Re: One of the greatest mysteries

Oh, is that what they call them ! Shadoofs?
Well they could use them to lift the 60ton stones if they used a
10: 1 lever in conjunction with a bag full of small stone blocks say of
1cwts as a counter weights, or better still use sacks of sand for easier handling ??

Donkeyman! 👍👍

Re: One of the greatest mysteries

pictures of sledges

if you look carefully, you will see a man pouring something just ahead of the heavy weight. Water ? Oil ?

The 1st picture is of an actual sledge which was found in a tomb.

Re: One of the greatest mysteries

Question: if you use a 10:1 lever, does that mean the weight of the object is now 1/10th ?
If so, does that mean a 4,500 pound stone block can be moved with only 450 pounds of effort ?

Re: One of the greatest mysteries

I found something interesting.

Take a look at the figure #1 (not the others), in the upper left hand corner. With extended "arms" it would offer great mechanical advantage ???? Perhaps even up a very steep slope ???

It seems possible that such a device was within the capabilities of the ancient Egyptians for moving blocks of stone.

Re: One of the greatest mysteries

Yes. It uses the mathematical principle of "moments".

Re: One of the greatest mysteries

It's a pity that there's no evidence of the use of wheels. Not to create a cart to carry stones on, but more to do with somehow attaching wheels either side of a stone and "roll" it around. Moving it for longish distance (eg from a boat to the site) would be relatively easy, and one wouldn't necessarily have required such a long ramp as 1 mile to get it up to height.

Re: One of the greatest mysteries

I'm not clear on how wheels could avoid a very long ramp.
Please, explain further so I can understand what you are saying.

Re: One of the greatest mysteries

Trying to push something up a slope requires the slope to be shallow if you're to stand a realistic chance. Would require more people to push/pull it to overcome friction and take longer to move it, partly due to speed but also you've got further to move it.

If you could roll the stone by attaching wheels large enough either side, then there is less friction and the thing will be ably to move more quickly. Obviously there is a potential problem of it wanting to roll back down, but you can add chocks as you go, and use a shorter and steeper slope.

Not easy, but hey ho, doesn't really look like the thing was designed with "ease" in mind.

Edit - we've not commented on whether they had or used any kind of pulley systems.

Re: One of the greatest mysteries

But wouldn't that have needed the wheel to have been invented?
Pulley = wheel..

Re: One of the greatest mysteries

We've briefly covered this point Barry. Using rolling logs is pretty much the same concept as wheels, but not identical. They may have used what we refer to as wheel in many ways, but not got round to attaching them to carts which is pretty much our own instict of what a "wheel" is. We know that the rollers on pulley systems are wheels, but that might not be the way that they thought about things. Come to think of it, they might have used pulley without a rotating wheel anyway, but hade a rope over a greased spindle for similar effect. Not as efficient, obviously, but they did have cheap labour to to the pulling (no pun intended).