How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built? - Part 1
The Traditional Theory with Donald Redford
This is the first in a series of articles I’ll be posting concerning the age old question: How were the Egyptian pyramids built?
To start off lets look at a story thats been floating around the news last week or so. Donald B. Redford, Ph.D. is professor in the department of classics and Mediterranean studies at Pennsylvania State University. He takes a traditional view of how the pyramids were built and suggests that the building of the Great Pyramid was not as big a deal as many people think.
Redford doesn’t believe that the pyramids were built by slaves but suggests its not a black and white issue with peasants being paid with such things as tax breaks, food, shelter and clothing. His opinion is that teams of oxen and men dragged the stones up large mud brick ramps coated with chips of plaster to harden the surface and lubricated with oil.
“According to Redford, “The Egyptians began using the pyramid form shortly after 2700 B.C., and the great heyday of constructing them for royalty extended for about a thousand years, until about 1700 B.C.” The first pyramid was built by King Djoser during Egypt’s Third Dynasty. His architect, Imohtep, created a step pyramid by stacking six mastabas, rectangular buildings of the sort in which earlier kings had been buried. The largest and most well-known pyramids in Egypt are the Pyramids at Giza, including the Great Pyramid of Giza designed for Pharaoh Khufu.
For centuries, people have theorized how the great pyramids were built. Some have suggested that they must have been constructed by extraterrestrials, while others believe the Egyptians possessed a technology that has been lost through the ages.
But the process of building pyramids, while complicated, was not as colossal an undertaking as many of us believe, Redford says. Estimates suggest that between 20,000 and 30,000 laborers were needed to build the Great Pyramid at Giza in less than 23 years. (By comparison, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris took almost two hundred years to complete.)
According to Redford, pharaohs traditionally began building their pyramids as soon as they took the throne. The pharaoh would first establish a committee composed of an overseer of construction, a chief engineer, and an architect. The pyramids were usually placed on the western side of the Nile because the pharaoh’s soul was meant to join with the sun disc during its descent before continuing with the sun in its eternal round. Adds Redford, the two deciding factors when choosing a building site were its orientation to the western horizon where the sun set and the proximity to Memphis, the central city of ancient Egypt.
The cores of the pyramids were often composed of local limestone, says Redford. Finer quality limestone composed the outer layer of the pyramids, giving them a white sheen that could be seen from miles away. The capstone was usually made of granite, basalt, or another very hard stone and could be plated with gold, silver, or electrum (an alloy of gold and silver) and would also be highly reflective in the bright sun.”
Read the article in full: Probing Question: How were the Egyptian pyramids built?
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt
- Donald B. Redford.
Donald B. Redford, Ph.D., is professor in the department of classics and Mediterranean studies at Pennsylvania State University, and can be reached at dbr3@psu.edu.
Next: How Were the Egyptian Pyramids Built? - Part 2: BBC Docudrama: Building the Great Pyramid.
These posts on how the pyramids were built are clear and informative–just what I was looking for. Thanks. I will read them all and learn a lot.