Thursday, November 18, 2010

The One Job You need Grease and Levers


Think if you and your friends had to put all of these stones in place.
           Who put the stones in their place? The people who put the stones in place were called masons. The masons measured the stones to see if they were the right size. They had to use levers to get the stones in place. That would be hard with just using levers. Then after every stone was in place, they still had a lot of work to do. Who wants to work after all the stones are in place?  They still had to polish each stone until it shined in the sunlight. Talk about elbow grease. I hope you learned a lot about building the Egyptian Pyramids and that they did not build themselves. 

The Stones Did Not Just Drop Out Of The Sky


This is when the stone blocks have been chipped around.

             I bet you wonder where they get all this stone. No, it did not just fall out of the sky. They get all the stone from quarries all around Egypt.  They would just chip, chip, chip all day long. That would be the sound you would hear all day. I would go insane if I heard that sound all day. They would just chip stone out of the quarry. Then they would use long wooden levers to free the stone. The stone would fall to the ground and make a loud noise. Everyone would look from where it came from then get back to work. After that it would be dragged out by sled. Since some quarries were so far away, they would have to wait for flood season to load the stone on to barges and get it up to the construction site. If you did not wait for flood season, say goodbye to the stone since your boat would sink and you might drown. Oh no!



I Bet They Wish They Had Elevators

This is a picture of the ramp growing.
I bet you are all wondering how they got the stones to the top of the pyramid. No, Tyler they did not have elevators or escalators. They actually had a huge narrow ramp. A group of 20 people dragged a huge stone up the ramp on a huge wooden sled. They had just ropes connected to the stone and sled.  If that rope snapped nearly at the top, the stone would go right back down. You would see the first hurdle event where nobody got over a single hurdle. Since the ramp was so narrow there was only a small space to avoid it.  Or you would have to jump off and if you were high up you might die. The people on the ground would hear sickling snaps. Nobody would want to see your dead body.


Wednesday, November 17, 2010

A Stack of Blocks They Called A Pyramid

          A design for a pyramid was a step pyramid. They just looked like stairs. Talk about an eye sore. A step pyramid had a huge base then each level got a little bit smaller and smaller. To me it looked like a stack of blocks stacked on top of each other getting smaller and smaller. Well each layer was made out of stone blocks. So technically their pyramids were made out of blocks.

The Little Tools That Could

How did the pyramids come to be there without the wheel or really any technology? I bet you think that Aliens built the pyramids of Ancient Egypt. Wrong! They did it with tools and backbreaking work. That must have been hard work. To them picking up leaves must have been phish posh. They had tools that were made out of stone, wood and copper. Their tools were just basic saws, chisels and mallets. The saw they used had to be toward you. Talk about safety issues. Since metal was so valuable back then, they had people whose jobs were to pass out and collect the tools at the end of the day. These people were called foreman.