THE TBANSPORTATION AND LIFTING OP HEAVY BODIES 



BY THE ANCIENTS. 1 



A PROBABLE METHOD. 



By J. Elfreth Watkins, O. E. 



Curator of Technology, United States National Museum. 



The ability displayed by the ancients in transporting heavy objects 

 from place to place, and in raising them many feet above the surface of 

 the ground in the construction of temples, palaces, and pyramids, has 

 long been a source of wonder. It may, indeed, be truly said that the 

 engineers of the present era would find it difficult to perform similar 

 feats, even when aided by the most improved appliances devised through 

 the ingenuity developed in this inventive age. 



So impressed with amazement at the achievements of the ancient 

 architects have trained archaeologists become that not infrequently the 

 opinion is expressed that these men, whose work has withstood the 

 ravages of scores of centuries, must have been aided by well-devised 

 machines, possibly operated by one or more of the generated forces. 



Notwithstanding these conjectures, in the many careful and thorough 

 explorations made in late years the remains of no hoisting machine 

 have thus far been discovered, nor has there been found, either in the 

 Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions or in the Egyptian hiero- 

 glyphics, an account or description of the processes employed by the 

 ancients in lifting heavy masses to extraordinary heights. In fact, no 

 equivalents for the words " derrick," "pulley," "winch," etc., have yet 

 been identified in these ancient records to encourage the belief in a 

 seaculo sapienti. 



It is the purpose of this paper to explain how many of the edifices now 

 regarded as remarkable could have been constructed by primitive tools 

 and simple methods. Eight years ago, while the writer was making 

 the investigations which led to the publication of a paper entitled 

 "The beginnings of engineering," presented before the American 

 Society of Civil Engineers, access was had to many drawings and 

 photographs of ancient mural paintings and carvings in relief in the 



1 From Cassier's Magazine, December, 1898. XXXIII. 



615 



