The Giza Power Plant (9 page)

Chapter Three

PRECISION UNPARALLELED

A
fter reading considerable material on the subject of the Great Pyramid
and studying the drawings that accompanied the texts, it appeared to me that the opponents of the tomb theory had a valid point. With this in mind, I looked more closely at what I considered to be the most significant information regarding the Great Pyramid, which was the accuracy with which it was built. It soon became obvious to me that the researchers on both sides of the issue were sympathetic to the craftspeople involved in building the pyramids. But the researchers were not craftspeople themselves, and they did not have the perspective gained through years of experience working with their hands and with machinery. Having that experience myself, I have some very strong opinions regarding the level of manufacturing expertise practiced by the ancient Egyptians. They were not primitive by any means, and their craftsmanship and precision would be an extreme challenge to duplicate today.

During my research on the Great Pyramid, and in considering the many questions raised by others, I began to form an opinion regarding the true purpose of this structure. The decision to write this book came about after careful consideration of what courses of action were available to me to share ideas I had developed regarding the pyramid and other artifacts described by Egyptologists, especially William Flinders Petrie. As a craftsman and engineer who has worked with close tolerances for more than thirty-five years, it was only natural for me to find great affinity with the people whose remarkable accuracy was evident in building this structure.

For readers not familiar with the issues of manufacturing, let me pause briefly to provide a short historical overview. The industrial revolution, which had its genesis in England in the early 1800s, brought about standardization
in the manufacture of components. Take, for instance, the rifle. At one time, each part of a rifle was manufactured and individually tailored to fit another part. There was no standardization of precision whereby interchangeable pieces could be taken off the shelf and appropriately fitted into the rifle without some adjustment. Each component was customized to fit with the other. Eli Whitney first proposed standardizing rifle components in order to facilitate supplies for war; however, in order to achieve standardization, unwelcome variations had to be worked out of the manufacturing process. In other words, it would be very unlikely that a shaft produced on a lathe that machined variations of .010 inch in diameter would precision-fit a bore with the same variations. Machines with greater precision were needed, along with a system of measurement hat was standardized and closely controlled to monitor the products produced by these machines.

F
IGURE
11.
Measurement and Tolerance

Metrology is the science of the use of measuring equipment that is closely calibrated and monitored. The equipment requires a greater degree of precision than the object that is being produced. That being the case, we are assured that the object conforms to specification. Normally a measuring instrument, or gauge, for checking the precision of a product has a tolerance of ten percent of the tolerance of the object
(see Figure 11).
¹
Although the accuracy exhibited in the Great Pyramid was recorded over a century ago, it would be helpful to reevaluate the findings of early explorers in the light of today's technology.

When Petrie made his critical measurements of the Great Pyramid casing stones in 1882, he was astounded by what he found: "The eastern joint of the northern casing stones is on the top .020, .002, .045 wide; and on the face .012, .022, .013, and .040 wide. The next joint is on the face .001 and .014 wide. Hence the mean thickness of the joints is .020; and, therefore, the
mean variation of the cutting of the stone from a straight line and from a true square, is but .010 on length of 75 inches up the face, an amount of accuracy equal to most modern opticians' straight edges of such
length."
²

F
IGURE
12.
Casing Stones of the Great Pyramid

Petrie's close examination of the casing stones revealed variations so minute that they were barely discernible to the naked eye. The records show that the outer casing blocks were square and flat, with a mean variation of 1/100 inch (.010) over an area of thirty-five square feet. Fitted together, the blocks maintained a gap of 0 to 1/50 inch (.020), which might be compared with the thickness of a fingernail. Inside this gap was cement that bonded the limestone so firmly that the strength of the joint was greater than the limestone itself. The composition of this cement has been a mystery for years.

The casing blocks were reported to weigh between sixteen and twenty tons each, with the largest blocks measuring five feet high, twelve feet long, and eight feet deep (see Figure 12).

It was these figures that greatly influenced my preliminary assessment of the pyramid. Here was a prehistoric monument that was constructed with such precision that you could not find a comparable modern building. More remarkable to me was that the builders evidently found it
necessary
to maintain a standard of precision that can be found today in machine shops, but certainly not on building sites.

These details are important, and we should consider them as we seek to determine how the ancient Egyptians quarried, dressed, and assembled those blocks. The general population of a century ago would not have fully appreciated the significance of such fine tolerances. At that time opticians were the only artisans who worked with such fine tolerances. Today, any
researcher wishing to compare the skills found in the Great Pyramid with modern-day craftspeople would have a variety of skilled trades from which to choose.

Although the exact precision demonstrated in the manufacture and assembly of the Great Pyramid may have had little significance a century ago, there are, at this time, many people who are intimately familiar with these dimensional tolerances. I am one of them, for many years creating products with tolerances much finer than .010 inch. I know what it takes to hold such fine tolerances—and there is a great difference between knowing what .010 inch is from an abstract academic viewpoint and understanding what .010 inch is from hands-on, practical experience.

This is why I laugh when I hear intelligent men and women proposing that the pyramids and other artifacts were created using hammers and chisels. Other machinists, toolmakers, and engineers with whom I have discussed this issue are equally amused, and normally just shake their heads and mutter something straightforward and unprintable. These workers, the members of what we consider a highly advanced civilization, understand the following: It is very well to dream, speculate, and theorize, but when it comes to doing the work, we are generally brought down to earth and hard facts. The most efficient and economically minded designers and engineers are those who have experienced the manufacturing phase of their ideas and have worked on the bench and with the machines. These experiences lead them to be more realistic in their demands of skilled craftspeople.

Through my own experience in manufacturing, I have realized that theories and ideas that seemed to work fine in my mind, or on paper, could be rendered unworkable when I actually tried to apply them. In much the same way, I have found that many theories regarding the building of the Great Pyramid are not supported with material proof, for no one, despite numerous attempts, has been able to duplicate the structure using the methods theorized to have been in place in ancient Egypt. These methods have been applied, with limited success, in building smaller structures, but they are not attempts to replicate the more difficult aspects of the building. A pyramid that is twenty-or fifty-feet tall and built with limestone blocks that weigh no more than two tons does not explain how the ancient pyramid builders raised seventy-ton blocks of granite to a height of two hundred
feet. Scaling up a project does not necessarily follow a linear path, nor does it rely solely on a fixed set of assumptions. So the researchers' fifty-foot pyramid may not necessarily provide them with all the data necessary to calculate the requirements for building the Great Pyramid.

Again, let us look to a technology common to our own generation to present an example of using the wrong assumptions when scaling up a project. Take, for instance, the early development of industrial lasers. As physicists, electrical engineers, optical engineers, and mechanical engineers accomplished the development of high-powered industrial lasers, they made an assumption that because the laser did not apply any mechanical force to the workpiece, the machine did not have to be as sturdy as those used in conventional machining operations—such as milling or lathe turning—where tremendous mechanical forces exert pressure on the tool and the machine. Working in the laboratory with machine members (or stages) no longer than twelve inches, researchers proved this assumption correct. However, when they built a machine that was three or four times larger, they found that other forces—such as inertia—came into play, and they realized that the machine-tools that carried these lasers had to be equally as robust and as strong as conventional machines. The situation in which Egyptologists would find themselves, I believe, would be quite similar if they scaled up their demonstration pyramid to the dimensions and precision of the Great Pyramid.

People who spend their entire careers building things, either on a building site or in a manufacturing tool shop, will know of several ways to do a task. An Egyptologist's attempt to build a pyramid using primitive means may be experimental archaeology, but because it is based on a technologically limited insight into the real significance of the Great Pyramid, it is not scientific; it only proves that what the researchers accomplished can be accomplished in the manner it was accomplished, nothing more. I applaud Dr. Mark Lehner's honesty in confessing that he had used steel tools and a front-end loader while building the demonstration pyramid for the WGBH/
NOVA
documentary
This Old
Pyramid.
³
I wonder, though, why that construction effort was cut from the film and we viewers never got to
see
it.

The most refreshing account of the talent possessed by the builders of the Great Pyramid can be seen in a video produced by Atlantis Rising Video. An interview with respected builder and architect James Hagan, who
designed the Walt Disney shopping village in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, the concrete Sanford Stadium at the University of Georgia, and the impressive MARTA Five Points Central Station in Atlanta, reveals an architectural genius of modern times who uses every technique available for modern structures, yet is humbled by the creation of the Great Pyramid. Without pride or arrogance, his humility was combined with awe as he afforded the builders of the Great Pyramid the highest accolade one professional can bestow on another. "The Egyptians, or whoever built the pyramid." he said earnestly in his southern drawl, "they could build anything they want
to!"
⁴
His comment becomes more significant when it is understood within the context he set forth, admitting that it would be impossible to build a Great Pyramid today using modern building methods, and, therefore, impossible by primitive methods. "The thing I am concerned about" he said, "are the elements of the construction, and how they came to be. These are the principles I am involved with in my world, and these are the principles I apply to the Great Pyramid." The precision built into the pyramid puzzled Hagan. He doesn't understand why this kind of precision would be necessary. Modern buildings do not require that kind of accuracy, so there is no reason to do it. "So why," he mused, "did they try to accomplish it is the first mystery." His hands-on, real-world experience is bolstered by innocent sincerity and respect that transcends the plethora of amateurs (compared to him) who profess to "know" how the pyramids of Egypt were built, and is credible support for those who still see a mystery in this edifice, and who are still seeking answers.