Page 277 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

so far encountered (except those at the very base) and estimated to
weigh between 10 and 15 tons apiece. This contradicted engineering
3
logic and commonsense, both of which called for a progressive decrease
in the size and weight of the blocks that had to be transported to the
summit as the pyramid rose ever higher. Courses 1-18, which diminished
from a height of about 55.5 inches at ground level to just over 23 inches
at course 17, did obey this rule. Then suddenly, at course 19, the block
height rose again to almost 36 inches. At the same time the other
dimensions of the blocks also increased and their weight grew from the
relatively manoeuvrable range of 2-6 tons that was common in the first
18 courses to the more ponderous and cumbersome range of 10-15
tons. These, therefore, were really big monoliths that had been carved
4
out of solid limestone and raised more than 100 feet into the air before
being placed faultlessly in position.
To have worked effectively the pyramid builders must have had nerves
of steel, the agility of mountain goats, the strength of lions and the
confidence of trained steeplejacks. With the cold morning wind whipping
around my ears and threatening to launch me into flight, I tried to
imagine what it must have been like for them, poised dangerously at this
(and much higher) altitudes, lifting, manoeuvring and positioning exactly
an endless production line of chunky limestone monoliths—the smallest
of which weighed as much as two modern family cars.
How long had the pyramid taken to complete? How many men had
worked on it? The consensus among Egyptologists was two decades and
100,000 men. It was also generally agreed that the construction project
5
had not been a year-round affair but had been confined (through labour
force availability) to the annual three-month agricultural lay-off season
imposed by the flooding of the Nile.
6
As I continued to climb, I reminded myself of the implications of all
this. It wasn’t just the tens of thousands of blocks weighing 15 tons or
more that the builders would have had to worry about. Year in, year out,
the real crises would have been caused by the millions of ‘average-sized’
blocks, weighing say 2.5 tons, that also had to be brought to the working
plane. The Pyramid has been reliably estimated to consist of a total of 2.3
million blocks. Assuming that the masons worked ten hours a day, 365
7
days a year, the mathematics indicate that they would have needed to
place 31 blocks in position every hour (about one block every two
minutes) to complete the Pyramid in twenty years. Assuming that
construction work had been confined to the annual three-month lay-off,

3 Dr. Joseph Davidovits and Margie Morris, The Pyramids: An Enigma Solved, Dorset
Press, New York, 1988, pp. 39-40.
4 Ibid., p. 37.
5 John Baines and Jaromir Malek, Atlas of Ancient Egypt, Time-Life Books, Virginia, 1990,
p. 160; The Pyramids of Egypt, pp. 229-30.
6 The Pyramids of Egypt, p. 229.
7 Ibid., p. 85.

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