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Stone shifting - was it just about effort?
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Steve Gray
Steve Gray
931 posts

Re: everyone knows an ant can't.............
Jan 19, 2004, 23:55
Up 'til recently, when I got involved in the Stone Shifting project with Gordon P, I had been focused on Egyptian archaeology. In the Great Pyramid most of the blocks are in the core and are rough-cut stone of around 2 tons in weight. It has been demonstrated that these can be dragged up a 1 in 6 mud-surfaced ramp by 20 men using small quatities of water as a lubricant. However, this is strenuous work and fatigue soon sets in. The Egyptians could have had relief gangs to give one gang a rest while another pulls, but this halves the potential throughput.

There is plenty of evidence that levers were used to manipulate pyramid blocks. Stones have been found with notches or bosses deliberately carved to assist in levering. When positioning a large stone, dragging becomes too unwieldy, whereas levers can be used to make precise adjustments. Any culture that has developed the technique for precise placement of colossal stones has to have discovered the lever.

The ease with which levers can manipulate a large stone must surely have suggested levering as a potential transport mechanism. The Egyptians had to maximise their efficiency; the Great Pyramid at 6 million tons contains 17 times the weight of material used to build Silbury. Gordon's stone rowing method requires no special surface preparation and would take only 4 men to transport each stone. Moreover, the method is not strenuous, even uphill.

Isn't it possible, perhaps even likely, that megalithic cultures would have used the lever as a transportation technique, if not entirely on its own then at least as an additional aid to relieve the colossal frictional forces inherent in dragging?
In reply to:
Re: everyone knows an ant can't............. (fitzcoraldo)		 Replies:
Re: everyone knows an ant can't............. (fitzcoraldo)
Re: everyone knows an ant can't............. (FourWinds)
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