Vocab: surpassed by a large margin, conspiracy
theories, far-fetched
myth, labor,
copper alloys, to cart, sleds, diagram, friction, abrasive, to wear away, level, flood, limestone, quarry,
to float, rafts, quartz, trench, dolerite, clear
account, ramp
levers, a sight to behold,
:05 The great pyramid was the tallest man made structure for _____ years, only surpassed by a large margin by ____ _____ in_______
:05 The great pyramid was the tallest man made structure for _____ years, only surpassed by a large margin by ____ _____ in_______
:13 Horse rider: ___________ meters high.”“You are interested by _____?”
Derek:“Yeah let's ____ it”
Horse rider: “But it’s not free.”
Derek: What does the
Derek:“Yeah let's ____ it”
Horse rider: “But it’s not free.”
Derek: What does the
What does Derek say are some of the most interesting things about the
building of the pyramids? ________________
0:45 The pyramids took about twenty to thirty years to make. That’s a
long time but if you think about the number of Stones – a couple of million
Stones in every pyramid you’d have to be laying stones roughly once every three
minutes. If you consider a regular workday like a ten hour- twelve hour work
day.
1:15 No plans survived to how us how the pyramids were built so perhaps it’s not surprising that this is the subject of countless conspiracy theories involving aliens, time travel or lost technologies. But there is a less far-fetched myth which has become widely accepted that the pyramids were build by slaves. But recent discovers suggest the pyramid builders were not slaves at all. They were skilled workers. Well preserved tombs near the pyramids suggest that their hard labor and sacrifice were rewarded. If these workers had been slaves, they would not have received such honourable burials.
One of the things I find really interesting is that the Egyptians didn’t know about wheels, so they didn’t really even use rollers as far as we can tell. I mean these rocks would’ve been carted across the desert on sleds. There’s a famous diagram of this giant statue being pulled by 172 men. And that – that statue would’ve weighed somewhere in the order of 68 tons or something.
(2:20)This would normally create a lot of friction but the sand was wetted in front of the sled. Experiments show this would reduce the pulling force required by half.
The Internal Stones of this pyramid are all limestone which is a bit softer and easier to work. You could imagine them working it with those copper chisels they had. Some of these blocks may have been actually sawed through using copper saws. Now you wouldn’t think that copper could really cut rock but if you put an abrasive in there like sand, you could actually wear away the stone. It would probably be a very difficult and labor intensive job. Something you don’t really think about is that when you build pyramid you need to build it on level ground you can actually see there how they had to level out that ground.
Well it’s speculated that when the Nile flooded they put the flood water into a channel to see where the high parts were.
So the inside was made of limestone the outside of the pyramid was made of granite, a much harder stone.
I'm at the granite quarry in Aswan where they would've got the stones that were used in the pyramids at Giza. Now that is really an incredible feat because this is nearly a thousand kilometres from Giza, and when the Nile flooded water would come right through here so they could move all the stones quarried here. This granite, they could move this back up to Giza so they could use it on the pyramids.
These would've had to be floated down on rafts. Now quarrying this would've been really hard. Granite is one of the hardest rocks because it contains quartz and quartz on the hardness scale is about a 7 where diamond is a 10. So how would you dig a massive trench like that? Basically the technique was to smash the dolerite rock into the granite over and over and over again. They would make about 5 mm progress an hour. So there is no clear account of how the pyramids were actually built but the best guess is that ramps were used and in fact some ramps have been found on incomplete pyramids. But you can't use just a straight ramp, a long straight ramp and keep putting the rocks up. I mean the problem with that is the ramp actually ends up taking more material than the pyramid itself. I think a ramp which sort of wraps around the pyramids is probably the most likely thing. The top third of the height of the pyramid actually only accounts for about 4 percent of the material in the pyramid that's why it's suspected that levers were actually used to finish off the pyramid, to do the top levels.
Now the pyramids have clearly weathered, but in the past they would have been a brighter white because they would have used a white limestone to cover the whole face of that pyramid. And then the very top may have been covered with electrum which is a mixture of gold and silver. So if you can imagine, that would be a pretty spectacular sight. The reason these pyramids are shaped this way is so they represent sun rays. Imagine what that would have looked like when it was first built, with a shiny metallic top and a smooth white finish on all those sides, I think that would have been a sight to behold.
1:15 No plans survived to how us how the pyramids were built so perhaps it’s not surprising that this is the subject of countless conspiracy theories involving aliens, time travel or lost technologies. But there is a less far-fetched myth which has become widely accepted that the pyramids were build by slaves. But recent discovers suggest the pyramid builders were not slaves at all. They were skilled workers. Well preserved tombs near the pyramids suggest that their hard labor and sacrifice were rewarded. If these workers had been slaves, they would not have received such honourable burials.
One of the things I find really interesting is that the Egyptians didn’t know about wheels, so they didn’t really even use rollers as far as we can tell. I mean these rocks would’ve been carted across the desert on sleds. There’s a famous diagram of this giant statue being pulled by 172 men. And that – that statue would’ve weighed somewhere in the order of 68 tons or something.
(2:20)This would normally create a lot of friction but the sand was wetted in front of the sled. Experiments show this would reduce the pulling force required by half.
The Internal Stones of this pyramid are all limestone which is a bit softer and easier to work. You could imagine them working it with those copper chisels they had. Some of these blocks may have been actually sawed through using copper saws. Now you wouldn’t think that copper could really cut rock but if you put an abrasive in there like sand, you could actually wear away the stone. It would probably be a very difficult and labor intensive job. Something you don’t really think about is that when you build pyramid you need to build it on level ground you can actually see there how they had to level out that ground.
Well it’s speculated that when the Nile flooded they put the flood water into a channel to see where the high parts were.
So the inside was made of limestone the outside of the pyramid was made of granite, a much harder stone.
I'm at the granite quarry in Aswan where they would've got the stones that were used in the pyramids at Giza. Now that is really an incredible feat because this is nearly a thousand kilometres from Giza, and when the Nile flooded water would come right through here so they could move all the stones quarried here. This granite, they could move this back up to Giza so they could use it on the pyramids.
These would've had to be floated down on rafts. Now quarrying this would've been really hard. Granite is one of the hardest rocks because it contains quartz and quartz on the hardness scale is about a 7 where diamond is a 10. So how would you dig a massive trench like that? Basically the technique was to smash the dolerite rock into the granite over and over and over again. They would make about 5 mm progress an hour. So there is no clear account of how the pyramids were actually built but the best guess is that ramps were used and in fact some ramps have been found on incomplete pyramids. But you can't use just a straight ramp, a long straight ramp and keep putting the rocks up. I mean the problem with that is the ramp actually ends up taking more material than the pyramid itself. I think a ramp which sort of wraps around the pyramids is probably the most likely thing. The top third of the height of the pyramid actually only accounts for about 4 percent of the material in the pyramid that's why it's suspected that levers were actually used to finish off the pyramid, to do the top levels.
Now the pyramids have clearly weathered, but in the past they would have been a brighter white because they would have used a white limestone to cover the whole face of that pyramid. And then the very top may have been covered with electrum which is a mixture of gold and silver. So if you can imagine, that would be a pretty spectacular sight. The reason these pyramids are shaped this way is so they represent sun rays. Imagine what that would have looked like when it was first built, with a shiny metallic top and a smooth white finish on all those sides, I think that would have been a sight to behold.
Let’s talk about the language he uses, is he talking about the past present or future?
Is this something that he knows about? or is he speculating?
For this kind of language we often hear the word, probably, possibly, as well as the modal verbs would have, might have, could have.
Let's speculate on some famous moments in history
using this language.
At the signing of the declarations of Independence, they might've worn powdered wigs.
They would've
At the signing of the declarations of Independence, they might've worn powdered wigs.
They would've
