there ain't half been some clever bastards

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Don't you just get fed up with clever bastards, these academics that talk about the way the pyramids where built, some bloke on the Melvin Bragg show this morning saying how the Egyptians squared the pyramids using the 3 4 5 method, which is fine but using a piece of rope with knots in, well that pushing the boundary's a bit too far, another program showed great feats of Egyptian engineering using a wooden 2 ft square and some string lines another one was leveling the huge blocks with A frame and plumb bob ,a good bit of reliable kit that never goes wrong but can you imagine the accumulative error on the side of a pyramid, even using my best bubble it is impossible, I don't think we are really giving enough credit to the Egyptian engineers they were obviously seriously good ,if they came back from the dead and talked to some of these Egyptologists, I think they would be insulted ,I know iv'e gone on a bit but I had to get it of my sarcophagus
 
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Depends how long that bit of rope was ;)
I'd imagine that they'd have also used the sun and mirrors to create their own version of a laser level. I'd also have thought they'd have used water (in pipes) to help level things out over some distances.

As for the 345 principle, that's fine but there is an alternative method of creating a perfect right angle, namely the angle in a semicircle principle. Add in some standard geometric constructions such as drawing perpendicular bisectors and it would explain how they got things so square.

I ain't no expert in Egyptian architecture and construction techniques, but the 345 method does sound a bit over-used and overrated and undervalues the geometrical skills and knowledge that they most likely would also have used.
 
There was a program on the telly a few years back speculating on the construction methods for a huge medieval dome in Florence.
That was a bit mind boggling how they reckoned it was done.
 
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The Egyptian 'rope stretchers' are pretty well known. They are shown on the walls of tombs with their ropes divided into 12 sections by knots. They also show up in the story of Pythagoras who studied them. It's where he got the idea from. Personally I find it hard to believe the Egyptians didn't have a greater understanding than just the simple 3,4,5. I reckon they probably had the ability to calculate angles as well.
 
Just pin the four corners and pull the rope corner to corner diagonally and tweak pins until rope fits both ways.
Simples.
 
The Egyptian 'rope stretchers' are pretty well known. They are shown on the walls of tombs with their ropes divided into 12 sections by knots. They also show up in the story of Pythagoras who studied them. It's where he got the idea from. Personally I find it hard to believe the Egyptians didn't have a greater understanding than just the simple 3,4,5. I reckon they probably had the ability to calculate angles as well.

Yeh I reckon your right I think they would have had quite a few tricks up their sleeves working to a tenth of a degree I find the ideas of the Egyptologist a bit limited
 
Pythagoras would have loved the 3,4,5 and 12 connection. Triangle, square, pentagon. And the 12 would coincidentally relate the largest of the perfect polyhedra (the dodecahegron, with all faces being pentagons with 3 pentagons meeting at each vertex). Sling in a bit of star gazing and the way they wanted everything to fit together, and away you go.

Strange how people don't rave so much about the next pythagorean triple 5,12,13.
 
Horses in chariots,oxen pulling carts...yet moving stone slabs in carvings always shows dozens of men dragging them on sledges...Never could understand why stones weren't dragged by teams of oxen or horses...maybe they were?
 
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