How was the Great Pyramid constructed?

Answer 1

The question is still hotly debated.
Large quarries are located with similar stone some miles away.
Thousands of workers could have constructed ramps and rolled the blocks on logs.
A researcher has used a cement with the same sand, and pured the blocks...
Some say that aliens helped levitate the blocks.
Some say that the Egyptians knew how to float objects...
More research will probably discover the actual method...
There are dozens of passages under and around the pyramids that are uncharted, and others under the sphynx, and huge caverns buried in the area. These may show the methods when excavated.

Answer 2

Check out Dr. Zahi Hawass' page on how they were built:
http://www.guardians.net/hawass/pbuildrs.htm
Dr. Hawass is head of the Egyptian government's Department of Antiquities.

Answer 3

pretty amazingly. they didn't even have duct tape!

I would suspect that a lot of technologies were used, but I'd bet they stuck a pole in the center and built around it to get the dimensions right.

Answer 4

One stone at a time

Answer 5

Aliens build them, that and thousands of slaves.

Answer 6

it was on tv, teleported by aliens from their home planet. geeze, watch decent television.

Answer 7

it was on tv, one block at a time. geeze, watch decent television.

Answer 8

This answer deals with the larger stone pyramids of the Old Kingdom in Egypt. Royal pyramids were also constructed during the Middle Kingdom and early New Kingdom, but were of a different design, utilizing less solid stone block construction. Pyramids were also constructed of mud-brick for royal family members and non-royal elites in Egypt. Smaller, more steeply sided pyramids were constructed by the Napatan and Merotic king of Nubia (modern Sudan).

While all of the precise methods regarding how the pyramids were built are not known, there are some general areas of consensus among professional scholars. (Think about it - if you saw a modern skyscraper, fully built, but had no idea about modern building techniques and had no written materials directly relating to the building of the skyscraper, would you know exactly how it was built?)

Tools included square levels and plumb bobs, set squares, and vertical plumb bobs (which can be seen in the Cairo Museum), as well as copper blades for stone cutting, pounding stones for dressing stone blocks, and a ridged, mushroom shaped device that may have served as a sort of "proto-pulley."

There is a general consensus among professional Egyptologists about construction techniques, most involving the use of ramps, the consensus breaks down a little on the details of construction, but there are several very good theories about the practicalities of moving blocks into place, etc. The most common theory involves the construction of ramps either directly outward or in a sort of spiral that rose as the pyramid rose. Blocks were dragged into place on sledges or on rolling logs. There is also evidence to suggest that those blocks that were not quarried on-site were moved to the building site during the annual innundation (flood) when they could be floated in close to the building site, and then moved by brute force into place.

It should also be kept in mind that each royal pyramid was constructed individually and while there was a standard layout and design of the overall complex, specific techniques probably varied slightly from pyramid to pyramid, depending upon the building site, size of the pyramid, and materials used.

Experimental studies by Dr. Mark Lehner have demonstrated that large blocks can be moved with a sufficient amount of man power - do a Google search for his name for more information on this. I believe it was also a subject of a NOVA special called "This Old Pyramid."
Unfortunately, until recently the evidence for the ramps has been circumstantial as such things would obviously be removed post-construction.
A French Egyptologist has recently found good evidence for remnants of ramps. I'm not certain how widely disseminated the information has been in the public sector - the reference I'm familiar with is in French in a scholarly journal.

Pyramid construction relied on highly skilled teams of workmen who were housed nearby the pyramid fields - in the Old Kingdom located in the general vicinity of the ancient capital Memphis at sites now knows as Giza, Saqqara, Meidum, and Dashur. A few pyramids in the Middle Kingdom were located near the Fayum, roughly Middle Egypt.
In addition to the full-time workmen, there was likely a seasonal labor requirement asked of the lower classes of Egyptian society - a sort of taxation, often referred to by the French term "corvee" labor. This is distinct from slavery. While the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (writing over a thousand years after the construction of the pyramids at Giza) reported that he was told the pyramids at Giza were constructed by slaves, Herodotus was wrong about any number of things in his reports and may not even have visited Egypt in person, so he is usually not taken as a realiable source.

The Egyptians were perfectly capable of using the basic mathematics necessary for the construction and layout of most pyramids. Despite the superb accuracy of the layout and plan, this was not impossible for them to achieve, nor did it require calculus. While no mathematical texts from the Old Kingdom survive, texts from the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period demonstrate a clear familiarity on the part of the Egyptians with basic arithmetic, geometry, and trigonometry.

Most pyramids were constructed of limestone, either blocks, or in later pyramids, with an interior core made up of rubble, often from quarrying of blocks, with a casing of actual blocks. Frequently the limestone used for the exterior of the pyramid was of finer quality, usually coming from the quarry at Tura, known for it's fine white limestone. As this building material was valuable, blocks were often removed and used for other projects during the pharaonic period and in later historic periods. Occasionally, royal pyramids feature the use of other stone in the exterior, for either the capstone (as discussed above) or in the lower courses of the pyramid. Granite seems to have been popular. Other stone was often used to build or to line the walls of interior chambers - again, granite seems to have been a popular choice.

There was an immense amount of ritual involved in both the construction of pyramids and in their later use as tombs. It's important to remember that what we'd call "religion" wasn't a totally separate concept from politics or everyday life in many cultures, including ancient Egypt. So, even the basic survey and laying out of the plan for beginning a pyramid involved ritual as well as more "practical" aspects. An example is the "stretching of the cord" at the beginning of the construction phase.
The actual mechanics/ritual involved with placing the body of the dead king is not entirely known to us, but a number of Egyptologists have speculated on likely aspects of the ritual based on better known examples from later in Egyptian history and their own deep knowledge of ancient Egyptian culture. It seems likely that the king's body was brought to the tomb by water. Pyramid complexes include a number of associated buildings, including the "Valley Temple" - a temple placed some distance from the pyramid itself on the edge of where the cultivated land met the desert. A harbor from the Nile usually connected such temples to the river. From the Valley Temple, the body of the king passed along the causeway connecting the Valley Temple to the Pyramid Temple/Mortuary Temple (terminology varies from scholar to scholar in some instances, I believe the Valley Temple is also sometimes called the Funerary or Mortuary Temple). The Pyramid Temple was placed on the east side of the pyramid. Eventually the king was placed into the pyramid itself - there is a suggestion that the multiple chambers that occur in some pyramids, such as the Great Pyramid, were used in a ritualistic way. The body of the king may have been taken to each of the chambers before being finally sealed into the final burial chamber - the position of the chambers in many pyramids suggests a link the the passage of the sun god through the underworld at night and his rebirth in the sky at morning.

Even after the king's death, ritual took place at his pyramid. The pyramid complex was endowed with income from a number of estates and had a staff of priests to conduct daily rituals on behalf of the deceased king to ensure his survivial in the afterlife. Such cults often survived for centuries after the death of a king, and were not always limited to kings, but also included other high-ranking members of the royal family with their own pyramids.

If you'd like more detailed information, I strongly suggest you look at "The Complete Pyramids" by Mark Lehner, one of the foremost experts on Egyptian pyramids and director of the Giza Mapping Project and other archaeogical/research projects related to the Giza pyramids in particular. "The Complete Pyramids" is relatively inexpensive, widely available, either from Amazon or from most larger bookstores, and is lavishly illustrated and easy to read and understand. While it was intended for a popular audience, it is also a widely used reference for many Egyptologists and Egyptology students.