Hydraulics!

September 21st, 2024| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Deserts and water do not usually go together, but geologists and hydrologists from a consortium of universities in France think they do. At least in this instance, they claim, in “On the Possible Use of Hydraulic Force to Assist with Building the Step Pyramid of Saqqara,” published recently in Public Library of Science ONE.

Yup, water power could have helped Egyptians build the pyramids.

They discovered a complex system of dams and channels near the Step Pyramid (or the Pyramid of Djoser built for King Djoser by the world’s first named architect, Imohtep), about 20 miles south of Cairo. Supposedly the first pyramid built, it is dated to 2600s BCE.

This edifice sits near a long-lost branch of the River Nile and the dam was built on a flood plain. And these dams and surrounding channels are believed to have funneled pressurized water into a shaft in the building site, creating a hydraulic lift that could raise the huge stones to the upper heights of the monolith. While the Egyptians are known to have invented hydraulics, having built water mills and intricate irrigation systems for their crops, it was generally thought they used a series of ramps, levers and pulleys to construct the pyramids.

Said the authors:

We identified that the Step Pyramid’s internal architecture is consistent with a hydraulic elevation mechanism never reported before. The ancient architects may have raised the stones from the pyramid centre in a volcano fashion [channeled water in a shaft creating enough force to have stones on wood platforms lifted to higher levels] …. Ancient Egyptians are famous for their pioneering and mastery of hydraulics through canals for irrigation purposes and barges to transport huge stones. This work opens a new line of research: the use of hydraulic force to erect the massive structures built by Pharaohs.”

The Step Pyramid would form the model for all future pyramids, even the Great Pyramid at Giza, twice the height of the former (which was about 200 feet tall).

The paper declared:

In less than 150 years, the average weight of the typical large stones was multiplied by 8 and went from 300 kg for Djoser’s pyramid to more than 2.5 tons for other pyramids’ structural blocks. On this short timeframe on the scale of human history, Egyptians carried and raised some 25 million tons of stones to build seven monumental pyramids.”

To that I say:

Wowzer!”

The scientists calculated:

Assuming an annual work schedule of 300 days at a rate of 10 hours/day, meaning 450,000 hours spread over less than 150 years, this requires a technical and logistical organization capable, on average, of cutting, moving, and adjusting about 50 tons of stone blocks per hour.”

That’s something. And what happened to that guy, Imhotep?

Djoser’s complex visible achievements are such that its architect, Vizier, and Great Priest of Ra, Imhotep, was deified by the New Kingdom.”

To have come up with these ideas, he must have been, they thought, worthy of being a god.

That’s not far from the truth about the real God.

He gathers as a heap the waters of the sea;
He puts in storehouses the deeps.
Let all the earth [be in] fear of Yahweh;
let all the inhabitants of the world be in awe of Him.
For He spoke, and it was;
He commanded, and it stood.
Psalm 33:7–9

All that to say, this one is God and he is worthy of trust:

Behold, the eye of Yahweh [is] on those who fear Him,
on those who wait on His lovingkindness.
Psalm 33:18

SOURCE: PLOS ONE; Yahoo! News