Chimdiebube C. Ejimbe
ARCH 1121
Prof B. S. Mishara
Building the great Pyramid
Recently, I watched a BBC documentary on YouTube. It was mainly a brief insight on the construction of the great pyramid of Giza. Sources said the documentary was narrated by one of the builders by name Nacht. I found the video quite fascinating and I’ll share with you a brief summary or narration of the video. You can also find the videos on you tube by searching; “building the great pyramid”on YouTube.
The great pyramid of Giza was constructed at around 2560BCE. Before the pyramid was constructed, royal officials were dispatched across Egypt to select able young men for the construction of the great pyramid. About 5million tonnes of limestone would be needed to complete the structure, most of which would be quarried on site at Giza. Egyptologists (Egyptology specialists) believed that the pyramid was built over a 20yrs period. Since it consists of an estimate of 2.3million blocks, completing the construction in 20 yrs would involve moving an average of 12 blocks into place each hour day and night. It took about 1,500 men to quarry the stones, each man had with him a copper chisel, there was another crew whose job was to sharpen the chisels. There was another crew that provided the sharpeners with water and firewood. Another crew of transporters were responsible for moving every quarried stone from the site to the pyramid itself, each stone marked with a unique symbol to differentiate them. An average block weighing about 2.5tonnes, so they were transported using wooden sledges, it took about 16 men to transport each block with an additional 2 men whose job was to pour water on the path of the sledge for easy mobility. The quarry was about half a mile to the south of the actual Pyramid. The pyramid could only be accessed by two huge ramps, one running from the quarry to the pyramid and the other running from the pyramid to the Nile. Both ramps met at the south-west corner of the pyramid. The ramps were made of pure desert earth and compacted rubles held together by mortar. The interior of the pyramid consisted of three burial chambers, one chamber was raised about 100 feet up in the masonry, and the second was directly beneath it dug into the rock of the desert floor. By 2474BCE, the third and most important chamber was under construction and an interior gallery by which it would be reached. The top of the pyramid in progress(the mastaba) was about the size of 10 football fields joined together. At the center was the internal gallery, and a steep passage way. Inside the pyramid itself were the most important and the most skilled group, the masons. Their job was to finish the blocks that have been transported from the quarry before they were set on the pyramid’s outer wall. They made use of ”set-squares” to check and lay out the right angles and used simple plumb bulbs and a wooden A-frame to make sure the blocks are laid level.
A mystery on how the masons were able to finish at the allocated time was later solved. A gash at the south-side of the pyramid about 30 feet high which was caused by a 19th century explorer who tried to blast his way into the pyramid with dynamite. The gash revealed some of the stones beneath the outer walls. Behind the walls, the stones were jam packed, some not even the same size and where not laid or carved with precision. This might explain how the masons managed to keep up to the pace. But working on the third chamber required accuracy and caution. 9 blocks of large graphite, each weighing at about 50 tonnes were transported by river using boats from Aswan, more than 500 miles away. About 200 men were required to move just a single block up the ramps to the third burial chamber. The blocks were used for the root of the final burial chamber, the king’s. When the chamber was completed and it was time for the roof of the chamber, they encountered structural problems. The initial roof cracked as a result of forces like compression, tension and even gravity. The architect then repeated the the roofing process four times atop the first one and then a triangular wedge was added on top to redistribute the weight outwards rather than downwards. The final stages of the pyramid could not be reached by the first ramps so a spiral ramp was constructed supported on the steep sides of the pyramid and went up until the top was reached. After the cap stone was placed, the spiral ramps were stripped away and the stepped out stones were cut so that they all continued down at one perfect angle. Each block was then polished to glitter. Next to the pyramid, three smaller pyramids were also constructed for the king’s queens. Towards the east of the pyramid, a great stone way was also built stretching down to a temple at the edge of the Nile. The accuracy of the pyramid’s craftsmanship is such that the four sides of the base have an average error of only 58millimetres in length.
The video was very educational in the sense that I got a little more detail about the pyramid than I would ever have had if i were to read about it. It was very enjoyable. After this study of the great Egyptian pyramid, I would totally prefer visiting a museum or even the pyramid itself rather than reading about it off a book or through the internet. The civilization involved in the construction of the pyramid concurs with my concept of architecture. The pyramid was constructed with the sole purpose of serving as a burial chamber for the king. It pushed so many boundaries to human capabilities thus proving to us that architecture is boundless, there is no limits to what we can explore.
The Stonehenge
Set in an annular formation in Southern England are 160 massive creations of what we refer to as the Stonehenge today. In the videos “Who Built the Stonehenge” and “Stonehenge”, it explores the idea of who made the Stonehenge, why they were created and, how they created such majestic structures.
In the video “Who Built the Stonehenge”, examined are theories of who built the Stonehenge. First it was assumed that it was built by magic and later on the Druids. Later, when radio carbon dating was established it shows that the structures predated the Druids about 4000 years. Today, it is still unclear of who built the Stonehenge.
The question why were the Stonehenge created was analyzed. The belief is that because they seem to track the movement of the sun and the moon, they were created as a form of religious ritual. They seem to track the sun simply for time. The moon on the other hand, seemed to be where they went in their afterlife or where life came from. The Stonehenge will remain a mystery because it is still unclear as to why they were built.
How these massive structures were created is still baffling many people. Today, it is believed that they were created by the Stone Age humans. This is fascinating as these extremely heavy structures, each weighing up to forty tons, took extensive planning and execution to carry out the building which was estimated to take up to thirty million man hours. A lot of the stones used were carried from Wales, so the Stonehenge must have been of great importance to the creators.
Conclusively, the Stonehenge are still a mystery today as to who created them and why. Theories as to who, the Stone Age man, was said to have created them. Theorized as to why, a form of religious ritual to look to the moon to track the movements or acknowledge that life comes from the moon or that it is the place for the afterlife. How the Stonehenge was created is still hard to understand, with large stones being brought in from Wales and the extensive man power that was used to create them.