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How Egypt's Pyramids Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
0:13
Speaker 1: Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's doing funny voices
0:16
Speaker 1: all of a sudden. Yes, She's like, we're eight years
0:20
Speaker 1: into this gig. I'm gonna start doing impressions. I know.
0:25
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's an impression, it's more just
0:27
Speaker 1: a silly, silly, dumb voice. Maybe she's taking on a
0:30
Speaker 1: stand up class or improv class. Are you taking an
0:33
Speaker 1: improv class? Jerry? Yes, she keeps going and she says
0:39
Speaker 1: it's not a comedy improv class, so it's a business
0:41
Speaker 1: improv class, just to make her sharper in meanings, you know,
0:45
Speaker 1: and they have gotten much more enjoyable and shorter. Yeah.
0:49
Speaker 1: Her power point presentations are like one third jokes now. Yeah,
0:53
Speaker 1: but our equipment rental has gone up purchases because she
0:57
Speaker 1: drops the mic a little too hard. Yeah, just keep
0:59
Speaker 1: her place in those mics. Yeah. So, Chuck, everybody knows
1:04
Speaker 1: about the pyramids, great Pyramids at Giza. Turns out there's
1:08
Speaker 1: pyramids all over the world, and there's a a distinct
1:14
Speaker 1: thread on the Internet that suggests that all these pyramids
1:18
Speaker 1: are connected in Mesoamerica, China, Egypt, Memphis, Greece, Memphis in Egypt,
1:26
Speaker 1: not Memphis, Tennessee. Is there, Well, it's one of these
1:31
Speaker 1: new pyramids, a neo pyramid. It's a basketball Colisseum, okay,
1:36
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, the pyramid. Sure? What is that a
1:39
Speaker 1: mud island or something? Is that a different island in Memphis. Well?
1:44
Speaker 1: The the idea is that all of these cultures, ancient cultures,
1:48
Speaker 1: were visited by the same aliens that said, built some pyramids,
1:53
Speaker 1: here's how to do it, we'll help you out. And um,
1:56
Speaker 1: that's just almost certainly not sure. Yeah, I feel safe
2:01
Speaker 1: in saying, as much as I like to believe in
2:03
Speaker 1: cookie things, I don't believe that the aliens built the pyramids.
2:07
Speaker 1: I don't believe that either. And one there's a couple
2:09
Speaker 1: of good arguments against it. For for one, it really
2:13
Speaker 1: diminishes the incredible skill of the ancient engineers who came
2:19
Speaker 1: up with us and the workers who constructed them. It's
2:22
Speaker 1: like the architecture the Yeah, surely they would need some
2:26
Speaker 1: advanced alien civilization to come down and tell these dumb
2:28
Speaker 1: dumbs what to do. And then another point that I
2:32
Speaker 1: ran across That kind of explains against that is that
2:35
Speaker 1: if you I think it was unlike rational wiki or
2:39
Speaker 1: something like that, they basically said, go out in your
2:41
Speaker 1: garden and try to build a waste high mound of dirt.
2:44
Speaker 1: He said, you're going to just naturally after even one
2:47
Speaker 1: or two attempts, start forming a pyramid of mound shape,
2:51
Speaker 1: and their whole jam. The whole idea is that pyramids
2:56
Speaker 1: evolved independently just from trying to build a massive earthen structure. Yeah,
3:03
Speaker 1: and there you go. That's where pyramids evolved separately around
3:06
Speaker 1: the world. I was laughing because as soon as you
3:08
Speaker 1: said that, for some reason, I pictured you in your backyard,
3:11
Speaker 1: like covered in dirt, just screaming like you it's not
3:14
Speaker 1: going well, call somebody check the wrong besought the list
3:18
Speaker 1: doesn't hold up, and you mean he's like on her
3:20
Speaker 1: phone like what you Okay, you're cute, keep it up.
3:25
Speaker 1: Uh So a pyramid um who wrote this one? Is
3:30
Speaker 1: this some Craig Freud and Rich PhD? Yeah, he's written
3:34
Speaker 1: some good ones for us. I've learned to not second
3:36
Speaker 1: guess his articles. You know, Yeah, No, he's he's good.
3:40
Speaker 1: And you throw a PhD at the end of your name, right,
3:42
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to second guess that. After that, how
3:45
Speaker 1: might just start doing that? Nobody checks, you know, call
3:49
Speaker 1: me doctor Chuck Charles Bryant, PhD. Yeah, um, alright. A
3:54
Speaker 1: pyramid is a geometrical solid with a square basse, not
3:58
Speaker 1: necessarily and for equal our old triangular sides, the most
4:01
Speaker 1: structurally stable shape for projects involving large amounts of stone
4:05
Speaker 1: or masonry. Exactly, it's a very very stable shape. Yeah.
4:08
Speaker 1: And one thing I read that said why did the
4:10
Speaker 1: Egyptians build pyramids? The very easy answer is is because
4:15
Speaker 1: that's what they knew how to build. Yeah, Well, they
4:18
Speaker 1: were good at it, and if they would have been
4:19
Speaker 1: better at building something else, they probably would have built
4:21
Speaker 1: something else. Well. Yeah, I think Also it took until
4:25
Speaker 1: um the well about the twentieth century before we started
4:31
Speaker 1: using materials and developed materials that you you could build
4:35
Speaker 1: a very tall structure out of that didn't require you
4:39
Speaker 1: build a pyramid, because you have to have a pyramid
4:42
Speaker 1: to build something very high. When you're using something like
4:45
Speaker 1: stone blocks or something like that, you keep setting stuff
4:48
Speaker 1: on top of each other and it's going to become
4:50
Speaker 1: structurally unsound once it's all leaning in on each other,
4:55
Speaker 1: and the prevailing um sentiment among archaeologists and anthrop copologists
5:00
Speaker 1: to study this kind of stuff is that pyramids are
5:04
Speaker 1: ultimately the natural um conclusion evolution from just earthen mounds
5:15
Speaker 1: that they think originally were the first stabs at what
5:19
Speaker 1: ultimately became pyramids, peaking basically at the Pyramid of Cufu. Yeah,
5:25
Speaker 1: and they I think there's also probably symbolic, uh, some
5:28
Speaker 1: symbolism going on with pyramids coming to a point towards
5:31
Speaker 1: the sky. Uh. In the case of Uh, let's say
5:36
Speaker 1: Central America with the minds and the Aztecs, there were
5:38
Speaker 1: more religious imples, so that it's okay for that, and
5:43
Speaker 1: if in case of Egypt, with being a tomb, it
5:46
Speaker 1: also makes sense that it would point toward the heavens well.
5:48
Speaker 1: With each specifically, they believe that the symbols, the symbolism
5:53
Speaker 1: behind the pyramid is that it symbolized this mound that
5:57
Speaker 1: the earth was created from in Egyptian cosmology. Yeah, that
6:01
Speaker 1: makes sense. Yeah. Um. So the other are a couple
6:04
Speaker 1: of other distinctions between Egyptian pyramids and let's say Central
6:07
Speaker 1: American is Central American pyramids were generally wider but smaller
6:12
Speaker 1: as I guess not as tall and um they built
6:16
Speaker 1: those over hundreds of years, whereas the Great Pyramids and
6:20
Speaker 1: Egypt were built over the course of you don't know
6:22
Speaker 1: for sure, but probably twenty or thirty years. So I
6:25
Speaker 1: think that that's true in some cases. But I ran
6:27
Speaker 1: across something that that suggested that at umtan Um they
6:34
Speaker 1: would build pairs of pyramids like every twenty years. Yeah,
6:38
Speaker 1: So I don't know if it's the case across the board,
6:39
Speaker 1: but I think that they weren't quite the massive public
6:44
Speaker 1: works that Egyptian Pyramids came to be. Yeah. Well, in
6:48
Speaker 1: Central America, they were also more located in Aztec in
6:51
Speaker 1: mind cities, whereas the Egyptian Pyramids originally we're located away
6:56
Speaker 1: from cities. And I remember, I think it was just
7:00
Speaker 1: last year that I saw that mind blowing picture of
7:04
Speaker 1: the other side of the Great Pyramids of Egypt. How
7:07
Speaker 1: the city runs right up to the front door basically,
7:10
Speaker 1: and if you ever look at an aerial of view,
7:11
Speaker 1: I've just never seen one until a year ago. I
7:13
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, I just thought it was literally in
7:15
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere and there's a huge city just
7:18
Speaker 1: right in front of them. Yeah, and well it makes
7:20
Speaker 1: sense though, if you think about it, especially if saying Mesoamerica,
7:23
Speaker 1: they were temples. Well, temples were for like public use,
7:26
Speaker 1: so you'd want it kind of convenient if you're pyramid
7:30
Speaker 1: was used as like a tomb. Humans traditionally bury their
7:34
Speaker 1: people slightly away from, you know, their city center, so
7:39
Speaker 1: it makes sense that it would be on the outskirts
7:40
Speaker 1: of Cairo rather than in it. Yeah, that makes sense.
7:44
Speaker 1: The first tombs in Egypt for the pharaohs were just flat,
7:48
Speaker 1: boxy buildings. They called them mustabas, which is Arabic for bench,
7:54
Speaker 1: and then they started building those on top of each
7:56
Speaker 1: other sort of in the uh, you know, they get
7:59
Speaker 1: a little smaller, but they still remained flat on top.
8:01
Speaker 1: They didn't come to a point like a pyramid. Yeah,
8:04
Speaker 1: those were step pyramids, and they were the first attempt
8:07
Speaker 1: at pyramids. And it's um, it's really strange because the
8:10
Speaker 1: whole thing was so these pyramids are so so old
8:14
Speaker 1: that you think of them just like being you know,
8:17
Speaker 1: spanning thousands of years in the way of construction and
8:21
Speaker 1: planning and all this stuff, and all the number of
8:23
Speaker 1: pharaohs that must have been involved when actually um, Egypt's
8:28
Speaker 1: Egypt's pyramids were built within a seven year period and
8:32
Speaker 1: basically just for like five pharaohs or so. Yeah, it's
8:36
Speaker 1: not too bad. Yeah, it was like there's a burst
8:40
Speaker 1: and then nothing, and then another little bit and then
8:42
Speaker 1: nothing after that because it's hard labor. It was hard. Yeah,
8:46
Speaker 1: it was hard getting labor there. It was hard. Um,
8:49
Speaker 1: it was very expensive. It's hard getting those rocks there.
8:53
Speaker 1: And they also think, remember I said that um Cufu's
8:57
Speaker 1: pyramid the most famous pyramid in the world, the one
8:59
Speaker 1: as of the tallest one, Um that that was the
9:03
Speaker 1: pinnacle of pyramid building. And they think that after that,
9:06
Speaker 1: as pyramids started to get smaller and something like that,
9:09
Speaker 1: totally unintentioned, they think that as pyramids started to get smaller,
9:13
Speaker 1: it actually represents a shift in Egyptian thought where worship
9:18
Speaker 1: went from worshiping the pharaoh to worshiping raw and other
9:22
Speaker 1: gods Um, so that the deification of the pharaoh diminished
9:28
Speaker 1: in size, and you can see that reflected in the
9:31
Speaker 1: smaller size of the literally. Yeah, interesting, that makes sense.
9:35
Speaker 1: I never heard of that. Love it. I love it too.
9:38
Speaker 1: So the Great Pyramid of Cufu, which you just mentioned,
9:41
Speaker 1: is the biggest at a hundred and forty six ms
9:44
Speaker 1: high with a two d and thirty meter square base
9:48
Speaker 1: and oh, just about six and a half tons of
9:52
Speaker 1: rock six and a half million tons. What did I say,
9:55
Speaker 1: just six and a half Yeah, that would be that'd
9:57
Speaker 1: just be a couple of the rocks. Yeah. I think
9:59
Speaker 1: the average side rocks were two point five tons each.
10:03
Speaker 1: The model was six point five tons, right, Um, And
10:06
Speaker 1: these things have stood at the test of time, to
10:09
Speaker 1: say the least. They have worn away some obviously, but
10:13
Speaker 1: look at them. They still look great. Yeah. And they
10:16
Speaker 1: were built like four to five thousand years ago. Yeah.
10:20
Speaker 1: What's really interesting that I didn't realize before was that
10:23
Speaker 1: when you saw these things, like in the first year
10:26
Speaker 1: that they were completed, or right when they were completed, um,
10:30
Speaker 1: they were blinding white. Oh really yeah, So you can
10:34
Speaker 1: see like this, the step, the steppy outline. They used
10:37
Speaker 1: to be covered so that the sides and the pinnacle
10:40
Speaker 1: were smooth, totally smooth, covered in polished limestone. So it
10:44
Speaker 1: was like a gleaming white standing out against like the
10:47
Speaker 1: bright blue sky, which there were photographs of that. Yeah,
10:50
Speaker 1: it would have been pretty neat. But over time that
10:53
Speaker 1: limestone is eroded away or being removed or whatever. Um,
10:57
Speaker 1: And so now you can kind of see the substructure.
10:59
Speaker 1: But what we see is like the external sides of
11:02
Speaker 1: the pyramid were actually meant to be covered with polished limestone. Wow. Yeah,
11:06
Speaker 1: but that was something else. And again we're talking about
11:09
Speaker 1: like how spectacular feet this this was engineering wise. Things
11:13
Speaker 1: were built, you know, forty years ago. Let's say, Um,
11:18
Speaker 1: the Cufu Pyramid, Cufoo's pyramid. He was a pharaoh. Um
11:22
Speaker 1: his pyramid was the tallest building in the world until
11:27
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. That's crazy. Yeah, I mean that just
11:31
Speaker 1: shows you that it was hard to build things tall. Yeah.
11:34
Speaker 1: It's not like people didn't want to know. They wanted to.
11:36
Speaker 1: I think man is always uh. Striven Strove stroded Strove
11:42
Speaker 1: did strid to build things super tall, you know, uh,
11:47
Speaker 1: to really reach up to the heavens and punch God
11:50
Speaker 1: in the eye. Yeah, that's right, that's the that's why
11:53
Speaker 1: they want to build it tall. That's right. Uh. The
11:56
Speaker 1: very first stepped pyramid, Uh, the Sakara was completed in
12:02
Speaker 1: and that was for the pharaoh. Jo's Er not Gozer.
12:07
Speaker 1: It seems pretty close to that. It's so close. I
12:10
Speaker 1: wanted to be Gozer. He would have been almost contemporaneous
12:13
Speaker 1: that gozer, I would guess. So this one had six
12:16
Speaker 1: levels and they tried, um, they attempted another one, another
12:21
Speaker 1: six level step pyramid, but that one didn't work out
12:23
Speaker 1: so well. So like you know, we're going to talk
12:25
Speaker 1: about a couple of that, you know, learning projects basically. Yeah,
12:29
Speaker 1: and you know you've heard a very famous um Egyptian
12:33
Speaker 1: mathematician m Hotep. Yeah, he's actually credited with coming up
12:37
Speaker 1: with the idea of taking those mastabas, those bench like
12:41
Speaker 1: squat buildings and stacking smaller and diminishing versions of themselves
12:46
Speaker 1: to create that first step pyramid, that first zigaratte that
12:50
Speaker 1: that was his idea, and um Bubba Hotep, No, not
12:55
Speaker 1: that that was a good movie, m Hotel, m Hotep,
12:59
Speaker 1: I had no idea. By the way, that Bruce Campbell
13:01
Speaker 1: was doing an Evil Dead TV show. Is it on? Yeah,
13:05
Speaker 1: it's coming like it's super soon. I have no idea
13:07
Speaker 1: how this escaped me. I had no idea either. Yeah,
13:10
Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited though it's just back. The only way
13:13
Speaker 1: it could be better is if it came on right
13:14
Speaker 1: after the Muppets up Pretty good Night. That'd be like
13:19
Speaker 1: the A Team Night Writer pairing. M hmm, was that well,
13:24
Speaker 1: I was back to back. I think they might have been.
13:27
Speaker 1: I was never in the night Rider, so I turned
13:28
Speaker 1: it off after it. I wasn't the Soups night Rider fan.
13:31
Speaker 1: But all right, let's go with Love Boat Fancy Island,
13:35
Speaker 1: maybe the best two hour pairing in TV history. I
13:37
Speaker 1: never really watched the Fantasy Island. I loved Love both.
13:40
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to watch Fantasy Island. Well, no, I
13:43
Speaker 1: had the word fantasy in the title. We don't want that.
13:48
Speaker 1: Um No, I think it was. It was dark and
13:50
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily for kids. But now when I look
13:52
Speaker 1: back at it was so silly, Like, I can't believe
13:54
Speaker 1: I wasn't allowed to watch this. Well, the whole premise
13:57
Speaker 1: of it is just fairly unbelievable. But at Mike Family
14:01
Speaker 1: they were probably like, no, it's it's all about sex.
14:04
Speaker 1: Everyone's fantasy will be about sex. And Ricardo montebon is
14:08
Speaker 1: clearly playing the devil. Yeah with this little, uh smaller minion.
14:15
Speaker 1: All right, uh? Where were we? Oh, we were talking
14:20
Speaker 1: about pyramids. It didn't work out so well. Another one
14:23
Speaker 1: was the I want to say medium, but it's the
14:27
Speaker 1: me edam pyramid or the medium. I've also seen it
14:31
Speaker 1: spelled emmy y do you m, which makes it easier.
14:33
Speaker 1: It's like made him made him made um that was
14:36
Speaker 1: constructed seventy and it had seven steps, uh, heading towards eight,
14:43
Speaker 1: but it collapsed. It collap And then there's the bent pyramid,
14:48
Speaker 1: which didn't collapse, but they they basically just miscalculated the
14:53
Speaker 1: angle and it started to They basically had to change
14:56
Speaker 1: the angle after like the first third of it was
14:58
Speaker 1: built or two thirds was built. Yeah, So first we
15:01
Speaker 1: have dozers Gozer's um step pyramid in Sakara. That's the
15:08
Speaker 1: first real inkling of that pyramids are coming. After that,
15:14
Speaker 1: we had the pharaoh um oh what his name, Snifferu
15:19
Speaker 1: Snifferu and Snifferi was the one who kept having really
15:23
Speaker 1: bad luck with pyramids, and it was because he was
15:27
Speaker 1: very ambitious, but he was also um dealing with architects
15:32
Speaker 1: and engineers who were still figuring this out as they
15:34
Speaker 1: were going along. So he had to put up with them.
15:38
Speaker 1: The one that collapsed the meat made him yep, and
15:42
Speaker 1: then he had to put up with the bent pyramid,
15:44
Speaker 1: which still looks good. Did you look it up? Yeah,
15:46
Speaker 1: it's it's great, but you can tell, like it's not
15:49
Speaker 1: the way it's supposed to look perfect like, and I
15:53
Speaker 1: can imagine like a lot of engineers probably lost their
15:56
Speaker 1: lives with these failed projects because sniff Uru or snaff
16:01
Speaker 1: Au he was fine with like capturing people and forcing
16:05
Speaker 1: them to work, and he did a lot of underhanded
16:09
Speaker 1: things to build himself a tomb, and the problem was
16:13
Speaker 1: this failed attempt one how many decades did that take?
16:17
Speaker 1: Failed attempt to how many decades did that take? Finally,
16:20
Speaker 1: and they're like really freaking out at this point, like
16:23
Speaker 1: if this guy dies and we don't have him a tomb,
16:25
Speaker 1: like like this is about as bad as it could
16:28
Speaker 1: get because I remember, we haven't converted to worshiping raw yet.
16:32
Speaker 1: This guy's are raw, so we're dis pleasing our god
16:34
Speaker 1: and we can see his expression just all I want
16:39
Speaker 1: is a straight pyramid like everybody else. So finally they
16:42
Speaker 1: hit on it. They build him the Red Pyramid, and
16:45
Speaker 1: it is the first genuinely successful pyramid, and he died happy.
16:50
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, And I assume wasn't tombed there, Yes,
16:55
Speaker 1: I think so, I don't know. I didn't run across
16:57
Speaker 1: that where he is. I Belu was otherwise that would
17:01
Speaker 1: have been I mean, what a waste of time. Well,
17:03
Speaker 1: that's the thing with these pyramids, we still um have
17:08
Speaker 1: very little understanding about some really important stuff. Yeah, and
17:14
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why is because they like in
17:17
Speaker 1: Cufou's pyramid, Couper has never been found in there. They
17:21
Speaker 1: think it's Coufu's pyramid, but his body's gone. And I
17:26
Speaker 1: would guess probably the same thing for sniff sniff Au man,
17:30
Speaker 1: he's got a tough name to say, Tom Rador's buddy. Yeah,
17:33
Speaker 1: possibly probably. All right, Well, I think that you seriously
17:37
Speaker 1: wet the listeners appetite with that tease. So let's take
17:41
Speaker 1: a little break and come back and really get into Cufu.
18:01
Speaker 1: Al Right, buddy, we might as well just go to
18:03
Speaker 1: the big daddy and break it down. Cufu, break it
18:06
Speaker 1: down for me, fellas k h u f U also
18:10
Speaker 1: known as Cheops. Oh yeah, yeah, that's what the Greeks
18:13
Speaker 1: called them. H So that's why the pyramids also called
18:17
Speaker 1: the Pyramid of Cheops. I've never heard that um part
18:22
Speaker 1: of the Giza pyramid complex. And like we mentioned, the
18:25
Speaker 1: big daddy of them all, uh, it was built for
18:29
Speaker 1: sniff AU's son Cufu and the other two little guys
18:32
Speaker 1: were built for Cafu son uh cofre and the grandson.
18:37
Speaker 1: Uh minkow ray. I'll bet it's manka manka ray. Yeah.
18:44
Speaker 1: I think usually those vowels are split to like a
18:47
Speaker 1: different part of the word man Making any sense you
18:53
Speaker 1: are to me, But I know what you're trying to say,
18:55
Speaker 1: I speak chuck, that's right. Uh So it is um
19:00
Speaker 1: the largest and most elaborate in the one, you know,
19:03
Speaker 1: where we've learned the most from basically in its construction.
19:07
Speaker 1: Still has a lot of secrets, man, a lot of secrets,
19:11
Speaker 1: including how they built it. Yeah, no idea. Well, let's
19:15
Speaker 1: talk about the insides first. Let's sorry the guts. Uh. First,
19:20
Speaker 1: you have your primary burial chamber. That's the King's chamber,
19:23
Speaker 1: and that's where the tomb is. That's where the sarcophagus is.
19:27
Speaker 1: Body in there. No, nope, What else is inside? Chuck?
19:30
Speaker 1: Um hieroglyphics that say tell stories of life at that time, right,
19:37
Speaker 1: you know, like little TV shows on the wall. Um.
19:41
Speaker 1: The queen's chamber a little smaller, but not for the queen.
19:45
Speaker 1: Is that right? That's right? They call that a misnomer. Yeah, Um,
19:50
Speaker 1: Apparently people who stumbled upon it or entered it years
19:54
Speaker 1: and years on after the Faronic dynasties had died out
19:59
Speaker 1: um misinterpreted it and that when they were building this
20:04
Speaker 1: they were worried that Cufu was going to die. So
20:07
Speaker 1: some of the first things they did were building burial chambers,
20:11
Speaker 1: and then as he lived in the pyramid kept going
20:14
Speaker 1: under construction, they built a newer, better burial chamber, and
20:18
Speaker 1: so there's ultimately three burial chambers, and he's in the
20:22
Speaker 1: king's chamber supposedly that's where a psychophagus is. That's right. Uh,
20:26
Speaker 1: you have weight relieving chambers. These are above the king's
20:29
Speaker 1: chambers and their structural um basically to distribute weight and
20:34
Speaker 1: to keep everything from collapsing in on the king. Yeah,
20:37
Speaker 1: because that would be bad too. Yeah. They're like these
20:39
Speaker 1: long slabs and then there's a gable. So there's like
20:44
Speaker 1: long rectangular slabs. I think there's four or five of
20:47
Speaker 1: them maybe, and then a wooden gable is it wouldn't
20:50
Speaker 1: I thought it was rock. And the whole thing is
20:53
Speaker 1: it's like all that pressure that's pushing down towards the
20:55
Speaker 1: center of the triangle, it takes it and just kind
20:58
Speaker 1: of deflects it outward away from that hole in the inside.
21:03
Speaker 1: The um, the pyramid, the feat of engineering. Um. The
21:08
Speaker 1: gallery is a big passageway with a vaulted ceiling. Um.
21:13
Speaker 1: Do you understand what the corbelled ceiling is? Yeah? So
21:16
Speaker 1: you know, like if you have a like a breakfast bar,
21:19
Speaker 1: those two things that come out and hold it up,
21:22
Speaker 1: those are corbells. So they had these things that are
21:25
Speaker 1: like corbell's going up and basically it says here that
21:29
Speaker 1: forms like a primitive arch. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. Um,
21:34
Speaker 1: you have passageways connecting everything because you have to get around.
21:38
Speaker 1: You have an air shaft where they think the uh,
21:41
Speaker 1: the spirit of those into him there would rise through
21:44
Speaker 1: to the heavens. I guess the ideas you don't want
21:46
Speaker 1: to fully enclose a tomb or a pyramid, gotta let
21:51
Speaker 1: the soul out, sure, but creep out what else? Well?
21:56
Speaker 1: Of course the exterior rocks that have eroded away. Sure,
22:00
Speaker 1: and apparently the reason why we're quite sure that all
22:03
Speaker 1: these things were aligned with limestone rocks is because Cafres
22:08
Speaker 1: tomb uh Sneferus Snifferu's great grandson, there's still some limestone
22:16
Speaker 1: rock on the top. Oh nice, that hasn't fully eroded, man,
22:21
Speaker 1: after all these years. Yeah, so these are the things
22:24
Speaker 1: that have been found over the over the years of
22:27
Speaker 1: exploring these pyramids, right, But what really kind of surprised
22:32
Speaker 1: me was that there's a lot of stuff that is
22:35
Speaker 1: still being found. There's a lot of parts inside of
22:39
Speaker 1: the pyramids that they're like, what is this or why
22:43
Speaker 1: is there a door in this passage with some copper handles?
22:46
Speaker 1: What's beyond it? Now? Is this because they haven't fully
22:49
Speaker 1: excavated Yeah, okay, so they're still doing this. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:57
Speaker 1: The um I can't remember his name, but the former
23:00
Speaker 1: head of Egypt's antiquities before the revolution, um I can't remember.
23:05
Speaker 1: He's like super like science educator guy. They call him
23:10
Speaker 1: India Egypt's Indiana Jones. Okay, I thought you gonna say
23:13
Speaker 1: Neil the grass Tyson. He's like Egypt's Neil de grass Tyson.
23:17
Speaker 1: He could host Cosmos if you wanted to. He um
23:21
Speaker 1: he is. He's been walking around lately saying, hey, there's
23:25
Speaker 1: plenty of undiscovered stuff in these pyramids. We have a
23:28
Speaker 1: very loose grasp the structure of them so far. Well,
23:32
Speaker 1: and it's tough to get in there to do the work. Um,
23:34
Speaker 1: I know the permitting process and is rigorous obviously, so
23:39
Speaker 1: it's it's it's hard to know. This guy we're gonna
23:41
Speaker 1: talk about later that has a new theory on how
23:43
Speaker 1: they're built, he's having a hard time getting in there
23:46
Speaker 1: to prove it. Yeah, but luckily they're starting to use
23:49
Speaker 1: robots more and more to explore it, and that's starting
23:52
Speaker 1: to yield some some interesting stuff. Did not know that either.
23:57
Speaker 1: All right, well let's um, if you're gonna build a pyramid, Uh,
24:00
Speaker 1: you don't just say let's get a bunch of rocks
24:02
Speaker 1: and start going. Um. First, like any building, you need
24:05
Speaker 1: to do a survey and excavate the land. Because they
24:09
Speaker 1: learned pretty early on that you're the land that it's on,
24:13
Speaker 1: and the foundation is super super duper important. Yeah, that's
24:17
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons the first one collapse
24:20
Speaker 1: is because they didn't do the foundation right. It's got
24:23
Speaker 1: to be level and again it's kind of in part
24:26
Speaker 1: how impressive the cufu's pyramid is. What did you say,
24:31
Speaker 1: it's um it's base was it is a two hundred
24:36
Speaker 1: and thirty meter square base. Yeah, it's level within less
24:40
Speaker 1: than an inch. Yeah, that's remarkable. So you get the busier,
24:45
Speaker 1: the master builder involved. And they do have some theories
24:48
Speaker 1: on how they did this leveling. UM. One was that
24:52
Speaker 1: they poured water onto the site, and water is the
24:57
Speaker 1: great leveler, and they would level the material above it,
25:01
Speaker 1: above that water line, wait for the water level to drain,
25:04
Speaker 1: I guess, and then just continue removing material until it
25:07
Speaker 1: was flat. Great idea. Yeah, and it's like, you know,
25:10
Speaker 1: self leveling concrete is way more soupy than uh, like
25:15
Speaker 1: regular concrete, because it's gonna find if it's watery, it's
25:20
Speaker 1: gonna find its own level, right all right. Uh. And
25:24
Speaker 1: then another way that they may have done it is
25:26
Speaker 1: so they found that um their post holes at regular
25:29
Speaker 1: intervals of I think ten cubits, and a cubit is
25:32
Speaker 1: the distance from the your elbow inside your arm to
25:36
Speaker 1: the tip of your middle finger, so every ten of
25:40
Speaker 1: those there would be a post hole. And they think
25:43
Speaker 1: that possibly they laid out the foundation site as they
25:47
Speaker 1: were excavating, into a grid pattern and hung plumb bobs
25:52
Speaker 1: from these lines. And that's just like a weight that
25:55
Speaker 1: looks like um, like an elongated brass top and it
26:00
Speaker 1: hangs down and where it hangs is the level point,
26:03
Speaker 1: and then you can excavate down to that that reference point,
26:06
Speaker 1: and then you know everything's level if all of your
26:08
Speaker 1: plumb bobs are touching the same ground. Yeah, and that's
26:12
Speaker 1: still like if you go to build a backyard fence yourself,
26:15
Speaker 1: you're gonna use these same techniques today. Right, it's pretty neat.
26:18
Speaker 1: My money's on the water excavation. They they we already
26:22
Speaker 1: know that they dug canals from the Nile toward the
26:25
Speaker 1: Giza pyramid sites. Why not just built a little further
26:28
Speaker 1: and flood the area as needed to excavate. You know,
26:32
Speaker 1: that makes sense. That's that's a minus. But first, Chuck,
26:35
Speaker 1: they had to figure out because these pyramids are all
26:39
Speaker 1: oriented along um north south east west right. Yeah, they
26:43
Speaker 1: run parallel to these xs, so like they're there, I
26:47
Speaker 1: believe they're facing true north. This is pre compass, its
26:52
Speaker 1: pre north star. Yeah, the north star wasn't even the
26:55
Speaker 1: sky there then. Um. Instead, they had to follow some
26:58
Speaker 1: of the circumpolar star and they were doing things like
27:01
Speaker 1: measuring shadows to calculate where true north was. And then
27:05
Speaker 1: once they calculated true north, they could use right angles
27:08
Speaker 1: to determine where uh, southeast and west were that's amazing.
27:13
Speaker 1: And then once they had that, then they had to
27:15
Speaker 1: start doing the planning out the site in a grid
27:17
Speaker 1: and excavating everything down. That's right. Uh. Using cubits and
27:22
Speaker 1: hands was the other unit of measurement, which is, uh,
27:25
Speaker 1: you say something so many hands wide, it's the width
27:28
Speaker 1: of your hand with your thumb along the side. Yeah,
27:30
Speaker 1: And they still use that to um measure horses or
27:34
Speaker 1: to describe horse heights, like twenty hands high. That's a
27:38
Speaker 1: that's decent height with it's at a big horse or
27:41
Speaker 1: small horse hands. I think that might be like a
27:43
Speaker 1: giant freak of nature horse. Yeah. I usually here like
27:47
Speaker 1: fourteen or sixteen. Hey, that's off to the triple ground winner, right, Yeah.
27:52
Speaker 1: American Pharaoh whoa which, by the way, Pharaoh was misspelled
27:57
Speaker 1: in his name, and they knew it early on, but
27:59
Speaker 1: they were like, well, we're just gonna leave it like that.
28:02
Speaker 1: Um so pharaoh. Yeah, pretty neat history. That was pretty great. Yeah.
28:08
Speaker 1: I watched Um, I did watch that, and you know,
28:11
Speaker 1: I'm not into horse racing, but I knew what was
28:14
Speaker 1: coming on and I was like, well, it's only a
28:16
Speaker 1: few minutes, so I just don't watch any of the
28:19
Speaker 1: other stuff of the two hour podcast, and I just
28:22
Speaker 1: turned it on to hear that call. You know, it's
28:23
Speaker 1: always great here in a good horse racing call. That
28:26
Speaker 1: thing led the whole way. Yeah, there was really no doubt.
28:29
Speaker 1: And I love that jockey. Yeah, because he had he
28:31
Speaker 1: had had several attempts right at the time. He raced
28:35
Speaker 1: California Chrome last year, so we had a shot at
28:37
Speaker 1: the Triple Crown and I couldn't pull it out. And
28:40
Speaker 1: this year he did good for him, all right, So
28:46
Speaker 1: I guess we should talk about how they actually build
28:48
Speaker 1: these things. Now, you gotta get rocks there, that's the
28:52
Speaker 1: first step. Yeah, and some of the rock did come
28:55
Speaker 1: from Giza, like the rocks. The pyramid structure itself is
28:58
Speaker 1: made largely of limes stone, and there was limestone quarries
29:02
Speaker 1: around the Giza site. But they also had to get
29:05
Speaker 1: rocks from elsewhere. Yeah. The granite they think came up
29:09
Speaker 1: the river from a swan. They have alabaster from lux
29:13
Speaker 1: or basalt from the Phioum Depression, which I didn't see
29:17
Speaker 1: where the basil was used, however, it's pronounced by salt
29:24
Speaker 1: is it? I don't know, um, And of course you
29:27
Speaker 1: know they don't have iron at this point, so they're
29:30
Speaker 1: not using iron to cut. They're using copper and stone
29:33
Speaker 1: cutting tools to shape these things. But you have to
29:35
Speaker 1: get them there, which is you know, I think of
29:38
Speaker 1: the neatest thing about the Pyramids is over the years
29:40
Speaker 1: is trying to figure out how they did it all
29:41
Speaker 1: because they didn't leave a record. Um, you know, it's
29:45
Speaker 1: just been this great mystery for architecture and archaeological nerds
29:49
Speaker 1: to try and figure out. Yeah. So the first step
29:52
Speaker 1: is like, all right, well, how did they get all
29:53
Speaker 1: these rocks here to begin with? So? Um Again, these
29:56
Speaker 1: rocks were on average about two and a half tons
29:58
Speaker 1: per rock. Yeah, so they didn't just lift them and
30:00
Speaker 1: carry them. No, the Gypsies were familiar with the wheel,
30:03
Speaker 1: but the wheel would have been totally useless in the
30:06
Speaker 1: sand at Giza. Um, so they figure. I think the
30:11
Speaker 1: general sentiment of how they moved rocks, especially once from
30:15
Speaker 1: local quarries at Giza was by sled and rope. And
30:19
Speaker 1: they had um, maybe ten men or fewer if they
30:23
Speaker 1: could um pull these uh two and a half ton
30:27
Speaker 1: rocks on sleds towards the site. So that's how they
30:30
Speaker 1: would have moved them from the quarry. If they were
30:32
Speaker 1: moving them from like lux Or or elsewhere, they would
30:35
Speaker 1: have put them on rafts. And again they dug canals
30:38
Speaker 1: from the Nile towards the Giza construction site. I bet
30:41
Speaker 1: people loved being on that duty. Like the raft one well, yeah,
30:45
Speaker 1: like just get it on this barge and then float it.
30:48
Speaker 1: And the other guys were like, are you kidding me?
30:50
Speaker 1: I have to pull this thing on the sand sled.
30:54
Speaker 1: And then there's another way that um that they think.
30:57
Speaker 1: They may have put them on little quarter circle sleds,
31:02
Speaker 1: strapped them around it and just kind of twisted them
31:04
Speaker 1: like you would twist a beer keg. Yeah, yeah, that
31:08
Speaker 1: makes sense too. I would guess flat sleds. Although why
31:12
Speaker 1: does it have to just be one or the other? Well,
31:13
Speaker 1: that was what I was wondering when I was reading this.
31:15
Speaker 1: It could have been a combination of methods. Yeah, Like
31:18
Speaker 1: these guys are sled masters, so let them do that, right.
31:21
Speaker 1: These guys have rolled a beer keg or two in
31:22
Speaker 1: their day, so they can try that method. They've also
31:25
Speaker 1: theorized about wooden rollers like logs and things. Makes sense.
31:29
Speaker 1: The only problem is is um Timber was not a
31:33
Speaker 1: local commodity. Yeah, that would that would have been widespread
31:36
Speaker 1: enough to supply this thing, and it would have been
31:38
Speaker 1: very expensive well, which is another reason, because they have
31:42
Speaker 1: some super weighty timber on the interior of these pyramids,
31:47
Speaker 1: and they also have wondered about that. I think it's
31:50
Speaker 1: probably cedar from Lebanon. That's what I kept coming across
31:54
Speaker 1: that the would that they were known to have used
31:58
Speaker 1: was from Lebanon and it was cedar an e seater.
32:00
Speaker 1: I bet that's good stuff. It was expensive back in
32:03
Speaker 1: the day. Um. So when it comes to actually building
32:08
Speaker 1: the pyramid itself, you've got so you've managed to get
32:10
Speaker 1: all the rocks here. Um, you know what, we'll take
32:14
Speaker 1: a break and we will talk a little bit about
32:15
Speaker 1: some of the competing theories right after this. All right,
32:35
Speaker 1: you got all your rocks. You're the foreman, you're the
32:38
Speaker 1: what's it called, the the visier. You're the visier on
32:42
Speaker 1: site who, by the way, Cufu's visier was his brother. Yeah. Yeah,
32:46
Speaker 1: And if you were a visier, like you were pretty
32:48
Speaker 1: well respecting, you've got your own little step pyramid tomb yourself. Sure,
32:53
Speaker 1: So let's say you're that person. You've got your little
32:55
Speaker 1: hard head on. You've got all these rocks, how do
32:58
Speaker 1: you What are the theories they use like a pulley,
33:01
Speaker 1: they use a crane. Uh well, there are a lot
33:04
Speaker 1: of competing theories and they do involve cranes, they involve ramps, um,
33:10
Speaker 1: and none of them have been proven. So let's talk
33:13
Speaker 1: about like the ramp. One man, they figured out that
33:16
Speaker 1: with a ramp you can't have when you're dealing with
33:20
Speaker 1: two and a half ton of stones. And this is
33:22
Speaker 1: from how to Build a Pyramid, which is from I
33:24
Speaker 1: think a two thousand seven article in Archaeology magazine. Yeah,
33:27
Speaker 1: Bob Bryer, it's really good article, it is. It's a
33:30
Speaker 1: great article. Um. But he points out that you really
33:33
Speaker 1: can't have a grade of more than about eight percent.
33:36
Speaker 1: So if you're using a straight ramp leading up to
33:39
Speaker 1: the pyramid site, as this thing gets taller and taller
33:44
Speaker 1: and you eventually hit a hundred and forty six meters,
33:47
Speaker 1: to maintain just an eight percent slope, you would have
33:50
Speaker 1: to have a mile long ramp at that point. And
33:53
Speaker 1: they said that's not very likely because that would have
33:56
Speaker 1: been just as big of an undertaking is building a pyramid. Yeah,
33:59
Speaker 1: it would have taken up about as along the build
34:01
Speaker 1: and the timber, like you mentioned a lot of timber,
34:04
Speaker 1: which they didn't have tons of, and they would have
34:06
Speaker 1: built built it up over time, because you can't just
34:08
Speaker 1: have a hundred and forty six ramp to start off
34:12
Speaker 1: with and then drop the blocks in place below. You
34:16
Speaker 1: would just slowly build up the ramp, but eventually it
34:18
Speaker 1: would just become too unwieldy to have a mile long ramp. Yeah.
34:22
Speaker 1: And we're not the first people to question this. I mean,
34:24
Speaker 1: thousands of years ago, um people, historians were trying to
34:27
Speaker 1: figure it out as well. He wrote. He wrote it
34:29
Speaker 1: us Uh in four fifty b c. Said that they
34:33
Speaker 1: use machines, but no one really knows what he meant
34:37
Speaker 1: by machines a lot, but it could be a crane. Uh.
34:40
Speaker 1: And then three hundred years after that, Deodorus of Sicily
34:42
Speaker 1: said the construction was affected by mounds, which would be ramps.
34:48
Speaker 1: So that's why these are the two the two longest
34:52
Speaker 1: standing competing theories. The problem is is these Greeks came
34:55
Speaker 1: along thousands of years after the pyramids had already been built.
34:58
Speaker 1: It's not like they witnessed the construction. They were just
35:01
Speaker 1: there their Yeah. Um, so with Herodotus or Herodotus, you know,
35:07
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've seen his name in print so
35:10
Speaker 1: many times, but I don't think i've ever heard it.
35:12
Speaker 1: I'd say Herodotus sounds good. Say that, um his idea
35:16
Speaker 1: of these machines that have been taken to mean cranes.
35:19
Speaker 1: We know that the Egyptians were familiar with cranes and
35:21
Speaker 1: use cranes, and that you could use cranes to build
35:24
Speaker 1: a substantial portion of the pyramids. The problem is, as
35:28
Speaker 1: you got closer and closer to the top, the leads
35:30
Speaker 1: you were dealing with is say about eighteen inches, and
35:33
Speaker 1: you can't support a crane like that. So the they
35:37
Speaker 1: thought potentially that if they did use cranes, they use
35:40
Speaker 1: series of small cranes that would just kind of hand
35:43
Speaker 1: off like basically a bucket brigade of cranes handing off
35:47
Speaker 1: one rock after the other. They were like levers, and
35:49
Speaker 1: they were called they use these are called shadoofs um
35:53
Speaker 1: and if you look up chadoof and image it there.
35:56
Speaker 1: They would use it to get water out of the
35:57
Speaker 1: river and stuff. And it's basically like just a lever
36:00
Speaker 1: that someone would pull on one end or will be
36:02
Speaker 1: waited and dip down into the water and then pull
36:05
Speaker 1: up a bunch of stuff with a bucket. I guess, yeah,
36:08
Speaker 1: a bunch of good Nile River water. Yes. So, like
36:12
Speaker 1: you said, that theory is not very well excepted these days.
36:16
Speaker 1: The crane Yeah, well, oh not for completion at least. Yeah,
36:20
Speaker 1: and again like why just use one method if something
36:23
Speaker 1: makes this part faster and then you have to switch
36:25
Speaker 1: to this other part faster. Clearly these people had the
36:28
Speaker 1: smarts to pull off this incredible feet of engineering. Um,
36:33
Speaker 1: So I would think that they wouldn't have tunnel vision
36:36
Speaker 1: and that they would probably be willing to use different techniques.
36:38
Speaker 1: So it's it's possible that the cranes were used to
36:41
Speaker 1: build the base. They'd have pyramid vision, right. Uh so
36:45
Speaker 1: with the ramp, so the big long ramp is probably out. Um,
36:48
Speaker 1: they had another theory that well, maybe it was like, um,
36:51
Speaker 1: a ramp that just wound up and around the pyramid
36:55
Speaker 1: like a mountain road is cut into the side of
36:57
Speaker 1: the mountain. That sort of makes sense too. It is
37:00
Speaker 1: the big problem with that is that the mound outside
37:03
Speaker 1: of the pyramid covers up the corners as you're building it,
37:07
Speaker 1: and as you're building it. You really need to be
37:10
Speaker 1: able to measure the corners pretty frequently, because if you don't,
37:14
Speaker 1: then those corners may not come together at a point
37:16
Speaker 1: at top and SNIFFERU is going to be very mad, right,
37:22
Speaker 1: So that one, to me is probably the least likely
37:24
Speaker 1: the external um ramps. That and co enclose the site agreed. Um.
37:33
Speaker 1: And maybe I'm a bandwagon ear, but I just read
37:35
Speaker 1: this article that you sent, and so I'm going with
37:38
Speaker 1: Jean Pierre Udine's theory that there were ramps, but there
37:43
Speaker 1: were an external ramp that was the need to be
37:46
Speaker 1: that long, and then once they got to the point
37:48
Speaker 1: where the grade was too much, they used that ramp,
37:51
Speaker 1: cannibalized it, and then had an interior ramp, yeah, to
37:55
Speaker 1: finish it off, right. So Um, the thing about an
37:58
Speaker 1: interior ramp is that you would be able to leave
38:01
Speaker 1: the exterior corners exposed, You'd be able to build inside,
38:05
Speaker 1: You'll be able to keep it at an eight percent
38:08
Speaker 1: grade tops um, and you wouldn't have to build this huge,
38:12
Speaker 1: massive public work that was as big as the pyramid itself,
38:17
Speaker 1: like a hundred and forty six mile long ramp. It
38:20
Speaker 1: would explain how you would build the whole thing without cranes,
38:24
Speaker 1: because you're just getting closer and closer and closer to
38:27
Speaker 1: the to the inside the interior of it as you're
38:30
Speaker 1: building up right. Yeah. Um, the only problem is, Chuck,
38:34
Speaker 1: is if there's an interior ramp, how would you possibly
38:37
Speaker 1: remove that? You wouldn't it would being closed in the site.
38:40
Speaker 1: So obviously this has been debunked right, well now it hasn't, um,
38:45
Speaker 1: he believes and others have gotten on board that there
38:49
Speaker 1: is still an interior ramp in there. What But that
38:53
Speaker 1: was my question. Have they not explored enough of this
38:56
Speaker 1: to find this thing? No? Okay, And actually there was
38:59
Speaker 1: an nineteen six survey, but I think a French team, um,
39:04
Speaker 1: and there they found some anomaly that they couldn't explain,
39:08
Speaker 1: so they just ignored it basically. And it wasn't until
39:10
Speaker 1: two thousand that Jean Pierre hu Dan's father, Henri hu Dan,
39:15
Speaker 1: who was an engineer himself, just happened to be chatting
39:18
Speaker 1: with one of these guys from the nineteen eighties six
39:20
Speaker 1: survey and um, the guy said like, yeah, there's this
39:23
Speaker 1: anomaly and he described it to him and basically what
39:26
Speaker 1: he described as far as the Udans are concerned, is
39:30
Speaker 1: this internal ramp. They're like, what is it? It's anomally,
39:33
Speaker 1: it's like a big looks like a big, well worn
39:35
Speaker 1: ramp right seven degree slope. Who cares. But supposedly the
39:41
Speaker 1: way that they first discovered this was that a fox
39:45
Speaker 1: popped out of an undiscovered crevice or previously undiscovered crevice
39:49
Speaker 1: toward the top of the pyramid or halfway up, and
39:53
Speaker 1: they're like, how did this desert fox get up there?
39:56
Speaker 1: Probably did not climb all this way up. They think
39:58
Speaker 1: he probably went into an other undiscovered hole towards the
40:01
Speaker 1: bottom and then use the ramp and came out the top.
40:05
Speaker 1: And that is further evidence that there's a ramp in there. Yeah,
40:09
Speaker 1: there is another little piece of evidence that they point to.
40:12
Speaker 1: Um there was a notch, a corner notch from the
40:15
Speaker 1: ramp used for turning the blocks, and it is exactly
40:20
Speaker 1: where two thirds of the way up on the northeast corner,
40:22
Speaker 1: right where Udine predicted there would be one if you
40:26
Speaker 1: were to use this kind of ramp piece, like, there
40:28
Speaker 1: should be a notch right there, And there was a notch,
40:30
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think where the inside right, Yeah, pretty neat. Uh.
40:35
Speaker 1: And then finally they used um, something called micro uh
40:40
Speaker 1: grab immetry. It's a it's a I don't even understand
40:44
Speaker 1: how it works. Do you know? It's a surveying method. Yeah,
40:48
Speaker 1: it's magic, right, um. And basically what it does is
40:52
Speaker 1: it enables them to measure density. Yeah. So like if
40:56
Speaker 1: if you're measuring a part of the pyramid and it's
40:58
Speaker 1: just solid rock, it's going to be very dense. If
41:00
Speaker 1: you find a part of the pyramid that's kind of
41:03
Speaker 1: this open tunnel like a ramp, it's going to be
41:07
Speaker 1: less tense. So I think that's where that's from that
41:11
Speaker 1: survey where they turned up the anomaly that they ignored.
41:15
Speaker 1: That's the impression. I have one other thing that um
41:20
Speaker 1: it was a very long standing myth thanks to our
41:22
Speaker 1: friends the Greeks, who just made stuff up apparently two
41:25
Speaker 1: thousand years after the fact, was that um, it took
41:29
Speaker 1: about a hundred thousand slaves to build the pyramids at Giza. Yeah,
41:34
Speaker 1: mistreated um slaves, forced into labor, and it took a
41:38
Speaker 1: hundred thousand of them. Probably not true. No, Supposedly, thanks
41:43
Speaker 1: to h Harvard archaeologist Mark Laner, he conducted a two
41:47
Speaker 1: thousand to survey and he found evidence to quite the contrary. Yeah.
41:51
Speaker 1: And then later on in two thousand and ten, um,
41:54
Speaker 1: just a few years ago, they found tombs of workers discovered, um,
41:58
Speaker 1: and they basically said, like the way that they were
42:00
Speaker 1: buried and entombed, like slaves would never have been honored
42:03
Speaker 1: in this way. There's lots of evidence they were really
42:06
Speaker 1: well fed. Yeah. They said that um, twenty one cows
42:09
Speaker 1: and twenty three sheep per day, um was what these
42:13
Speaker 1: people were eating. So a lot of bread. They found
42:18
Speaker 1: evidence of, like basically industrial scale bakeries to bake bread
42:22
Speaker 1: for the workers. Oh huh. And there was evidence of
42:27
Speaker 1: basically permanent occupation there that said that there were probably
42:32
Speaker 1: between two thousand and four thousand workers on hand at
42:34
Speaker 1: any time, but that maybe thirty thousand total over the
42:38
Speaker 1: like the twenty years constructed the pyramid. Yeah. I saw
42:42
Speaker 1: the word. They had worked out somewhere between ten and
42:44
Speaker 1: thirty thousand that worked in three month shifts. Uh. And
42:47
Speaker 1: they said, you know, while they weren't slaves, they said
42:49
Speaker 1: it was tough stuff, Like there was evidence of arthritis
42:52
Speaker 1: and bad backs and all the things inherent in pyramid building. Um.
42:57
Speaker 1: So it wasn't like, you know, it was easy going.
42:59
Speaker 1: But it makes sense that you know you, if you
43:02
Speaker 1: want these things built, you have to have a strong workforce,
43:04
Speaker 1: which means you have to take care of them and
43:05
Speaker 1: feed them. You know, ye, pay them, pay the payment
43:11
Speaker 1: fish pay me. Yeah, that's what they said, ye at
43:14
Speaker 1: the end of every shift. That's right. So anything else? No, man,
43:19
Speaker 1: that's Egyptian pyramids. Uh. Yeah. If you want to know
43:24
Speaker 1: more about pyramids, type that word in a search bar
43:27
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And since I said
43:29
Speaker 1: search bars, time for a listener, Mayo. I'm gonna call
43:34
Speaker 1: this Australian radio show. I was just talking about us.
43:38
Speaker 1: Did you see this? No? So that there's a show
43:42
Speaker 1: apparently the biggest radio show in Sydney called the Kyle
43:45
Speaker 1: and Jackie oh Show. Did you see this or hear it? No?
43:49
Speaker 1: I haven't been to I flew through Sydney once for
43:51
Speaker 1: like ten minutes. I have a chance to listen to
43:53
Speaker 1: the radio. I mean, did you see the email? No?
43:56
Speaker 1: I didn't. Okay, that's the second time you made me
43:58
Speaker 1: admit that. Sorry. Hey guys, I've been listening to you
44:01
Speaker 1: for years and I adore you both. I also listened
44:03
Speaker 1: to the Kyle and Jackie Oshow, which is the biggest
44:06
Speaker 1: radio show in Sydney. That was a good thanks. I
44:10
Speaker 1: love them too. I have to say that I'm quite
44:12
Speaker 1: disappointed in them because the female co host, Jackie, found
44:15
Speaker 1: out about your podcasts and took the piss on the air.
44:19
Speaker 1: And I think that's Australian for gave us a hard time. Um,
44:24
Speaker 1: gave us the business, gave us a business, and then
44:26
Speaker 1: proceeded to share the information you gave in a podcast
44:29
Speaker 1: if you want to hear it from the June eighth episode. Um,
44:32
Speaker 1: and it is a podcast as well, about twelve minutes in.
44:35
Speaker 1: It's actually about nine minutes in, and they talked about
44:37
Speaker 1: us for about six minutes. What did they say, Well, Um,
44:42
Speaker 1: here's here's I hope JACKIEO was listening. You seem awesome,
44:46
Speaker 1: Jackie Oh, because she seems she's sort of made fun
44:49
Speaker 1: of us, you know that when nds and stuff like that,
44:52
Speaker 1: and that we just ramble. But she you could tell
44:55
Speaker 1: she was getting to the show because she even said,
44:56
Speaker 1: I'm starting to get addicted and she starts reciting facts
44:59
Speaker 1: from the show. Too late for you, JACKIEO. This Kyle
45:02
Speaker 1: guy is the equivalent of one of our morning radio
45:06
Speaker 1: show hosts here in States. Does he have like one
45:08
Speaker 1: of those bike horns that he squeaks a lot? He
45:10
Speaker 1: might as well. He's he's like asking about the show,
45:13
Speaker 1: and she's like, well, you know, like how color works,
45:15
Speaker 1: and he's like, how cat I wax, Like, what do
45:17
Speaker 1: you mean? He said, pencil's yella, I want to buy
45:19
Speaker 1: a yellow pencil? Podcast over Oh yeah. That was like,
45:23
Speaker 1: clearly this guy's not on our team. Well, I don't
45:29
Speaker 1: want to he's I don't know, team Chuck. Okay, I
45:32
Speaker 1: don't want to insult the guy. He insulted us. He
45:35
Speaker 1: certainly didn't seem to get it that there could be
45:37
Speaker 1: more to color than as a yellow pencil. That was
45:41
Speaker 1: a pretty good uh oh man, what was the guy?
45:45
Speaker 1: What was the band manager from Fly of the concordse name? Mary? Yeah,
45:49
Speaker 1: doesn't good Murray. I love that show. Kyle equals Murray,
45:53
Speaker 1: so h Kyle's just doesn't get it. Um he said
45:56
Speaker 1: it sounded awful. They played a bit of it, oh yeah,
45:59
Speaker 1: and talked about it a lot. I don't remember licensing
46:01
Speaker 1: that to them. Well, and at the end she she
46:03
Speaker 1: basically said, you know what I'll do is keep listening.
46:05
Speaker 1: And then what they say in forty five minutes I
46:08
Speaker 1: can just break down for you, guys, and three or
46:09
Speaker 1: four minutes of bullet points. Okay, I'm pretty sure that
46:12
Speaker 1: Kyle and Jackie have just started in international flame war
46:15
Speaker 1: with us. Uh, so to continue the email. Oh yeah,
46:21
Speaker 1: they clearly don't get it, guys, So let me apologize
46:23
Speaker 1: on behalf of your other Aussie fans. Uh. You guys
46:26
Speaker 1: have added so much to the quality of my life,
46:28
Speaker 1: and I credit you both forgetting me through periods of
46:30
Speaker 1: intense anxiety where I could not function without having you
46:33
Speaker 1: both in my head distracting me from my own thoughts.
46:35
Speaker 1: I can guarantee you Kyle has never been told that. No,
46:39
Speaker 1: I still adore you now that I'm better, and I
46:41
Speaker 1: can safely press pause sometimes without even hyperventilating. Thank you
46:45
Speaker 1: for all you do. Please never stop doing it. And
46:46
Speaker 1: that is Laura. Thank you Laura. And she said, PS,
46:49
Speaker 1: I went on a date with a guy last week.
46:51
Speaker 1: You looked exactly like Chuck, and I have to admit
46:53
Speaker 1: that is the main reason I agreed to go. Did
46:55
Speaker 1: he sound like Chuck? Wink wink? Three? X is is
47:00
Speaker 1: that hugs your kisses? Uh? That is up for debate,
47:03
Speaker 1: But I say xes or kisses and ohs are hugs Yeah,
47:10
Speaker 1: asked her how the date went. She was like, well,
47:11
Speaker 1: I'm not going on a date number two, so it's like,
47:15
Speaker 1: well they can all be me right. We had a
47:17
Speaker 1: good ill be chuck. We need a T shirt that
47:20
Speaker 1: says that they can all. Hats off to you, Jackie O,
47:23
Speaker 1: because you seem to get it, um clearly, my lady.
47:27
Speaker 1: Oh wait, Jackie Oh, I thought you were talking about
47:29
Speaker 1: no Laura. Laura definitely gets it right. Jackie O seems
47:32
Speaker 1: to get it. She's starting to it. Does not get it.
47:35
Speaker 1: I don't think Kyle ever will Man and I'm okay
47:38
Speaker 1: with that me too. Uh. If you want to tell
47:41
Speaker 1: us about how somebody in your locality is talking smack
47:45
Speaker 1: about us or not getting us or whatever, or you
47:48
Speaker 1: just want to say hi, you can tweet to us
47:50
Speaker 1: at s y s K podcast. You can join us
47:52
Speaker 1: on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You
47:55
Speaker 1: can send us an email to stuff podcasts at how
47:57
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and has always joined us her
48:00
Speaker 1: home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
48:07
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
48:10
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com