618 TRANSPORTATION OF HEAVY BODIKS BY THE ANCIENTS. 



In the foreground of the illustration (PI. Ill) are to be seen rafts 

 laden with stone blocks, brought from the quarries. Upon the sloping 

 embankment blocks are being drawn on sledges, perhaps equipped with 

 rollers, to the highest point to which the structure has been built, the 

 inclined plane being gradually made longer and higher with earth 

 brought from the pits on the right and left. The highest embankment 

 necessary wheu the workmen reached the top course, assuming that a 20 

 per cent grade was adopted, would have been 750 yards long, contain- 

 ing about 7,500,000 cubic yards, if the sides of the earth embankment 

 would stand at an angle of 30 degrees, which is not at all improbable. 



Assuming that one laborer could have placed 2^ yards (about 20 

 barrow loads) of earth on an average each day on this embankment, 

 10,000 men could have built it in twelve months of twenty-five working- 

 days. It is stated that 100,000 men were employed for twenty years in 

 the whole work, so that, according to this calculation, the construction 

 of this embankment would have occupied only a small portion of the 

 total time consumed. 



The false work to support the walls of the interior chambers of the 

 pyramids could also have been made of earth rather than of timber. It 

 should be remembered that heavy lumber for scaffolding must have 

 been brought over long distances and that the framing and erection of 

 any structure of sufficient strength to bear heavy weights would have 

 required more skill and knowledge than the building of the pyramid 

 itself by the method above described. 



In the great temple of Raineses II is to be found a collossal statue of 

 that king, which equals In dimensions and exceeds in weight any other 

 Egyptian monolith, being 60 feet high and weighing 887 tons 5£ hun- 

 dredweight. It was made from a single block of red granite brought 

 from the quarries at Assouan, 135 miles distant, by the River Nile. 



At Baalbec, Syria, are to be found the ruins of three temples, one of 

 which has been given the name of Trilithon, "Three- stone temple," 

 from the extraordinary proportions of three of the stone blocks found 

 in it, each being over 63 feet in length, 13 feet in height, and propor- 

 tionately thick. These stones now rest in a wall over 20 feet above the 

 present surface of the ground. 



In the solution of the problem of putting similar huge blocks in place 

 at the present day the utilization of inclined planes of earth in the 

 manner just described might well be considered by the modern engineer 

 before adopting a more complex method. In fact, since the various 

 details of this method of construction have suggested themselves, the 

 writer has examined photographs of many ancient structures and has 

 yet to find one that could not have been constructed to a great extent 

 according to the practices just described. Until the principles of the 

 true arch were understood it was less difficult to move and erect long 

 blocks of stone by these primitive methods than to place smaller units 



