For centuries archaeologies believed that the ancient Egyptians built the huge pyramids by hauling heavy granite blocks up specially crafted ramps.
Under this theory, to lay 2 million blocks, the Egyptians would had to have laid a large block once every three minutes and it would have taken 100,000 people.
Newport engineer Peter James has branded this ‘impossible’ claiming the ramps would need to have been a quarter of a mile long or else they would have been too steep to carry the large blocks up.
He believes, instead, that the Egyptians built an inner core of zigzagging ramps, using smaller, lighter blocks while the larger outer casing stones were placed on the outside using scaffolding.
They would have set out the four corners a pyramid, like the four corners of a house. They then would have built four access points in the centre of the pyramid. Next they would have established where the burial chamber would need to be built, and that would have been built using granite.
Starting from the walls of the burial chamber, the Egyptians could then build ramps using the lighter, smaller rocks in zigzags (pictured above left) around the structure, placing these rocks on top of each other as they went in order to build the pyramid up in layers. The heavy blocks could then be either pulled up these ramps on sledges, or placed on the outside using scaffolding made from timber and lashings.
This theory builds on the work of French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin who, in 2007, similarly claimed that the pyramids were built from the inside out. He suggested the ramps would have been built in the centre of the pyramid, or in a spiral 30 to 50ft beneath the outer skin (pictured centre and right). The scaffolding used by the Egyptians would have been made from timber and lashings and James knows this would have been successful because he used these materials when repairing the pyramids. VIA- dailymail.co.uk
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