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What it takes to cut granite today

Posted by Gates9@reddit | AlternativeHistory | View on Reddit | 11 comments

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11 Comments

Vo_Sirisov@reddit

What it takes to cut granite *quickly
View on Reddit #12510969

Gates9@reddit (OP)

How quickly do you have to cut, shape, transport, and place the 2,300,000 blocks that went into the Great Pyramid in order to complete it in 20 years?
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jojojoy@reddit

It's worth pointing out that the vast majority of the stone is limestone, not granite.
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Gates9@reddit (OP)

Still, it takes tens of hours to cut just one granite block, maybe half for limestone. It doesn't fit with the time period attributed to it's construction.
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maxkaplan1020@reddit

Time is irrelevant compared to amount of labor. You have a million slaves working on that? I can have you Giza 2.0 in 3 hours
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Mother_Pudding9483@reddit

How big was Egypt population back than ?
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jojojoy@reddit

It definitely takes a while. Best estimate I've seen for the time it would take to work one of the average limestone blocks is 4 days. > This work would be done in 4 days (of 6 hours) by 4 people...to reach a daily rate of 340 blocks, it would take 4788 men. If we increase the period of the construction site of the pyramid to 27 years, which is quite conceivable, the daily production required would go down to 250 blocks, which would require theoretically 3521 workers^1 - ___ 1. Burgos, Franck and Emmanuel Laroze, ["L’extraction des blocs en calcaire à l’Ancien Empire. Une expérimentation au ouadi el-Jarf "](http://www.egyptian-architecture.com/JAEA4/article27/JAEA4_Burgos_Laroze.pdf) (PDF), *The Journal of Ancient Egyptian Architecture* 4, 2020. pp. 73-95.
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Laserteeth_Killmore@reddit

I don't know why people find this so hard to believe. It was a way to get people to do something in exchange for grain during the fallow season. The taxes paid in grain were redistributed during the pyramid season.
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FavelTramous@reddit

*Yup! Hey lift this 500 ton stone 400 ft off the ground with a theoretically impossible ramp and cranes to get it into place, or by using elephants to drag the blocks up and running the elephants off the pyramid over the ramp in order to pull the stone to the top, and I’ll give ya same grains! Perfect!*
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Laserteeth_Killmore@reddit

Just because you can't imagine it doesn't mean it can't be done.
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Mother_Pudding9483@reddit

Just because you can’t imagine that there has been an unknown factor in all of this doesn’t mean it can’t be the case.
View on Reddit #12510977