad's honor, which is lit with red lights to honor his motto "If you can't be good, be colorful."
I'm pretty sure, with all the pyramids there are, there'd be some evidence or residue if this were the case. It'd also be an absolute shitload of paint. There would probably be archeological evidence for massive paint making in the region. They did paint stones, but I don't think they painted the outside of the pyramids.
I think castles in Europe are similar. They used to have plastered, white washed facades. Over time they wore down, giving way to the raw stone look most of us associate with castles.
No but shockingly close. The pyramids were built starting around 2630 BCE. But the African Humid Period ended about 5000-6000 years ago, so about 2974 BCE on the near end.
About 350 years is shockingly close. That's about the length of the Ptolmaic dynasty. That's Isaac Newton being active to today. Not recent by any means, but that's "we still know about this" time scales
So one thing that happens in history is, people stop paying to maintain things or governments don't care anymore, so people start taking them apart and using it for building materials.
Let's say you're a modern day contractor, and need $10,000 worth of brick... or you could go and uh just take some from that old library that no one uses anymore, except some homeless dudes camp in it. You could take down maybe just like one small part of it and not spend ANYTHING on brick. Other contractors are already doing this... No one will care.
Basically what happened to the library of alexandria if I remember correctly. It was less fire and more just hundreds of years of people stopping caring.
They didn't demolish a limestone pyramid and replace it with what you see now... What you're seeing now is what was underneath a layer of limestone. They dismantled the limestone slowly to use it for building materials.
It's still limestone. The core masonry, the bulk of the pyramid, is made of locally quarried limestone, while the casing stones and finished interior spaces are made of higher quality limestone brought in from elsewhere.
I have the same question about fried chicken. Why do people eat the chicken and replace it with bones? It costs money to buy the bones. Why not just eat the chicken and not bother replacing it with bones?
Imagine if Walmart went out of business and each executive was eventually buried at the center of the Walmart and he had his most valuable possessions with his body and a big ass gold cap reflecting the sun onto everyone's windshield or house windows every day....how long would that building stand after the company no longer did business with it? My guess is bricks down in a good 5 to 10 years. The gold cap would have been gone in an afternoon if someone could pick it up. Otherwise the nearest town would organize daily gold chippings and it would be gone in a month.
Then imagine the building did last 3000 years for whatever reason and someone suggested to build it back for tourism? Just because someone's graffiti looks better than today's graffiti.
The idea of the pyramids as a industrial fertilizer factory is inteteresting, i could understand the "priests" and "rituals" and the pyramid themselves being so sacred and cherrished if it literally ensured strong harvests by supplimenting fertilizer.
The hypothesus is not strong or validated - but its the most compelling one ive heard so far
You mean if you ignore all the hieroglyphs that explain everything in great detail?
The red Pyramid, maybe. But the Great Pyramid is gigantic with a relatively tiny tomb (compared to rest of pyramid) that contained a burial chamber that was blocked off with one way giant blocks that sealed off the chamber permanently.
So...it wasn't designed for this, but the ruined pyramid of Meidum has been used as a fertilizer factory. A large recess has been quarried into the side and farmers would go up there to collect bat guano.
Commenting again just for fun, I find the pyramids fascinating and hope this is just entertaining to read:
Yeah the pyramid is a massive thing compared to its interior volume, but it's the second largest interior of any pyramid, after Djoser's miles of tunnels.
There are actually two systems of "one way giant blocks" to seal the Great pyramid: Three large blocks of granite that still plug the original opening of the ascending passage to this day; the pyramid is accessed through the so-called robber's tunnel excavated through the masonry long after construction. The second was a system of three vertically closing granite portcullis stones that would have been set in grooves in the walls just outside of the King's Chamber. It's not impossible that these were designed to be opened repeatedly, a few fragments of them exist into the present day, and there are rope holes present in them, so it's possible they were rigged to allow gangs of men in the grand gallery to hoist them open. Problem is, the shape of the antechamber is such that two of the portcullises could be simply climbed over, and then the joint between the wall and the third portcullis could be attacked. So even though they were granite, they were defeated in antiquity.
The King's chamber is entirely paved with red granite, so it's possible Khufu trusted this new, extremely durable material a bit too much.
that two of the portcullises could be simply climbed over,
"Once such three portcullises were lowered, it would no longer be possible to
bypass the first two. Even climbing over them, there is too little working space to
break a section of granite nearly a meter and a half long (equal to the sum of the
three horizontal thicknesses)"
It's not impossible that these were designed to be opened repeatedly
It's lazy, but I work from the assumption that the consensus of university historians who have devoted their lives to studying all the data are likely correct. They would have documented wear on the stones from repeated sliding like they documented wear on the bottom of stones from original placement. If their was evidence the portcullis had been opened, it would be the mainstream theory.
It's like how I assume scientists are right when they say vaccines don't cause autism. Sure they might be wrong but it's easier to let specialists specialize.
That said I still really enjoy wild theories about the pyramids!
Not sure I'd call that author mainstream. A couple chapters later he starts blathering about "the device" and talking about gaskets and hydraulic force and water flow. It's badly formatted, there are no section breaks, he keeps referring to figures and diagrams and photos that aren't there...This dude's a crank.
My understanding is the mainstream theory is that the portcullises were resting on wood or stone supports that were set into slots in the floor during construction, fitting and the funeral service, and then when it was time to seal the pyramid the portcullises were hoist off of their supports with ropes suspended from logs across the ceiling, the supports lifted free and removed, and then the ropes eased to lower the portcullis. You wouldn't want to let them slam shut, granite is very hard but very brittle.
If you can hoist the stone off of its supports to gently lower it, you can hoist it open again. Whether they ever did isn't knowable.
Compare that to the design of the portcullises in the Bent pyramid, built by Khufu's father Sneferu. They slide diagonally into place into deep recesses in the wall and floor rendering levering attacks entirely impossible. It's practically impossible to open once closed, your only way in is to tunnel through. Which is what has happened to the one that was closed. The other was never closed and remains propped open with an ancient log to this day. I'm wondering if it closed by accident. Notably, Sneferu's later Red pyramid has no portcullis system at all, and Khufu's portcullises were made of granite but of a much less elegant design.
I wouldn't either. It was the first link that had documentation about the physical layout of the portcullis refuting the claim that it could be climbed over.
your only way in is to tunnel through
Which is what was done in the Great Pyramid too!
My understanding is the mainstream theory is that the portcullises were resting on wood or stone supports that were set into slots in the floor during construction,
I was referring to the pictures of the roller cut outs that are only on one side. If the rollers were designed to relift the portcullis, they would have to have cut outs on both sides so the rollers wouldn't fall down after use.
104 Comments
nexguy@lemmy.world · 127 pts · 18d
These stones were mostly removed from the great pyramid just 700 years ago. After an earthquake people began removing them for a few centuries to build other things until they were all gone. The great pyramid had its casing stones for 85% of its life.
Edit: I highly recommend "history for granite" on youtube.
https://youtube.com/@historyforgranite
joulethief@discuss.tchncs.de · 26 pts · 18d
Thanks for the additional insight!
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 18d
its amazing how we look at historical constructions and assume thats always how it looked.
You are right, The Pyramids used to be shining white beacons of marble, but the stone was.. "repurposed" for building after the end of the pharos.
Medieval castles too, all anyone sees today are grey, bare rock, dingy, cold, drafty castles.. But when they were new? before photographs and film? They were plastered white, and filled with rugs and tapestries that made them beautiful, stunning, and warm.
M137@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 18d
Never been in the "we" category here, it's just so obvious that ruins of any kind and even just old-ish (like within 200 years) buildings rarely look like they were supposed to. It's disturbing and sad that most people can't seem to realise that by themselves.
RaphaelSchmitz@feddit.org · 1 pts · 17d
When kids were shown the white marble buildings in ancient Rome on TV and history books and whatnot, and then end up thinking that's how it was, instead of with colourful paint - if that is disturbing to you, you must have been a rather recent arrival on earth, no?
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 17d
There's quite a few Reconstruction Castles, newly built castles that have tried to be as historically accurate as possible
So you don't have to imagine, you can actually visit a (reconstruction of based on evidence of the time) living piece of ancient history
AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 18d
I see, another wirtual viewer /s
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 70 pts · 18d
They should refurbish them.
Why not? Just because they haven't been yet? Historical significance? Blah, blah blah. I'm sure the people who made them would want it. And I bet it would increase tourism. We take this shit way too seriously.
sunbeam60@feddit.uk · 34 pts · 18d
I weirdly agree.
grue@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 18d
Similarly, I would like to see the Coliseum rebuilt and used as a football stadium.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 18d
It would have to be remodeled as well, the floor isn't quite big enough for a U.S. football field, let alone a European football field.
Think I saw it was 83 meters long
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 18d
Perhaps not a football stadium then, but... do you like gladiators?
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 18d
I think a politician already meantioned bringing them back to force immigrants to fight to the death. So uh, think I'm going to play it safe and say no until the details are more flushed out
tacosanonymous@mander.xyz · 7 pts · 18d
That’s interesting bc I was going to reply to a different comment that we should put corrupt officials and billionaires in there.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 18d
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 18d
That may be a little small for a lot of the viewers, but then again people go to boxing matches.
showmeyourkizinti@startrek.website · 7 pts · 18d
I like movies about gladiators.
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 18d
its big enough for a naval battle, its big enough for a football game.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 18d
Lions vs referees until then
helvetpuli@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 18d
The one in Verona is used for concerts. So that works.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 18d
I'm for it, but I think it would be very expensive to get it up to code.
The Pyramids are just piles of rocks, with no modern purpose.
Really, we should use these things for their intended purpose, if possible. And, keep them in good condition. We do it with other historic buildings.
Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk · 12 pts · 18d
It would certainly shift focus from all the plastic bags blowing around it in the wind
asmoranomar@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 17d
I would object because of the bureaucracy. It would cost less to make a new one. Then you could do both. And in 5000 years we might get new alien conspiracies about why we have two sets of pyramids in two different time periods.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 17d
The neopyramidal period. For some reason they stopped building pyramids for 4000 years but decided to start again
Robomekk@lemmy.ca · 53 pts · 18d
From what I understand the polished limestone is accurate for many pyramids, but the gold pyramidion seems to be more of an edge case on some smaller pyramids.
A gold top wouldn’t even be visible from the ground on a large polished white pyramid.
Mistiygirl@lemmy.zip · 13 pts · 18d
I remember the signs there and museum did tell that the great pyramids also had golden Pyramidions.
Maiq@piefed.zip · 12 pts · 18d
If it was capped in gold, dusk and dawn could have been very pretty.
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 5 pts · 18d
The point of pyramids was of religious nature, it was to be closer to the sky and allow dead pharaohs to go in their version of the after life so it's likely that the gold wasn't to be pretty but for a religious something
Also, i wonder if it was a gold alloy and not pure gold
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 17d
Why not both?
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 18d
If it was for religious reasons they would definitely use pure gold
Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it · 4 pts · 17d
Just looked on wikipedia and they say
"... and were sometimes covered with plates of copper, gold or electrum." (electrum is an alloy of gold and silver IIRC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramidion Which makes a lot of sense, gold was and is very expensive
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 17d
"Plates of" especially makes sense. And you do recall correctly, electrum is a natural alloy, which means they wouldn't have had to create it from scratch.
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 17d
You are close but gold is conductive. And souls are capable of traveling through such conduits. Especially gold. It is a direct conduit into the sky where they can go back to doppelpopulous to worship Queen doppelpopolis of the doppelgangers.
lividweasel@lemmy.world · 44 pts · 18d
I believe it’s generally accepted that they were usually capped with electrum, not gold. Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of mostly gold and silver, with some copper or platinum and other metals.
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 17d
It looks like gold though
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 35 pts · 18d
Bright white casing stones, yes. 50 foot tall gold capstone, no.
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 18d
Humans own 23³m³ of gold total
myotheraccount@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 18d
Humans have mined more than 200000 metric tons of gold, which is about 10000 cubic meters, not 23
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 18d
Whoops. 23³ m³
snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 18d
23 cubed cubic metres? Why not just put a few zeroes in the first place?
sukhmel@programming.dev · 9 pts · 18d
I guess, because that way it easier conveys the point of ‘it's a cube with 23 meters side’, which makes sense as it's easier to imagine than just an arbitrary amount of cubic meters.
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 17d
Correct. Cube 23m on each side. I think I meant to write (23m)³ but forgot the parentheses.
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 1 pts · 18d
Most of it's used in tech so how much of it is owned and not licensed? 🤔
LodeMike@lemmy.today · 9 pts · 18d
Very little gold is used in tech
adam_y@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 18d
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 18d
Note, this is from the ruined Black Pyramid, no the Great Pyramid. But what a remarkable artifact, still amazingly intact.
This is in the right community. It is indeed interesting as fuck.
sukhmel@programming.dev · 3 pts · 18d
A bit ironic that they removed their comment that was remarkable and interesting. I guess it was about the capstone from Black Pyramid?
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 17d
They posted an image of this capstone with the text "actual capstone in the Cairo museum."
It is a genuine capstone, or pyramidion, from a pyramid, one of very few that survives intact to the present day. It's black basalt, still beautifully polished and inscribed. It's just not from the Giza pyramids, it's from the Black pyramid at Dahshur, tomb of Amenemhat III. This is 12th dynasty, centuries later than the 4th dynasty necropolis at Giza, but it does give us an idea of what the pyramidion of Khufu's pyramid might have been like. Knowing Khufu, his was probably granite. He had a thing for granite, the entire King's Chamber of his pyramid is lined with it.
The article I linked doesn't give any sense of scale, Amenemhat's pyramidion is 1.85 meters tall and weighs 4.5 metric tons. No problem for the mega masons that built the rest of the actual manmade mountain it would rest upon, but still a far cry from a 100 foot tall chunk of gold.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de · 33 pts · 17d
It's crazy that even on the centuries old photo on the top, Cairo in the background was already that developed!
save_the_humans@leminal.space · 5 pts · 17d
I didn't know they had such nice cameras either. Really ahead of their time those caironians.
Raiderkev@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 17d
The pizza hut across the street was probably fire back then
Kiwi_fella@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 17d
This gave me a much needed giggle. Thanks!
khepri@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 17d
Imagine being the first person to realize that the Empire is dead and you can just fucking climb up there with your buddies and take that gold cap lol.
username_1@discuss.tchncs.de · 11 pts · 18d
Don't they have some maintenance company? Fix that!
jumperalex@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 18d
pls fix thx
medicsofanarchy@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 18d
Should have bought the extended warranty.
Dookieman12@piefed.social · 11 pts · 18d
I think one of the purposes of the pyramids was to be a sort of ancient beacon. The stone reflected the sun and moonlight, making it pretty tough to get lost. In the days of no GPS or electricity, I'm sure this was of great importance.
Have you ever been playing Minecraft and wandered too far from base before building a bed and just had to abandon that base until you find it by accident later? Imagine that IRL and you can't just build a new base real quick
webp@mander.xyz · 11 pts · 18d
I think they just wanted to build a giant titty.
itsjustachairmary@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 18d
The original original Tomb Raider
oce@jlai.lu · 6 pts · 18d
Feels quite secondary to the "I have the biggest" contest that we saw later with cathedrals and now skyscrapers.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 17d
Aliens needed to know where to land.
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space · 9 pts · 18d
Though given that the white columns and statues of ancient Greece were originally painted in bright colours, can we be sure that wasn’t also the case for the pyramids, at least while the civilisation that built them was maintaining them?
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 18d
Menkaure's pyramid may have been painted red.
It's the newest and smallest of the three pyramids of the Giza necropolis. Where Khufu and Khafre's pyramids were cased top to bottom in polished white limestone, Menkaure's pyramid is cased several courses up in red granite, then the top 2/3 of the pyramid's height in limestone. I've seen a theory put forward that the upper limestone was painted red to stand out among the larger megaliths.
Kind of reminds me of Pete Conrad, commander of Apollo 12. The Johnson Space Center in Houston has a grove of trees grown from seeds flown in space, each is planted for an astronaut who passed away. During the Christmas season they're lit with white lights...except for the tree planted in Conrad's honor, which is lit with red lights to honor his motto "If you can't be good, be colorful."
Cethin@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 17d
I'm pretty sure, with all the pyramids there are, there'd be some evidence or residue if this were the case. It'd also be an absolute shitload of paint. There would probably be archeological evidence for massive paint making in the region. They did paint stones, but I don't think they painted the outside of the pyramids.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 18d
yeah but did they have shitty gray flooring to match the white walls?
laranis@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 17d
I think castles in Europe are similar. They used to have plastered, white washed facades. Over time they wore down, giving way to the raw stone look most of us associate with castles.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 17d
Classical statues too
laranis@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 17d
Right! Those white Greek marble busts used to be fully painted. But we only think of them as plain white sculptures.
Katrisia@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 18d
And green/greener lands, as far as I know.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 17d
No but shockingly close. The pyramids were built starting around 2630 BCE. But the African Humid Period ended about 5000-6000 years ago, so about 2974 BCE on the near end.
About 350 years is shockingly close. That's about the length of the Ptolmaic dynasty. That's Isaac Newton being active to today. Not recent by any means, but that's "we still know about this" time scales
urandom@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 17d
Man, the aliens were sure good at building these
solidheron@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 18d
I think the gold top would have been smaller
Lauchmelder@feddit.org · 4 pts · 18d
the top picture looks a lot better, why did they replace it?
someguy3@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 18d
It cost too much to maintain a nice one, so they tore it down and replaced it with a cheaper one from IKEA BCE.
terranoid@lemmy.cafe · 3 pts · 18d
So one thing that happens in history is, people stop paying to maintain things or governments don't care anymore, so people start taking them apart and using it for building materials.
Let's say you're a modern day contractor, and need $10,000 worth of brick... or you could go and uh just take some from that old library that no one uses anymore, except some homeless dudes camp in it. You could take down maybe just like one small part of it and not spend ANYTHING on brick. Other contractors are already doing this... No one will care.
Basically what happened to the library of alexandria if I remember correctly. It was less fire and more just hundreds of years of people stopping caring.
Lauchmelder@feddit.org · 0 pts · 18d
but it costs money to demolish the white pyramid and rebuild the shitty one. whyd they do it if money is a concern
terranoid@lemmy.cafe · 2 pts · 18d
They didn't demolish a limestone pyramid and replace it with what you see now... What you're seeing now is what was underneath a layer of limestone. They dismantled the limestone slowly to use it for building materials.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 17d
It's still limestone. The core masonry, the bulk of the pyramid, is made of locally quarried limestone, while the casing stones and finished interior spaces are made of higher quality limestone brought in from elsewhere.
Lauchmelder@feddit.org · -1 pts · 18d
the limestone was clearly already used as building material.... why would they demolish a nice building for the limestone only to rebuild it but worse
Crashumbc@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 18d
Gotta learn when the joke is spent my man
Lauchmelder@feddit.org · 0 pts · 18d
it's spent when nobody replies anymore
starik@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 18d
I have the same question about fried chicken. Why do people eat the chicken and replace it with bones? It costs money to buy the bones. Why not just eat the chicken and not bother replacing it with bones?
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 18d
They didn't replace it They removed it. What you're seeing is underneath.
Lauchmelder@feddit.org · 0 pts · 18d
clearly they didnt remove it, theres still a spike in the bottom picture
cabillaud@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 17d
The Gods became weaker, they couldn't prevent the degradation.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 17d
Remember the Great Pyramid of Giza? This is it today. Feel old yet?
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 18d
Yup, learned this from Assassin's Creed.
altphoto@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 18d
Imagine if Walmart went out of business and each executive was eventually buried at the center of the Walmart and he had his most valuable possessions with his body and a big ass gold cap reflecting the sun onto everyone's windshield or house windows every day....how long would that building stand after the company no longer did business with it? My guess is bricks down in a good 5 to 10 years. The gold cap would have been gone in an afternoon if someone could pick it up. Otherwise the nearest town would organize daily gold chippings and it would be gone in a month.
Then imagine the building did last 3000 years for whatever reason and someone suggested to build it back for tourism? Just because someone's graffiti looks better than today's graffiti.
AuthenticSchedule@lemmus.org · 2 pts · 17d
China has successfully killed the wither and now has the resources necessary to activate a beacon
Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 17d
Anyone else feel like we should restore it to it's former glory?
someguy3@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 18d
Was the gold top like a cable connection to the UFO that lands on it?
Techranger@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 18d
"Ancient Astronaut theorists say yes."
cAUzapNEAGLb@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 18d
The idea of the pyramids as a industrial fertilizer factory is inteteresting, i could understand the "priests" and "rituals" and the pyramid themselves being so sacred and cherrished if it literally ensured strong harvests by supplimenting fertilizer.
The hypothesus is not strong or validated - but its the most compelling one ive heard so far
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 18d
You mean if you ignore all the hieroglyphs that explain everything in great detail?
The red Pyramid, maybe. But the Great Pyramid is gigantic with a relatively tiny tomb (compared to rest of pyramid) that contained a burial chamber that was blocked off with one way giant blocks that sealed off the chamber permanently.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 18d
So...it wasn't designed for this, but the ruined pyramid of Meidum has been used as a fertilizer factory. A large recess has been quarried into the side and farmers would go up there to collect bat guano.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 18d
Commenting again just for fun, I find the pyramids fascinating and hope this is just entertaining to read:
Yeah the pyramid is a massive thing compared to its interior volume, but it's the second largest interior of any pyramid, after Djoser's miles of tunnels.
There are actually two systems of "one way giant blocks" to seal the Great pyramid: Three large blocks of granite that still plug the original opening of the ascending passage to this day; the pyramid is accessed through the so-called robber's tunnel excavated through the masonry long after construction. The second was a system of three vertically closing granite portcullis stones that would have been set in grooves in the walls just outside of the King's Chamber. It's not impossible that these were designed to be opened repeatedly, a few fragments of them exist into the present day, and there are rope holes present in them, so it's possible they were rigged to allow gangs of men in the grand gallery to hoist them open. Problem is, the shape of the antechamber is such that two of the portcullises could be simply climbed over, and then the joint between the wall and the third portcullis could be attacked. So even though they were granite, they were defeated in antiquity.
The King's chamber is entirely paved with red granite, so it's possible Khufu trusted this new, extremely durable material a bit too much.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 18d
"Once such three portcullises were lowered, it would no longer be possible to bypass the first two. Even climbing over them, there is too little working space to break a section of granite nearly a meter and a half long (equal to the sum of the three horizontal thicknesses)"
https://www.greatpyramidexplanation.com/en/news-6/03-antechambers-portcullis.html
It's lazy, but I work from the assumption that the consensus of university historians who have devoted their lives to studying all the data are likely correct. They would have documented wear on the stones from repeated sliding like they documented wear on the bottom of stones from original placement. If their was evidence the portcullis had been opened, it would be the mainstream theory.
It's like how I assume scientists are right when they say vaccines don't cause autism. Sure they might be wrong but it's easier to let specialists specialize.
That said I still really enjoy wild theories about the pyramids!
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 17d
Not sure I'd call that author mainstream. A couple chapters later he starts blathering about "the device" and talking about gaskets and hydraulic force and water flow. It's badly formatted, there are no section breaks, he keeps referring to figures and diagrams and photos that aren't there...This dude's a crank.
My understanding is the mainstream theory is that the portcullises were resting on wood or stone supports that were set into slots in the floor during construction, fitting and the funeral service, and then when it was time to seal the pyramid the portcullises were hoist off of their supports with ropes suspended from logs across the ceiling, the supports lifted free and removed, and then the ropes eased to lower the portcullis. You wouldn't want to let them slam shut, granite is very hard but very brittle.
If you can hoist the stone off of its supports to gently lower it, you can hoist it open again. Whether they ever did isn't knowable.
Compare that to the design of the portcullises in the Bent pyramid, built by Khufu's father Sneferu. They slide diagonally into place into deep recesses in the wall and floor rendering levering attacks entirely impossible. It's practically impossible to open once closed, your only way in is to tunnel through. Which is what has happened to the one that was closed. The other was never closed and remains propped open with an ancient log to this day. I'm wondering if it closed by accident. Notably, Sneferu's later Red pyramid has no portcullis system at all, and Khufu's portcullises were made of granite but of a much less elegant design.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 17d
I wouldn't either. It was the first link that had documentation about the physical layout of the portcullis refuting the claim that it could be climbed over.
Which is what was done in the Great Pyramid too!
This is a good overview of the portcullis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL_kX0FJ1cw
Notice that the rope rollers were designed for one time use. Once used, they would roll out of position and become useless.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 17d
The imagery in that video shows blocks that don't exist.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 17d
I was referring to the pictures of the roller cut outs that are only on one side. If the rollers were designed to relift the portcullis, they would have to have cut outs on both sides so the rollers wouldn't fall down after use.
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 18d
Sorry, I agree with the first guy. Pyramids clearly made poop.
Dookieman12@piefed.social · 3 pts · 18d
I'm also in favor of the ancient poop factory theory
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 17d
It makes perfect sense, if you don't think about it.
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 18d
See, obviously it must be true.